Today the 19 June we were supposed to get the three missionaries to the bus by 7:45 am. We told them to be here at the church house at 7:30. At 7:30 only Boniface from Busia had shown up. Sister Jorgensen made several calls and found that Peter was already at the bus station waiting. Boniface from Kisumu was no where to be found. The bus was supposed to leave at 8:15 so we took Boniface from Busia and his escorts and our other two missionaries who will be leaving in July and went. We got there and no Peter or Boniface. I found Peter in getting his phone fitted for some new minutes and told him to get out to the bus. I frantically drove back to the church to see if Boniface had showed up there. He hadn't! Back to the bus depot I went and found that he had arrived in a car with his father. We all heaved a sigh of relief. I had barely gotten out of the truck when the bus driver started the engine and started to leave. He was immediately flagged down because the luggage bin was still open. A few minutes later we all waved Goodby as the bus pulled out. Tomorrow on 20 June we will lose four of our missionaries who are being transferred out, Elders Law and Taysom are going to Kitale and Sister Wakubeya who is going to Nairobi. Elder Mxumalo is being transferred from Busia to Mombasa. That is from the extreme western edge of the mission to the extreme eastern edge of the mission. We heard that Sister Ndahalele is being transferred from Eldoret and her "baby", Sister Moyo is coming here. For those of you who are not familiar with the term ab "baby" is a brand new missionary that an existing missionary is to train. Sister Ndahalele trained two at once.
We had two funerals in one week. Sister Beatrice from the Kisumu branch lost her daughter a couple weeks after she had lost her brother. The daughter had been really close to her uncle and asked her mother if she was going to die too. Beatrice's brother had terminal cancer and her daughter had sickle cell anemia.
The other funeral was for Sister Ericah's son who had come down with cerebral malaria. Monday morning he was in a great deal of pain and told her that he was dying. She went to town to get medicine for him and when she got home that evening he was gone somewhere. He was somewhere in his twenties but would not go out after dark. She called all of the relatives around the farm and no one had seen him. The next morning she left for Sabatia a few kilometers from her farm and checked in the clinic to see if he was there. When she didn't find him she went to the police station to report him missing. They didn't take her too seriously but a PikiPiki driver asked her about where she was going. She told him that her son was missing. He asked her what did he look like. She described him and was told someone had seen a man fitting that description go into the river. The hole where he went in is forty five feet or so deep. Some people agreed to retrieve the body for 3000 shillings but another young man said he would get it for free. Wednesday evening he dove down and after a couple of attempts got the body. He was buried Thursday morning with no services. By Tradition he would have been buried after dark on the day he was recovered and no services would be held. No one can be sure if it was an accident or suicide so we will go with the idea that it was an accident.
It is nearly July and the long rainy season is coming to an end. Now it only rains a few times per week instead of everyday. The mangoes are ripening and mango pickers from the branch and from around the compound come and want me to open the gates and let them pick mangoes. The trees are tall and loaded. The way that they pick them is with a very long stick and knock them down or try throwing sticks and rocks at them to knock them down or climb up into the tree and try to reach them or knock them down. I have been surprised that no one has fallen out of a tree yet.
We parked instead and just slogged in through the mud. I did wash off from our shoes and clothes.
We love to read your blog and marvel at the great work you are doing there. Thanks for sharing and inspiring us.
ReplyDeleteElder and Sister Lindsay