A long day

Tuesday, September 22, 2009



The British Airways flight was smooth and the landing in Nairobi was on time. I was the fourth in line at the "buy your VISA here" line and British Airways had already given us all the forms needed at the airport so I was in line and through the line quickly. I headed to the currency exchange counter since everyone was at the baggage claim carousel and exchanged a few dollars walked to the carousel and found my bag already traveling the familiar belt at the Nairobi airport that it has seen so many times before. I retrieved my bag and headed through customs greeting the customs agent a heartfelt "Jambo" and headed out to meet Kurt and Andrew. The air was crisp and quiet and there was not much traffic on the road so the ride to the Heart Lodge was quick. We passed one accident in one of the round-a-bouts and it made me wonder after seeing so much chaos in these "circles gone mad" that I haven't seen more accidents. Joash (biblical king of Judah at the age of 7 - I always find it amazing the Christian names the Africans take for themselves when they are saved) greeted us and carried my bag to my room. Kurt and I talked about the Tuesday schedule and headed to bed. After sorting through my stuff and setting the alarm for 5:30am Tuesday, my eyes were racing my mind to sleep and they won and I drifted off to sleep. It seemed like a very long and deep sleep and I woke up ready to start the day until I saw that watch "laugh" as it displayed 1:11am. So I rolled over and went back to sleep, I even had a full dream. Not one of those snippets of a dream where you wake up somewhere before the ending of the dream. I had a full dream and the watch showed that only 12 minutes had passed. I would do this  another 4 times before 2am ever came and between that and 4am my eyes were definitely more open than they were closed Now that it had reached 4am, it signaled the birds in the area to swoop down and broadcast their voices. One of them sounded like the "caw" of an eagle, it was loud and screeching and he would screech three times and then rest for a few seconds then start the triplet screech again. In an effort to conserve water the water pumps were only turned between 5:30-8:30am but when I tried to turn on the shower - it was not giving up any water so I used some bottled water and washed my hair and face in the sink and just about the time I had my face and head soaped up - the pumps started and the water started running in the shower. So as I was hearing about extreme flooding back home in Atlanta including downtown roads and local school closings, here I was trying to take as short of a shower as I could to conserve water in an area that is suffering from drought. Not like we've "suffered" in past years from drought where we could only water on odd or even days or boat docks had to be let out further into the lake because of the water lever. I'm talking about drought conditions that are causing deaths due to the life that water brings for crops, herds, people all in that circle of life. It's just hard to believe. Can't we seed the clouds or something like the Chinese were trying to do for the Olympics? This is more serious than the Olympics! 

A quick breakfast and we headed out for the Segera mission. We stopped at the Sportsman's Arms hotel in Nanyuki and dropped our bags and picked up pastor David Sigili who would travel with us. 

When we arrived, we greeted everyone and would soon gather for a staff meeting but we went down to see the river on the mission property. On two prior trips this year the river was flowing, down but flowing, but now it was dry. Dry! It was sad to see. The timing of the recent repair of the nearby Black Tank water pump/bore hole repair was all too evident. Where the river had been the only source of water for quite a distance since the pump had not been working, now it was the other way around and the pump at Black Tank was now the only water source around.

In order to help get water on the mission property, though, they were digging a shallow well by hand and I was curious to see it. They had reached the water table and now needed  or wanted to go 10 feet below that but how do you dig underwater? It sounds like a riddle but the simple reply was - hold your breath. As crazy as that sounded though I wasn't prepared for the size of the well. I was expecting some sort of hole that would allow for someone to maneuver as they dug but this hole was not much wider than the 5 gallon bucket they were lowering into the hole to withdraw some of the water. How in the world could someone be lowered into the hole and work to dig it out? That is something I am going to have to see to believe - maybe tomorrow.

The cool breeze at Segera, the kids in their uniforms attending school and the people lined up for medical help at the clinic reminded me of the oasis that this mission is and how thankful I still am that Pappy originally built this place to serve this area. What a blessing and I pray that it always will be!