February, 1998

Dear Partner,

Jambo! Bwana asifiwe! Yep, it's your old Swahili buddies JAL and Mark, reporting in about our amazing adventure in Africa. What we just said was, "Hello! Praise the Lord!" That is pretty much the extent of our Swahili vocabulary, with the exception of "Hakuna matata," which we learned from Walt Disney. For three weeks we amused ourselves by singing the chorus to this Lion King favorite and changing the words appropriately. For example: "Hakuna matata...means no pavement, it's our spine-alignment-free philosophy," ad nauseum.

We do know one other Swahili term and that is "Asante san," which means, "Thank you very much," and that is what we say to you for your prayers for us during our stay in Africa. We especially want to thank those who contributed financially to make it possible for many African saints to hear the truth for which they had been literally crying out to God. How thankful and humbled we were to be representing the Lord Jesus Christ and our spiritual partners, without whom we would not have been able to go and speak the truth in love. So now, sit back and enjoy the ride as we do our best to recount our awesome African adventure.

Our first stop, by way of Detroit and Amsterdam, was Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. Due to the fact that we had not heard from our contact there in three weeks, we were very uncertain about the exact details of our ten-day stay, and we even considered changing our plans and spending our whole 22 days in Kenya. After much prayer and deliberation, however, we both felt as though we should go to Dar and take it from there. After about 26 hours of travel, we landed at 11:30 p.m., December 30, at a sweltering airport. Surprise-the air conditioner was broken. We had a small photograph of Andambike MacLean Mwakasungula (whom we immediately dubbed "Mac"), the man who had contacted us last February. We were still not certain exactly how he found us and we were eager to hear the whole story, if in fact he did meet us at the airport. As we were "queued up" at the Passport Control booth clutching the photograph, Mark looked out into the lobby and said, "Hey, I think that's Mac." We waved, he lit up with a big smile, and we praised the Lord for the first of many times.

To help you appreciate the significance of that moment, let us now tell you about this remarkable man and the unbelievable circumstances leading up to our coming face-to-face with him. The firstborn son of the Chief of one of the 126 tribes in Tanzania (and thus the heir to his father's position), Mac was raised with no religion at all. When he was 12 years old he got a bible from the Moravian church. At age 15 he left home to find out about the world for himself. Fifteen years, four wives (simultaneously-his tribe believed in polygamy) and 27 children ("a choir," he called the children) later he became "a real Christian." Desiring to be a Christian leader, he received sound counsel that he should have only one wife, so he stayed with his first wife, Mary, while helping the other wives to get established. They have all since remarried and are blessed.

Although he had gone to medical school in Zambia and become a doctor, Mac gave up his practice to go into the ministry. He is a very personable and pastoral man, with a genuine fatherly concern for everyone he meets. He is extremely charismatic and is a powerful and persuasive speaker. These and other qualities helped him to quickly move up in the ranks of the Nazarene Church, to the point that he became the top official over Tanzania and four other countries in East Africa. In that position he received $3600 a month, which would be the equivalent of about $250,000 a year in America.

It was in 1993, while he held that position, that he came to Indianapolis as a delegate to a worldwide Nazarene convention. From the beginning of his Christian walk, he questioned the validity of the Trinity, and by 1993, he had also become very disillusioned with many of the doctrines and practices of his denomination. He had voiced this frustration to a number of his peers, but none of them had the courage to rock the boat and risk losing their position and income.

For some reason he stayed in Indianapolis for two months in 1993, during which time he heard about a non-Trinitarian group called "Oneness Pentecostal," and met a bishop in that church. Mac saw that their Christology was obviously unbiblical and asked the man if he knew of any other non-Trinitarian groups. The man said, "Well there is Christian Educational Services , but their doctrine is very erroneous and I don't think you should have anything to do with them." Mac persisted and asked the man to tell him about us, but the man said no. So Mac looked in the telephone book and tried to contact us before he went back to Tanzania, but was not successful, for whatever reasons. How ironic that he was in Indianapolis and that the bishop lives about five minutes from "the CES  Home Office." Mac did write down our address, but when he got home he could not find it-until more than three years later when it turned up last February and he wrote to us then. This whole incident reminded us of P.T. Barnum's famous statement, "I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right." How faithful our wonderful Father is to keep His promise to fill those who hunger and thirst after the truth.

