Finishing Strong

One of the things I have learned on my trips here is that the last few days can be the hardest.  Fatigue, homesickness and stomach troubles have, in the past, made my last few days in Kenya difficult.  This time I was determined to finish strong.  I built in a rest day last Saturday, when I promised myself to do no driving or heavy thinking.  It helped a lot.  Planning the shorter drives on the last week has also been a good plan. 

 

Sunday I drove with Stephen and Thomas to our feeding station at Border.  I haven’t been here since 2009, so I was determined to visit them again this trip.  As expected, I was asked to preach.  Anyone who knows me is aware that I am not a preacher.  I did not study at any school for it and my bible knowledge has been mostly memories of my childhood growing up in the church of Christ, and my more recent attempts to catch up.  So I content myself to preach a sermon borrowed from a friend, in this case, Tod Brown’s lesson on Moses and the burning bush from February of this year.

 

I chose that lesson because of how it speaks to all people about our response to difficult starts in life.  Moses was basically an orphan from his first two families and spent 40 years of his life watching sheep in the desert.  Orphans and poor subsistence farmers seem to really relate to it.  It’s easy to weave in the story of the birth of the orphan’s ministry, using Thomas Alwala as my modern day Moses.  I’ve been pleased with the results so far.  The man who introduced me at Border, Lucas from Dirubi Church, said that when he heard it last week at Adingo Opanga he went home and told the whole lesson to his family.  Such are the great stories of the bible, timeless and relevant even thousands of years later.

 

Today we visited Muhoroni, our orphanage that is not too far from Kericho were we are sleeping.  This is a very poor area and the church is made up of mostly women.  They have very little to give and not much labor to spare to help around the place.  We decided that it was time for a fresh infusion of capital, so to speak, to get the place looking ship-shape.  A clean, well-maintained home is inspiration to its residents.  A broken down home, can depress even the brightest spirit.  You can write that down.

 

Otherwise it was a productive visit, though short.  As rain threatened, they all advised me to get out before it starts as the roads through the sugar cane fields become impassable almost immediately.  So it seems that the Lord has delivered another rest day, or at least half of one.  We made it back safe and sound to the Tea Hotel for one last night.  Tomorrow we will visit Kericho Feeding Station on our way to Nakuru where we will meet up with DeFore’s party again.