API USA Blog

Monday September 1, 2025

Last Friday, George, Boniface, Paul and I traveled out into the bush to bring food and water filters to the villages of Chibilet and Kaegete. Since they were about 75-80 Km from the nearest city and the roads were not very good, we spent most of the day traveling. But between the two villages, we were able to deliver food and filters for over 400 families, and at each place, we were welcomed with song.


Here are a few pictures of the day





This man arrived late and I didn't see him coming until I felt a tap on my back. I turned to see him as he basically collapsed on the ground, asking me in Turkana for food. We made sure to include him in the distribution, but he never got back up that I saw. It must have been a long trek for him to get to us. It is amazing how far and fast the news that food is available spreads in this desert.

It is at least 95 degrees out here, but look at this guy's coat and fur hat! 

We left these villages with 30 bucket filters and these are the people appointed to oversee and care for the buckets which will serve these people clean and safe drinking water. They already decided that everyone who comes to get clean water must bring a bucket of water with them to filter. 

On Saturday, George, his son Boniface, Paul and I, traveled out to Nareng' lup to bring food and filters. We first visited there in 2017, and in 2018, helped the church there put up a building.

Paul gave a demonstration of the water filter using water these people had gotten from digging a hole in the river bed. 

In the bush in Turkana, these holes are about the only source of water for these people. The water hole you see on the right is mostly avoided as they try to find cleaner water by digging in the river bed. But even that water can contain disease-carrying bacteria. Typhoid, dysentery and a host of other water-borne diseases are all too common. But the filters provided by Surfing Servants is helping these communities and saving lives.



We were able to give food out to over 200 families in Nareng'lup and they were happy to receive!  A very big thanks all who have donated for famine relief!



Here is the youth group of Nareng'lup church. I tried to interview them but all they could do is cover their mouths and laugh. 



As they were walking home, we got a warm and heartfelt thank you!

Thank you all for your generous support and prayers for this ministry!

Sunday August 31, 2025

It is Sunday, and we are back in Lodwar.  Last Sunday we arrived in Kakuma to begin our second conference. In this conference we went through 1st and 2nd Timothy with the pastors. We originally planned for 130 pastors because of the size of the venue, but as always happens, we ended up with nearly 140. We had to close the gates on Monday afternoon as pastors kept arriving, hoping to get in. But as we were maxed out on space, we had to limit the attendance. Next year we hope to find a bigger venue and accommodate more.

We had about 50 pastors from the Kakuma Refugee camps in attendance, with the rest coming from Kakuma town. 

Tim and I took the pastors through 1st and 2nd Timothy, while Boniface shared Biblical Counseling principles. We are hoping to start two new biblical counseling classes in two of the refugee camps in Kakuma, and judging from the interest shown by the pastors, we may be starting those as soon as this September.

Rob and John again did a supurb job with our media, despite temperatures that hit the mid-90's outside, and at least 10 degrees hotter on the inside. In fact, we had to stop recording video for our Q & A sessions in the afternoon as the camera kept overheating and shutting down. This was one more reason besides space to look for another venue. The church we are using has a fairly low ceiling which doesn't allow the heat to dissipate very much at all.

Again, our Q & A sessions were lively and robust, with very good questions from the pastors. As you may know, 1st and 2nd Timothy pose some significant challenges to churches with women pastors (a very common occurance in Kenya), but more than one pastor told us that this conference really opened their minds and hearts to what the Bible teaches about authority in the church. One pastor told me that "I reallize now that I didn't really know what the Bible said about this issue. We have just been following the customs we inherited and didn't understand that God has His own order in the church."

We ended our time in Kakuma with a resource handout that included Bibles and food. We are grateful to Crossway who provided the Bibles, and to our supporters who provided the food through our famine relief program. We were aware of the food shortages in the camps, but we also found out that the Kakuma locals have been hard hit by the shut down of USAID and other NGO's recently, and many have lost their jobs.









We handed out maize flour, cooking oil and salt to each attendee.

Thank you for your prayers and support for this ministry! 

Thursday, August 21, 2025

We just finished the fourth day of our conference in Lokichar which is about 1 hour south of Lodwar. We are hosted by Bishop Peter Emeri of the Full Gospel Churches of Kenya, 

Rob and Tim and I arrived in Nairobi on the evening of the 14th and enjoyed our first breakfast together the next morning.

Sunday morning we met Pastor Moses to hand off some baby blankets for Reuben and Maureen at the Agape Care Net Center, and 300 bibles for him to distribute in Uganda.

The bibles were provided for us through Crossway, a publishing company committed to giving out 1 million bibles in five years around the globe. We are doing our best to help that effort.

After Moses left, we took off for Wilson Airport in Nairobi to fly to Lodwar.