Finally, a couple of years after returning from Indianapolis, Mac could no longer in good conscience remain with the Nazarene Church. He confronted everyone he could with the logic of Scripture in regard to his position, but none of them would hear of it. When he told him that he was leaving, they offered four times to raise his salary and give him more benefits. He told them, "You cannot buy me with money, you must win me with the truth." They said to him, "Go ahead and leave, you will eat dust." Think what it must have taken for him to give up all that he had in his denominational position.

After he left the Nazarene Church, he did encounter tremendous financial hardship, especially in light of the fact that he tends to take in many children and help other needy people. He had to sell a large building that he owned, and he was forced to move into the house where he is now living, which is far below the standard he was used to. Sometime later, Mac became involved with the United African Fellowship Church, which afforded him more independence and a small amount of support. It is interesting that when his "overseer" in South Africa heard that we were coming, he called us and grilled us about our intentions. Mac had been confronting him about a number of doctrinal issues and asked him why he would not change to believe what the Word says. The man's reply was, "I've been in this church for 56 years and I'm not about to change now." Mac asked, "What if the Word of God says differently?" Mac told us that he has not cashed the last few checks from the UAFC and no longer wants to be affiliated with them. The good news is that due to his character and ability, he has made an impact on many, many people in both of the aforementioned denominations, as well as many people from other denominations. We have no doubt that these contacts will pay off in the days to come, and that many of these brethren will come to a knowledge of the truth. In fact, in the ten days we were with him, we got the impression that he somehow knew most of the people in Tanzania and was related to half of them.

About a month before we arrived in Tanzania, Mac was driving his old pick-up truck along a road near his home. Suddenly he saw a very large man walking toward him on the road. Five times he swerved to avoid him, but each time the man jumped directly into his path. Mac said he hit the man and saw him thrown into the windshield, screaming and bloody as the car rolled over on him and flipped several times. Several passengers in the car were thrown out but were O.K. Mac was knocked unconscious and woke up in the hospital. The police and those who were in the truck reported that the pedestrian was nowhere to be found (because, we believe, it was a demonic apparition). In fact, the police asked Mac for a bribe in exchange for them writing a good report about the accident so he wouldn't have any problems with his insurance, but, true to his character, Mac refused to lie and stuck to his story. He told them, "If I lie to you on this form, how could I ever preach to you?"

So there was Mac at the airport, alive and well. He had hired a rented car to take us to the hotel. Exhausted, we arrived at the hotel about 12:30 a.m., where Mac gave us the good news that we needed to leave at 5:00 a.m. to get to the bus station for a 12- hour ride to his city where the first seminar would be held. He had to come to Dar two days early in order to make the bus reservation. It took us 30 minutes to check in at the hotel because they had no record of our having paid for the room, which we had. We quickly saw the futility of attempting any kind of explanation. Who were we going to call for help, anyway? So we paid again and are working on getting our money back from the first payment.

We slept somewhat fitfully for about three hours and were the first people on the bus. At $8.00 a seat we decided to buy an extra seat for our luggage, and this proved to be revelation, or at least luck. The rest of the 52 seats were soon filled, and a considerable amount of luggage, including ours, was in the aisle. We were not about to put it in the compartment underneath. After about four hours, the bus came to a stop, and, to our disbelief, a stream of people and their luggage began to pile into the bus. It turned out that several buses ahead of us on the road had been impounded for speeding, and the passengers were stranded on the road. When our bus resumed its journey, there were approximately 90 people on board. The fact that we drove six straight hours before stopping for a bathroom break was made only slightly more bearable by the fact that we couldn't have gotten out anyway. If you're interested in knowing more about what this was like, just load all the people in your neighborhood into your car and drive for eight hours at speeds up to 85 mph. We did drive through a game preserve, where Mark spotted elephants, zebras, gazelles and giraffes (John was asleep, or had passed out from lack of air). He was hardpressed to photograph them because he could barely turn in his seat. "Hakuna matata...means no legroom, it's our circulation-free philosophy."

