Well, I best update my blog tonight as I haven't been able to up until this evening. It has been just an unbelievable trip this year. We have had soaring highs and tough low moments but all in all, it has been an extremely blessed time. Since my last blog, much has happened. We did complete the well at Pastor Christopher Juma's location but not without some tough challenges because we were not able to find some of the standard parts needed and had to substitute different components. But, we were able to get the well in place and fresh water now available to his community. We were so blessed by the people. They had been praying for over a year for us to come and drill and they sure did acknowledge their appreciation with their love and provisions. We are so thankful for their kindness.
Because of our troubles with the first well, we were delayed in leaving until after 5:30pm on Thursday afternoon and was suppose to be into Migori that evening as the community was preparing a meal for us. It was over a 6 hour drive to go there and we just decided it would be best to stop for the night outside of Kisumu because the roads are very dangerous at night, let alone in the daytime. We did make a short stop in Kisumu to meet a pastor that I had been trying to catch up since Tuesday, Pastor Naaman Odera and his family including little Brad, my namesake, who is now 6 months old. He is a beautiful little boy.
We finally stopped in the town of Ahero where we had drilled a well last year and slept for about 4 hours before hitting the road again at 4am as we had to be into Migori by 8:30 in order to meet the District Commissioner for the Migori area. It was one of those amazing days as we with the D. C. and then road over to the church where we started the 2nd well with him as he had been invited to see what we were doing for the church there. We had an official ribbon cutting ceremony with dancing, prayers, tree planting and singing. It was an awesome experience. We were not planning on starting this well because of the tough schedule but we did go ahead and get it started with our team going back after we return to the US. They were able to drill down to about 15 feet before breaking one of the drill bits used to break up rock. They haven't been able to retrieve the broken piece yet. So, we ended up having to leave it undone for now.
While in Migori, we had a board meeting of the new Non-profit ministry that we have started in the the country which is called Christian Community Action for Development and Evangelism (C-CADE) and had all 7 board members present which I serve as the International Director for. The board includes 4 pastors, 1 deacon, one elder and myself. We had just received official notice of the Kenyan Government approval of our NPO a week before we arrived so it was an exciting time as we talked about the plans for the ministry including wells, orphans, single mothers, medical missions, and evangelism. We have a great vision for the ministry and looking forward to what God has planned for it.
Sunday morning, the team was responsible for the morning worship service at one of the churches in Migori and it was a wonderful experience. Todd Robeson from Blanchard is on the team with me and he taught on financial responsibility while I had a chance to teach/preach on the parable of the sower. Ms. Tera Perkins spent the morning with probably 75-100 children that were so excited to have her teach them. Tera has been so amazing with the children everywhere we've been. She truly has a ministry that is developing into something very special. Tera is from Bridgeport Texas and had been with me when we were first in Kenya in 2009 with Reaching Souls International.
We finally got out of town Sunday afternoon for another 5 1/2 hour trip to Eldoret through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. As we traveled through the Rift Valley and up into the mountains, it was breathtaking!! We did arrive in to Eldoret around 8:30pm so ended up being another very late night before going to bed.
So, today, we started our third well and ended up breaking 3 pieces of our equipment on the rock down about 6 feet but fortunately, the Glory Baptist Church has a church member that is a welder and he was able to get us back up and operational before the end of the day. We have dug down to the rock layer and will be tackling the rocks in the morning but very optimistic we will break through the rock layer tomorrow and do anticipate getting it done by Wednesday afternoon as we fly to Mombasa on Thursday morning to meet with pastors and churches in that area on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning before returning to Nairobi and on home on Saturday.
That pretty well catches me up with the highlights but there is much more to the story to share with you later. Thank you for your prayers and support. We have been truly blessed while here and can't tell you what a blessing these people have been to have been praying and fasting for us for more than a year. It is been an awesome experience.
OK, I'm signing off now since it is 12:45am and we have a long day tomorrow.
God Bless.
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