Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Today was not a day full of meetings and connections although a good cross-cultural lesson was learned; but more about that later. Zippy invited us to the ground-breaking ceremony she was having for the portion of her farm which she is developing into a conference center, guest houses, a restaurant and a petrol station. An invited pastor gave some words of blessing and Zippy shared her vision for how this construction would help many people in the area by giving them jobs. After a prayer of dedication and the soda refreshment we’ve come to know at most gatherings of any kind in Kenya, it was off to our next assignment - the proverbial task of “running errands.”

Once we could make our way back to Sibanga we decided to drop in on Rose and Timothy Mahindu to see how their auto parts shop is doing. We can happily report that it is being blessed and with the planting season upon Kenya, the Mahindu family has been able to increase their inventory for the supply and demand cycle of their business. Timothy was in Kitale so we were only able to visit with Rose but we also made arrangements to take lunch with Timothy and Rose next week where there will be more opportunities to rejoice in the blessings of the Father.

We decided to walk through the marketplace and hand out some of the Bibles we have on hand using the icebreaker, “I have a gift.” (nikona ziwadi in Swahili) The first couple of offerings went well but we immediately drew a crowd and the next thing I knew a man snatched a Bible from Ellen’s hand before she had barely removed it from her backpack. My cop instinct came back and as the man reached so did I, taking hold of his wrist to prevent him from running. What was I thinking! The guy was “stealing” the Word of God! Whether he took it because he wanted a Bible or because he thought it was something of value he could sell, what did it matter? God would put it in the hands of the person for whom it was intended, if He hadn’t already. So I relaxed my grip and off he ran. The lesson learned: even when gifting people with copies of the Bible, we need to be strategic about how we go about it. Otherwise the enemy will use the opportunity to create chaos and take God’s glory away from the moment.