Our logistics Director, Frank, had everything arranged for us. He looks a little surprised here because I just told him I took his picture with my glasses! (Meta Wayfarers)

It was a short 90 minute non-stop flight from Nairobi to Lodwar, a service that Skyward Airlines instituted recently. On all our past trips we had to make a stop in Eldoret and then on to Lodwar. This however, was a very welcome change. I figure the less times you take off and land in Kenya the better!

We landed in Lodwar and were met by our driver, Paul and another vehicle to take us the hour south to Lokichar. We were originally booked at a hotel in Lokichar that upon inspection, turned out to be less than suitable, but we ended up a much nicer place called the Black Gold Hotel. This hotel was built when the oil fields near Lokichar opened up a few years ago. Thus the name.

We opened the conference on Monday night with 145 pastors and church leaders attending. but by Wednesday, we were up to 170. We have never held a conference in this area before and so we really didn't know what to expect in terms of turnout. However, these pastors not only showed up early, they have all bee keenly engaged throughout. Several pastors told me that they had been praying that API would come to Lokichar as they had heard from the pastors in the north how helpful and transformative these events had been in their own lives and churches.

We have three hour and a half sessions each day with a Q & A session in the late afternoon. These have been some of the best times as we try to answer the questions the delegates have about the sessions. We are teaching on the Foundations of the Faith and as many of these pastors have not had the luxury of attending bible colleges and seminaries, you can image all the questions we had to field.  All the Q & A sessions have been some of our favorite times as we expand on the teachings we've presented.

Our media team of Rob Hostager and John Kamau have been doing a great job as usual with the sound and media, and every conference just seems to get better in that department.

Bishop George Lokwawi also is with us from Lodwar and he is overseeing all the registration for the conference. Here he is talking with our conference director, Pastor Shadrack.

We also have Bishop Boniface Lokuruka from Lodwar on the teaching team.

Back at the Black Gold Hotel, Tim found a breakfast buddy. And I discovered a Tortise I immediately named Tim.

The team is working together like a well-oiled machine and everyone is healthy.  Thank you for your prayers and we will post more content soon.

Tuesday, August 6, 2024
After our conference in Kakuma, Tim and Rob returned home and I stayed on for three day of bringing food and clean water to several villages in the bush.  The first day was spent traveling 130 km out into the desert to reach two villages where George and Bonifice had just established churches. Bush travel can be problematic as there really are no roads as such and we are always prepared for flats, getting stuck in the deep sand, or in the dry riverbeds as happened on this trip. There had been a recent rain in the area and the river we were crossing still had a bit of water in it. Undeterred by the presence of standing water, our delivery truck promptly got stuck.  We later found out that his four-wheel drive was not working, otherwise he might have made it to the other side.

We unloaded the contents, taking them to the other side on firm ground and went about excavating the truck. Unfortunately, he was in too deep. 

We worked on extracting him for about three hours and finally gave up, but this spectacle soon gathered a large crowd of lookie loos, more interested in watching than helping.  Some did appear to help every time the driver gunned the engine in an attempt to get out, but I later learned from Paul, our driver, that they were only pretending to push, because no one had payed them. After we left, the driver apparently broke down and payed them something and they pushed him out in no time! Such is life in Turkana.

I want to thank all of you who donated for our famine relief effort this trip.  We were able to give a substantial amount of food to around 1,500 families.  Along with the food, we also gave out bucket water filters provided to us by Surfing Servants to every village. We went through some basic training with each village on the use and cleaning of the filter and explanation on why they should drink only filtered water. Typhoid, dysentary and other water-borne diseases are a fact of life for these people, and a majority of deaths of children under 5, (80%) are from such diseases. 

Very often, the same water used for bathing is collected for use back in the village for drinking as well. Water is life in this part of the world and in a land where water is scarce, sometimes you can"t be too picky.

Our demonstrations of the filter system we always highly entertaining (and I trust educational) for the people.

We would take some of the local water (this happened to be from the Turkwel River) and then filter it into a clean plastic bottle.

The transformation of the brown sludge into crystal clear water was always a highlight of the demonstration.  However, any final reluctance was overcome when the mazungu (white man) drank the transformed water!

We did the demonstration in each village with my faithful interpreters, George and Boniface. That was my way of training these guys to hand out the rest of the filters to some other villages I was not able to visit. I would really like to see each family in Turkana have the means to have one of these filters for their own use. But the Turkana are a very community minded people, willing to share their resources with each other, so the village headman, or church pastor, would appoint ladies in each place to be the water filter guardians for the whole community.

These are the ladies responsible for the care and cleaning of the filter and making sure each village has clean drinking water.

At the conclusion of each visit, Boniface would teach the village some English.

