Church Relocation Project - Take 2

Just when we thought yesterday was a "fun" day the Lord surprised us. As I had forgotten to mention, we had taken the dismantled tent home and had made arrangements to drive it up to Maasai land (an hour plus away). All was in motion until the next morning when Robbie let us sleep in uncharacteristically late. At one point I actually refrained from leaving our room and using the restroom lest I remind him that he had two fully capable young men in his house as free labor, lol. When I finally mustered the courage to leave the room I heard voices other than Robbie's resonating from the front porch. Wearing my "jammies" and wanting to avoid social interaction of any kind in the morning I rushed to the restroom and darted back into our room. About an hour later Robbie bursts into the room belting with a classic song of extreme volume to wake us up. This is a customary morning for us out here. I didn't know it until after breakfast but Robbie had a surprise visit from Pastor Duncan of U-Turn for Christ (the ministry I have been teaching at) and his father. It turns out they had come by to ask if they could borrow the giant church tent. The crazy irony was that they didn't actually know we had already torn it down, had it in our possession that very moment, and had plans to drive it up to Maasai land over an hour away. This proposition then saved us a long and arduous trip! There are simply no words for how things just miraculously work out. Yet another amazing, Spirit-led "coincidence" I suppose, lol. Man our God is just so good! So instead of driving it out to Maasai land, we drove only about 30 minutes away to U-Turn and dropped it off with the men there. What a relief! Then from there we traveled to the church grounds to assess the chicken coop situation. Pastor Robbie originally came up with the idea to take the existing chicken coop as is and literally "tie" it down to the top of the roofless land cruiser. It would be secured onto the steel cargo cage on top near the rear of the car. It seemed "plausible" but Nathan and I had our doubts. We shared them with Pastor Robbie but to no avail. "Let's at least try guys" he told us, and we agreed it was worth the effort.

Once we arrived to the scene and took a better look at the coop our minds were quickly made up. It became abundantly clear that there was NO WAY that thing was going on top of the car. It was way too big in all directions and even if by some miracle we lifted it above out heads and got it up there, it would have never stayed atop the car for long. So we were back to square one. Instead Nathan came up with the idea of laying a tarp down on the ground and back seat of the car, and putting the chickens on that for transport; basically bare minimum transport. His idea was logical, cheap, and doable, so we agreed to try it. But first we had to catch them and bind their feet. This was a long and tedious process, and once you factor in that we are a couple of city-dwelling, So-Cal boys, it multiplied the strain a few times over... Unfortunately Nathan had to catch the chickens by himself, first because there was only one pair of gloves and second because somebody had to tie the chicken's feet after Nate caught them, Robbie cut the string used for tieing, and Rumpei (our own personal Maasai warrior) filmed, lol. I was personally ecstatic that we filmed some of it cause it was downright hilarious watching Nate try to corner whole flocks of chickens and lunging at them with his hands. We eventually caught them all, loaded them into the car, and began our long journey to Maasai land with Nathan and I scrunched in the front seat with Robbie. I had to practically hang my torso out the window to create breathing room--a position that gave me quite the killer neck ache and left-sided rib bruising, lol. All and all the chickens were transported safely and I rode on the back tray home admiring the awe-inspiring moonlight. We arrived home beat up, bruised, talon-cut, covered in chicken poo, pee, and feathers and were ready to call it a day. And so we did. Yet another day of accomplishment. What an adventure!

Church Relocation Project - Take 1

As you know from Nathan's last post, the Spirit has led Pastor Robbie to move Living Water Christian Fellowship. We have begun the large task of changing locations to the nearby Nairobi Youth Hostel. It had been a previous location of Living Water years ago and because of a movement of the Lord, the owner's heart was overjoyed to receive the church back in spite of their fairly new "no church" policy. The location is prime, the rent substantially lower, the resources limitless, and yet all of these blessings and more may never have fallen into place had not the church been robbed and the emotions and events which followed. Is not our Lord amazing?! Since being out here I have been speechless over the Word of God coming alive before my eyes, specifically the verse, "For all things work out for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." Our preparations have included so much, but much of it began with our need to dismantle the tent our church service was held under. As you saw from one of Nathan's pictures it was quite the task and required nearly the entire congregation. Once it was down we loaded it into the car. Most of the poles felt nearly 85 pounds, some even more! Needless to say Pastor Robbie's large and durable land cruiser felt slightly lower once all of them were tightly loaded. We crammed the car with a few other remnant articles "barely" and to top it off tossed the baptismal pool as the pinnacle. It looked like the ultimate reject top-hat, lol. Because we had nothing to tie it down with Nathan and I had to hold onto it for the entire car ride.

There were definitely a few turns and abrupt traffic-induced stops that nearly lost it for us. I eventually had to stand up in the car and constantly hold the back rim while facing backwards thus having the joyous privilege of staring at passer-byes and drivers behind us. I must say, out of the many weird things Kenyans have seen on the road, a Mzungo (foreigner/non-African, aka WHITE) standing backwards in a roofless land cruiser, gripping a giant, bucket-like tub was definitely a first. We got home with no problems aside from sore arms and fingers that felt like they were ripping from the joints and we then prepared for babysitting at Jonathan's (Pastor Robbie's Assistant Pastor). Jonathan had planned a special "date night" with his wife Adrian so we got to have fun hanging out with his two sons Josiah age 4 and Christopher age 2. I had completely forgotten how exhausting watching two kids of that age all night is. I would swear children run on nuclear power cells sometimes, lol. Not to mention our church tear-down earlier that day, so we were WIPED. That night I don't think I slept. I'm pretty sure I was more or less in a coma. It would have take a cataclysmic event beyond reckoning to wake me up that night--that or too much water before bed. All in a hard days work. Little did we know what would come next.