Saturday July 27, 2024
I had intended to start this blog last Monday but when we arrived in Lodwar on Sunday, I was starting to fight off a summer cold and opted for rest and trying to stay healthy enough to begin our conference Monday evening. After that my days were full with teaching and meetings and organizational issues. But I've recovered (thanks to many of you praying for me) and the conference is over and I've got time and energy to let you know how this trip has gone so far.
It did not start out well at all. Rob and I arrived in Nairobi on the 18th late in the evening. I was bringing some clean water filters given to us by Surfing Servants to distribute along with our famine relief we intend to do in Turkana. However, the bag with the filters was assessed a tariff by the customs authorities at $800 which they wanted us to pay to bring them in country. After a couple hours of negotiations, we left the airport $240 poorer.
Pastor Tim from Tree of Life Church in California arrived the next day and Frank and John and Rob and I enjoyed a team dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant the night before we left for Lodwar.
Frank and I connected with Pastor Reuben at our storage facility to give him books and bibles to take with him to Uganda. He and Pastor Moses and Pastor Fred are partnering with Gospel for Africa for a pastoral training mission to Uganda where they are right now. We are excited to see our API Associate teachers being used by other organizations to help train pastors in many other African countries!
This past Monday evening, we kicked off our 11th annual Pastor's and Leaders Conference at Maranatha Church in Lodwar town. We had 155 registered pastors and church leaders attend this year, with another 30 or 40 who were not registered but attended.
The theme this year was The Righteousness of God in the Gospel as we finished the book of Romans that we began last year. This year, in addition to Pastor Tim and myself, we were grateful to have two other speakers. One was a local pastor and Bishop, Boniface Lokuruka, who is also an API teaching associate, and a special guest from Karura Community Chapel in Nairobi, Bishop Ngari Karithi. (Bishop Ngari is on the left in this photo)
A special thanks to our Conference Director, Pastor Shadrack, who keeps us all on track.
Here are a couple of shots taken during lunch time.
Our tech team of Rob Hostager and Kamau Njenga kept everything humming along as usual.
A special thanks to Surfing Servants who provided us with clean water filters to give everybody clean water.
There is a lot more to tell but we'll be putting up another blog shortly. Tomorrow we leave for Kakuma for a three-day conference in the books of 1st and 2nd Peter. For now we'll leave you with our group shot we took yesterday with all the conference attendees.
Thank you for your prayers and support for this work!