Trip to Kenya

I arrived in Kenya on Sunday morning 12/3 around 2 am and got to bed around 3. We were up at 8 am and off to preach at a local church. It was quite a switch to go from -2 to 88 and humid. I am trying it adjust. I imagine 88 degrees sounds good to most of you right now, but after a full day of training in the sauna-like conditions I am pretty wrung out. Yesterday I came down with respiratory problems probably from either allergies to something in the air here or due to a cold. Either way it will make things a bit more challenging.

Our first day of training went well, although 5 of the 12 did not make it. Most of those there had worked pretty hard on their study of Colossians. We did a review of some of the tools and worked through an overview of the book. Everyone finally arrived and the students began preaching yesterday, the second day. I was overjoyed and pleasantly surprised by how well they did. Everyone had made significant improvement and handled their text quite well. I think back to where these guys were just a couple of years ago before we began training them. The growth in their ability to understand and teach the message of the text is simply amazing. Praise The Lord! This is a real confirmation of our training program to produce significant results over time. 

That is the good part. On the other hand I am finding that few of the other pastors in the denomination have taken full advantage of the training as it has been handed down to them. Only 3 have followed through on the whole program. The leadership and organization of the denomination is just not strong enough to overcome all the issues that keeps pastors from being involved. I am not sure what the solutions are here, but we will have to think carefully about this in the future with other groups we work with.

Thank you for your prayers,

Al