Dear Cherished Interested’s,                                                                                                     May 1st, 2023

We dashed to Nairobi Wednesday morning last week.  Our Visa required leaving the country for a few days and then returning.  So we did.  Without the truck we were limited so we took the bus to Nairobi Kenya. 

Those of you who know the space I take up understand that buses, planes, and small cars are actually extremely uncomfortable to get into and out of, let alone spend hours travelling between nations.  I survived.  We were travelling with an ardent supporter.  The same young man who has managed the government processes that hopefully leads me to applying for matriculation into Tumaini University Makumira sometime this very month. 

We learned right along with him the severe expense of making this trip to Nairobi.  My impressions of the Nairobi I saw was that it is a city trying so hard to be New York, right down to Burger King and Kentucky Fried, that wealth has gone to both its head and heart. 

Bluntly, Nairobi is cruel to her own people.  You leave the hotel bastion out past metal detectors, heavy locked gates, guards to step out on streets with too few sidewalks yet tall fences topped with barbed wire and spikes on both sides protecting wealthy properties behind them.  I found one facility nearby with the words “Faith Center” locked securely up without a soul in view within its perimeter.

We found new shoes for Hilda with a street vender they are bright RED.  So Hilda is happy.  We are poor bargainers as empathy even for those trying to take unfair advantage lives too close to our surface.  Still, that placed us on the street in the right place at the right time to encounter a Burundian father with five children refugees all who had not eaten for days. 

How mean is Nairobi?  In a wealthy part of town it took two American visitors from Tanzania with the wrong East African currency to find a way to get them fed, if only for that day.  We had no local connections in Kenya and could not make heads nor tails of the paperwork they had that entitled them to wander the streets homeless, foodless, looking for help from a church, any church.  All the Nairobi churches apparently are locked up like many places, even at home in the U.S.  Many behind those walls and fences I described.

Yes people were asking for help everywhere we went.  We went anyway.  We went by foot so we were easy to see. 

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We talked our way into a tall nearly double bullet shaped skyscraper which has windows all the way around.  The guards noted the cross that I wear nearly all the time now as it both invites requests for help and, I believe, shames many false requests away.  The guards overcame my size with the help of that cross and little beaming Hilda.  After explaining our desire to simply go up into the building to look out those windows to many guardians outside and then inside we followed a trail of smiles to a desk and waited for Daudi. 

Daudi is an engineer in the building trades who is responsible for this building.  His English is impeccable.  He came smiling out to greet us and took us to the highest unoccupied floor of the building where we could walk around the open unfinished floor and view the city in 360 degrees.  We got to know Daudi. 

On the way out he brought me a pen and paper and I drew up and talked with him about potential full pasture fed, low animal stress, dairy farming only made possible at the equator with its non-stop growing season. 

We discussed layout, rotating paddocks, central watering and central robot milking.  As a farm kid himself with family still milking cows by hand he was very attentive, interested, and thankful.  He also insisted he was taking the idea to his friends at Government house.  Unbelievable..  May he get rich..  May his wealth save friends, family, neighbors, friends, strangers..

Roy, if you are reading this there in Bolivia, yep..  same idea I asked you to give your Mennonite buddies there near you in the mountains. 

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After two nights we headed back.  Little girls with babies wrapped to their backs and little boys swarming us at the bus station lamenting plaintively in Swahili and English phrases intended to illicit assistance.  Having never changed to the correct Kenyan currency from the Tanzanian currency(much weaker) we were ill prepared to provide any assistance. 

The border crossing both ways still has my head shaking. 

First is the swarming by tribal craftswomen(Maasai) who zero-ed in on Hilda and I before we could exit the bus to be processed and then again upon leaving processing to return to the bus.  Again, the wrong currency helped but, being at the border and the craftswomen being Maasai who ignore the border, they knew their highly fluid prices literally coming and going. 

While waiting in the bus for our fellow travelers to be processed and return, I pulled out my bi-lingual Bible.  Inside the back cover I keep a small book of Swahili Hymns.  I dared, thanks to the last year and a half of Sundays with the Mamas at The Children’s Village, to sing the Swahili Hymns I am able to figure out by knowing the English tunes they are written to.

Persistent peddling through the bus windows significantly abated and then stopped.  Confusion and some disbelief ensued as they gave up, walked away, came back after hearing some semi-familiar text, and then went over to a nearby wall to talk with our ardent supporter who was telling them some story. 

Those who were still near our bus were over there listening to him.  Did I tell you he is a Dad who was almost a Catholic Priest?  I bet he wasn’t missing an opportunity.

A couple of our fellow passengers walked forward in the bus to look over my shoulder and sing the hymns along with me.  I could hear emotion amazement and joy.  Hilda was where she could witness the emotions and made a friend sharing contact info through shared Swahili hymns with her large white hairy husband.

Processing at the border was embarrassing.  We do not have diplomatic passports.  Word had gone ahead of us each time.  We were collected out of que each time by smiling border guards who took us past everyone else and then to each window out of one country and the next window into the next country.  I looked up to see that we were taken through the Diplomatic passport track, our ardent supporter happily chatting with guards and immigration officials he obviously knew.  Well, either those specific officials or their bosses.

We were so quick in processing that we got back to the bus before it could be moved from one side of the station to the other and the drivers were shocked as we were.

Processing back into Tanzania a couple of workers challenged me to explain what a Kenyan Pastor in the news had been doing.  The Kenyan pastor in question has been arrested for insisting that his people fast until they die so they can be with Jesus sooner.  If life is impossibly hard, this may indeed appeal to the helpless. 

I am ever more convinced however, that life is what our God and Savior are most about, having created life and then providing means for life eternal.  In the twenty or so seconds we had to discuss a matter on their hearts I shared my conviction that life is the point, not death.  Life is not to be wasted as it is intended to last forever.  Anything that wastes life seems ever more anti-Christ to me and I pray that the arrested pastor gets help and his people wiser leadership.  I often pray that for myself and those I try to serve too.

For those who know the area, it was raining as we left Nairobi but soon cleared.  We crossed the border coming south into Tanzania coming to predominantly Maasai Longido, then Engikerat and very many Kilometers to Oldonyosambu.  That is where the first signs of any water darkened the bottom of dry riverbeds nearly all the way from Nairobi to Arusha.  Five years of drought are hopefully breaking further afield than just the mountains.  This will save many invisible but so precious lives.

We were back late Friday and did not miss our Saturday and Sunday duties.

Tomorrow we take a child to the doctor in town.

Today is a local holiday..  Still the farm kid, self-employed logger, often holidays confuse me and I never seem to remember or understand them.  Thanks for praying for us in our endless confusion(s)..

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Please keep crumpling us up and throwing us at God.  That is where we need to be.  God will sort us out.

One day at a time.  Just like how you each live.  Just one day at a time. 

Thank you, each of you.

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What to Pray for:

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

For our children and grand-children who miss us.. 

For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –

For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it -

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, Even your groaning prayers makes all the difference..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music