Winter Mission 2025

Monday, December 9, 2025
I am back in Nairobi since leaving with the team for Matete last Monday, so this is more of a recap blog of our trip so far. We have had a lot of trouble connecting with internet in all the areas we have been as they are fairly rural and plagued with power outages. 

I arrived in Kenya late on the 28th of November and spent the next day getting ready to travel. John and Frank and I set off early Monday for Matete with all our equipment and books and bibles for the conference.

Our conference began Tuesday morning and ran until Friday. We had 120 pastors in attendance for this last installment of the book of Romans. We began teaching through Romans in 2023 and finished up this year. I was joined in the teaching by some of our associate teachers who all did a marvelous job expounding Romans 11-16. I was particularly excited about our addition of a new teaching associate, John Kamau, who has handled our logistics and media for the past few years, along with Frank. I had asked John to consider adding this teaching role to his duties last year and he stepped up in a big way in this conference teaching on the 14th chapter of Romans.

We are blessed to have such dedicated and able servants of God in this ministry who have help to expand the reach of API, not only in Kenya, but also to so many neighboring African countries.

Once again we want to thank Crossway for providing the excellent Global Study Bibles and the Concise Study Bibles for these pastors; and also Ekklesia Afrika for contributing R.C. Sproul's book, Saved From What?. We also handed out copies of A Catachism for the Church produced by Pastor Tim Bourgeois of the Tree of Life Church, an excellent teaching resource for the entire church.

I want to give a special thanks to our interpreter who probably had the hardest job of all interpreting for all of us teachers, expecially me. By all accounts, they faithfully interpreted what we were saying and all the pastors I talked with said they did a magnificent job!  One of my favorites was Pastor Fred Anyule from Busia. As he was reading Scripture, I noticed he was holding his bible at arms length to be able to read the words. I happened to have an extra pair of readers with me and gave those to him, and you would have thought I had given him a thousand dollars! He confessed that his arms were really getting too short and those glasses made all the difference!

Saturday morning, John headed back to Nairobi with the equipment, and Frank and I headed to Majengo to visit Pastor Reuben and Maureen and the Agape Care Net clinic there. 

The clinic is going strong and many young girls are finding help and hope.  So many single young girls who are pregnant are abandoned by their parents and seek abortions. But when they come to Agape Care Net, Reuben and Maureen work with the girls and their families to allow the girls to remain at home and carry their babies to term. They also give job training to these girls as hair dressers and manicurists so they can support themselves. When the young men shoulder the responsibility of fatherhood, they are able to get training as barbers. Agape Care Net is becoming very well known in the community as a place to go to find help, and Reuben and Maureen are very busy presenting Smart programs in the schools there. 

We want to thank all of you who give monthly to support this work. God is blessing the community in Vihega Country through your partnership with us.

Sunday we headed down to Kilgoris to visit our long-time friend, Pastor Benson Ntuntai and his family. Benson lost his first wife, Ruth, and a baby two years ago in a difficult childbirth, but this year found a lovely lady to take her place, Bernice. Benson pastors one of the churches that API helped build called Olochani church.  Frank and I had a wonderful meal and evening in their home, before we left for Nalepo the next morning.

We had hoped to make the 4 hour trip with no complications, however 30 minutes into the trip we had our first breakdown. Fortunately in Kenya, roadside mechanics (fundis) are a thing so almost immediately we were approached by one with toolbox in hand. The problem was diagnosed after much peering and poking and rooting about, and in 30 minutes or so we were on our way again. Our triumph was rather short-lived however, 30 minutes later we were sidelined again with the apparently same problem. This pattern was repeated 3 or 4 more times along the way. It did give me a chance to take some pictures of sights we don't see in America. One such sight was a motorcycle with an unusual number of riders. I don't believe I've seen five people on one bike before. And the only one wearing a helmet was the child in front of the driver!

These motorcycles actually double as small pickup trucks as well.

At one point we witnessed a Caltholic procession down the main highway, although I never found out the purpose of the procession.

We finally made it into Narok in late afternoon, about an hour from our intended destination, and decided to spend the night there and see if we could get the recurring problem fixed.  Which was just as well as the people we were going to see in Nalepo had unexpectedly gone to Nairobi on business. We were planning on meeting Pastor Stephen Muntet to plan our spring conference so we agreed to meet the next day in Nairobi instead. Early Tuesday morning we started for Nairobi, only to have the problem resurface about 45 minutes into the trip. With starts and stops, we limped into Mahi Mahui, (a town about 30 minutes from Nairobi) to a service station that had an actual mechanic. I ended up taking an Uber to Nairobi as I had a meeting, and leaving Frank to follow in the Prado once it was fixed.  Fortunately this guy had some actual knowlege and expertise that accurately disgnosed and fixed the issue, and Frank finally arrived in late evening to Nairobi.

I met Stephen and his wife Beatrice for lunch where we made our plans for the spring conference in Nalepo. I have several other meetings before I leave on Friday, and John and Frank and I will be checking out several vehicles that may fit the bill for us to buy. We appreciate your prayers for this, and thank you for partnering with us in this ministry!