Mombasa slums and Rabai village.

What an awesome day!

Firstly we spent the morning going door to door in a slum area of Mombasa and over the course of that outreach we saw three people give their lives to the Lord which included one person who decided to rededicate her life to Jesus. She was an older woman who has suffered for the last 10 years with pains throughout her body which limited her mobility and especially joint pains. When we prayed for her the pain went instantly and as she strode up and down and stretched herself to test the healing she found the pain in her joints had completely gone also. Her name is Rose Kelana. Please pray that she and the young boy she is looking after {who also committed his life to Jesus today} would continue to faithfully serve Jesus.
We also led a woman called Margaret to faith in Jesus and prayed for her healing. She is partially blind and struggles to walk. Pray that God would fully restore her health.

We also visited the Elim church in Mombasa that I'm told holds 7,000 people. It's more like an arena than a church. I imagined having a church like that one day {I wonder how many ministers have walked through there wishing the same thing. lol}

We then came to the main part of the day which I was not expecting. {I think sometimes they make their mind up about the itintery at the last minute!} The local pastor I am working with led me through the slums out of Mombasa and up a hill until we were looking down into a large valley through which flowed a large river a few hundred metres wide. {There were no houses around so by this time I was wondering where on earth he was taking me!} We then made our way to the river bank. {It turns out this is actually an inlet for the Indian Ocean that goes inland for several miles!} We took off our shoes and socks and waded out to a small boat that cost us the grand total of 8 pence to ride in and the oarsman took us over to the other side and up a stream between the mangrove trees until the stream was too narrow and shallow to continue. We then waded through the last few hundred metres and across an arid looking plain. The ground was extremely hot. {A good point to but our shoes back on} and then he led me over another hill and acorss country for the best part of an hour on foot. {There's me in a smart shirt trousers and shoes going over hill country where the ground is rock hard in the 95 degree farenheit sun having no idea when we'd reach our destination.} Eventually we came to a clearing where there was a village and over 100 people waiting for us. They sat us down at a table as guests of honour and proceded to go through a fantastic traditional welcome involving singing and dancing, using instruments I've never seen before. At one point we had to get up and dance with them {Praise God his camera wasn't working properly! lol}
I was told that this was a predominantly Muslim village and the pastors friend had begun a congregation here that met in the shade of the trees where we were now seated. The village elders sat there also so everyone came out to see us.
By the time I was invited up to speak I just preached a straightforward gospel message. {I think the only way to preach to Muslims is to be straight with them and tell them honestly what the bible says so I explained why the bible says that Jesus is the only one who can save us and take us to heaven.} At the end we called people forward for prayer and 32 people came forward to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. {The vast majority of them were Muslims}
We also had a time for prayer for those who were sick or unwell in any way. In these areas the infirmity and death rate is very high as they cannot afford medical treatment and their is no NHS. There were too many to pray for {We still prayed for many individually} so we led people in a mass prayer and asked them to put their hand on the part of their body they felt pain in. A total of 27 people reported being healed and all pain going from their body. Afterwards when my friend spoke to the chief elder {a muslim} he said "Your God has got all my 4 sons now and I am the only one left in family. Next time a preacher comes I will become a christian} Please pray that he stands by his word and God brings him into the faith. Pray also for all those who have become christians and for those who were in the faith beforehand that they with encourage and support the new believers.}

I also had the chance to sample their homegrown fresh coconut juice. One of the men broke it open before me. {That's about as fresh as it gets!} and I was also given a watermelon. There welcome and their warmth was very touching. {They even wanted us to stay in the village overnight which unfortunately wasn't possible} It was a day I will never forget. The trip back was interesting too.

We got to what I thought was the river and it had already got dark. We waded out to the boat where the boatman was waiting and it was only after I was in the boat that I found out we were travelling over the same dry rocky flats that I warmed my feet onn early in the day. Much of the water was very shallow and now I found out why alongside one part of the flats a ditch or channel had been dug. I was to give the boat somewhere deep enough to navigate during high tide. It was a fantastic experience to go through the mangrove at night looking up at the hundreds of stars you can see in this part of the world. Eventually we came to the main 'river' we had crossed earlier in the day and I was told how we has to travel near to the bank before making our way across as the tide was strong and could carry us away. The waves were a lot more vibrant than when we went across the first time. It felt quite daring. {Not quite sure how safe it actually is but it all adds to the experience}. By the time we got back to where we were staying in Mombasa it was sometime between 8 and 9p.m.

What a day!