Monday, August 5, 2024
We began our conference in Kakuma last Monday at the Solid Rock Church in town. This was our fourth conference here and we had a great turnout for this event. We had over 130 pastors and church leaders gathered here as we studied through 1st and 2nd Peter, most of them from the refugee camps in Kakuma. 

As a result, we had pastors from many different countries, including Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. All of the pastors I spoke to who live in the camps were incredibly effusive in their thanks to API for bringing solid, biblical training to them year after year. Several of them spoke of how this training has really transformed their preaching and their churches in the camps and begged us to continue as this was the best biblical teaching they have received.

In addition to Tim Bourgeois and myself, we had Boniface Lokuruka as part of our teaching team again. 

We want to thank the Evangelical Reformed Church of Tacoma for providing a commentary on the book of Romans for these pastors, the Rafiki Foundation who provided Bibles for them, and Ekklesia Afrika who donated other book resources.



As part of our famine relief effort, we gave every attendee some food to take home to their families. The U.N. is supposed to provide food for the refugees, but in reality, hunger is everpresent in the camps. George Lokwawi (red shirt and smiling) is the API Famine Relief Director in Turkana and he really enjoys his work!

A big thank you as well to those of you who gave to our Famine Relief fund and to those who donated to our pastoral development fund for this summer mission!  We greatly value your partnership in the gospel with API as do your African brothers and sisters!

Saturday, December 2, 2023

It has taken a week to get to a place with reliable internet to even begin this blog so I'll be giving you all a recap of the week we/ve just had.  I got into Nairobi late last Sunday evening and the next morning, Frank and John and I drove to the place we booked to stay for the week. Our conference was in Matete at Pastor Moses Biketi's place but we were staying about 15 minutes away in a town called Webuye. We chose not to stay in our usual hotel called Downhill Springs because, well, it has gone downhill over the years and we needed a new place. So we booked a place called Falls View. It was actually a nice place with good food, service and comfortable rooms. But as with nearly everything in Kenya, there were challenges. I was confronted by the first when I walked into the bathroom.

I'm not sure what the thinking was here, but it required some athleticism to use the toilet. Maybe that was the point. But we've learned to roll with the punches as it were and I made some creative adjustments!  I also reminded myself I wasn't here for comfortable amenities.

The week of teaching through the first five chapters of Romans was planned for 100 pastors and church leaders, but we ended up with about 165.  I suppose we shoudn't be surprised. This was the fifth year of this winter conference and the word has gotten out about the value of this trainng. Additionally, Pastors Moses and Reuben have been holding trainings throughout this year in villages close by and all those they've been teaching are coming and bringing their pastor friends as well.

We were most impressed by the way all the attendees seemed to be focused during the teaching time, and absorbing the material. There was little to no getting up and moving around during the hour and a half sessions, with all those attending concentrating deeply on listening and taking notes.

During the break times, you could see dozens of small groups gathered together talking, not about the weather, but the most recent session. 

I broke in on some of these groups just to find out what they were discussing and found they were really engaged in the Romans material. Everyone I spoke to told me how blessed they felt to be under this teaching. One pastor told us that he had been preaching through Romans for the past month, but now realized how much richer and deeper Romans was than he had thought.  His eyes had been opened, he said, and thanked us repeatedly and said he could hardly wait till next year when we would be going through chapters 6 - 11 of Romans.

Of course we have such a great teaching team with Reuben Luvanga, Moses Biketi, Shadrack Murimi, and adding this year, Pastor Boniface Lokuruka from Lodwar.



Our Q&A sessions at the end of every teaching day provided us the opportunity to add more depth to the day's teachings and those times are always enjoyable as well as enlightening.

Thanks to the generosity of Crossway and Ekklesia Afrika, we were able to give these pastors some bibles and other great resources.

As happens almost everywhere, I get some children who are curious about the mazungu and are facsinated by my white skin.

We left for Eldoret today, to spend the night and take off for Churo tomorrow morning.  But before we left Webuye, we stopped by Nzoina Falls that we could see from our hoter for some close up pictures.



We were truly blessed to spend a week with these brothers and sisters, and are looking forward to being back with them next year as we continue in Romans.  Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Monday, September 4, 2023
It is Monday evening and we just arrived back in Lodwar from spending a couple of days in East Pokot.  We were there to attend the dedication of the new church building for the village of Kresia. API, through the Brad Pederson Memorial Building Fund, partnered with the AIC (African Inland Church) of Kresia to erect a new church building in the villiage.

Although you might think it would be unbearably hot inside, we were surprised at how cool the interior stayed even as the sun rose high during our three-hour service.  There seem to be some fairly strong prevailing breezes that flow through the generously sized windows on each side.

