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.