Weekend in Eldoret and Kitale Part IV: Missionaries in the Pouring Rain ~ Our Mission in Kenya

We should have been halfway back to Eldoret but instead, because of the adventure we had in the bush (see Part III), we were in Mautuma in the pouring rain. Suddenly, President Kogo called out, "Stop. There's a missionary." We thought, what? just "a" missionary? Aren't there usually two missionaries? We stopped and there was Elder Breidenbaugh with a broken down bike in the pouring rain. It was raining so hard that his companion, Elder Wafula, didn't hear that he had a breakdown so Elder Wafula kept biking. We put the bike on the tarp in the back, the soaking wet Elder Breidenbaugh in the truck with us and then drove a ways down the road and found Elder Wafula, also soaking wet. We gave them a ride to a bike shop and they went about their missionary work and we drove away.

The miracle of it was that we should have been half-way back to Eldoret but Pres Kogo had wanted to stop at a farmer's and pick up some maize meal. We got lost trying to find the farmer and it took us about an hour to get back to where we needed to be to go on to Eldoret. Because we got lost, we were an hour behind schedule but we were right on time to pick up Elder Breidenbaugh and re-unite him with Elder Wafula. Do you think that was coincidence? I don't.

Here's Elder Breidenbaugh, happy to be in out of the pouring rain.

And here's his broken down bike on the tarp that is covering boxes of church literature that we're taking to give the Langas missionaries, Elder Wambua and Elder Merritt.

We found Elder Wafula a little ways down the road, soaking wet also. I was in the back seat with Elder Breidenbaugh, along with a cooler of food and bags and bags of other things. We managed somehow to fit Elder Wafula in also. We got to work with Elder Wafula for ten months when he was an Assistant to the President. He is a great missionary with a wonderful sense of humor and we miss seeing him regularly in the mission office in Nairobi.

The rain has almost stopped so we dropped off Elder Wafula and Elder Breidenbaugh at a bike shop. Elder Breidenbaugh is not so sure it can be fixed. I'll have to phone him and find out.

After the rain everything is a more vivid red and green.

This is the Mautuma chapel.

Now we're on the way back to Eldoret. Going through beautiful country again.

Muddy roads after the rain. Some of the maize fields were flattened.

This Coca Cola truck (red) slid off the muddy road. We sat and watched the tow truck and the bigger truck work together to get the red truck out of the ditch.