We arrived in Mbozi about 6:30 p.m. When we got off the bus at what appeared to be the only intersection in town, there were about 15 believers who immediately broke into a spirited song thanking God for bringing us safely there. Our eyes filled with tears as we stood there amidst those precious saints, humbled by their love. Then we all piled into Mac's somewhat battered pickup truck and drove about 10 minutes to the seminar venue, which was the meeting room of a coffee company, which had a guest house next door where we stayed. We were under the impression that the seminar would begin the next morning, but after we carried in our bags, Mac told us that about 35 people were there already and they really wanted us to share something that night. Our fatigue from nearly three days of travel evaporated in the joy of being out of the bus, and we shared for a couple of hours that night.

We awoke the next morning to greet a new year in Tanzania!  Mac opened the morning at the seminar by saying that the people there were very hungry and might, like others in Africa, eat anything offered to them by people from abroad. He said that he knew we would not give them poison like many other teachers who had come there had. In some of the prophecy we received before we left, the Word of the Lord was that there were some doors in Africa that He had still not been able to open for us, but that we would be getting our foot in the door for future outreach. We pretty much saw that come to pass in each of the four seminars we did, in that not all of the people in attendance were of the leadership caliber we normally teach, nor did some of them understand that we expected them to attend the whole seminar. There were about 100 people in the two seminars in Tanzania, and 150 in the two in Kenya, and we bought bibles (at about $5 apiece) for about half the people we saw. How thankful they were to have their very own copy, and how blessed we were to be able to provide them.

The first seminar set the pattern for something that we then brought up with each succeeding group, and this was something that also had come up in prophecy before we left. The Lord told us we would be liberating many women in Africa. This proved to be very true. It was painfully evident that there was a strict demarcation between men and women, as all the men sat in the front and all the women sat in the back. It was virtually impossible to tell who was married to whom. We also noticed that only the women did things like mopping the floors, serving the food, etc., so we gently told them that every culture has customs that contradict the Word of God and that these customs detract from the Christians' quality of life. We cited some examples in America and suggested to them that the dichotomy between men and women in their culture may be cheating them out of one of life's greatest joys. Teaching the first three chapters of Genesis gave us ample opportunity to address the husband/wife relationship and show how it was ruined by sin. In each venue we enthusiastically addressed this issue. Suffice it to say that we have given them a lot to think about. Certainly the change will not happen overnight, but they were generally very receptive to what we taught, especially the women, whose hearts rejoiced in the truth they saw could liberate them.

It was also in the first seminar that we encountered a challenge that would confront us nearly all the way through our trip, and that was the greatest amount of rainfall that Kenya has had since 1952. A number of people were even prevented from coming to the seminars. Each day we prayed fervently for the nation we were in, its government, its economy and its weather. God heard our prayers and a number of times providentially intervened so that we could conduct the seminars and travel from place to place. The substandard infrastructure in third-world countries makes it virtually impossible to quickly or even adequately repair such vital things as roads, electric power, water pipes, etc.

One of the highlights of the first seminar was when I, (JAL) went into my "If-you're-happy-why-not-tell-your- face-about-it" pitch, attempting to elicit some sort of response from the very reserved audience. I smiled broadly to show them how white people are handicapped in public relations-our skin and teeth are about the same color, so we don't light up so much when we smile. I then pointed out that black people have a real advantage in this regard because when they smile their teeth are like a light bulb being turned on in their face. They loved it!

Another highlight in Mbozi was when Mac asked us for some money for medicine for some of the people in the seminar who had some minor problems. We said, "Let us pray for them first." A little while after we prayed for them, he gave us the money back, saying that they told him they were healed. Praise God!

It was in Mbozi that we met four priceless young men who Mac is mentoring. Each of them did some interpreting for us, and we got to have a nice visit at dinner with all of them our last night in that area. I want to give you their names because we think you will be hearing more about them, and we would like you to pray for them. Lousago and Aston Minga are brothers, Asumile Minga (no relation) is married to Mac's daughter Stella and Witson Mwangoka is the other. Mac is doing a great job of mentoring these young men. Some years ago he sent them to South Africa for three years to attend a Bible School. After the first year they called and told him they were not satisfied with what they were being taught and wanted them to come home. He told them to stay. After the second year they called again and said they were still not satisfied. He told them to stay and concentrate on learning English if nothing else. He told us that when they came home, they came home with nothing in their heads. How sad. We can tell you that they are turned on now.

