Quick and wonderful safari to Ketumbeine, part 2

This mountain is Pastor's home territory and all signs pointed to his being happy to be back and people glad to have him. He has been here about 2 months, with our understanding that he had been in Engoruka and the two pastors were exchanged. After leaving the first church, we stopped at Pastor's boma and had chai. Randy got the child's version of the 3-legged stool.

Then we were off to mountain congregation 2, who are in the 5th year of building a beautiful brick church while continuing to worship in a building which is leaning seriously downhill.

ELCA missionary Doctor Steve Friberg has helped this project move along by overseeing a couple of groups who have come to TZ wanting to do a project -- mixing cement by hand for a large floor area is a project not soon forgotten. Having been on the roads to this place, it is nearly impossible to imagine how bricks and cement were moved here.

Our last stop for the morning (now about 2:30 PM) was a couple of kilometers hike from a stick, rock, mud and cow dung building where we were welcomed by a youth choir. After receiving lunch back in the main village, we left for the congregation under the acacia tree, where we also were treated to beautiful music, goat meat BBQ, with acacia thorns for toothpicks.

Bethany Friberg, our great B&B hostess, introduced us to her ladies beading group. Sharon made some selections for those who have requested and some items for the N IL Synod Women. Bethany also shared the actual receipts and accounting of the Love Auction money First Lutheran had sent last year for famine relief. We were very impressed with the great job the Friberg's did in organizing through the evangelists and local leaders to find those most in need of nourishment. At one point in our conversations, Steve said "You need to share with people that, without those funds coming for food, our family would have left the area, because we were not prepared to stay and watch children and families starve to death." This from a man who has set up dispensaries and clinics way out in the bush, where people struggle to live on a daily basis.

Saturday morning gave us the opportunity to visit one more congregation, near a very large boma, which in this case was a settlement of many individual homes within the same thorn fence. Their old church is pictured in both the middle and right photos, with Randy, Marissa, and Sharon standing on the floor (which was only footings when you were there, Jack) of the church-to-be. The evangelist shared a very nice story of "community" here, as the boma's inhabitants and neighbors are mixed in their religious beliefs, but everyone has been invited and has gathered in the old church over the years for meetings and during rainy and cold weather, so the community is now looking forward to the new church being finished.

Took Mike 6 trips to TZ to get here; Sharon remembered well by church elders from her '03 visit; and both of us very grateful to Randy and Pastor Seth Sululu for making this trip possible.

Peace and Love,

Mike & Sharon