Saturday, December 3

The Seed Lady
Today we wanted to spend the day with our hostess, Zippy. Often we come and we feel as if we do not get to know her on a personal level. So we asked her to pick what she would like to do. I’m always afraid we’ll end up at the beauty parlor or as they call them here, the ‘saloon’. Much to my relief she chose to go to the National Agriculture Plowing Competition. Each district sends their winner from their plowing contest to this event to see who will go to the international competition. It seems a lot like 4H but for the adults. Today there were 3 categories – gimbe (hoe), ox team, and tractor. 60% of this countries farming is done by gimbe. This is back breaking work. We got an education today.

Well Ms. Dawn was not going to let a little event with the Prime Minister of Agriculture keep her from sowing her favorite kind of seed. So as Zippy introduced us around Dawn would back track and start a conversation. At one point she was talking to the man emceeing the event. After she had given him a Bible he put her on the microphone to address the crowd. She related to their efforts in their farming and said we come to Kenya to plant, too. But we plant a different kind of seed. That seed is the Word of God. For the remainder of the event people kept approaching her requesting a Bible. Some asked if she was selling them. Others were young people in their early twenties. I’m not sure if this scene could be repeated in the U.S. with the same result. These people are hungry for their own copy of the Bible. And that’s something we can never have too much of.

Dawn has made the gifting of Bibles a focus of each of the last three trips. She has such a passion for sharing Christ through this method that I have decided to call her the Seed Lady. All in all it was not a bad day in Kenya. 