On January 5 it was off to the second seminar, which was all the way across Tanzania from Mbozi in the southwest to Moshi in the north, near Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Kenya border. When Mac said we were going "by bus," we knew the possibility existed for another adventure, but little did we know the miracle that God has up His sleeve for us that day. Mac informed us that we could not go via the most direct route. The reason why was only the first of many things that day that were very unclear to us. We had to go almost all the way back to Dar and then change to a bus northbound to Moshi. Once again, we were on the first bus at 5:30 a.m. It was full, but this time only a handful of people cluttered the aisle. We were uncertain exactly when we had to arrive at the small village where we could connect with the northbound bus to Moshi. After a pleasant eight hours on the bus, it pulled over and we all piled out, only to find that we had a flat tire. This did not phase us because we had had a flat tire on another bus and it was only a short delay. This time, however, we found out that the bus driver had no  spare tire . We stood by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere for nearly an hour before another bus came along and generously gave us its spare tire. When we resumed our journey Mac told us that we were probably going to be too late to catch the last northbound bus to Moshi and that it might be better for us to go all the way back to Dar and spend the night. But we knew that the seminar was scheduled to start the next morning and we just did not want to be late, so we prayed and told Mac that we wanted to get off at the "village" of Charenje and believe God to get some kind of vehicle to Moshi that evening.

It was 4:00 p.m. when we pulled into Charenje. We quickly piled off the bus, got our suitcases from underneath the bus and dragged them around a corner and up a hill, with the two of us not knowing exactly where we were going and hoping that Mac did. Lo and behold, about 100 yards ahead of us there loomed up a shiny blue bus. Thinking it might be a mirage, we ran toward it screaming "Moshi!", "Moshi!" A man standing by the bus heard us and beckoned us to hurry up. We loaded our things onto the bus and it immediately took off. Not only was it the nicest bus we were on during our stay, not only did each of us have a row of three seats to ourselves, not only did we pay half price because we had a group traveling together, but we also found out that the bus was supposed to leave three hours earlier but was delayed waiting for some cargo. We thanked God profusely throughout the six-hour journey to Moshi. We had been told the seminar would be in Moshi, so we checked into a hotel there while Mac went out searching for the participants who were supposed to meet us at the bus station, but were not there since the bus arrived four hours later than they expected.

The next morning we found out that we had to travel nearly an hour and a half to a rural village called Sanya Juu, which was the closest thing we have seen to "the uttermost part of the earth." En route we had a very interesting stop for about an hour at a big open-air market where we purchased food to cook for the seminar participants (In each of the four venues some of the participants did the cooking in order to save money). At the market, Mark met a female pickpocket, but all she got out of his shirtfront pocket was his day-timer, and he quickly retrieved it. His heart filled with compassion for her at her desperation. It is interesting that later on when we were in Kenya, someone told us that it a good thing that Mark did not call attention to the woman's thievery, because the custom is for people to gather around and beat up the criminal.

When we arrived at Sanya Juu, virtually nothing had been done to organize any aspect of the seminar, including securing a location. As usual, most everyone there knew and respected Mac, so he quickly found a small "hotel" where we rented the "meeting room" and all seven of the "sleeping" rooms for less than $100 total for four days. We had mosquito netting over our beds and everyone shared the same two bathrooms and the two sinks outside them. "Hakuna matata...means no toilet, it's our comfort- free philosophy."

It turns out that one of the reasons why the saints in Sanya Juu were waiting for Mac to do everything is because of what happened to them when they followed him out of the Nazarene Church. To put pressure on Mac, the church leaders bribed the local Police Chief and Magistrate and had a number of the believers thrown in jail for 16 days. When Mac found out about it he went wild, and when he confronted the Police Chief, the man refused to do anything, so Mac went to his supervisor. When he came back with the supervisor, the Police Chief had already released the people, hoping that nothing would happen to him. The good news is the both he and the Magistrate were fired over the incident. This was only one example of the incredibly evil politics of religion that we heard about. Mac told us that there were some people standing outside the room listening to us teach, but they did not come in because they thought that they might be arrested again.

