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| After an early rise to finish preparing the sermon, we were
surprised to see toast instead of bread for breakfast. However, this was the day of the
"chocolate porridge", which turned out to be millet rather than chocolate. |
| The pickup truck took us to Baba Jesse’s, and from there we
walked to the church. The Anglican service was pretty much like an Anglican service in
Britain in many ways, except that everything was done in Swahili. The vicar/pastor wore
the same robes and read from the same liturgy, although there were no stained glass
windows in the mud and stick wall building. Actually there was no glass at all, so I had a
great view of the road as I preached. First, though, I had to sit at the front for the
whole service. We sang "O Jesus I have Promised", "Holy, Holy, Holy"
and "Rock of Ages" in Swahili and our half of the team sang some English worship
songs. The Bible passages were Psalm 115, Song of Songs 8 and 2 Peter 3:8-18. |
| I had been given a free choice of passage for the sermon, so I
preached on Matthew 5:13-16, Salt and Light, quoting at times from the John Stott book I
was reading. It seemed appropriate that this Pakomo congregation should be challenged to
be a light where they lived, particularly given the history of
the area, and the fact that the Orma were almost exclusively Muslim. I had already
been told that the Pakomo felt no real desire to reach out to the Orma. |
| "We should not let our salt and light be compromised by sin or
laziness or fear. The followers of Jesus are called to stop the spread of evil and to
promote truth, beauty and goodness. We cannot blame the unsalted meat for going bad. We
can only ask, ‘where is the salt?’ |
| Jesus is the light of the world, but we shine with his light
through our good works. Only if we demonstrate his light through practical, visible deeds
of compassion will people see us, and our good works, and be lead to glorify God." |
| We returned to Baba Jesse’s for a beans and maize lunch. After
a quick trip to the ‘Y’ to change, we were back on the football field again.
Another team had challenged us to a match. Football definitely cuts across cultural and
language barriers, even if they did all laugh as soon as a ‘Mazungu’ (white
person) made a mistake. It also opened the way for conversation and relationship. We were
pleased to help Baba Jesse by playing. |
As it happened, I didn’t actually play for very long. After
about 2 minutes, my eye was  streaming
so badly I couldn’t play on. We decided that it had probably been scratched when
Carolyn threw sand in my face. She felt bad about it, but we agreed that it had been
nobody’s fault really. We had both been fooling about, and she certainly hadn’t
meant to scratch my eye.In my absence, they managed to draw
3-3, arguably our best result yet. After a classic joke on the way home (we saw a zebra
crossing – indeed, two zebras crossed the road in front of us, the less common
Grevy’s zebras at that), we were entertained by Tim’s Pavarotti impression,
emanating from the shower. |
| After dinner, I lead a discussion on debt, poverty and development
issues. After a brief history of the world, the following forms of action were suggested: |
| Give money (e.g. to Tearfund), write letters, join a transform
team, pray, buy fair trade goods, tell others, evangelise (the more Christians there are
the better), be aware of the issues, don’t bury your head in the sand, get involved,
listen to God, don’t be overwhelmed – small is important, be prepared to stay in
secular work. (See quotes from "Rich Christians in an age
of Hunger".) |
| The need for appropriate aid and training had come across strongly
during our stay in Kenya. We had heard a lot of stories of projects that had gone wrong,
and aid money that had been wasted. We also spoke about the need for well co-ordinated
action, for Christians in positions of authority, and for pressure to be brought to bear
on governments and other organisations, such as the G8. |
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