A Week in Gatab

I had meant to write this post two weekends ago, but then, as is usually the case, other things came up. Here’s a week….

Sunday: Having breakfast and relaxing early, before church (Sunday school at 10, church from 11 to 1230) Joel, one of the nurses at the hospital comes to the door. “There was a policeman stabbed in a fight last night, we need you to take him to either Nairobi or Wamba.” About a half hour later the police have settled on Wamba, so I take Joel, the wounded policeman, his wife, and another police officer to Wamba. Susan stayed home from church to provide flight following on the radio, since there’s no one at AIM Air Sunday morning. We get the policeman handed over to the hospital (it’s a Catholic mission hospital, and a very good one) and walk into town with the other officer while he makes his report. On the way back to Gatab I’m loaded with luggage from Njelly and Potris, two nurses from Gatab who are doing upgrade training at Wamba. Their course is about done (exams in September).

Monday: No flying today, but I spend the day working on the airfield fence, and on our car. We’re building an ano fence around the airfield to try and keep cattle, goats, and people off. The huts and gardens are getting closer and closer to the airfield and more and more animals are on the airstrip and it’s starting to get dangerous. Ano is a plant commonly used for fencing here…you dig a ditch about a foot deep and plant cuttings, and it takes off. The car: we had an electrical fire in it a while back: the radio put in by the dealer we bought it from wasn’t properly mounted, just braced up with a couple plastic bags. It chafed some wires and caused an electric fire. I got most of it fixed, but the heat/defog wasn’t working and the warning light that the spare wheel is open is always on. I’ve gotten the heat fixed, now for the warning light. Meanwhile Susan and the kids are doing school: the second full week of homeschool. So far so good. Susan is also dealing with a steady stream of ladies coming to the door: Nangopa, who works in the garden for us, Ntepesan, who works around the house 3 afternoons, and others who come wanting to sell bead necklaces or are asking for work. I didn't have a picture of Alex helping with the car repair (which he did), so I grabbed this one of him helping with loading empty fuel drums in the airplane a while back. That's Peter, my airfield worker in the middle, and Steve Hoekstra on the right, he and his wife came to visit us back in April for a few days to get a break from Nairobi.

Tuesday: Flying again. The hospital is doing HIV/AIDS training for people from the local villages, so I fly to Nolpilipili, Olturot, Ngororoi, and Loiyangalani to pick up three to five people from each place and bring them back to Gatab for the training. So four separate runs that day. I’m busy all day flying since at each place I end up waiting around an hour for the people to get their things together and get to the airplane. When I get back I have to take an hour or so and lay the string marking the next section of ditch for the airfield fence. Susan and Alex and Beth and Samantha are all doing school, of course, and of course there’s a steady stream of people to the door. Later in the day (around dinner time actually), we start getting phone calls and emails about changing the scheduled flight. I’m supposed to go to Nairobi on Thursday, but...

Wednesday: Off to Nairobi. Monday night the (grown) nephew of the missionary family in Kalacha (42 miles north east of Gatab) died unexpectedly due to a heart infection leading to a stroke. The family was looking at driving down, but we moved the scheduled flight to Nairobi up a day so they could make it to Nairobi easily and cheaply and in time for the memorial service at Kijabe (just outside of Nairobi). So Gatab to Kalacha, load 5 people up and head for Nairobi. Wednesday evening is station prayers, which Susan and the kids went to at the Heidorns (the other missionary family here at Gatab).

Thursday: Since we have a whole day, it’s aircraft inspection time. The certificate of airworthiness for my airplane is up for renewal so we do the test flight, the compass calibration, the altimeter calibration and radio inspection. God even arranged for the KCAA to do their inspection….they didn’t have time today, originally, but the airplane in the hangar next to ours wasn’t quite ready for them so they came and did mine. A couple minor issues (put slip marks on the wheels, and put tire pressure labels…) and off we go. The paperwork is submitted two weeks early so there should be no delays in getting the renewal. Back in Gatab, meanwhile, Susan and the kids are at homeschool again, and Susan is dealing with the usual stream of visitors asking for work or help or to sell something. Thursday I also get some grocery shopping done.

Friday: Originally I’m supposed to take a family of four (mom, dad and two small kids) from Nairobi to Gatab, and two adults from Nairobi to Loiyangalani, stopping at Eldoret on the way to pick up another lady to take to Kurungu. And if there’s room stopping in Maralal to drop some tools off to the missionary there. Whoo! No way all those people will fit in the airplane. God makes arrangements though: The family of four cancels, and the lady in Eldoret cancels too, as she is ill. So I just take the Russels to Loiyangalani, and about 450 pounds of freight up to Gatab (building materials and tools for the Heidorns and about 100 pounds of groceries for us). And we make the stop in Maralal to drop the tools off. In Gatab it’s home school again. Beth is getting lessons in bead work from Ntepesan as part of her home school as part of arts and crafts. We’ve also started taking pictures of the Haven Home (children’s boarding home) staff for health insurance ID cards…along with family portraits. Susan has gotten stuck with these since I’m off in Nairobi. That's the Leparsantys there to the right.