The group we taught in Sanya Juu was not very educated in the Scriptures. They were very reserved, and the atmosphere was not really as conducive to learning as we would have liked. Two-thirds of them had no bible (we bought bibles for them). It would have been easy to think that in some ways it was a waste of our time, but we know that only the Lord knows what is in a person's heart, and that the good seed of His Word has the power to take root and bear fruit where the soil is fertile. The Word of God deserves our best teaching effort no matter who the audience is or how it responds. We also know that every time we teach we can improve our presentation, and we know that we are always being prepared for the next time, which someday might be before a worldwide television audience, who knows?

Friday, January 9 was our last day in Tanzania, but we had not been able to make direct contact with our Kenyan contact, Joseph Koome M'Mukiira, who we were supposed to meet in Nairobi between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. that day, at least that was the message we had sent him via the Home Office. We were told it was four hours from Sanya Juu to Nairobi, but this turned out to be a miscommunication, as it was actually six hours. Mac accompanied us and we hired a small van to get to Arusha, where we planned to get a bus across the border and up the road to Nairobi. As we neared the outskirts of Arusha, the van driver told us that there was better transportation available leaving from the hotel we were passing. So we turned around and drove into the parking lot where we found a 25-passenger bus and got the last three seats with a very international crowd of people. We were seated close to the front and thus got to directly participate in what literally looked, out the front window of the bus, like the video game where you drive the car. Coming at us at a high rate of speed were potholes, pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, farm animals of many kinds and speed bumps that required climbing gear to get over.

The driver had originally said he would take us to the bus station where we had arranged to meet Joseph, but when we reached the hotel in Nairobi where most of the other passengers were going, he said this was the end of the line for us also. We got off and immediately a man asked us if we needed a taxi. We said yes, but then he couldn't fit all of our things into his car, and another guy came up who had a small station wagon. We hopped in and headed for the bus station. Here is where words fail us to describe the surreal scene. There was no "bus station." It was sort of like an intersection with, of course, caves  in the pavement. It was dark and it had been raining, so of course the streets were wet and the few streetlights glowed eerily in the fog. Piles of garbage lay around, some of which were burning. Seedy cafés and other B-movie-type establishments lined the streets. The place was absolutely jammed with people. We were later told that we never should have gone there at night, but our angels were on the job. Praise God!

I (JAL) got out of the car with Mac and walked around the whole area, figuring that since I was the only white person in the entire scene, Joseph would certainly notice me if he were there, but we never found him. When we came back to the car, Mark had been talking to the driver and found out that he was a believer. At the bus station we had been looking for a phone to call the office and see if they had in fact gotten our message through to Joseph several days earlier, but we could find no phone to call home, so our driver took us to a telephone communication center and we called the office, only to find out Joseph was planning to be there earlier in the day, but they were not sure when. While we were there we also called Kitili and Brenda Mbathi, whose mother is a cousin of our Home Office secretary Eleanor Branch's father-in-law. We had given Joseph their phone number because it was the only one we had in Nairobi. I (JAL) spoke to Brenda, but she said she had not heard from Joseph. (At the end of our trip we spent a very pleasant evening in their home with them and she had told us that she had just walked in the door when the phone rang and was not aware that Joseph had called earlier and left a message with her mother-in-law). We decided to go back to "the bus station" and try one more time. This time Mark got out of the car with Mac and walked around calling Joseph's name. Still there was still no sign of him, so we went to one of the hotels that Brenda had recommended.

After dinner we had the thought to touch base with Brenda once again and Bingo! She told us that her mother-in-law had gotten the message from Joseph and gave us a phone number he had left, which we immediately called. It was a pay phone near the "bus station" where Joseph had been sitting for seven hours. He came right over to the hotel and he, Mac, Mark and I had quite a session of thanking God for connecting us with him.

