The flight to Nairobi went well. I spent the first 45 minutes drying my sweat-drenched shirt by using the air vent on the ceiling above my seat. Thankfully I had a polar fleece that I could wear in the meantime. Matt was able to take a nap to help fight off jet lag for his 10 hour time zone change and 20 or so hours of travel. Rick was making new acquaintances in his usual gregarious manner. I spent several hours editing Scott Gilchrist's teaching on Ephesians that I had recorded while directing the extension studies at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Prague. I need to edit out the Czech language translation so that we can give just the English teaching of Ephesians to be translated into different African languages.
The "Welcome to Africa" moment came after we had arrived and gathered our luggage - well, their luggage as mine would come on a later flight. Ken Onywoki, national director of Romans Project in Kenya, called Rick to alert us that he had blown out his back tire on his vehicle. Rick turned to Matt and me to alert us of the situation and said, "Guys, this is the sort of thing that always happens in Africa." Rick just took it in stride as another opportunity to trust God.
It was great to see Ken. He greeted us with a huge, beaming smile. What a joy to see this brother who works so tirelessly for the advance of the Gospel of God and the training of pastors through the Romans Project. He showed us the tire as we were loading the luggage into the back of his well-worn Toyota Prado. I had never seen a tire with such a hole in it - the entire sidewall was slit wide open.
As we made our way through Nairobi late at night, Ken briefed us on the preparations that have been underway for the conference in western Kenya on Saturday. He saw the tire blow out as one more indication that the enemy is working overtime to thwart our efforts and dampen our joy in the work of training pastors. But we are resolved to look at this as one more opportunity to trust the Lord in this great work in Kenya. 1500 pastors are gathering Saturday in Kimilili for this Romans Project day-long conference.
Please pray that God would mightily work through this conference and encourage the pastors to be reading God's Word, writing out God's Word, studying God's Word, living by God's Word, and preaching God's Word to God's people throughout western Kenya.
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