The countryside we travelled through was beautiful: rolling hills with volcanic outcroppings, small houses dotting the hills and small farms in the valleys and flatlands. The rural areas appear to be so much poorer than what we saw in Eldoret: children with no shoes, houses with no electricity and lots of women and children carrying water jugs and firewood. Every ten or fifteen minutes we would pass through small towns with roadside markets for food, clothes, firewood and other basic living necessities.
At KARI-Kakamega, we were greeted by the Centre Director, Dr. Francis Muyekho, and we met with him and seven of his staff for three hours. It was such a joy at the beginning of the meeting when they asked we open in prayer. There was shared rejoicing to know that God had brought some of His children together to fellowship and share ideas to help the poor of Kenya. Each of his staff shared what they were doing in areas of agricultural research in such areas as maize, legumes, roots and tubers, horticulture and food processing.
We learned so much about the lack of farm management and food marketing practices, and the extreme challenges village farmers face in just eking out enough food to feed their families. Simple things we take for granted like good seeds, storage bins and fertilizers are challenges that make their crop yields only achieve about 20% of their potential and force them to sell their crops when prices are lowest. We also learned the western region that KARI serves (which the village of Kager is in) is one of the poorest in Kenya, with only 3% formally employed, 8% informally employed and the remaining 89% either subsistent village farmers or completely unemployed.
We also learned of a couple organizations that might be potential partners: C-MAD (Community Mobilization Against Desertification) and CARPA (Christian Agricultural Related Professional Association). Rhoda Nungo, invited us to her home where she demonstrated an Energy Saving Stove and a Fireless Cooker, both solutions to significantly reduce the amount of firewood used for basic cooking.
We then travelled on with our driver, Amos, to the city of Kisumu. The 90-minute trip was slow-going and a real kidney buster, as the road we were on was a mixture of pavement, dirt, potholes, ruts and ridges. Kisumu is located on the shores of Lake Victoria, the 3rd largest city in Kenya and a commercial center for the western region.
After checking in and a short nap at St. Anna Guest House, our long-awaited meeting with David Kayando finally happened. It was a real joy to shake David’s hand and give him a holy hug after almost one year of exchanging e-mails and dreaming together about the Jubilee Village Project. It is truly amazing to see how God has weaved David and my hearts and lives together to get us to this point in our journey.
John, David and I had dinner together and a great time of fellowship. We learned more about Kager village (and how to pronounce it the correct way: kă-GĕR) and David’s role as an apostle and church planter. We also learned that David’s father, Bishop Christopher Kayand0, is the spiritual leader of a Kenyan denomination and travels all across Kenya in this role.
Both John and I continue to receive great encouragement from the people that God is allowing us to meet and the relationships we are being able to build. We are so thankful we made the decision to spend time in Eldoret and Kakamega – they are doing some great work at both places and we hope we might be successful in building a bridge for these solutions to work in Kager village.
Asante (thank you) Abba Father.
Ned
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