So another amazing believer enters our lives-Joseph Koome M'Mukiira. Thirty-six years old with a wife, Helen, and five children. Joseph was born as a Roman Catholic, got born-again at 14, studied accounting, but then went into ministry at 18 in the Pentecostal Church. They recognized his abilities and he worked at the district office for many years. He is a very organized man who has coordinated many seminars and interpreted for many evangelists and teachers who have come to Kenya. In 1984 he was to go to Bible School in Dallas, Texas for two years, but at the last minute his denominational bosses said no because they feared he would leave the denomination after they had invested in him. From 1984-1996 Joseph prayed to God to get to go to bible school. He was dissatisfied with much Pentecostal doctrine as well as the denominational politics he saw, but few of his peers would listen to him. In 1996 he got to go to Norway for four months of Christian leadership training and that is where the plot thickened-there he met Rudy Limpot from the Philippines . Rudy introduced him to some of the CES  materials, he wrote us, we sent him books and tapes and the rest is "His-story." When Joseph returned from the Philippines, he tried to get his East African Pentecostal Church bosses to listen to him about what he was learning from the CES  tapes. They responded by firing him from the church that he had started. Although they were very unkind to him in how they treated him, he responded by blessing them and starting another church, meeting outdoors on his own property. Joseph is another priceless saint who has courageously stood against religious tyranny for the sake of God's people.

The Christian taxi driver who we met the night before had arranged a car for us the next morning to head to Meru, Joseph's hometown. The most direct route was inaccessible due to the road being washed out by the heavy rains, so we had to go another way which took about four hours. Due to the heavy rain, and who knows what else, most of the participants were quite late in getting to the seminar and so we did not start until the afternoon. We met at a school, and outside the room we could hear people chopping wood for the fire to cook our supper. At Meru, and at the next venue in Timau, near Mt. Kenya, we were very close to the equator, but the altitude was more than a mile so the temperature was very pleasant, and even chilly at night.

The seminars we taught were basically made up of what is in the Truth Or Tradition?  tapes (formerly Truth Versus Tradition ), from which we branched out with whatever else the Lord inspired us to say, particular to the needs of the people. It was very sad when I (JAL) asked the audience (mostly church leaders) who could tell me anything about Ephesians. No hands went up. "How many chapters does it have? What comes before it or after it?" Still no hands. The "Secret" is still a secret to most Christians, but it is no longer a secret to the 250 saints we taught in Africa, and we pray that they will in turn tell the secret to everyone that they can. One precious and very dynamic woman in Meru shared briefly one day: "I've been to many conferences and seminars, but I have never heard teaching like this. Before I felt like I do when I pray for many people [burdened], but here I feel healed." She was a very powerful woman, and we were very sorry that we could not speak to her without an interpreter. We told her that people like her make it worthwhile for us to come and teach.

Each of the seminars in Kenya was a real battle against spirits of slumber and other religious blindness and oppression. The stories we heard about denominational intrigue and machinations were like something out of a John Grisham novel. They included public defamation, witchcraft, bribery and murder by poison as well as by demonic strangulation. There appears to be a great rivalry among church leaders vying for American money, and we saw some of this first hand, although we won't go into the details. Let us not be too quick to embrace allegiances with those entrenched in systems whose very structure and nature are ungodly, and which encourage the evil tendencies already inherent within all men.

From what we could see, the African culture does not value being on time, which we equated to keeping one's word. In Meru, the participants' continual tardiness prompted one very inspired 45-minute teaching on the timing of God and the importance of Christians being in the right place at the right time. We shared with about 75 participants that the more you know who you are in Christ the more you will be on time, because you will believe that your life makes a difference. We ended with Psalm 22 and Christ giving up His life at the right moment, the moment when the Passover lamb was slain in the temple.

In each seminar we led people into speaking in tongues, and in each case there were some who had not previously done so. In Meru there were many who had not, and most of them did. It was thrilling, as it always is to see someone speak in tongues for the first time. It was also in Meru that another awesome saint entered the scene, and he is another one of whom you will definitely hear more in the days to come. His name is Moses Shichenje and he is 26 years old and single. Last November, Moses met Charles John, a dear believer from Hooper, Utah who had gone to Africa to share the Word there. Charles told Moses about us, he wrote us, we sent him books and tapes and once again, "His-story" is unfolding. We believe that like Mac and Joseph, Moses will be a key to reaching many people on the continent of Africa. He graduated two years from Daystar University in Nairobi, and during his time there he met many Christians from many countries in Africa. On our final day in Nairobi, at the end of our stay, Moses rounded up six church leaders to come and fellowship with us for several hours. Moses comes from the Luhya tribe of 3.2 million people, and seven years ago he initiated a Luhya language translation of the Bible, because there has never been one. He persuaded the Kenya Bible Society to underwrite part of the project, and now the New Testament is completed. His goal is that by 2002 there is a complete Bible in his native tongue. That illustrates the kind of go-getter that he is. This is a young man of impeccable character and dynamic ability. At 26, he is already a bona fide elder. At present he has invitations to speak in 17 other African countries.

