Come Before Winter Kenya 2007

As you can read on the blog posting before this, Ron and I were able to travel to Africa together for the first time last month. You can read more about our travels to Uganda, Mozambique and Swaziland below. But I will say that we were so blessed to be in Mbale, Uganda and be able to spend time with Phillip and Laura Shero along with Malachi, almost 7, Israel, a very bright 4-year old and precious Annalise, the princess tomboy! What a great delight for all of us. We were doubly blessed to enjoy Laura Beth’s presence also (one of our own from RHCC).

After leaving Uganda, I finally fulfilled a promise I’d made to Pam d’Oliveira several years ago. To come visit her and Manuel in Maputo, Mozambique! Debbie and I were only able to stay 3 days but we squeezed in lots of sharing, praying, eating under the mango tree and enjoying sweet fellowship!


And what fun to drive together to Swaziland and see the Tree of Life Project with 15,000 macadamia trees! We were also blessed to renew friendship with Kurt and Wendy Platt and meet Beverly Dankers and the Carters who serve with Manzini Bible School.


After leaving Mozambique, Debbie and I flew to Nairobi where we met half of the team and spent the night at the Country Lodge. Here is the hotel atrium in this photo.

The next day we flew on to Malindi on the coast and arrived at Turtle Bay Resort which was the venue for this Come Before Winter renewal. Now I know why missionaries love to work in Kenya!! What sweet, gracious people! By this time, the rest of the time had arrived and we began preparing for our week.


The coast and beach of Kenya were so beautiful! We were anxious to get up each morning and see the sun rise over the Indian Ocean! What a beautiful setting to praise God for His creation.

On Monday, March 19, the women began to arrive! All 59 of them! This was the largest renewal so far and quite a challenge to plan and carry out. But what joy to greet these women who are serving God in very difficult places.

This was quite a different renewal for me as my main assignment was as Gifts Coordinator and assistant administrator. CBW lavishes gifts on all the women who attend and so each morning and evening they are given gifts of CDs, bracelets, pens, bookmarks, lotion, etc. This was such a fun job as each woman was continually surprised and amazed by the gifts. I also had other tasks throughout the week, taking care of details and making announcements each morning.

As the women arrive, they are assigned to a prayer cluster that meets each night. I was honored to spend quality time with four amazing women who are serving in Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda. We laughed and cried and spent time in study and prayer. What a blessing to get to know Kathy Ham, Becca Ramsey, Beth Tunick and Martha Smith.

The last evening after dinner, we had a Texas party! We actually brought cowboy hats and bandanas for each woman. And of course, we had to play some Texas music like ‘Cotton Eyed Joe.’ Then came ‘the chicken dance’ – that brought so much laughter as we all got in on the action! Someone outside the room heard that there were missionaries in that room and was amazed that we were having so much fun.

Friday morning was a time to pray and bless each participant. I was able to pray over the women of my prayer cluster. Afterwards, they put us in a circle and said thank you to us in 15 different languages. And then they gave US gifts! After that, it was time to say farewell to our special friends that we had come to know and love. And then it was just the CBW team again. We had a day of rest and recuperation and then a lovely dinner on our last night at Turtle Bay. Then came a time to process exactly what happened during the week. It is always a learning time as we look back at the week – what went well, what went great and what went perfect!!

I really love the women that went to Kenya. Of course, I had the best roomie ever! Debbie Jenks is such a amazing woman, full of the Spirit and in love with the Lord and His Word. She challenges me through her habit of prayer and time in the Word. Plus, she’s fun to be around! We laughed so much – especially about the crabs that wanted to come in our room each night.

It was so good to be with Laura Reppart, Becky Van Rheenan, Peggy Nelson and Donna Wilbanks, all first-timers from RHCC! We definitely had the TIA experience (this is Africa).

Well, that’s about all for now. Oh, one interesting note. We flew out of the Nairobi airport on March 25. We were amazed to hear Christian music and preaching over the intercom while there. Could not believe Randy Travis singing one of his Christian songs in Kenya!

