Bwanabob

8/14/2001

Dear Friends,

We’re safely back in Turkana and I must say it’s good to be home, except for a minor problem with electricity. The road into Turkana wasn’t too bad, they work on different sections from time to time and this month the worst section was really improved. Imagine a once paved road so full of potholes that you prefer driving on the shoulder, which is also full of holes. The improvement is this, a grader comes along and pushes dirt and gravel from the shoulder onto the once paved road surface thus making the original road better and the shoulder a nice smooth gravel lane. It still took us 8 hours to cover 240 miles.

Last week a “Disconnection Crew” from the electric company came into town. Since I was down country I hadn’t paid my bill for last month, $15. I usually pay in advance and usually always have a credit carried forward, but last month, not so. Anyway the “Disconnection Crew” came by and removed the meter, disconnecting the electricity. One of our pastors tried to reason with the crew and even my guard told them that as soon as I got back to town I’d pay, but they wouldn’t hear of it. So, most everything in our fridge was ruined when we got back on Monday. If you ever wonder why they call countries like Kenya “Third World” well this is a great example, because it’s definitely not like the world should be. Anyway, some of the stuff was in vacuum sealed packages so we think its still good. I’ve just told Ericka to cook the stuff really well. In all I was very pleased at how hard Pastor Gitau tried to help out. He got together enough money to pay the electric bill for us! That really blessed me. Another blessing for us was our worker Esther, when she heard the electricity had been turned off she came to the house and began cleaning up the mess. By the time we got home, the fridge had been cleaned, rotten stuff thrown out, and what we could salvage laid on the table. Thank God for good friends!

Another great blessing that took me completely by surprise was when a Catholic Priest pulled up to our house at lunch time and asked if he could buy a case of Turkana Bibles from me! Whoa!! Not like any Catholic Priest I’ve ever met, that’s for sure. Anyway, I didn’t have a full case here, only about half which I offered to him, but he said he would just wait until I could get some more and then he would be glad to have a full case. The priests name is Pedro, he is from Mexico and works in an area where we already have churches to the south. Pray for us that we’ll be able to get some more Bibles SOON, and let the Light of the Gospel shine through Gods Word! We invited Pedro in, but he had to go, said the starter on his truck wasn’t working and didn’t want to shut it down. Pray for us that we would have opportunities to visit with Pedro and know if he truly knows Jesus as his Savior.

Another blessing was when we arrived home there were a couple of small packages from the States with gum and Kool Aid. You can’t imagine how nice it is to get small things like that, especially after your fridge gets turned into a road-kill locker.

I plan to have the trusses for the church in Lorogumu finished by tomorrow and hopefully we can get the roof on out there by next week sometime. We are also planning a trip to Lokichokio, the last village in Kenya on the border with Sudan. Not sure if we’ll go next week or the following. Pray that we will follow where the Lord is working. Thank you for all of your prayers, they are what help us through difficult and trying times. God has blessed us in many ways in the couple of days since we have been home. Thank you for praying for us.

In Christ,

Bob and Ericka Clark