Today we started by meeting with a good brother Pastor George. We know him from our time in Sibanga with the Liberty Christian Ministries. George has recently made the difficult decision to leave his family in Cheringoni to come to Nairobi for work in his carpentry trade. His fourth child arrived on Monday and he is yet to see her.
Ever since I first met Pastor George the one thing I always knew was that he has always responded to the Holy Spirit working in his life. As he shared with us today I knew the same thing was true about him and this move to Nairobi. Although he is separated from his family for a while he is making a better way for them in the future. When he brings his family to Nairobi he will leave a brother in Christ access to his farm thereby making his life better as well.
Pastor George has no doubt that he will resume his ministry work here in Nairobi. He has a heart for young people here and he wants to use the sharing of his trade as a way to share the gospel. He hopes to take a few university courses that will get him certified with the Kenya government so he can offer this program for youth.
It was a blessing to see Pastor George making good yet difficult choices to improve the quality of life for his family. George has much to offer and a really big heart for God and His people. We enjoyed a great prayer time with George before we had to say good bye.
As we have been waiting for a response to see an attorney here we have had to kill some time. We made a trip to the Westlands today to a huge market of shops that sell Masai art. I will never do well with the barter system but Dawn made out real well and almost enjoys the act of barter too much. I think at the end of the day the shop owners and the shoppers did ok.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
This morning was very a-typical for us because we found ourselves at a local shopping mall! Shopping is something both of us barely tolerate in the USA so for us to be shopping in Kenya, we HAD to have a purpose. We wandered into a bookshop where Ellen acquired a couple of books about small businesses in Kenya which seemed like a good way to get the creative juices flowing for our upcoming talk with Beatrice (who works in the Kenya Ministry of Labor) as well as with our friends in Sibanga. The business owner was intrigued by our choice of books so we struck up a conversation with him about what it takes for a business to become successful in Kenya. “Hard work” was his reply. “Nineteen or twenty hours a day.” Great! So no great pearl of wisdom here. But as we talked he shared about how his business his grown and that it involved keeping up with the changing popularity of book categories, scanning book titles in these categories , narrowing down to a sampling and reading these to know which will probably be the top sellers in his store. He persuaded us to put our selections aside and check out the section on Kenya. He said it would be a shame for us to leave, not having had a good sampling of his stock! He was a salesman, too, because we added a third book to our pile and then prepared to check out. He presented us with his business card in case we had trouble finding books we wanted in the future, as well as gift bookmarks!
Now we moved on to a camera shop to look for a USB cable to download from a hand-held video camera to the computer. The man we met was Hindu and he was impressed to see we write down the cost of our purchases. He told us of how his father regularly sent him funds while he was attending university and instructed him he could it spend it any way he saw fit but he had to give his father an exact accounting of every rupee. The shop owner told us he still has those journals and has shown them to his children to try and teach them the importance of having control over their money. Hmmmmm. Another small business lesson? Then he talked of his family relationships, how he had wanted to pursue a degree in geology but his father compelled him to remain with his brothers in the family camera shop business. He then went on to tell how as a young man he wanted to marry outside of his culture and his father refused, telling him if he married the woman he loved that he would no longer be part of the family. True love won and he married the girl of his dreams. But the sad reality came back to haunt him when his brother’s daughter married a man of a different culture and no such ultimatum was given to her. He said he understood that the times have changed but that principles should not. Wow! Are we getting business lessons everywhere we turn?
The highlight of the day was when we met Beatrice Kituyu at her office this afternoon. Beatrice works in the Ministry of Labor and is in the middle of negotiations with medical workers to discourage them from going on strike because of the difficult economy and their meager wages. Although she was interrupted several times to deal with this situation, we had a profitable conversation that lasted over an hour. At the conclusion of our meeting, Beatrice suggested she make arrangements later in the week for us to visit wo local businesses at the end of our trip which are success stories of people who banded together and formed a group which was able to meet specific marketplace needs. One of these businesses is a milk processing plant and the other is a chicken processing plant. This should make for some interesting pictures to post on the blog, don’t you think?
Now we moved on to a camera shop to look for a USB cable to download from a hand-held video camera to the computer. The man we met was Hindu and he was impressed to see we write down the cost of our purchases. He told us of how his father regularly sent him funds while he was attending university and instructed him he could it spend it any way he saw fit but he had to give his father an exact accounting of every rupee. The shop owner told us he still has those journals and has shown them to his children to try and teach them the importance of having control over their money. Hmmmmm. Another small business lesson? Then he talked of his family relationships, how he had wanted to pursue a degree in geology but his father compelled him to remain with his brothers in the family camera shop business. He then went on to tell how as a young man he wanted to marry outside of his culture and his father refused, telling him if he married the woman he loved that he would no longer be part of the family. True love won and he married the girl of his dreams. But the sad reality came back to haunt him when his brother’s daughter married a man of a different culture and no such ultimatum was given to her. He said he understood that the times have changed but that principles should not. Wow! Are we getting business lessons everywhere we turn?
The highlight of the day was when we met Beatrice Kituyu at her office this afternoon. Beatrice works in the Ministry of Labor and is in the middle of negotiations with medical workers to discourage them from going on strike because of the difficult economy and their meager wages. Although she was interrupted several times to deal with this situation, we had a profitable conversation that lasted over an hour. At the conclusion of our meeting, Beatrice suggested she make arrangements later in the week for us to visit wo local businesses at the end of our trip which are success stories of people who banded together and formed a group which was able to meet specific marketplace needs. One of these businesses is a milk processing plant and the other is a chicken processing plant. This should make for some interesting pictures to post on the blog, don’t you think?
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