Leaving the promised land.

We had one last day in Nairobi, so time to play the tourist. Linda dragged me along to the see the baby elephants and then to some shops. It's nice and warm here, the sun is shinning. It was warm enough for Linda to go swimming, and she even found someone to speak to in the pool.

So we have given away on this trip

90 Books

29 toothbrushes

1 necklace

Over 450 pens

100 crayons

6 bowls

6 spoons

Yo-yo

2 balls

28 rubbers

13 pencil sharpeners

6 pairs flip flops

6 children's t-shirt

28 notebooks

4 Frisbees

1 teddy

2 socks

3 school skirts

2 trousers

6 banners

5 films

Over 450 pencils

7 cameras

2 watches

Sunday school leaflets

4 bags

26 dresses

5 blankets

2 baby jumpers

2 cardigans

19 baby hat

2 cardigan and bootees

6 cardigan and hats 

7 baby set 

17 clown glove puppets

5 teddy glove puppets

Baby jumper and trousers

94 knitting needles

5 knitted baby tops

2 laptop computers

32 Soaps

Where is Moses when I need him?

Our friend James promised us that that we would see Mount Kenya from our room. On Saturday I got up early, excited, but I could not see it was covered with cloud. We went to the Mount Kenya Safari Club to be nearer, but the mountain was still covered with clouds. James is a local Minister so I asked him, if Moses can part the Red Sea, why can’t you   part the clouds so I can see Mount Kenya?  

We went to the safari club, having become temporary members for a fee. This was  the only day we didn’t t have any commitments, so we were free to relax, enjoy the scenery and there were even  some animals for Linda to look at. The Equator runs through the middle of the club, so I stood in the northern hemisphere and spoke to my wife in the southern.  There is also free wi-fi so I was  happy to sit and look at the scenery and use my IPad. The only downside, it was  the first day of our trip where there has not been any sun.

It has been so busy I have not had time to update the blog, at all. The trip as usual, has been action packed, new doors have been opened and new friends  made.

Linda has been to prison, visiting not staying, I hasten to add, at least she had a captive audience to listen to her . It all started on Sunday at church when she met two chaplains from the prison ministry and they invited her to visit the women's prison in Kericho, which had 70 inmates and 10 children. In fact, three more women were so keen to meet here, they booked in on the day she went!  She turned up and met the female officers in charge and had to fill out some forms and be checked out. They then went into the prison and she could see some women singing and the chaplain said they were having a service. Linda asked (she is so naive sometimes) "who is the guest speaker," the reply "you are". She then had to deliver a 40 minute talk to the captive audience, they couldn't even leave.

She had bought some gifts for the women and the children, which she distributed and the ended up in the craft hut to see the items that some of the inmates make. She then saw some knitting machines, she started talking about them, showing the women how to use them, and even fixed one that was broken, they were pleased. The chaplains had to drag her away from the prison, otherwise she would have still been there.

The lectures at the college have gone well, I started with 10 students and finished with 18! The topic was leadership and I had some good lecturers assisting me; Richard Branson, Bill Hybels, Nelson Mandela, Harold Schultz, Colin Powell and Bill Gates to name a few, plus we had Steve Jobs and Sir Winston Churchill pop back from their graves to assist.  The secretarial students jointed the class and actually the female students were better than their male counterparts on the written assignments. However, the male students caught up on the practical exam.

The hotel was renovating our usual room, so we are in the main house. Linda had a nice cold shower, when she forgot to switch the water heater on! I could have told her – but I didn’t just – just listened to her say how cold it was J The food has been rice, rice and rice, whether we are at the hotel, the college or visiting friends.

