Mombasa Adventures

Taken From Kenyan Journal: Days in Mombasa

For the last week we have been in Mombassa, ministering to people through Ushindi Baptist Church, the biggest church in Kenya. It was nothing like life in Limuru. Mombassa seems, to me, to be darker and far less receptive to the gospel. There is also a very large Muslim pressence in Mombassa, and because of that we all felt much more hostility from the Kenyan people.

The media team swelled from three of us to 11, as many of the Kenyans from the church wished to join in our efforts to make a documentary. It was a huge challenge for me to find enough work for 11 people when we only have 2 video cameras and 3 photo-cameras. We spread out the cameras as much as possible - and it turned out better than I expected.

We've gotten very far in our mission to document this country. It's fantastic.I was able to interview an old Maasi man, which is a tribe that still lives in the old traditional way. That was a lot of fun and very interesting. They are cattle herders and nomads. They build their homes in little domes and cover them in cow manure. He told me how he had killed 4 lions and 1 cheetah in his lifetime, which were trying to kill his cattle.

Spiratually, things exploded when we got to Mombassa. Throughout the week, we held outreaches in the streets....literally. There were sounds systems set up in the middle of the street and we had worships services out there. Many, many came to Christ through the outreaches, the medical teams, and the evangelism teams. Also there were demons cast out of two people. I didn't personally experiance that, but several of our other team members did. Nearing the end of the week, the Muslim extremists in the city took over our outreach location and began to preach against us specifically - telling the city that they must disturb the outreaches so that the word of God could not go out into the community.

The last night there were two Muslim Death Marches through the streets. Dr Shaw explained that Death marches are when the Muslim extremeists beat drums and blow trumpets and make noise as they go through the streets to someone's house. At the house they call up the spirits of the dead and ask them to talk with Satan to give them power to face the small things of life - sickness, poverty things like that. Mirracilously, Dr Shaw's sermon landed in between the two death marches.There are so many other stories about God's fantastic work in Mombassa, too many to mention. Today we traveled 11 hours on a bus back to Limuru and Brackenhurst. It's great to be back here - especially since we emptied ourselves so much in Mombassa. I am looking foreward to what God will do in the next week.

Photos: Top is a Kenyan man who wants to be a member of CNN. Middle is a picture of the Mombasa Tusks - symbols of the slave trade history of Mombasa. Bottom is me videoing Dr Shaw, our leader, speaking to some Kenyans after the service