I get up early to make sure I can get my bath finished well before our 7:30 departure time. Rev. Kim and Eben Yoon are at the van to pray for us before we leave. Pastors Lazarus, Bernard, and Richard and myself have packed our bags into the van and soon the four of us are driving through the slums of Mathare and on past the international airport to rural Kenya. The roads are quite a bit better on the highways than they are in the city, although there are still quite a few potholes. We drive past Nairobi National Park, but we are too far away to see any wildlife. The van is quite noisy so we do not talk much while we drive. We stop in a little town to get some water for the journey. We pass a lot of Maasai cattle herds that are being returned to their homeland after having gone out in search of pasture.
After about three hours we turn off the highway and follow what is a trail more than a road. There is lots of sand and there are more Maasai walking across the path and there are along it. These are truly nomadic people. They have an amazing sense of direction. They can walk through these woods day or night and it seems that it is nothing for them to walk several kilometers to get where they need to. We traverse this road which is sometimes hard and other times very soft sand. After about 11 kilometers we arrive at the Lenkijape Glory Church. There is a Sunday School class under the tree behind the church building. We meet pastor David Aluvisia and his wife, Mama Caleb and are taken to their residence in the back of the church and served tea. I am introduced to the man they simply call Chairman (Jonathan Larmoi) as well as to Secretary (John Letuya). These are not technically elders in the church, but they serve to organize both the school and the church. Chairman will translate the sermon for me into Maasai. I learn later that he has limited formal education – it was interrupted when his father called him away to tend the cattle. But he has a mind that is eager to learn, so he has largely been self-taught, including the English language – and he is on the school board because he has a keen interest in the education of the Maasai children.
I am told later that cattle are everything to the Maasai men. They are more important than their wives and children. They will grieve more for the loss of a cow than for the loss of a wife or child. And now the Lord, in His wise providence has sent a drought that has decimated their herds. Here, as in Balaah, there is death everywhere. Will they not acknowledge their idolatry and turn to the Lord? The chief seems to understand. More later.
The choir is practicing and soon the service begins. I am asked to wait in the pastor’s residence until after the service has begun and then I am led in. There is a good group of about 50, mostly women and children, with a few men, including the chief, whom the Lord has begun to humble. Most of the women are dressed in their traditional garb. They sing in Maasai, which is a bit more difficult to sight read than Kiswahili. The service lasts about an hour and 45 minutes – not many songs, but the ones they sing are quite long. I preach from John’s gospel on Peter’s denial of the Lord and his reconciliation with Christ. Chairman translates; there are a few times when I have to rephrase, but generally it goes well.
After the service we go to the back of the church and everyone comes by to shake hands. The children bow their heads and the adults touch their heads to give blessing. After the service the members seem to break up into groups based on age. There is no integration, and the groups pretty much stay to themselves.
Chairman has told me about a river bed behind the church that has run dry. When I ask about it, he offers to take Richard and myself there. We see an empty bed that is about 5 meters deep and about 10 meters across. Chairman shows us at about 5 meters, how high the river was flowing last Thursday (just three days earlier). The water flows down from the mountain nearby when ever it rains. The children were unable to cross the river to get to school on Thursday and Friday. But as we look now, not only is there no water, but the bottom of the river is completely dry and cracked – not even mud. We learn that last year there was a little girl who lost her life while crossing the river with her mother. Her mother was hanging on to the child she was carrying on her back, but was unable to hold on to her little girl. The body washed up on the river bank here, just behind the church property. Very sad.
We return to the church property for dinner: rice with carrots and tomatoes, a fried or cooked cabbage dish, and a stew of potatoes and broth – the latter two dishes we spoon over the rice mixture. It is delicious combination of flavours. After dinner we visit and then start the journey to the chief’s boma.
We cross through the river again and through a second dry river bed. This one is fed from a different mountain, but it is also dry. We travel about one kilometer uphill and we look at the large cement container for water, which is also dry. Some of the church members greet us and we are invited to stop by for tea on our way back. We agree to do so.
On to the chief’s home. There is a “cemetery” with several cow carcasses lying a ways off from the entrance. There is a goat that has just died, and a young boy is trying to get the skin for himself.
We enter the boma: an area that has been set aside by surrounding it with dried thorn bushes that grow everywhere in this area. Inside the boma there are several huts or manyatas. There is one fairly modern looking building that shows some wealth and progress, but we are told that no one likes to live in it – they all prefer their manyatas. This is the chief’s gate – each prominent male member of a boma has his own gate. There is only one other gate here and it is on the very opposite end of the boma; with an accompanying dwelling. Each of the other five or six manyatas belong to one of the chief’s wives. He is polygamist with over 40 children, 19 of them are in school. He has had six wives; he lost one very suddenly only a little while ago. Pastor Bernard takes us to one of these dwellings, called a manyata. These are low, rectangular domes, similar to a loaf of sandwich bread, and covered with cow dung. He leads us inside and warns me to stay close behind him, as it is completely dark. He has not exaggerated at all. We go back and forth through what seems like a maze. It seems a lot larger than it is because we are in the dark the whole way. Eventually we come to a larger opening, where there are embers in a cooking area. There is a hole in the roof for smoke to escape and it lets in just a little light. We still cannot see much of anything, but our eyes are adjusting a little bit. Richard takes some flash pictures with his digital camera. He has no idea what he is aiming at until he is able to see the picture. By this trial and error method he is able to come away with some pretty interesting shots. We realize that we are looking at things that perhaps no others have actually seen before! There is a raised bed of cow skins at one end for the mama and another one at the other end for the chief. While we are there my cell phone rings. It is Judith Collins checking to see how I am doing. For some reason the cell phone technology (or maybe just the willingness to invest) here is light years ahead of what it is in Canada.
We move on to another manayata. It is much like the previous one. Pastor Bernard enters and speaks to the mama there for a while before he realizes that there is a calf in the manyata. Here there is also a separate bed for the chief. I get permission to get my picture taken while I sit on it – a pseudo-chief.
As we go to the third manyata we pass by a couple of primitive wooden benches. The chief has become convicted to the point that he wants the children to have a prayer meeting for him. His spiritual state is unknown as he has not made a public profession of faith, but the Lord seems to be dealing with his soul. At the next manayata there is a young girl with a head dress of beads that hang down just above her face. She has a black shawl on. Pastor Bernard informs me that she has begun a ceremony of circumcision and is awaiting the next stage when her head will be shaved and she will be able to wear the garments of a woman. This next stage has been delayed because of the drought: there are no goats available for slaughter for the required sacrifice for the completion of this ceremony.
Now we go back to an area close to the main gate where we have I give a brief message from Psalm 48 and we are given tea. It is getting to the time that we should already be leaving from the church, and we still are expected for tea at the next boma. As we are finishing our tea, Pastor Bernard points out that the clouds appear to be lifting from Mount Kilimanjaro, which is just to the south of us in Tanzania. As we keep looking, the top of the mountain becomes more and more visible. Richard gets some good shots of it.
We go to the next boma where we get coffee this time! After a word of prayer with these church members we walk back to the church. We say good-byes to everyone and head back to the highway with one passenger, a mama who has already walked some considerable distance and is tired. Along the way we pick up more passengers – Pastor Lazarus is beginning to feel like a Matautu (taxi) driver.
We arrive at the Kiluani Mission Station. Here there is a clinic. The nurse just returned last night from a seven week furlough in her native Singapore. So she is just settling in herself. She is very hospitable and careful to see that we are comfortable. We have supper at Pastor Stephen Omweri’s house.
We sleep well in our quarters – very comfortable.