We went to see Stanley, who is our sort of adopted African son. He has now a baby called Abel (or Obama 2 as I nicknamed him). He is waiting for the electricity to come.  In preparation for this he has put in  power sockets, light sockets and even a light,.  He just has to wait for the electricity to be connected,. It was going to be by Sunday when we met him, but when I checked on Sunday it had still not arrived. The family were glad to see us, and he took us to his local school in Laliat. It was raining, so the children stood in the rain, while we spoke to them, we kept it short (although we were ok in the dry).  We saw Stanley’s shop. I tried to give him some business advice, I have watched all the series of The Apprentice so I know what I am talking about, and I kept asking what sells (I didn’t need to do the Alan Sugar voice as he would not have known who he was!). He said it was sugar, so I said that is what you buy and sell. He was talking about getting other products, but my advice was to sell what people will buy, it’s no good sitting in a shop looking pretty. This is the one village shop in the middle of a very poor rural area, they will buy the basics only.

Today I was speaking at Nyeri Cathedral, it was packed out, even had people sitting outside as there were no seats left inside, this is normal they told me, not just because I was preaching. The only thing was it was the 0800 English service, why do all the churches have the English services so early, don’t they know in England we don’t start till at least 1030. It was an early start and there was no electricity  in Nyeri, so we both washed in the cold water, brr. There was also no time for breakfast, it might be worth learning Kiswahili just so I can preach at the later service and have a lie in ( or use Google translate for my sermon).

On the way to Nyeri we called in at Thompson Falls for a cup of coffee and saw the water cascading down the rocks. Linda wanted to have a closer look, so she had to pay to get in, I just watched from a distance.

We are now back at The Stanley in Nairobi, air conditioning and HOT water! It was about three hours from Nyeri. There is now a six lane superhighway between Thika and Nairobi, the only problem is there are no bridges so they have pedestrian crossings every couple of miles and large bumps in the road to slow you down.

We need to check in on line tonight  so I can’t go to bed till just before midnight, burning the candle at both ends, some things  never change! There are some pictures here

Moses heads towards the Promised Land

We have landed safely in Kenya and are ensconced in warm Kericho. We
were meant to stay overnight at a travelodge on Wednesday night near Terminal 5 but as I had been working so many hours I had not had the time to pack or finish the preparation for the lectures. As we had a flexible room we were able to cancel it. The bonus was I got to watch the football and see The Blues win with a brilliant heading from Moses from a Mata corner in the 94th minute.

The downside was we had to get up at 0400 to leave for the airport by 0500! Linda was not too pleased with this early start, as she is not a morning person. The roads were not too bad and we arrived at the car park around 0630 and then booked in. We are going business, courtesy of our BA miles. This means we can take 3 bags each and use the business lounge. We had 4 bags full of gifts to give away and a bag each of clothes. The lounge was good as we had free food, coffee and could sit and wait in comfort for the plane to be ready for boarding.

The plane was leaving about 1030 and it was left on time, I think, I had fallen asleep by then. Linda woke me up when the food came round. I ate some food and then went back to sleep. I slept for a couple of hours and then did some work. I planned one of the sermons for Sunday. Before we landed there was more food, sandwiches and scone with cream, plus more coffee. We landed about 2130 (Kenya is 3 hours ahead of UK).

Passport control was quite quick and our bags were in the first batch. We are stopped at customs and asked what was in our bags - where do I start! He looked in one of the bags and started talking about you had to pay taxes even on gifts. However, he saw the items and said we could go, Linda did give him a pen, which was probably all he wanted.

We were staying at The Stanley as usual and booked in, we had a nice room for the night and fell asleep quite quickly. On Friday we had breakfast and then went out into Nairobi as I needed to get SIM cards for the mobile, Iphone, IPad and dongle. We went to a couple of places and they did not have SIM cards, so ended up at another place, which did. It was very busy, probably because everyone was coming here as no other shops had any SIM cards. In Kenya everyone has a mobile phone, they have no bread on the table, but have a mobile. We met a man who was a refugee and wanted some rice for his family, so we took him to the food store and bought some. It is better to put some food on the table then give them money to potentially waste. Although the rice was probably more expensive then any money I might have given!

