I have just come back from a 4 day mission trip to Nyeri, a rural area in Central Province. I went with a group of 7 friends who I do Christian ministry with in Kibera and we stayed at one of the guy’s, Martin’s house who grew up in Nyeri. It is such a beautiful place. Having spent months in polluted congested Nairobi I was in awe at all the vegetation, plantation fields and farm animals. Martin’s grandparents run the shamba now and are subsistence farmers. They grow maize, coffee beans, sweet potatoes, green vegetables and have avocado, banana, guava and macadamia nut trees. They also keep cows, goats and chickens.

The sleeping arrangements were quite civilised, as we had beds in wooden huts. It was freezing though. The whole trip I wore 6 layers and was still cold and it was drizzling the whole of the first 2 days. Thankfully Martin’s grandmother heated up water for us to wash in the morning, but it was still a painful experience! It was quite funny trying to communicate with her, because she knows less Swahili than me – she only speaks Kikuyu! She was delighted to have me though (the first white person to ever stay there) and brought me tea every morning.

On the first day we just met the locals and settled into Martin’s place. It took us hours to cook dinner using the ‘3 stone’ method, because the fire kept on going out! Then the next day we explored the shamba and picked lots of maize and fruit and milked the cows - I drank so much milk, because it was delicious and there was so much of it. We walked around the village and Martin’s uncle gave us a tour of the coffee factory where they sort, ferment and dry the beans before taking them to the miller. I never realised producing coffee was such a long and complicated process. We then went to see Martin’s other grandmother who had a bad fall a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to walk or move much since. We prayed for her and God completely healed her. She started doing all these movements she hadn’t been able to do before and then walked us down the road and after about 20mins said ‘I forgot my walking stick!’

The 3rd day we went to a primary school to minister to and teach the children, although we were very late, because there were no buses. Eventually after waiting on the road for a bus for an hour we decided to start walking and prayed for God to send a vehicle to come and take us. Within 2 minutes a pick-up truck came and stopped to give us a lift! However, it shortly came to a stand-still because it had run out of fuel. I realised the only way we were going to get to the school was by faith, so I told everyone to start praying in the Spirit and miraculously the truck drove for another 20 mins (with a lot of stopping and starting) until we reached the school. It literally stopped for good just outside the school and we got out while the driver went to fetch fuel from a garage. We got our miracle! The school we incredibly hospitable and served as tea and bread before the school meeting and then a huge lunch (with 4 different carbohydrates in each person’s bowl!) after we had finished teaching. 26 pupils gave their lives to Christ which was wonderful. We then went on to a Christian fellowship meeting in the next village, but again there were no buses, so we had to walk and arrived just as it was getting dark. So, all we had time for was to drink tea and quickly encourage the believers there.

On the last day we had prepared to preach at a youth meeting for all the youth in the village but after a couple of hours of waiting no-one had yet turned up, so we went with the local pastor to visit a lady in a nearby village who was sick. We walked quite far, but it was worth it because we just laid hands on her and God instantly healed her. She had pains all over her body and it completely went. She was so grateful she gave us a chicken! We then walked back to the church and taught the Word of God to a group of about 10 youth who had come. All in all it was a wonderful, refreshing and fun trip.