The church was overjoyed to have their own building after years of sitting under trees and other temporary structures. Because this ground is infested with termites, the church made the choice to use steel construction throughout.

We were met by the women of the church singing their welcome and blessing to us as we arrived. And then we were all led in procession to the building entrance where we held the dedication service.

Friday, September 1, 2023

We left Lodwar on Sunday afternoon on the 27th and traveled to Kakuma for our 3rd annual Pastors and Church Leaders conference. The picture above is of what is supposed to be a water fountain on one of the round-a-bouts in Lodwar, but hasn't been quite finished yet. We call it the Leaning Fountain of Lodwar.  And it's been there a while.

We had 100 pastors together in Kakuma for this conference on the book of Ephesians and they were dialed into the word. They rarely got out of their seats during the sessions despite the temperature inside the building reaching well over 100 degrees. Rob said he was going to bring a thermometer next year to find out just how hot it was.  Last year some of his electronics bit the dust because of the hit, but we had no problems this year.

Many pastors from the Kakuma Refugee camps attended this year.  We had pastors from Ruwanda, Burundi, Congo, South Sudan, and Ethiopia attending.  Most of them I talked to were intent on returning to their home country when they could and expressed their great appreciation for the training they were receiving. 

We held Q&A sessions at the end of the teaching day and we were impressed by the quality of questions and the level of understanding among these pastors. 

We closed out the conference with our resource handout, including food. I was told by one of the pastors from the refugee camps that what they received from us in food was more than they received in a month from the U.N.  Part of the problem with food distribution in the camps is that although the food is given free by western nations, including the U.S, the camp administration is run by the Kenyans and is very corrupt.  We have seen barrels of rice, corn, wheat and beans being sold in local markets even though they are clearly marked as U.S Aid.

All of these pastors were so grateful, not only for the resources, but for the word they received. Pastor Ben of Elim Pentecostal church sent me an email yesterday that read: "Thank you so much it was such a blessing to have you in Kakuma for three days.  Have been blessed by the solid teachings from the book of Ephesians. I am  considering by the grace of God to start teaching the book of Ephesians in our church in series.I am fired up!"

Yesterday, Rob and Tim returned to Nairobi to fly back to the U.S. tonight.  But Pastor Boniface, Paul our driver and I are on a road trip to East Pokot.  Tonight we are in Eldoret and then we travel tomorrow to Tengulbei to spend Saturday night. We will be in Kresia on Sunday to dedicate their new church building.  Please pray for us as we travel and minister.

Sunday, August 27, 2023
We finished our conference on the first eight chapters of Romans Friday night and it was a great week of teaching and learning, fellowship with all the pastors who came and connecting with longtime friends, like Pastor Daniel Njuguna of the Apostolic Faith church in Lodwar. I've known Daniel from the first time we came to Lodwar back in 2013 and he is not only a great friend but a great interpreter.

At the end of the night we handed out the resources to the pastors provided by Crossway and Ekklesia Afrika. They each got a study guide for the book of Romans and Conrad Mbwewe's book on God's Design for the Church translated into Kiswahili.

We also gave all the attendees some food to go along with the books. Many families are hurting right now as food prices have skyrocketed.  Everything they need to survive, especially the basic things like ugali flour, cooking oil and salt has doubled, tripled and in some cases, quaddrupled in price.  We want to thank all of you who provided famine relief funds for these people!



Saturday was our rest day so we visited the home of our API Associate teacher, Boniface Lokuruka.

Clean drinking water is hard to come by in Lodwar so we brought the family one of the water filters provided by Surfing Servants, an organization based in San Diego.  They provide water filters to communities in third world countries all over the world and they were kind enough to give API some to give out.

One of Boniface's sons, Kevin, set it up right away and was impressed by how simple and easy they are to set up. Here he is reading the instructions on the bag. Many people in this area are subject to Typhoid because they have no source of clean drinking water.

Today we travel to Kakuma to hold our conference on Ephesians.  Thank you for praying for us! God has kept the team healthy and strong thus far and we thank you for holding us up!

Wednesday August 23, 2023

We began our 10th annual conference in Lodwar Monday night. We are going through the first eight chapters of Romans and it is a challenging task.  But fortunately we have Pastor Tim Bourgeois from Tree of Life Church in Chatsworth, California with us to help break it down for us.  It is also challenging because the temperature is in the high 90's and there is no air conditioning in the venue. However, that doesn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the participants and we have 175 pastors and church leaders attending from 8:30 in the morning till 9 at night.

Here are are few shots from the first two days.

Tim and I each have our own interpreters that we have been working with for 10 years, and these guys are really good. Pastor Daniel Njuguna translates for me and Pastor Boniface Lokuruka translates for Tim. Translation is an incredibly difficult job, but these guys make it seem effortless and we have the confidence that they are getting the message across.

