Toasty Tuesday

Tuesday wasn't really toasty, I just like alliteration.

I'm here in London Net-ville. So it's time for more Travel Writing from Tom's Kenyan Extravaganza.

Tuesday started with breakfast in the Hotel dining room watching American Hi-5 which is exactly the same as Australian Hi-5 except for the accents. A little weird.

Breakfast was the usual "English" thing, a tiny little sausage, cold toast and a fried egg the size of Tasmainia. They're always tough.

Once breakfast was over Howie and I went back to our room for a lie down. Knowing that the conference wasn't due to start for another 5 minutes just out of town, we got a good hour's sleep in.

When we arrived back at Tipte Peter set up the sound system and the youth conference. The way you start a meeting in Kenya is you start singing and people come and start to join in. I guess it the Kenyan way of saying "We're here now, you can all come out of your huts".

The Youth Conference was Howie's first chance to preach. He talked about Holiness. He did pretty good for a first go. It always hard to see how people are reacting. But I thought he did alright.

After some more singing, it was lunch time. This time the Pastor told everyone not to go home because lunch was going to be provided. It turns out that this was paid for by Howie and I. I think that was probably one of the best things we did with the money. It warmed my heart to see 50 or so kids who may not always know when they're next going to eat getting a free meal. I wanted to go eat with them but we were ushered into the VIP hut and fed beef and rice. It tasted pretty good but I would have rathered been with the kids.

We came back after lunch for the crusade. This means an evangelistic talk outside. If you do it inside it's a revival. When we arrived they were singing which was followed by the youth pastor of the Church leading an offering. He pretty much got up and said "If you want to be rich like the Muzungus you should give money. They're rich because they give." I kinda wanted to stand up and say "If you want to be rich like the Muzungus you should get born in Sydney." If figure they give like the Widow gave, I give like the rich give.

When the offering came around I wasn't really sure what to do. I couldn't not give, but I didn't want to give because I didn't want to validate what the Youth Pastor was saying. Then when everyone was putting in coins, I only wanted to put in coins, but I only had small coins. I didn't want to be seen putting in rich muzungu notes. Gosh it's complex. I ended up giving a note worth $4. It's not much really.

I preached on The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. I don't know how much people liked it. I didn't get any hand wavings or "Amens". I learnt that if your audience seems dead you just have to say "But Jesus has the victory" or "God has a plan for your life" and you'll get an "Amen" and a hand wave or two.

We had one guy come forward to become a Christian and I got to pray for him. He was made to pray the sinners prayer with me in the microphone, which was a little odd. Still It was good to pray with just one person. Somehow praying with just one was more special than with 30 because you were sure this guy had come forward because he chose to, not because everyone else had.

After the crusade Howie and I spent a while playing with the kids. They were lots of fun. I don't think adults play with children much in Kenya, so we got the privilege. We tried to think of as many games we could play where you didn't need any language. We found a few. My favourite bit was getting them all to wave their arms and say "Hey-Ho!" I felt like a hip-hop star. It's not often a white man gets lead a bunch of black kids in language of street. Ya-dig-it, dawg?

The revival that night was much like the first one but Howie preached. He did really well with this one. He had picked up heaps since the afternoon. It's like he found a groove. During the ministry time Albert called for people who come forward who needed prayer for being single. "It's a curse" he said "and it needs to be broken!" While I was tempted to bound down the front and get the demon of singleness cast out of me, I managed to hold back. I went and prayed with people but didn't manage to get around to casting the singleness out. In the end I just prayed that God would do whatever he he wanted to do in their life.

Some one's mobile just went off here really loud. Their ringtone was Avril's "Girlfriend". How embarrassing. If that happened to me I'd just ignore it and pretend it wasn't my phone.

We went back to our hotel again, rather exhausted. Sleep was welcomed. I think the mozzies were happy with the job they'd done on my the night before because they left me alone.