Out to the Village

Some of the team before the group photo

Most of the week, Gary and I have been teaching the pastors at the SEND Center. The rest of the team has been out in the villages doing evangelism, teaching the Bible to believers of different ages.

On Friday, he and I finally get to join them. We go to a village called Nakabaran, about 70 minutes' drive from Lodwar.

It's a rough ride. The proper "road" is way worse than driving on the baked sand and rock and so our speed varies from a crawl to a good clip. Twenty-five or thirty of us are jammed, sardine fashion, into Jonah, the truck. But aside from shaking our fillings loose, all is well.

Until we hit the dried up river beds that are soft and enveloping, that is. Jonah sinks deep, like the prophet into the waves.

We dig (well, I don't, but some do), we push (yeah, I did), and we pray.

A lone Turkana boy, probably out with goats we can't see, comes out of nowhere and stops by to watch the show.

Some of the team members pile into the two other vehicles to make sure we have each ministry represented at the village.

Twenty or so minutes later, the sand gives up its grip.

In heavy rains, these river beds can become deadly. Not that long ago, one of the pastors was swept downstream about a mile but, miraculously, survived.

Gary's son, Danny, gazes at the desert from the truck

In the words of Boromir describing Mordor, Turkanaland is "a barren wasteland." It is a harsh desert that only the hardiest can survive.

There is very little vegetation, and precious little water.

The Turkana people live on the edge of calamity, yet this is the land they love. This is their home.