BITTERSWEET DAYS!

It has been pretty busy since I last wrote. We have been back to Monduli Juu, to a small church in the mountains at the edge of the Munduli Forest, where we enjoyed the singing and fellowship as well as the scriptures that were used in the message. There were sometimes two interpreters because we speak English and some speak Swahili and some Maasai. I don't think that there is a more colorful group of people on the face of the earth and the mountains are beautiful. We also had the opportunity to visit in the homes of two evangelists from our village. It blesses us so much when people who have very little share all they have with us and treat us as family. Maliaki, one of the evangelists at the Oloirien Lutheran church is bringing his family for lunch at our house this Saturday. Pat finally got her new tooth and we have been able to visit Stanley's (Here's Life Director) family three times since he has been in the US. We also made a quick visit to the boarding school where a young Maasai friend of ours is getting ready for exams next week.

The bitter part of the last few weeks, in addition to the usual attacks from the enemy, took place very close to our home last week. A little boy was killed by a mini-bus that went out of control and ran over him in his yard. He was an only child and an only grandchild. It was hard on our whole neighborhood. We went to the home, along with a few hundred other neighbors, for the funeral and then walked about a mile to the burial site. The line of people was probably a half mile long, all walking to the grave site. We plan to go back to the home tomorrow to offer them the love of Christ the best we can.

Our Thanksgiving meal today consisted of Ugali, meat (with sauce made with onion, tomato and bell pepper) and fresh avocado. Sara prepared the lunch and shared it with us and two young friends from our neighborhood.

This Sunday we will go to church with Stanley's family at St. Paul's and be blessed once more by the praise, worship, and fellowship. We may have the opportunity to return to the area of the June medical mission this next week, for a few of days. We will probably be staying in tents so keep us in your prayers. It will just be about three days without a bath, so the blessings will far outweigh the difficulties.

Please keep Stanley Hotay in your prayers. He will be in the US until the middle of December. He has already been a blessing to many churches and individuals. I just had to add to this because one of our last blessings of the day was a phone call from Stanley. It was great to hear his voice from America telling me how good I looked, Ha!