January 12, 2013 – Darkness and Muzungu Stew

Town center in Kitale, Kenya

Town center in Kitale, Kenya

Today we traveled back to Kitale from Suam.   Getting back across the border became interesting as the Ugandan customs agent asked to search our backpacks and attache cases before we left.   As he went through my bag, he pulled out my laptop and asked “is this a bomb?”   He proceeded to do this for the rest of my electronics as well.  After searching my bag, he went through Scott and Nathanael’s bag and then began to challenge my faith, asserting, Jesus was just a man!  Finally he decided he was finished arguing with me and told us to go.  Pray for Uganda as the resistance has become much greater than what I have experienced previously.

When we arrived back in Kitale we had lunch in Adams home where I marveled at how much his son Judah has grown and found myself captivated by his daughter Abigail.  Due to sever complications, Carol and I prayed many hours for Mary when she was pregnant with Abigail, so I consider Abigail a miracle child.

After lunch we returned to the African Theological Seminary where we are staying.   We found out immediately that there was a problem with Scott and Nathanael’s room and that the seminary was without power and had been for over 24 hours.  I had enough battery on my laptop to get a quick message to Adams about our room issue and to send a few messages to Carol, then I had to shut it down.

As darkness fell we lit candles and our neighbor Reinhardt invited us to have stew with him and the other Muzungus staying at the seminary.   Reinhardt is a Swiss national who has lived in the U.S. for 15 years.  Last year, he and his wife Michelle resigned their jobs and began volunteering with water missions.  We were also joined by Zena our house mate, a German national who is in country developing self-supporting organic farms, her friend Philip from Kitale and Chris an engineer who also works with Water Missions.  We learned that this was Reinhardt’s first attempt at stew and in the end we all decided it wasn’t bad and rated it a cafeteria grade soup.   During our meal together we exchanged stories of our travels and the distinctive aspects of Africa.

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