The conference is hosted by the Lodwar Pastors Fellowship in concert with API School of Ministry.

This is Paul our driver while we are in Lodwar. One of the best drivers we've had apart from our API driver, Frank Maina. Paul is a joy to work with and he anticipates our every need.

Each day at 4 pm we have our Q & A session, allowing the participants to ask questions and get clarification on the material we have covered. These are very helpful, not only for the teachers but also for those who are attending. 



We will keep you up to date on what is going on over here but the conference so far has been very helpful, encourageing and stimulating for those attending judging by the interactions we have had. The conference runs through Friday night and then on Sunday we move to Kakuma to begin a three-day conference in that city in partnership with the Kakuma Pastors Fellowship. Thank you for praying for us as we move through this week and next.

August 21, 2023
Rob and I arrived in Nairobi last Friday night after mildly eventual trips.  Rob flew to Amsterdam to Nairobi, and I flew to Paris and then Nairobi. We were supposed to arrive in Nairobi at the same time but both our flights were delayed by different things and I arrived about an hour later than he did. On the first leg of my flight, the person sitting next to me lost her lunch in the seat in between us and I made a hasty departure to another seat. My flight from Paris was delayed by a medical emergency after a boarding passenger fainted as he was walking to his seat. He revived with the help of some doctors on board, and then was checked out by a Dutch firemen paramedic team who okayed him to continue. However as we taxied out to our take off point, he fainted again and we returned to the gate and sent him off the plane. By this time we were two hours behind schedule and so arrived in Nairobi at midnight. But Frank had already collected Rob and we finally got to the hotel around 1:30.

Tim arrived the next evening from Dubai and we left Sunday afternoon for Lodwar with John Kamau. Frank drove us to the airport for the flight to Lodwar which was thankfully uneventful. 

We had a few too many bags and boxes to fit inside. Fortunately we have a roofrack on the vehicle.

Our flight to Lodwar ran through Eldoret where we picked up two more members of the team - Pastors Shadrack and Reuben.





We held our firsr session tonight and began a week of studying the first eight chapters of Romans.  More to come.

Saturday December 9, 2022

It is Saturday evening and John and Frank and I are back in Nairobi.  We finished the conference in Matete Friday evening with about 130 pastors and church leaders in attendence. We spent the week teaching through Foundations of the Faith with these wonderful people who thoroughly appreciated the opportunity to study God's word in depth.  We had many new people at this conference who had heard of the ministry API is doing in this area and came to see for themselves. One of those turned out to be an excellent interpreter named Pastor Samuel Ndege.  He sent me a note shortly afterward saying, "Praise the Lord, Pastor Mike..I write to thank you so much for allowing God to use you in a mighty way. The members of my church who attended the conference and myself have been so much illuminated by the teachings.  And the book "Word Centered Church" is quite revelational.  Thank you so much.We continue to pray for your ministry, Pastor Mike. May the almighty God bless you indeed. And once again, thank you for allowing me to minister to God through your ministry."

Monday, December 5, 2022
On Saturday we visited three very remote villages to bring food. The first two were recent church plants by George and Boniface. They had come in November to show the Jesus film and share the gospel. Many people in both villages came to Christ as a result and George and Boniface appointed a pastor in each place. This trip was to provide food, share the gospel and bring a bible for the pastors who are some of the few who can read. This first village is called Kangataruk and the pastor is James Losike.

We were greeted by an enthusiatic children's choir on our arrival.
There are no chairs in this place so the men sit on little carved wooden stools called echecholongs, and the women and children sit on the sand. Fortunately, my driver Paul brought along one for me so I could sit with the men.

Pastor Boniface led the village in saying thank you to all who donated to bring them food.  So this is for you!
We moved from there to the village of Amayen, the second church plant.  To do that, we had to cross a major river that, although it is dry in this season, still poses challenges to vehicles.  We scouted the route on foot first and then, confident we could cross without too much trouble headed over.

As we were crossing the river, we came across a couple of boys at a waterhole.  These hand-dug wells are the only means to get water in this drought, but they can be dangerous the further down you have to dig.




We finally arrived in Ameyen, the second church plant.

Boniface also gave a bible to the pastor of this church - James Erukudi

From Ameyen we again took the trackless road to a village neither George nor Boniface had been yet called Nabenyo. They had been invited by a man from that village who was supposed to meet us to take us there.  However, he had urgent business elsewhere and never showed.  This is a village where George and Boniface want to plant a church. We finally arrived where we were greeted by the headman over the area who said that even though they didn't know us or who invited us, we were welcome in their home.

