I LOVE YOUR OUTFIT!

On the first day of our stay in the Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa, Valerie saw a woman, about her age and said to her “I love your outfit!” The woman said, “You know I was about to say the same thing to you”. You just never know where such a little, seemingly unimportant thing will lead. For the past 3 days Val has been seeing this women. Yesterday she found out that she was from Norway and she attended a Pentecostal church. “Really?” Valerie said; “I didn’t know there were Pentecostal churches in Norway!”

Today this lovely lady stopped by our breakfast table to say goodbye. She told us her name was Marit Kolstadbraten and she is the head of an NGO called “Deaf AID”. From there she told us her remarkable story of how a simple woman from Norway, who began with no experience and no confidence had been used by God to start works all over Kenya to assist the deaf. Just recently her organization has been recognized by the United Nations as an organization doing “Significant International Humanitarian Work”. It was such a blessing to listen to her testimony and we were so blessed to hear about this work, because our own experience with deaf children in Kenya has touched us deeply. They are forgotten children, living in deplorable conditions and we have often prayed that God would send them aid. She promised to keep in touch and we know that we will be working together in some way in the future.

I JUST LOVE MANGOS

Just after Marit left us, Valerie had gone to the counter to get fresh mangos. While waiting there she struck up a conversation with an Indian man about how much she likes mangos. Within a few minutes they were talking about everything. He was with a woman from Kisumu, who, it turns out, lived just a few doors down from us when we lived in Kisumu in 1980. We had the same doctor, Dr H. Contractor. Within minutes we were engaged in conversation about the work we were doing in Kenya. The Indian man was a reporter on assignment from CNN here in Kenya. He works in London but has lived in Uganda and Vancouver Canada. He took an immediate interest in what we are doing. He told us about a program to help under-privileged kids to go to college and promised to send me the information so that our Lenana kids could have opportunities to go to college.

IT JUST KEPT GOING

A second later they saw another Indian couple across the room who were just about to leave and they called them over for conversation. The woman is an instructor at the big Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi. Her specialty is teaching children how to avoid diseases. When she saw my card she immediately said, “I will send you my contact information, because I want to volunteer at your medical camps”. By the way, we have a history with the Aga Khan Hospital. In 1980 Valerie’s life was saved at the Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu.

This morning’s Jesus Calling said “Keep an eye out for divine appointments”, but in my opinion “Divine appointments are keeping an eye out for us”.