We arrived home safely Monday, March 26. Debbie and I had a few days to recuperate before our husbands returned on Wednewday, the 28th. It was good to be back together again. As Ron always says ‘it’s better when we’re together’ (a Jack Johnson favorite of ours!) We praise God for taking us on this journey, keeping us safe from harm and blessing us tremendously!

African Saga 2007

Marilyn had been to Africa a couple of times. I had been numerous times. But, we’d never been together. The Lord provided occasion for us to both be there, again, so we set it up so that we could be together for at least part of the trip.

My recent shift to a new position at RHCC brought about the need for me to take Duane Jenks, the minister who is assuming my old responsibilities as Minister of Missions, on a visit the our African works. He had never been to Africa. Marilyn’s fifth time as a team member in a Come Before Winter project was taking her to Kenya. One of her teammates was Debbie Jenks, Duane’s wife. So, the four of us traveled together for the first half of the three week saga. We were accompanied by Don Box, a dear friend and an elder at RHCC. When the guys and gals parted company, Don went with the guys.

We all started in Uganda. We left the US on March 5 stopping in Chicago and London before arriving in Entebbe, Uganda. In London we took advantage of Don’s membership in American Airlines’ Admirals Club to help us cope comfortably with our twelve hour layover. The trip to Africa causes your body to enter somewhat of a twilight zone. It becomes day when it should be night and night when it should be day. You can’t sleep when you should and your body demands sleep when it can’t be had. By the time you arrive at your destination your body is time-zoned out (pun intended, of course).

Arrival in Entebbe was not, however, synonymous with arrival at our destination. We still had a five hour van ride to make to get to Mbale and the Shero’s house. With stops along the way in Kampala and Jinja we managed to make the van trip last eight hours - hours during which we all did our impersonations of head-bobbing dolls.

It was a sweet reunion with the Sheros. They had wisely opted to hire a driver to fetch us at the airport. Thus, they could prepare for our arrival at home and leave plenty of seats for us and our stuff in the van. So we first hugged them when we arrived at their house in Mbale. We stashed our mountains of stuff in the rooms of their house and immediately began eating and talking - activities which would prove to be our default activities for the precious days of our stay.

In the days that followed we toured the Messiah Theological Institute facilities. We toured the town church, Mbale Church of Christ, facilities. We toured the construction sites for the new Good News Production International production center and the Conference Center. We were given a tour of the school for the missionary kids. We attended the whole team weekly devo and, separately, the men’s and women’s prayer breakfasts. We were brought up to speed on the current status of the university project. We learned that to university will be named Messiah International University.

One of the blessings of the time there was to have Laura Beth Chapman on hand at most of our meals and activities. LB is from RHCC and is currently helping the team as their resident graphic artist. We saw her work place and home and met her house mates. We got to see some of what she has done to upgrade the MTI publications. She is also beginning to work on the branding for the university.

Outside the city we visited the breathtakingly beautiful Sisiji Falls. We concluded our stay in Uganda on Sunday March 11 by worshipping with a rural church and witnessing the baptism of 18 souls. Then we drove to Entebbe. Our flight to Mozambique left early Monday morning. All of the Sheros accompanied us to Entebbe. We had to say our “farewells” to LB in Mbale.

We five were met by Manuel and Pam deOliveira as we disembarked for our South African Airlines flight in Maputo, Mozambique. Manuel and Pam live in a missionary compound on the outskirts of the city. They have lived there for about seven years. The compound has several structures, including five missionary houses. However, there are currently only two missionaries families living there. All of the structures are of simple cinder block construction and tile roofs. Just outside the back door of their home the deOliveiras have a huge mango tree under which they have a small patio. Because of the heat inside the house and the beauty of the setting, this was the place we took most of our meals.

The core of Manuel’s work is providing Bible and leadership training for Mozambican church leaders. Since the trade language of Mozambique is Portuguese and Duane Jenks is a former missionary to Brazil (also Portuguese speaking), Duane came prepared to teach in the students for three days. This was great indoctrination into Africa for him. It was also a time when he learned what it means to sweat.

