What a disappointment!! The shelving for the library is still in Nairobi. The problem is transportation. There was not enough room to put them on a bus and there was no lorry (truck) available for transport. The lady from the shelving company here in Eldoret was supposedly going to Nairobi to arrange for transport. Hopefully, they will arrive soon. The students begin a one week holiday on Saturday so they will not be around to help move the library books from the old to the new. Ariko stated that the staff would be rounded up to help. Don’t know if that will work or not as a lot of them are also leaving for holiday. Not having the shelving gave us some time to organize books that we can’t catalog and catalog some books that have CIP or Marc info. Also able to organize the periodicals.

The clothing we brought out for Ian fit him perfectly with a bit of room for growth. He love his new clothes from the US. Every time we walk through the “narrow gate” to get to the college Ian and his friend are wanting to swing on the gate as it opens and closes. This seems to be their highlight for the day along with greeting us with “how are you?” To which we reply, “I am fine”. Then we have to has them, “how are you” and they reply “I am fine”. Then we do the greetings in Swahili and they reply in Swahili. Both children are about 3 years of age.

Last night we went to Pieter and Tinneke’s home for tea. They live in campus housing and are here on a one year internship from the Netherlands. Since they have only a stove top burner and not an oven they have learned how to bake cakes etc. using pans and steaming the cake on the stove top. It tasted wonderful. They will return back to the Netherlands in December.

Ray has been talking to many of the students about the role they will play once they have finished at RITT and are back into the pastorate. They realize that the RCA here in Kenya has to change and relate to the young people or it will become a dying church. There are so many issues they have to face here and many are huge challenges: HIV/AIDS, female circumcision, women workers in the churches, making their lifestyles and preaching relevant to the young people, poverty, etc. etc. Right now a title is a big thing for their credibility. We have been trying to tell them that doctorates do you make you successful in the pastorate – it is who you are, what you represent and what you present that will makes you successful. Their relationships with their congregates is far more important than having a title and being put on a pedestal. They need to be able to relate in order to be able to share and present the gospel. The younger generation is seeing this – the older generation of pastors is another story – they love their titles.

Every morning Ray studies Swahili – he is so much better at languages than I am. He tries new words out every day – sometimes the results are quite funny – however, the people really appreciate the fact that you try to communicate in their language. Sometimes we accidentally use a word from another language we have worked in and the word means something not quite so nice in the Swahili language. It’s just hard to keep all the languages straight. Oftentimes, we use words from more than one language in a sentence.