Kenya Rediscovered - Part I

 Kenya Past~

In 2008, after Kay & I had moved back to Iowa, Mike & Pat invited me to Kenya.  At that time, they had one church and had started a Bible school in Meru. They asked me to come and minister in the church and Bible school and help start another Bible school in Kitale, Kenya. It went better than expected and things took off!

Neema Bible College, 2008

When I left, I had no plans to go back.  Kay and I experienced a tremendous life-style change.  In 2011 Kay and I opened the Gathering Place, Kay's dad passed and her mom moved in with us, and Seth, our son, had his second kidney transplant.  Life has a way of getting in the way of your calling. Every time Mike Heiser would come back he would be after me to come back to Kenya to help him. He would say, "You might be the only one who really knows what I'm doing over there." For many years it didn't register what he was saying to me.

Pat, Mike & Linus

In the summer of 2018 we had downsized our house, got our budget under control, and were able to swing a trip back to Kenya. The two people I called about traveling with me were Lonnie Dillard and Kent Coates. Kent accepted immediately and Lonnie declined because he was going with his wife and another friend of theirs in May of 2018.

Pastor Kent

Satan fought me at the beginning of the trip. It took ten hours to get out of Omaha. I missed Kent in Chicago, but had a great time with Clint, our oldest son, and his family for the night. I had prayed on the flight to Chicago, "Lord, I need one friendly face in Chicago to fix this mess and get me to Kenya." I found two friendly faces and in just a few minutes had my tickets and was back on track to get to Kenya.

When I arrived in Nairobi I had no idea what I was going to teach but God had a plan. The first person I met was Pastor Victor who is Mike's regional director for the Eastern District. He was so glad to see me and told me his story: "I was in your class ten years ago where you taught me how to call those things that are not as though they are. Nothing happened for six years but then I became a Pastor. A man gave me money to build this church and I am Mike's regional director of the Eastern District. So something did happen ten years ago at the school in Meru."

Pastor Victor, Director of the Eastern District - Kenya

The next day, at the Kilifi Bible school, Mike had me speak last for some reason. While he was introducing me, Mike told the history of his ministry. These words rang in my ears: 27 Bible Schools, 26 Churches and 1,000 graduates. Kent spoke next and while he was speaking God gave me the message for the week: 'You don't need what you don't have but use what you do have'. What do we have? A very good foundation for mobilizing God's army. Another title during the week was: 'Kenyans winning Kenya'. The future was being laid out for us.

Bible School in Kilifi, where Mike introduced me.

I talked to Mike, Pat, and Kent at the team meeting and asked Mike where he wanted to go from here. He spoke to me about already planting a church in Tanzania. He also wanted to start three more districts in Kenya, and the last was to go beyond the borders of Kenya to other countries, including Europe. What a great vision! Of course there is always concerns about how you are going to get there. Life sometimes gets in the way but God always has a plan.

Over the next two weeks more messages came to me. Kent and I taught every day in the Bible schools Mike and Pat had started. Every place was the same - hungry Bible school students all wanting more.