This past week, one of the pastors from my church, Dustin Rudolph, and I made a trip to train pastors in Kenya.

The pastors are from the Kamba tribe, and we worked with two separate networks, one in Matiliku and one in Kivani. We enjoyed a delightful time with our hosts who opened up their guesthouse to us and mama cooked wonderful meals with fruits (it is mango season) and vegetables from their shamba (garden).

After flying for two days, my friend Kioko Mwangangi picked us up from the airport at local time 10pm. We then began the long drive to Matiliku. By 1AM Kioko was quite tired, so asked me to drive. For the next two hours I navigated windy, bumpy dirt roads on virtually no sleep trying to get us to our destination, telling myself a hundred times, “Keep left.” Being a former British colony, they drive on the left side of the road. That was not the only driving adventure, cause a few days later I drove our host’s old manual transmission Toyota to our training location 90 minutes away. Fun times!

We had a great time with 16 pastors in each location, walking them through Pathways principles in Genesis in one location, and in 2 Timothy in the other location.

Dustin and I each preached in different churches on Sunday, and my church was two hours away on a packed bus as I flew through the air in the backseat every time we hit a bump. It was likely the first time a white person had ever stepped into that church.

On our return trip to the airport, we were surprised to see large herds of zebras and even a giraffe roaming the hillsides next to our road. A couple times during our stay I took an hour long run up into the hills near our guesthouse on windy dirt roads and was joined by crowds of kids and young people running next to me, laughing and yelling, “Mzungu!” (White guy!)

As always, it is a tremendous joy and privilege to work with my African brothers and sisters. May God use the training to further the Gospel and build His church throughout the world.