We were probably most welcome because we brought food. After we distributed the food, I noticed George engaged in conversation with an older woman who was leaving with her food. I asked him what the conversation was about and he told me she said that last night she didn't know if she would die or eat the next day, but thanks to the team she is going home to prepare her meal.

Thanks again for your support of this work.  Our team is continuing the famine relief even as I am headed to Matete to start our conference. Click on this link to donate for famine relief.

Sunday, December 4, 2022
I flew into Eldoret this morning to meet two of my team, Frank and John, who drove up from Nairobi. Tomorrow we will travel to Matete to begin the conference.  Friday was another famine relief day and the first village we visited was Nakakerererei (and I can't even begin to pronounce that).  But it is one of those onomatopoeic words that mimics the sound of one of the native bird songs. This village was about an hour into the bush.

This village was really struggling and they were very grateful for the food and oil we brought.  We always make a point of bringing lollipops along for the kids and these kids blessed us with a song of thanksgiving.


After sharing the gospel and handing out the food we took off for another village a couple hours away.

The happy faces we left at Nakakerererei were ample reward for the hours of jolting travel!

Sunday, December 04, 2022
I arrived in Kenya this past Tuesday and it has really been non-stop since I got here.  I spent Wednesday getting all the necessary things ready for the next two weeks and then took off for Lodwar on Thursday.  The plan was to arrive in the morning and then head out to the bush to some far villages to distribute food.  However, 20 minutes into a 45 minute flight, I was startled to see the landing gear deploy outside my window seat.  I was pretty sure we weren't preparing to land anywhere soon as we were probably 10,000 feet in the air, so I fgured we had an issue. My suspicions were confirmed 30 seconds later as we made a u-turn back to the airport.  We were assured it was a minor problem and after two hours and many promises of taking off 'soon', we were back in the air headed to Eldoret and then Lodwar.

I was picked up by my driver at the airport, driven to my hotel where I dropped off my baggage, and immediately headed out to the bush to our first stop at a remote village called Kangyangapus. When we arrived, Pastor Stephen (pictured above) was preaching to his people using a Proclaimer.  This is an audio device with the Turkana Bible on it.  He would play a few verses, and then add his commentary and ask the congregation questions for clarification and to see if they understood.  Stephen doesn't read or write as is the case with a majority of the congregation and this audio bible is all they have.  As you can probably tell, this is Stephen's most prized possession.  

As always, the children were both delighted and a little scared of the muzungu who suddenly appeard in their midst.

We had a great team of young men to do the heavy lifting. 



It is hard for us to fully appreciate the joy and gratitude the people of this viilage felt as they saw the food and oil being off-loaded and handed out. They have watched as their animal herds have been decimated by the prolonged drought and they have had to travel further and further for water and food to sustain their families.  But is is the men who perhaps feel the effects of this most keenly.  One of the older man took my hand as I was greeting him and, with evident pain in his face, told me that without their herds, there was no longer a way to be a man.  When there herds of goats, and sheep and camels were healthy and thriving, they could provide for their families.  But now they had no way to do that and instead were watching their families go hungry. 

But these people were incredibly encouraged that there were people they didn't even know who would show such compassion as to send them food and they wanted me to relay their heartfelt gratitude and love.  I want to thank all of you who have joined us in bringing food to the people of Turkana.  Since August we have been helping villages like this with food and cooking oil, and we will continue to do so even after I leave. Here is a short video clip of Pastor George talking about the challenges of feeding so many hungry people. I'll be posting more tomorrow.  I've been hampered by a sketchy internet network but I'll keep trying:)
 
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Friday, September 8, 2022
Last Sunday I flew to Zambia to visit my cousin, Liz Trautman who has built a home for disabled children in Lusaka.  The home is called The Lighthouse at Kasupe and she has done some wonderful work since she came to Zambia. 

Liz has three boys living here right now, Gift, Matthews, and Ajee.

These boys came from the slums around Lusaka and they are finding a new lease on life as well as good life and gospel training at the Lighthouse. Ajee is attending a university in Lusaka and Gift and Matthews are doing their schooling at the Lighthouse.

One unique feature that is fairly common in Zambia, are huge ant hills, although I was assured that the ants have long ago moved out.

The grounds are beautiful and Liz has planted a lot of trees.

The eastern half of the proprerty has not yet been developed but Liz is praying about how that should progress.

The grounds are beautiful and the western end has been turned into a garden of fruit trees and vegetables. Below is one of her papaya trees and a view of the garden.

She also has banana trees, mango trees, calabash trees and we discovered one macademia nut tree.

The house itself is spacious and well built, especially since a couple of guys from her home town of Moses Lake came earlier this year to put a new roof on the building.  Apparently the local contractors who built the place initially did not have a good grasp of hydraulics and the original roof leaked like a sieve. Below is a view from the main room that separates the boys section from the girls side.