Saturday: The HIV/AIDS training is over so I have runs back to all the villages to take the people back. The people and all their groceries! All of them have taken advantage of the fact that the gardens here in Gatab have extra and have bought produce, and most have also visited the dukas (kiosks) and bought rice, sugar, and flour. All four takeoffs from Gatab are at max weight for Gatab. Susan and the kids are NOT doing homeschool today, it being Saturday. Instead, Alex is bagging grass to build an archery target, and Beth and Samantha are puttering around the house. Susan is in the garden talking with the workers. We’ve had issues with baboons raiding the garden for the last two weeks. Baboons are NOT cute. They are vicious and destructive. The workers throw rocks at them to drive them off, and the baboons pick up the ones that miss and throw them back! Samantha has not been allowed in the garden without an adult for about a week and half now. We’re probably going to have to get someone with a gun to shoot several of them, which will drive off the rest. More pictures, too, of Haven Home families.

Sunday: Flying again. A group of four came in on Saturday (flew into the lower airstrip at Gatab) and I’m flying them to Ngororoi so they can hike up to Mt Kulal’s caldera and from there back into Gatab. One used to live here on the mountain as a boy and is friends with Pastor Job. I’m flying the men so that Job doesn’t have to drive them, and can be at church. I get back in time for church. After church the kids and I get ready to go camping up in the forest on the mountain. However, a group of tourists has driven in, one of them with a break down. I spend about 2 hours helping get the land rover repaired. Then Alex, Beth, Samantha and I hike up into the forest and camp. A quiet night, which all four of us enjoyed immensely. Susan and Hunter (our dog) stayed home and also had a quiet night.

So, there’s a week! Fairly typical in a lot of ways. Just living here takes longer and takes more effort than back home. It’s harder to get things done, and as missionaries we’re always getting interrupted and asked for help with this or that, as well as trying to live out our faith in Christ in a way that honors Him, and allows us to credibly present the gospel. It’s a balance that takes some effort, and LOTS of wisdom.

Praises:
Wycliffe’s wife and son are in school and enjoying it immensely. This is a chance for this family to work their way out of poverty. Wycliffe works for us in Nairobi, you remember from our last letter. That's them in the picture.
More than a year of safe flying.
Transition to home school has gone well.
Finances: Thank you for your generous support!

Prayer requests:
Safety in flying, and in travel.
Wisdom in working with the people in Gatab
Home school continues to go well

Rain

Rain! It rained last night and this morning! It’s the first rain we’ve had since the middle of April. Everything has been turning brown…either from drying out or from being covered with dust. It’s really green this morning just from the dust being washed off all the bushes and trees.

Spiritually Gatab is a dry and dusty place also. This is rather harder to define than lack of rain and brown grass, but is no less true. It’s also harder to define due to differences in culture through which we view what goes on here. For instance, a day does not go by in which we are not asked for money. Understandable, given that compared to most of the people here we have lots, no LOTS of money. But it changes us from being missionaries, bringing God’s word, into a savings and loan. And into the bargain, looked at from within the culture, plenty of the people here are well off. The wealthiest man on the mountain owns around 5000 head of cattle, at an average worth of around $400 each. While he is doing better than everyone else, he is by no means the only one with more than 1000 cattle. It is hard to discern where the real need is (and there is plenty of real need) and where it’s just a case of what can we get from the missionary.

Another struggle is the damage that ongoing relief programs (US AID, World Food Program, etc.) have done. Relief has changed from relief to welfare. The day the relief food truck comes the people who are supposed to be working for us don’t show up, or take off early, and still expect to be paid for the entire day. Plus it’s created a dependency. One lady asked Susan for money about a week before the truck came and things were running short (flour, rice, etc.) We have sukuma wiki (greens, primarily kale and collards, but there’s a local version too. A staple of the local diet) coming out of our ears in the garden. Susan had decided when one of the ladies asked her for money for food she’d offer sukuma. “Oh, I have that in my shamba (garden),” she was told. “Really? What else do you have?” “Tomatoes and beans and bananas.” The people have become dependent on the relief food for things that they can’t grow here, and don’t want to sell animals to buy.

There is also mirah (a local plant, chewed as a mild narcotic). And multiple wives, and…

But there is also rain. Daniel Lemadada is one of two Samburu pastors in Kenya (Job, the pastor here at Gatab is the other). He is working on getting a church going at Ngororoi. The picture is he and his wife Susan the day I dropped them at Ngororoi to live. Ngororoi is about 8 miles from Gatab, about a 10 minute flight including taxi, takeoff and landing, and about 3 hours by road. The other picture is from yesterday’s clinic flight, unloading the airplane with some supplies for Daniel and his family. Despite difficulties, despite a tiny church body, despite the people driving animals right past his house and raising huge clouds of dust, Daniel is there ministering, proclaiming the gospel, and making disciples for Jesus Christ.

Peter is one of the workers at the airfield. Mornings he works on the fence (the picture shows Lemyamyam and Paulin) I’m having put in around the airfield to keep livestock and children out, and afternoons he patrols the airfield to run off livestock and helps with the airplane as I come and go. We have another man who works mornings on the airfield chasing off cows and helping dispatch the plane. Peter is faithful, and cheerful. He’s always there, always willing to work, always at morning devotions. He helps Swahili (and laughs at my mangling the language). He loves his family and works hard to take care of his wife and child.

God sends the rain.