On Wednesday, January 14, Moses, Joseph, Mark and I hired a local believer to drive us about an hour and a half to Timau, which is near Mt. Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa after Mt. Kilimanjaro. As we rode along in what came to be known as the "magic Peugeot," a "broken in" sky-blue 1969 model with probably a million kilometers on it, I (JAL) thought about all the evil people in the world who would that day be riding in a Mercedes or something comparable. I thanked God for the vehicle we had to transport us, and I thought about the day when the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Timau is another very little village with no paved streets except the main road passing through it. When we arrived, Joseph found out that many of the participants were late in arriving to the seminar, so we headed up a seemingly impassably muddy road to check out a hotel. We ended up staying at another one (for $2.63 a night each) within walking distance of the Methodist Church where we had the seminar, but after a harrowing trip including crossing one bridge where the river was flowing over the top of the bridge , we saw the hand of God on our lives once again. In the middle of nowhere we found the Kentrout Grill and Hotel, an amazing culinary haven of which we took advantage for lunch. It is a trout farm, and the fresh trout are cooked as the centerpiece of a delicious lunch. Afterward we decided that God was chuckling as He watched us drive up the muddy road, especially as I (JAL) was getting a little frustrated with the whole scene.

The Methodist church in Meru was about 18´x36´ with a cement floor, no electricity and small wooden doors that opened to serve as windows during the day. At night we used kerosene lamps to light the inside. The participants sat on benches. Each day we walked about 500 yards down an incredibly muddy street, and it was very interesting traversing it back to the hotel at night with a flashlight. It was in Timau that Mark did probably the best teaching on salvation that I (JAL) have ever heard. He drew a huge pie-chart on the blackboard with about 20 phrases synonymous to the new birth. We plan to make this teaching into a bi-monthly teaching this year. By the time the Timau seminar ended, approximately 80 people had come to several or all of the sessions. We will work to improve the overall communication in our next trip to Africa so that people understand they should attend all of the seminar to benefit the most. As I sat one day listening to Mark teach in the little church in Timau, I looked at my precious brothers and sisters in Christ. All of their shoes were caked with mud. I looked at their many tattered garments and my heart went out to them. I realized how much I love them and how much I want to help them, especially when they so badly want to serve God. How thankful we are for the privilege of serving them the Bread of Life.

Our last day in Timau was a beautiful sunny day, and while Mark taught, I sat outside the building in the grass. Before long about ten African children had gathered around me. They spoke a little English so we had some rapport. They especially liked rubbing the hair on my arms because they have never seen anything like that before. When we got ready to leave, several of them walked us all the way back up the dirt road to the hotel. One of them held my hand the whole way while another one tried to persuade me to take him to America with us.

We only had to go an hour and a half back to Meru to spend the night before we were to dedicate Joseph's little church building and spend the next day (Sunday, January 18) with the believers there. Little did we know that God had another travel miracle up His sleeve. As the sun set and the temperature dropped quickly, we stood by the only road waiting nearly an hour for a "matatu," a sort of pickup truck with a shell and benches in the back. We never did actually see where Joseph found the one that finally took us to..."THE POTHOLE." The what ? "Yes," we were told, "It's a little more than halfway to Meru where the road has washed out." As we listened to him speak, we knew this would the Mother of all potholes. "Don't worry," they said, "There will be plenty of vehicles waiting on the other side of THE POTHOLE to take you on to Meru. After about 45 minutes of bone-jarring, axle-bending travel, the vehicle stopped behind a truck and we were told that we were at THE POTHOLE. As we got out in the dark in the middle of nowhere, several young men appeared out of the night, grabbed some of our baggage and trucked off ahead along the road. Through the darkness we walked past truck after truck stopped in their tracks by THE POTHOLE. Then the bearers turned left between two trucks and headed up a small incline into a cornfield. "Huh?" That cornfield turned into a mud pit trail of several hundred yards. On and on we went, sloshing along with cornstalks whipping at our legs, up and down inclines, almost falling several times. Finally we slid down a 10-ft. embankment and back onto the road. Guess what? There were no vehicles waiting. But, we looked up a cloudless starry sky and Mark pointed out the constellation Orion, the sign of the coming Redeemer. By this point we had gotten accustomed to laughing, singing ["Hakuna matata...means no sidewalk, it's our cleanliness-free philosophy"] and waiting to see what God would do.

