Last full day in Kisumu...

Tuesday the 23rd of August was our last full day in the Kisumu region!  We started the day by meeting with Enos's election team- he lost by the smallest of margins, but they are ready to go again!  

I was very impressed with each of them!  They represent people from all over this large county- they are well educated, articulate and passionate about serving. I had a chance to share with them for a while about leaning forward for God's Vision.  They are so oppressed and poor that dreams and hopes for change for themselves and their children seem virtually impossible.  But we talked about "God's dreams" for them and their nation and building a team around what Jesus said were the two great commandments- Matthew 22:36-40!   If those commandments are in order and you're building relationships within a team that are committed to loving each other first and then the task, nothing will be impossible because God can honor that!  

It was a wonderful time and Enos has proposed that they expand the boundaries and initiate an annual leadership conference to 'Dream with God', learn some skills and initiating a team model the way that Jesus demonstrated it with His own disciples, and their impact is still growing 2,000 years later because God was in it! We'll see what happens from here! 

After the election team meeting we visited another school on this last full day in Kisumu! There are so many needs but they do so many things really well. We have more 'stuff' but they have a lot to teach us! They do have a nice computer lab which really surprised us but no money for software to access the machines...so they just sit!

Our next stop was the prison in Kisumu. The officer on the right in the picture above is  our friend Boaz.  I really like the way they handle the prisoners here. Everybody has a real job!  They have 1000 acres, plant crops, harvest and sell them. They teach carpentry, metal working and animal husbandry, so that when they leave, the inmates really have experience with marketable skills!   The deputy director is at the desk, his name is Job and he had two Bibles on his desk and loves the Lord!  It makes for a whole different experience for everyone, prisoners and guards, when you have leadership like this! 

The next picture is David with his family. Last year people brought me to this man's house- he hadn't eaten for two weeks, his body was shutting down for death, he could barely talk, couldn't stand or walk.  I asked him about his faith and he said he loves Jesus with all his heart!  So we prayed and he started eating, still skinny, walking, in fact, 3 days later he was walking all the way into town and God also restored his speech!  Now they say the speech can be halting at times but normally just fine!  He is so grateful to the Lord! They asked us pray again and I was thinking about the story of the 'second touch' in Mark 8:22-25...

Finally, the day we flew back to Nairobi we decided to make one last stop at our farm! The Church raised enough money last Sunday to provide for a second planting, including seed, fertilizer and laborers! It makes a huge difference in the amount of food we can provide for a starving community!