I got to spend all day Monday and Tuesday with Liz and I was really blessed by the routine she has established for the boys, beginning with daily devotions in the morning, and prayer time around the meals and evening bible study and prayer. I asked Liz to give me some prayer points that I could share with our supporters for The Lighthouse at Kasupe and here is what she gave us:

Saturday, September 3, 2022

It's Saturday evening here in Nairobi. I flew back from Lodwar this morning, got a Covid test for my flight tomorrow to Zambia, and reconnected with Rob, whose flight home was delayed by two days. I fly out to Zambia to visit my cousin Liz Trautman, who runs an orphanage in Lusaka called the Lighthouse at Kasupe.  I was also reflecting on our famine relief efforts this year to which so many of you contributed.  What we do is important in providing food for Turkana families in dire straits, and yet it is just a drop in the bucket.  Turkana has been several months without significant rainfall, and I have never seen this place drier than this year. Life is a struggle for so many who often have to walk for kilometers every day to find water just to sustain life. For the most part, all the men have taken their herds toward greener pastures near Uganda to keep them alive, but the old men, women and children have been left behind to fend for themselves.  I'm asking that you continue to keep these people in your prayers, and go to our website and give to our famine relief effort.  https://agapekenya.org/donate/donate-now.html.  As you donate for this effort, we will be sending the money to our API associates in Turkana who are heading up this relief effort.  Thank you for your partnership with us in this.

As is true in the rest of the world, prices for everything have skyrocketed. Prices for maize flour and beans have doubled, cooking oil has quadrupled, and fuel is 40% higher than when I was here this spring.  

Nevertheless, we managed to buy bean, maize flour and cooking oil to distribute to 7 villages and to all the pastors and church leaders who attended the Lodwar and Kakuma conferences. We have four villages yet to reach and Pastors Lokuruka and Lokwawi will be delivering food there next week.  So far we have been able to feed about 650 families and we anticipate another 300 or more next week.

All told, we were able to purchase $9,000 worth of these staples to hand out.

The strange thing is, there are relief organizations in and around Lodwar, but none of them seem to be giving out food. And the relief food that comes through the U.N. and U.S. aid appears to be hijacked and sold in the markets.

Thank you for your prayers and faithful partnership with us!

Friday, September 2, 2022

It is Friday evening and I am still in Lodwar after returning from Kakuma.  We held a three-day conference in Kakuma starting Monday this week and finished on Wednesday.  We were hosted again this year by the Solid Rock Fellowship Church led by Pastor Benjamin.  We returned to Lodwar Wednesday night and then Rob and Tim flew back to Nairobi Thursday morning, along with Pastors Shadrack and Reuben who flew to Eldoret.

We had 102 pastors in attendance for these three days, with 46 of them from Kakuma Refugee Camp.  Since transporation was an issue for them, we provided transport to get them to the conference. 

Pastor Jared from Life Challenge in Nairobi came with us to Kakuma to do some training on Monday on reaching Muslims with the gospel. We want to give a big thanks to Jared and the Life Challenge team for partnering with us to equip these pastors and church leaders in Turkana.

Both Tim and I took the sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.  You really can't see it in these pictures, but this church was pretty much a giant oven by 11 am, and by the end of the day, we could literally wring our clothes out!  Tim was instantly recognized even though this was his first time in Kakuma. At our last conference, I showed several of his teaching videos he sent as he couldn't be there, and he was warmly welcomed when he walked in.  He's kind of a rock star in Turkana!

Pastor Reuben not only translated for me, but ran the media with Rob. Rob came down with the same bug that got Tim on this trip, but he had done such a great job training John and Reuben that we allowed Rob some well-deserved rest this conference. By the second day however, he was feeling will enough to get back in the saddle.

Shadrack did an incredible job as our Conference Director, here and in Lodwar and we are fortunate to have him on our team.

All the pastors and church leaders were very appreciative of the foundation teaching they were receiving, and most of them had never had this kind of teaching at all. "API is really helping, not only our pastors, but our churches to grow" one pastor told me between sessions. "This training is so helpful to us to understand the Bible". 

Both Boniface and George came with us as part of our team to help in the conference.  I can't say enough about what these guys contribute the ministry of API in Turkana. 

We ended our time by handing out food and cooking oil for each participant, along with two very helpful resources for Bible study for these pastors.

We hadn't told them we were going to be giving out food, and you should have seen the smiles break out when we brought in the food and oil.

Most of these pastors, especially from the camps and the bush, are having a very difficult time feeding their families and wanted me to express their deep gratitude to their brothers and sisters in the U.S. who remembered them.

A very great thank you to all of you who contributed to our Famine Relief this year. 

