Ongoro, Auto Repair, and Lee McGraw

“Ongoro” is a Luo word that means, “dry place.”  It’s aptly named.  The soil is sandy here and agriculture is tougher than in other parts of Kenya.  As a rule, the drier the place, the poorer it is and Ongoro is no exception.  Tobias Olweny is our director here and he is doing a good job. 

 

Friday night we shared the evening devotional with the kids, which was great as usual.  I was very tired by that time, so we turned in early.  Saturday morning we met with all the kids for a Q&A session, a tradition started by DeFore and re-established by my wife, Susie.  Susie has gone home, but she’d have been proud of us taking every question the kids threw at us.  We did it for two and a half hours.

 

Sometimes the questions were funny, “Why are mzungu noses pointed while ours are wide?”  And some turned into a lecture, “How is it that your days are longer and shorter at your place?”  That one took 30 minutes to answer, with chalk diagrams of the earth, discussions of tilt and wobble, and seasons and orbits.  I think I might have a latent ‘teacher’ gene in there somewhere.

 

We toured the place; Ongoro has a water well, which is in progress.  They reached the limit of hand digging with a poor result and are now waiting for a specialist to come and try to go deeper.  Everything else looked just fine.

 

After lunch we hit the road back to the VTC.  We made it fine around 4pm.  As I was talking with some of the students, a car passed by on the road and as it reached the front of the orphanage we heard a long crashing sound and it ground to a halt.  The left front suspension had collapsed and the wheel was sideways and flat.  I ran over to make sure everyone was ok, and they were.  They were four men and three women from Nairobi. They had been to a burial, and were on their way home.

 

I offered to send our mechanic instructor out to help and they agreed.  What ensued was a practical lesson in Kenyan roadside auto repair.  Paul, our instructor, and his students in their shop coats ran out and jumped in to fix the vehicle.  It took almost four hours and a trip to Sondu for parts, but they got it done. They were all so proud of themselves for the successful repair, and the visitors were very happy as well.  The episode was a good lesson for me, that God sometimes throws us curve balls; opportunities to do the right thing even when it will not profit us.  I shared that thought with the students and evening devotional and it was well received.

 

This morning we drove up to Lee McGraw Orphanage to worship with them.  I preached Tod’s “Forgiveness” sermon again, which was seemingly right on the mark for this place too.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Christians everywhere struggle with that!  Now we are back at the VTC for am afternoon of rest.  Tomorrow we will go to Homa Bay, home of the famous Stephen Owino!  Be Blessed\