Salama, and greetings from rural southern Kenya, friends. I thought for this blog entry I’d give you a brief look into life in the bush country of Africa. I have just returned from leading two Pathways networks in various areas, and all went extremely well with the groups as they soaked up our training in how to study, understand and preach God’s Word.

On Sunday I preached at about five different “services.” This was a youth gathering from a local high school:

The testimonies were very encouraging:

Pastor Dismas Kavemba – “I am so humbled to be reminded to go back to the text. In our contemporary societies, so many speakers speak powerfully but not from the Bible. We need this training. May God bless you and expand this work. Let us vow we will practice what we’ve been taught and as we do, we and the church will be changed.”

Pastor Philomena Mwanzia – “We’ve been blessed with these teachings. I’ve been discussing with other pastors how you’ve been using the Bible. It often happens that we choose a few verses and skip over others. Now we see the need to preach the entire Word.”

Pastor Ronald – “Thank you for Pathways training. We are growing step by step. It is challenging learning the Pathways steps, and yet we are making improvement. We are practicing and passing on the training so more pastors will preach the Word well.”

I was so blessed during my time in Kenya. I was invited to live with a Kenyan pastor named Onesmus, and his extended family, in their home for the time I was there.

Each day we rode on Onesmus’ motorcycle back and forth to the training, navigating dirt roads and trails sometimes with deep crevasses in them.

One time we took a “motorcycle taxi” and with three of us on the bike we were cozy. But the bike had no brakes (which we didn’t know when we climbed on) so on a steep part of the road the driver lost control and we crashed. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but it made for an interesting morning.

To watch a video of us on the motorbike, click below:

Life in rural Africa is very simple and peaceful.

When it gets dark, life slows down and people go to bed early, and also get up early. The cock starts crowing around 3AM.

A local boy goes down to the river with the donkey to get water for a morning wash, and for cooking and cleaning.

Meals are cooked on an open fire stove.

Breakfast for honored guests consists of goat liver and arrowroot, and maybe if you are lucky the gizzards too.

Onesmus and I took a couple hikes during our time together to the top of two of the largest hills in the area.

The village of Kalamba is closest to where Onesmus lives:

The nearest larger city is Machakos:

I hope you can get a bit of an idea of what life is like through these pictures. I am blessed to be able to do what I do. Thank you for your prayers and partnership.

Pressing on, Eric