God’s Way of Providing

As mentioned in our first 2026 post, we experienced unusually long travel delays on this trip. A couple of days ago, we received an unexpected email from Air France informing us that we were eligible and would receive 600.00 Euros in compensation based on European travel laws. Praise God! This is one of the many ways He provides for our needs.

This compensation and a couple of other donations received from US donors will help with the school project, and electricity for the staff room, Thank you, Jesus!

The fund raiser is set for this Friday July 31^st, and at this time, we have 10 % of the needed funds raised.

We feel that the parents and community do have a big stake in supporting their school and children. After consideration and prayer, God put it on our hearts to help.

Here is the challenge!

Joshua Ministry will match all combined donations through our website up to a total of $2,500 USD for this project.

This past week has been quiet. We made several trips to the store for groceries and other items needed for the house. Car washing here is an everyday occurrence. Antony asked for a new sponge for washing the car. Little did we know it was so difficult to locate a car washing sponge in the village or close by, 40 minutes, Kakamega stores. We tried a variety of places to no avail. We made a trip, 90 minutes, to the bigger city Kisumu which is located at Lake Victoria. We were able to get two sponges in a mall at the Chinese department store.

On Sunday morning we got up at 4am to attend a 5:30 am prayer service at the Salvation Army church as we promised Captain David and Rebecca that we would be attending. We arrived promptly at 5:30am.

Captain David commented on our timeliness. We have seen that time is relative here. If you say 5:30 it could be 7:30. David, Rebecca, the youth pastor, and musicians were there for a great prayer worship service. Ray delivered the message. And as a surprise to me, he said we would sing a song too! We sang “I Love You Lord and I lift my voice.”  After 2 hrs. we left and returned home until it was time for the regular Sunday service at 10am.

Esther, Enos’s mom arrived at the house to go to church with us. Shortly after her arrival we lost power, excellent time to go to church. After the service started, they informed us that there would be a retirement service/party for, Agnetta Matioli, the woman that had cleaned the church for thirty years. Her title was the “Hall Keeper,” she held the rank of Sergeant.

The regular service ended at noon and the dignitaries, the Salvation Army regional leaders, which were coming for the retirement celebration, had not arrived yet. Captain David was stalling for time with engaging a variety of groups to entertain the body and keep them engaged.

The choir sang another song and different age groups danced. Captain David asked Ray and I to sing our song that we had done earlier in the morning prayer service.

About 2 hours later the leaders, in the rank of Majors, arrived and the retirement celebration began. It was a nice service honoring her. There were gifts and presents, including a cow given to her. 

A little after 4pm we departed. When we arrived home the power was still out. Ray had read that 24-hour outages were on the schedule for Sunday. Dorcus and Esther made us as Ray calls it,” Bukura pancakes” for lunch, self-rising flour, hot water, long life milk, sugar, salt, and oil.

Monday morning, we woke up and still had no power. The milk in the refrigerator had fermented, not good for Ray & I for cereal, so peanut butter/jelly sandwiches it was and we gave the milk to Dorcas as in Kenya, they use fermented milk with their main staple Ugali.

There was no hot water. The hot water comes through a shower head with electric powered emersion coils, so it was a cold shower! Fortunately, the stove top is gas, and we have a small propane gas unit to cook on.

We decided we would go to the store in Kakamega for groceries.

We put petrol in the car at 222 KES per liter = $1.75, approximately $7.00 a gallon. The government sets the price so you cannot price shop.

We, as Americans, easily take for granted our daily conveniences. We have running water, heat, air conditioning, paved and maintained roads and therefore, we think we should have these luxuries all the time. This is not the situation here. You make do with what you have and thank God for what you have and what he has provided at home.

Enos had a lorry arranged to pick up gravel and stones from the house property to the farm to create a floor for the cow pen. We watched as they shoveled the gravel with spades; we would have helped, but all we had were spoons!

By late Monday afternoon, we still had no power, so we started the generator to charge our phones and power banks and keep the refrigerator running. A strong storm moved in, bringing heavy rain, wind, thunder, and lightning. The house’s roof-access stairway has an uninsulated metal roof, so the rain made it sound like we were under attack.

Tuesday morning, we were still without power. I got up and boiled water to make coffee & tea and then took a sponge bath. After I finished, Antony told us that the village had power. We got ahold of Enos, and he contacted the local electrician. He came out to find that the main breaker fuse was the culprit. As soon as he replaced it, we had power!

Let us see what is in store for the rest of this week knowing that God is in charge, we are not!

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