Of Good and Evil.....

Tommy and Margie leaving for Bible study

Greetings to our friends on the other side of the "pond".  Well the great chicken slaughter is over for awhile again!  On Monday we were initiated into this experience.  We processed around 216 chickens from 6:00 - 9:00 a.m.!  Wow, what a bloody smelly mess!  Thank God for experienced hands to work with. After we were finished we enjoyed a great breakfast made by Barbara Jean. On Tuesday evening we tasted some of the fruits of our labors at Marlin Stoltzfus'.  The grilled chicken and mashed potatoes were wonderful! We survived another week of language ( 6 days) and we have 5 more days to go!!!!  No its actually not that bad... we enjoy Rosemary and we learn many cultural things from her as well so its definitely not time wasted.  We plan to go out to her house on Tues. and she plans to cook for us.  I want to make ugali and sukuma (sp.?) soon.  Maybe I will get to help her so I can learn from her.  We compound ladies enjoyed watching Josephine (our first language teacher) make ugali on the stovetop in Jake's house on Friday.  She doesn't measure ingredients... she says their eyes tell them when its the right amount of cornmeal.  We ate it with our fingers then and it was very edible!! :)  Rosemary has been telling us stories about the huge snakes they have seen at her house recently.  I think the one was a puff adder and the other two were huge pythons.  One eve. William was on his way to the cho in the dark and he saw a huge snake.  He killed it and then they burned it. The other day Rosemary's children were out by the well when they started screaming because there were two huge pythons playing with each other there.  Rosemary is terrified of snakes and just screams and screams when she sees them.  William wasn't home and even the big boys that were around there were too scared to kill them.  They watched them play for about a half hour and then they built fires to kind of trap the snakes because they had gone into tall grass or the hedge.  The one snake came out cause of the fire and the boys killed that one, but the other one was no where to be seen.  They finally gave up and Rosemary was pouring water from a jug onto the fire when suddenly the other python charged the bottom of the jug she was holding!  Rosemary was so terrified she just fell over backwards.  Her children quickly got her out of there and then the boys killed that one too.  I asked Rosemary what happens when someone gets bit by a snake since there are some extremely poisonous ones around. I was shocked when she said "you just die".   She says, "the hospitals don't have anti venom" either so there's nothing to do but trust God to protect us. (Which is what we want to do anyway.) Rosemary has already accidentally stepped on the head of a deadly snake and while she was screaming people were telling her to stay right there while they killed it.  The tail of the snake was hitting her leg while she was on the head. I guess if you need more to pray about you can include a prayer of protection from snakes. :)   Rosemary also told us about some brutal killings that have taken place in the last several weeks. We heard of at least 3 different ones.  Wayne also saw a man lying on the road who appeared to have just been hit. I don't know the story on that one... Three weeks ago a young man in the Lela area was caught by the mob and disposed of. He reportedly had abused a woman and slashed two men. Also, last week, out along the highway not too far from Rosemary's house someone found a body in a sack.  It was all cut up into pieces.  She didn't know the story on that one yet.  The people in the area did not seem to know the victim.  At the Rabour market on Wednesday, there was a man going to buy cows to pay dowry and while he was there someone shouted "thief", and the mob grabbed him.  Someone's piki piki (motorbike) had been stolen and the person who had it stolen saw this man and mistakenly thought he was the thief. They brutally killed him and gouged out his eyes. They also took off with around 35,000 shillings,  ($350 USD) that the man had on him.  So sad that the innocent one had to suffer!!  Please pray that the powers of darkness could be defeated here and the light of Jesus Christ could shine brightly.  The longer we are here the more we discover that even some church members still struggle with bowing to cultural practices over the Word of God.  Of course not all the cultural practices are wrong and evil.  Next to no one in this culture will deny that there are real evil powers that are active in the lives of people today.  Many of these people have for generations been in bondage to cultural practices that are "fear based" or used to appease the "spirits of dead ancestors".  May God give us wisdom to know what to accept in the culture and what is evil and satanic.  

  One day last week we found out about a 6 yr. old boy that comes to our church named, Sharif, who swallowed a shilling.  He was taken to the hospital because it was stuck in his throat but by the time they did the xray it had moved down into the stomach or wherever... The Dr. told him to eat plenty of bananas.  The boy seems to be doing fine... he was at church this morning but as far as his mother knows the shilling hasn't passed yet.  Wayne went to visit them one day and took this pic of the boy and a friend or brother.   

 I was so blessed again last week by friends who care and just seem to know when I'm in need of encouragement.  Barbara Jean is one of those special people.  I was having a hard day Thursday. We were taking care of Isaiah, Jason and Cynthia's 4 yr. old while they went to Uganda.  Isaiah is a very good, sweet lil guy but that morning he was really missing his family and started to cry.  I was sitting there holding him and trying to comfort him and then I just "lost it" too.  I guess I was homesick too and I was struggling so much with some of the inconveniences and things that just don't go right here.  I'm ashamed of myself... I know I shouldn't be longing for the  "leeks and garlics" but I guess I still have too much of America in my blood and its hard to forget what I used to have and enjoy.  When I think of what our Kenyan friends have compared to us I'm so ashamed of myself. But it seems I just can't make food taste right here.  The honey has a strong flavor so anything I make with that doesn't taste right.  Also the milk tastes more like a cow and so anything made with that tastes a little different too.  I just didn't think our pizza tasted right last night.  The funny thing is that when I eat other people's cooking it tastes SO good... like home.  Anyway... Barbara Jean came to my rescue Thurs. when I was really struggling and offered to make the hot dish for our meal that eve.  I was so touched by her kindness that I cried again and oh the food was so good!!  Her kindness will long be remembered!  

  We enjoyed having Tony at our house on Fri. eve.  I told him it just felt right to have him here but not with a suitcase.  Brian Wagler was here for supper that eve. as well and the next day Tony and Brian did a food drop.  It sounds like this will happen some more so we look forward to seeing Tony's once in a while.  We missed Judith and the children though!  Saturday evening Marlin's blessed us with some of their homemade raspberry ice cream!!  What a treat!! God bless ya'll with a good week!! Clara and Wayne

Bradlyn riding the gate separating our lawn from Tommys

Selfie with Sharif (on left) and a friend when I went to visit Friday.  The little guy in the middle got a huge kick out of seeing himself on the screen!

See the 10 bob shilling! (about the size of a nickel)

Brad, Logan and Christian drinking the lemon grass tea they brewed while we were having language!