Thank you too to those of you who have been faithful to pray for us. Please continue to pray as we are not yet through. Although Rob and Tim were scheduled to fly out tonight, Rob called and his flight has been delayed till Sunday. I believe Tim's flight is still leaving tonight. 

Sunday, August 28, 2022

It is Sunday evening and the team and I are in Kakuma getting ready to begin the conference here.  We  took a group photo on the last day of the Lodwar conference to commemorate our 9th annual Pastors and Church Leaders Conference and to send you all a traditional Kenyan greeting!  

One of our favorite times in every conference is the Q & A sessions we hold every day where the participants pepper us with questions over the teachings they are receiving. The questions this year were very keen and demonstrated a good grasp of the material we were teaching. 

We closed our Friday evening session by handing out food to the pastors.  Several of them had come to me to let me know that they had been going through very difficult times and said they were going home to their families who had very little or nothing to eat.  We decided right then that they wouldn't go home empty-handed and started our famine relief that night.

Pastors George Lokwawi (second from the right behind Boniface in the red API shirt) and Boniface Lokuruka.

I need to tell you that George and Boniface are the real hands and feet of API in Turkana and I don't know what we'd do without them. They are both tireless servants of God whose hearts are for their people and God's glory.
The following morning we began our famine relief program by visiting five village out in the bush.  The last one we visited was a place called Nakwei Quarry, which means "The place of the foxes".  API is partner with the church there to build their first building. It had been known as Kalongoe, or "Place where people are killed" due to the many people who had been killed by bandits in the area.

But when the church purchased the plot to build, they decided to change the name because it was no longer a place of danger.

It is mostly women, small children,and old men who are left in the villages as the drought has forced the able men to move the herds where they can get food.



When Pastor Emase first started evangelizing in the area, he was threatened by the chief there and told not to come and build a church.  But he persisted and a church was born that met for several years under a tree in a riverbed.

In partnership with API and help from the Brad Pederson Memorial building fund, they are now constructing their first church building.

We left them with some food and our blessing and yours. Thank you all who have partnered with us to feed the hungry.

Thursday August 25, 2022

I apologize for starting this blog so late in the trip but I ran into a few obstacles along the way.  Rob and I were scheduled to fly out last Thursday, but Rob ended up going alone.  (He told me he had nightmares about this scenario!) My issue was a failed Covid test, but I was sure I was negative even though the test came back positive.  So I retested on Friday, booked a flight for Saturday and prayed.  Sure enough the second test came back negative and I was cleared to fly.  I got to Seatac around 8:30 for my 1 pm flight and about 12:30 got the notice that the flight was delayed for two hours. That was okay since my connection in Paris had a four hour window. Then when we were just getting ready to board, the flight was delayed another 3 hours.  Which meant my connection in Paris was gone. We finally lifted off about 6:30 and flew to Paris where I had to wrangle another flight.  This one only took me to Amsterdam where I scrambled for a flight to Nairobi. Oh, and the Paris flight was delayed by an hour too. I finally got a flight to Nairobi and got to the gate with minutes to spare. We arrived in Nairobi at 6 in the morning on Monday. 

Meanwhile, Rob and Tim and the API team had flown to Lodwar on Sunday and set up for the conference which began Monday evening. I was able to fly up to Lodwar Tuesday morning just in time for my first session scheduled that day. I thank God for the great team He has put together because those guys didn't miss a beat without me, and the conference was in full swing when I arrived.

Pastor Tim had taken the first two session in the morning and I took the third.

However, when I arrived, Tim informed me that he was not feeling well and didn't think he could do the evening session. So we ended up switching the teaching schedule a bit and soldiered on, praying that he would be well on Wednesday.  He got worse Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning I was thinking medical evacuation when I saw him.  Between Rob and I, we managed to come up with some medicines he started taking, and I took all the teaching session that day. I also called my sister the nurse and she recommended a treatment protocol which we administered. We also told everyone to pray and by Wednesday afternoon he texted me and said he felt a little better. 

Thursday morning Tim was up and around and ready to go! He gave two session this morning and he will be speaking this evening and looks like he's over the worst. We have no idea why the Lord has allowed so many obstacles to arise to hinder us, but we're pretty sure the enemy is working overtime to hinder the Word to these pastors. But God is proving that all the roadblocks thrown up to oppose His ministry are no match for His power.  We are thankful we serve such a big God!

This morning I picked up Jared Odinga of Life Challenge Africa from the Lodwar airport.  Life Challenge is partnering with us to equip and train these pasters in Turkana to reach the growing Muslim community in this county. 

Thank you for your support and prayers and keep on praying that the schemes of the devil would come to nothing. We have about 150 pastors attending the conference and they are rejoicing that they are getting the opportunity to receive this training.