Monday, August 31
It is Monday night here in Nairobi and I just got back from Turkana. Friday and Saturday I spent out in the bush delivering food and water filters with the team in several villages. We were able to provide food for nearly 1,000 families and clean water filters for 15+ villages. We want to thank everyone of you who donated for the famine relief as it brought much needed food to hungry families. This area has not seen any significant rain for at least 7 months and I've rarely seen such a lack of green vegetation here. Looking around, it is hard to see what the animals are eating. We want to thank Surfing Servants again for providing the water filters we handed out. These filters are making a huge impact in reducing the incidents of disease related to impure water.
My water filter team of Boniface Lokwawi and Paul Muchoki are seaoned veterans in demonstrating the care and use of these filters and did an outstanding job of communicating the necessity of drinking only filtered water.
In every village, people were designated by the elders as custodians of the bucket filters to share clean drinking water with everyone. They are responsible for the care and cleaning of the filters, and everyone who wants clean drinking water must bring their own water to be filtered. The Turkana are incredibly community minded and like many other people who live in harsh environments, very generous in sharing with each other.
Paul and Boniface spent a lot of time making sure the custodians understood how the filters work, and most importantly, how to clean and care for the filter. If properly cared for, these filters should last at least 10 years.
We gave out maize flour, cooking oil, and salt. I was stunned to see how much the prices had risen for these basic commodities since I had been in Kenya in the spring.
There were a lot of smiles as people returned to their homes.
One of the striking features of this desert are the termite mounds that cover the land. This was one of the truly massive ones I saw. The fact that these tiny insects can come together to build these incredible structures can only attest to the existance and creative genius of an all-powerful God!
We did have one fairly unnerving incident at one of the villages with an irate man who ran toward us, brandishing a wicked looking club. We had gone with the village elders and the pastor of the church to a plot of land that had been given to the church by one of the church members to build a church. As we were standing there, this man ran up on us, shouting and waving his club as if to attack us. One of the elders grabbed his own club and faced this guy and they stood there yelling at each other and waving their clubs. I had no idea what was going on as no one took the time to translate in the moment. All at once the man turned to me and advanced, yelling something about the mzungu (white man). Turns out he was a relative to the woman who gave the land to the church and thought I was buying the land and he was being cut out of the transaction. Pastor Boniface stepped in front of me to confront the guy and I thought it best at this point to beat a strategic retreat to the relative safety of the vehicle, but not before snapping a picture. I should have gotten more pictures, because the woman who gave the land finally came and started pushing and beating on this guy and telling him in no uncertain terms to leave. Surprisingly he did!
Paul and Boniface Lokwawi were also in charge of handing out the lollipops to the kids. These are always a big hit!
We had some soccer balls donated by Summit Christian Fellowship that we handed out. These kids have rarely seen one of these in person, let alone play with one.
Thank you for supporting and praying for this ministry!