Kenya Mission - Week 2, Mlolongo Purifier

Hello again folks! God continues to sustain and bless us during this adventure. This week we ventured to Mlolongo which is considered a sister city to Nairobi. It is about a 30-45 minute car ride from our host's home in the "South C" district. Mlolongo is a very urban setting centered around a truck weigh bridge area. The main road is paved, but only the main road. Dirty, mud and huge ruts meet you as soon as you turn off. Unlike our work in Kamnoit, the Mlolongo site is home to a mixture of tribes.

Our workshop activities here were much the same as the Teso tribe site - personal hygiene, water purification, Bible studies and evangelism training. The biggest difference was our ability to spend more time with this group given their proximity to our sleeping site; plus we were able to adapt the programs to apply the things we learned last week. For example,  we added two segments to the evangelism worshop. In addition to explaining the purpose and process of sharing testimonies,  we offered them a craft to make bracelets or necklaces with the evangelism colors: blue, green, black,  red, white and yellow. The third segment was a role playing activity where they broke into groups and led their peers to Christ through testimony and the sinners prayer. It was such a blessing to see the aprehension shift to boldness as time passed. 

Here is what you'll see in the link below: Tony and the church leaders "harvesting" rocks from the currently dry riverbed for the filtering barrel; outside and inside images of the church building; images of the town surrounding the church; the craft circle making the color beaded artwork; the humble stoves they use to make tea, rice and beans for 50-60 people at one time; us teaching and the beautiful people of Mlolongo!

Mlolongo church pictures

Please copy and paste if the link above does not work:

http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/Tony_Hipszer/slideshow/Kenya%202014%20-%20Mlolongo%20Purifier

Kenya Mission - Week 1, Teso Tribe Purification

Blogging has been difficult obviously. Our trip is a joy although strenuous.  After two days of air travel, and an administrative day to exchange cash and get supplies, we set out for the first water purification site. 

It started with an 10 hour bus ride over mostly bumpy roads. There are no highways in Kenya. The roads that are paved are mostly one lane each way, except the occasional passing lane when climbing steep hills. Every road is bumpy - either due to erosion or due to speed bumps for pedestrian safety. We arrived too late to do anything except eat and sleep. 

The next morning we went to the village which was a 45 minute taxi ride (south of Malaba) over all dirt, even bumpier roads into the middle of nowhere to a little community. We found grass huts with mud walls and a little church with mud walls and half a roof. And wonderful, gracious people who greeted us lovingly. They were totally grateful for our presence and for God's provision.  We were a big attraction as most of the villagers had never even seen a white person, let alone met or touched one. We worshiped with them - it was amazing. No Powerpoints, no instruments, no praise team - just joyous, loud, genuine praise for the King!  Psalm 47:1-2 came to minds while joining their worship, "Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth." We have a video, but not enough bandwidth to upload until we get home.

After worship, I gave a sermon equating water as sustainer of life on earth and heaven the sustainer of life everlasting - all because God provides. God provides water here, and Jesus provides everlasting life. My Hebrew came in handy linking water and heaven, myim and shamyim. Cindy then gave a great lecture on knowing how to listen to God using several passages that inspired people to read Scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to lead in our lives. Earlier in the day, Cindy taught them how to evangelize using the evangicube. A few of them took right to it and started going through the village sharing their testimony. Cindy also gave a two part workshop on family relationships, specifically husband and wife roles plus children roles. 

Oh yeah, we taught them how to use the water purification system, about personal hygiene and so forth. The personal hygiene segment included a lesson on how to make liquid soap using water combined with chemicals that can be sourced at local shops. We also thought them how. To make a "TippyTap" which is a hand washing station using recycled bottles as the water holder. A must have for any outdoor kitchen or latrine.

It was an awesome few days.

The link here is a subset of pictures from this site, below it is Cindy's recap of the photos:

Teso Tribe pictures

Paste the text below into your browser if the link does not work: 

http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/Tony_Hipszer/slideshow/Kenya%202014%20-%20Malaba%20Purifier

These pictures show the 1st water purification system we helped to install in the village of Kamnoit in Amukura which is near Malaba on the border of Kenya and Uganda. This will offer the Teso tribe pure drinking water for many years. You will see the church which is in the process of being built with mud walls, the women preparing our lunch, some women cleaning rocks for in 1 of the tanks, the children of the village, the making of a tippy tap, the bus route which took us 10 hours of travel and me with a chicken (I will tell that story)...

The chicken story: on our last day after I came out of the latrine, one of the tribesmen saw me. His home, a cone shaped mud hut, was across the path. He said Cindy! Welcome to my home! I said thank you! The woman with me told me that it was quite an honor for someone to welcome me home as if I lived there. He invited me to come into his home to see it and he wanted to find me a chicken. He actually gave me a live chicken! I had to accept it cause it would have been dishonorable not to! After spending the night on the roof of the hotel, we put her on the bus. They put it under the bus with the luggage. When we got to our luggage 12 hours later, we had an empty box! She had chewed her way out and they had to go into the compartment to get her! Our hosts will keep it until it is big enough to eat! We named her Miss Chucky!