area and for me to learn if I can access internet adequately ... Pray for safety … that we will quickly meet the people that God has been moving towards church planting. ” Your prayers were answered – THANK YOU.We traveled safely even though we veered off the road many times to avoid trucks and cars, donkey or men propelled carts hauling everything from hay to a pool table, as well as meandering cows, goats, sheep, donkeys and even baboons. Plus, you know you are in Western Kenya when the bicycles outnumber the cars – travel in Kakamega town is safer thanks to a parallel road for bicycles!
Jack successfully met with a small group of Kenyan Baptist leaders from the area with hearts for obediently carrying out our Savior’s Great Commission – resulting in plans for him to return at least three times early next year to lead church planting training in the local associations. These
trips will take over a week each time and thankfully we found that internet is available in the area – which means I can travel with him and do my work as he does his.I have downloaded a slideshow*, Pray for Disciple Making/Church Planting in Kakamega (read note at end if you are a FACEBOOK friend), to share some of the scenes/feelings/prayer nudges that we experienced last week. We saw forsaken burned-out shops and homes, as well as a few remaining Internally Displaced People tented camps, lasting reminders of the post-election crisis which began in December 2007 AND we also spotted several villages of tiny new homes. Between Nairobi and Nakuru, we viewed continued drought with dry fields and cattle with protruding ribs, BUT thankfully west of Nakuru, farms were filled with lush growth and plump animals, a sign of ample rain. Frustration came as we viewed a well-built
government clinic with no equipment, medicines or staff due to a lack of funds, BUT next to it sat a mud building housing a Baptist church committed to ministering spiritually and physically in their community. Rowdy kids dressed in tatters surrounded us at the village church, YET when served the “left-over” food from our meeting, the older kids made certain the younger ones were fed first. We passed many woodworking “kiosks” that were producing not chairs and tables, but coffins AND realized why as we walked to a Kenyan friend’s home and passed a deserted house with three mounds in the yard – the 
burial spots of a husband, wife and baby, all who had died of HIV/AIDS.There were also views that I was unable to capture for you: Scrawny kids running onto the highway to grab and nibble pieces of sugar cane (major cash crop of western Kenya) fallen from tractors moving to the factories; a boy sitting beside a ditch – not playing in the water, but filling his bucket with a small plastic cup; the racks of drying fish, recent catches from Lake Victoria; women carrying large metal trays of ripe bananas on their heads; and Jack’s
favorite, the old man in well worn clothes, trudging along with the aid of his stick, wearing a “new” New York Yankees baseball hat!Thank you for being our prayer partners and thanks also to the Southern Baptists who give to the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Offering so that we can view all these things and be a part of sharing our Father’s love and salvation in Kenya. Bert Yates
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FACEBOOK friends can find the Prayer Walk/Slideshow at PRAY FOR DISCIPLE MAKING/CHURCH PLANTING IN KAKAMEGA and others can find it by clicking: http://picasaweb.google.com/Bertndovu/PrayForDiscipleMakingChurchPlantingInKakamega?feat=directlink
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