MALABA - Day Two

Friday October 12th

These are long days for the team. As was the case in Soroti the ministry in Malaba has us leaving our accommodation in Mbale by 8:00 in the morning and we don’t get back till around nine at night. We have breakfast before we leave and then we mightn’t get lunch till around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. The crusade starts at around 5:00 and the preaching at about 6:30pm We are usually finished by 8:00.

Today we had teaching sessions at the conference in the morning. This time the conference sessions are under a marquee right behind the stage for the crusade. It is an area that is girded by shops and is a market area. It’s a great place to have the meetings. There is a natural amphitheatre feeling about it and people sit along the shop fronts as well as gather for the meetings.

Yesterday at the first meeting it was spotting rain the whole time of the crusade and the people in the worship team were pretty cold by the end of the meeting. Once again I had the opportunity to preach in the rain. I think it’s my specialty here after last year when it poured in Soroti and everyone headed for cover and I kept on preaching. I had the same interpreter this year when we were there and he reminded me that we had shared a very wet platform and he told me he was more than willing to do the same again.

The people in the crowd at Malaba were amazing. Everyone stayed and listened to the message. When it came time to invite people to come to Christ I think two thirds of the crowd came forward. The atmosphere was amazing. It just looked like there was no crowd, only those seeking to come to Christ.

Today we travelled the forty five or fifty minutes to this border town and were engaged in the same program. It seemed that there was no one coming to the conference meetings, but when the worship started up people began to gather and by the time Jaemin started teaching the place was full. Those of you who know this part of the world would know that there is a language change in this short distance. Malaba is on the border of Uganda and Kenya and they speak Swahili here like the rest of Kenya and Tanzania.

And today they arranged for us to go across the border just to say we had visited Kenya. The border crossing is filled with trucks coming from Mombasa (Kenyan sea port) and going to Kenya and to the DRC (Congo) as well as Sudan. Endless trucks. We had to get clearance for our vehicles and for those who had Aussie passports, but we entered and returned on a letter that had been signed by the Police Superintendant in Ugandan Malaba. Both towns are called Malaba, a Kenyan version and a Ugandan version.

It rained again tonight at the Crusade. It looked to be going around but then came in with a vengeance. Before the rain a larger crowd had gathered than yesterday. When our team got up to do a song, two of the girls, Janelle and Shannon had learned some things in Swahili and they spoke to each other on the stage using the mics. People were thrilled to hear white people from Australia speaking words from their language.

When the rain came everyone scattered for cover. Amazingly the people headed for cover and when the rain stopped they returned. More worship and then Jaemin preached. Once more people came to Christ and were counselled for salvation and had their details recorded.