Marilyn and Debbie’s time in Mozambique was two days shorter then the guys - they had to get up to Kenya to get the women’s renewal set up. Before they left, though, we took a day and drove down to Swaziland to visit the campus of Manzini Bible School and see the progress of the Tree Of Life project. The property of the school was planted with thousands of Macadamia nut trees about eight years ago. Marilyn even planted one of the tress in her visit there. Now, they have just had their first harvest from them and are expecting the second soon. It was remarkable to see how things have changed.

After the gals left for Kenya, we had our “official meeting” with the deOliveiras and were able to speak of many important things having to do with their ministry and their future. We made it a practice at each stop to have such a meeting. We had already had such meetings with the Sheros and with Laura Beth.

One evening we were interrupted in our relaxation on the Mango Patio by the youth chorus who came by to sing to us for about an hour. What a blessing!

The guys flew out of Mozambique on Saturday, March 17. Our destination was Durban, South Africa. We had to stop through Johannesburg enroute. From this point forward I will be blogging the guy’s portion of the saga. Marilyn will have to provide the gal’s portion.

Little did we know that leaving Mozambique meant we had left the easy part of the trip behind. Sam Pakade and Johnson Ngoyo, the two evangelists we were going to visit in South Africa, had much work for us to do. We arrived on Saturday afternoon. Sam and Johnson took us to our hotel and left us there. They told us to get settled in and rest for the evening. They would pick us up in the morning. Actually, upon inquiry, we learned that Johnson would return to his home in Kokstad and Sam would fetch us in the morning. They told us that we would preach in the Westville Prison.

Sunday morning we preached in the prison - “Medium B” was the cell block name. Sam’s sweet wife Agnes prepared lunch for us. Then, sunday evening I was given the opportunity to preach at the Pinetown church - a congregation of white South Africans.

Monday Sam took us to “Medium C” and we preached, again. Then, Monday evening we preached to a gathering of Christians at Sam’s house. There were about 60 folks there and the preaching was followed by a lively question and answer period. We finished about 11:00p.

Early Tuesday morning Sam gathered us from the hotel and we left for Kokstad to see Johnson. As we arrived and got checked into a Kokstad hotel, we left to preach to a gathering of Christians in the evening. We preached two sermons each.

Wednesday morning we went to the women’s prison and preached. In the afternoon we attended a gathering of church leaders and gave lessons of giving and unity. That evening we traveled out of town to a tent meeting. there we preached again and then we listened to Sam preach. Before we left, Johnson preached.

Thursday morning was the time we had set aside to have our official meeting with Sam and Johnson. That meeting went very well. They are both great men of God who walk by faith and do His will. We prayed over them and asked God to give them many more years of service.

After the meeting is was back to Durban for one more night at our hotel. We had an early flight to Jo’burg and on to Livingstone, Zambia the next morning.

Jacob Sianungu didn’t have quite as much preaching for us to do, but we were kept busy either working of waiting for Jacob to to arrive to take us to work. We toured the orphan facility Jacob is using to take in orphans - often orphaned because of AIDS. We also got to meet some of the orphans who have grown up in Jacob’s care and are now becoming church leaders and responsible citizens. It was a blessed visit to Zambia.


On the last day in Africa Jacob took us to the border of Zimbabwe - on the Zambia side - where we were able to see Victoria Falls. It is the Zambezi River that flows over the falls. The river was very high because of the rainy season and so the falls were magnificent. We were totally drenched in the “mist” of the falls. It was like standing in torrential downpour. We were greatly moved by God’s handiwork.

Our flight home began on Tuesday. We went to Jo’burg then Dakar then Washington DC then DFW. It all totaled about 21 hours of flight time. Our wives had arrived home a little more than 30 hours ahead of us and were at the airport to welcome us. God had seen us through and given us great blessings.