Mary and I just got back from Ugunja, Kenya close to the Uganda border where we did a conference that was attended mostly by pastors and other leaders. The thrust of these conferences as of late has been the study of the New Man, who is Christ in us.
Col 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
Eph 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
We have been teaching on the power, the substance, and the fullness of the New Man. Especially among leaders there is a great hunger for this type of teaching.
Upon our arrival in Ugunja Pastor Elias of World Mission Church picked us up with Pastor Joseph Martin of Mumias (home of Kenya sugar cane). Not one pastor in Ugunja owns a car. Pastor Joseph drove over one hour to pick us at the bus stop.
Pastor Elias lives in a compound of African huts with straw roofs. His family members live in this compound. Some of them are born again and others are not. Ungunja is in the heart of “Luo Land,” one of the 42 tribes of Kenya. This is the tribe where Mr. Obama and his family comes from. Amongst the unsaved, there is still widespread polygamy in Luo land. The two women who prepared meals for us were the wives of Pastor Elias brother who abandoned them to live in Nairobi.
This compound has no electricity or water. Mary and I have become experts on what to carry on these remote outings to Kenya. We take two 5-gallon bottles of water, two flashlights (to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night) mosquito repellant, small mirrors to shave and put on makeup, and our bedding.
Having no electricity means having no distractions. This makes such outings significant, in that people have nothing else to do but to talk in the light of kerosene lamps. Wonderful relationships are formed in brief periods.
Pastor Martin told us that he had to rush home because his son was very ill with malaria. Jose felt led to anoint his right hand to break the malaria and the left hand to heal it and instructed him to lay his hands on the child upon arrival. That afternoon he called to tell us that by the time he got home his son was totally healed.
Mary and I bathed in a little stall that was absolutely charming. The women heated basins of hot water and with our heads and necks sticking out for the world to see we bathed. Our toilet was a hole in a little mud hut. Mary stood outside its door not only to guard me but to hold the cell phone and wallet so that they would not be lost forever more inside the hole. I called her my toilet police.
Every morning we walked two kilometers to get to the main road to the road that led to Ugunja and the site of the conference. Motor vehicles were very scarce and the choice of transportation was the boda boda. The boda boda is a bicycle with a big cushion behind the driver. I said to the Lord and to Pastor Elias, “In the Name of Jesus, I will not ride on the boda boda!” The next day I found myself riding on the big cushion. What was so amazing that a fat muzungu (white man) such a I could be pulled up the hills by skinny Kenyans. All of us l burst out into laughter because of this. The boda bodas were wonderful and very comfortable. Mary and I rode on them every day.
Jose and Mary Alvarez 