Once we were sorted out, it was back to the hotel to finish the packing and then leave with our driver. We have a new driver called David, who speaks good English. The only problem is we will now have to direct him to all the places we need to go to as he will not know the way.

We left Nairobi around 11am and it was a fairly pleasant run. Linda was desperate for a tea so we had to stop at Navaisha for a cuppa. There is a nice shop that does latte so I had one, the last one for the next week. After that it was onwards to Kericho through Nakuru, Mau Summit and then the B1. Unfortunately they are doing roadworks on the B1 so it takes ages as at some places it is single tracks. There is also a 25km diversion which takes about an hour as it is very bumpy and Linda was so pleased about this! I did the journey route on google maps, it was not very accurate

We arrived at the hotel around 6pm, we cannot have our normal room in the annexe as it is being renovated, therefore we are in the main house. We do have a balcony which we can sit on and watch the people or the grass, it is quite noisy as well. It is smaller than the other one so we have to keep moving our stuff around.

We have some dinner around 2000 and then it is an an early night.

On Saturday we were going to visit our friend Samuel and his church at Bware as I am giving some lectures on leadership. We had to leave around 0800 which meant being up at 0700. It is about 90 minutes journey and the roads are not too bad. The problem was we missed the turning and ended up in the next town. So we had to turn around and drive back again, the village is not shown on google maps. We arrived and it was time for breakfast with them, which as Chapati and bread, with tea. Linda, of cours
e, doesn't like the local tea, so she gets out her Tesco tea bags to use. I did point out they were probably the same, grown here and just labelled Tesco!

As usual with Kenya people turn up when then can and we start about 1130. There is some singing and then the Sunday school do some singing and this lasts about an hour before I start the two sessions on leadership. This lasts till about 1430 and then there is some more singing. We have lunch which is excellent' there is fish, beef, chicken, rice, potatoes and vegetables. Linda goes for the rice and potatoes, whereas I have the fish with my rice. It is very nice, all prepared on a small stove outside. Samuel's wife has done a great job and she is also the Sunday school leader. I have a chat with Samuel, it is great to see one of my ex-students in the mission field and doing a great job. He is very grateful for the support from Eastwood Evangelical Church. We had to give three old ladies a lift along the road' which meant there was no room in the back for Linda, but fortunately there was room in the boot! It is a hatchback in case you had visions of Linda in the boot of a car!

We left about 1600 and then had the trip back to Kericho, it was now pouring with rain, thunder and lightening, this made for an interesting trip. We got back and there was no power as the electricity had gone off - time for a nap I think.

On Sunday I was speaking at both services the 0800 and 0930 which seemed a good idea on email, but not so good when the alarm went off at 0700. Linda needed her beauty sleep so she had a lie in, can't say I saw any difference later on! I had my breakfast alone and in peace, and then walked to the church. Linda turned up just as I was finishing the sermon (first one)! She did stay for the second sermon. The service was very packed with singing, some very energetic exercises and four babies were dedicated.

After this we went into town for some lunch at the Sunshine hotel. I had a nice piece of fish, but Linda didn't like it as it still had its head on and she said it was looking at her. I did tell the fish not to look at her, but it ignored me, so I cut his head off and hid it under a napkin. It tasted very nice.

Linda then wanted to go and visit the Tea Hotel to see if there were any changes since we had last visited there. It had changed slightly , although still appears old fashioned. We sat on the patio as the sun was out and had a cup of tea, well I had coffee. The coffee was not up to Starbucks standards. Perhaps when I retire I will bring Starbucks to Kenya!

Linda then went and spoke to the men with their ornaments out the front, they remembered her from previous visits, and were trying to persuade her to buy some things, they didn't have to try very hard! She had some presents now for people at home

It was a nice warm afternoon so we can back and sat on the balcony and relaxed, today is the only day we do not have a full agenda. Our friend Joseph popped by and we had tea with him.