From out of the foggy night a real car  appeared-a white Nissan that had literally been lifted out of THE POTHOLE by a number of truck drivers who were helped by "the night people." We flagged him down, knowing that we would have to split up into two groups of three. It wasn't a taxi, but the driver saw our plight and said O.K. Mark, Joseph and I, who had the greatest need to get to Meru, got in with him while Moses and two young women who were traveling with us stayed behind to wait for the next vehicle (The next morning we found out that there never was another vehicle and that the three of them had to walk many miles to hook up with someone who finally brought them to Meru). It turned out that the driver of the Nissan was a magistrate in the Kenyan court system who lives in Meru and who had been traveling all day to get home. Once again we praised God as we arrived at the hotel, had a decent meal, took a shower, cleaned our shoes and went to bed. The next day we had a wonderful fellowship with Joseph and about 75 people, sharing the Word with them and dedicating their little rectangular, wooden-slab church building with a flat tin roof, benches, a dirt and sawdust floor, no electricity and nice flowers around the edge of the building. It was also the dedication of his ministry as a CES- affiliated fellowship.

After that, Joseph took us for a tour of his farm, a small piece of property that his grandmother gave him and on which he built a house. He grows quite a few crops and has a number of farm animals, most of which are used to feed his family. He told us about a couple of "garden pests" that we were thankful we did not have to deal with-elephants  and monkey s. He said the elephants are virtually unstoppable by any fence or rock wall, which they just tear down and plow through. They eat or trash everything. The monkeys also come in and take ears of corn and run off with them under their arms. We gave him a large can of Raid  to use on the elephants.

The next day we hired a car and drove back to Nairobi with Moses where we stayed for three days at the Mayfield Guest House, run by the African Inland Mission, a Christian ministry active in Africa for 102 years. It was a very nice place, and at $15 a day per person including three meals, it was a very good deal. While we were in Nairobi, we stopped at the A.I.M. charter flight service to inquire about the cost of chartering a plane when we return to Africa. We found out it is very affordable and would be a good way for us to travel to certain places. Because we had had no time to look at any of the big game parks in Tanzania or Kenya, on Tuesday we went to the Nairobi National Park, which is right outside of town. We got there in the middle of the day and spent about four hours driving around seeing some Cape buffalo, giraffes, hartebeests, gazelles, ostriches and other birds, etc. in their natural habitat. That night God worked in an amazing way to get us to a particular restaurant where we met two waiters very hungry for the Word.

The next day Mark and Moses walked around Nairobi looking at the sights and rounding up people for our final days' spur-of-the-moment meeting in a hotel conference room downtown. It turned out that six people came all of whom were meek and receptive to the Word. One of the things we emphasized that day, as well as in each seminar, is an error that is permeating the Christian Church, and that is that God is in control of everything that happens. This essentially pagan doctrine leads to fatalism, passivity and despair among those who believe it. We believe that the effects of this teaching are far more harmful than most people realize.

Although we admittedly went to Africa with many details up in the air, we knew it was the will of God for us to go us and "get our foot in the door." We have done just that, and now we have a nucleus of committed leaders who will spread the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are far ahead of where we were in the Philippines after only one visit. Our hearts were very touched by the African believers, and we are passionate about the whole continent of Africa being reached with the truth of God's Word. We have no doubt that He will provide all that we need to see this come to pass. Once again we saw very clearly that when we speak the universal language of love and truth, those with ears to hear respond enthusiastically.

Again we thank those who contributed financially to make our trip possible. We told each group that the reason we, and they, could be at the seminar was because of their Christian brethren who chose to invest some of their hard-earned money in our lives and in theirs. On several occasions, the Lord prompted us to give some of the money we had to saints in need. We felt most privileged to do so, and their response was most touching. One couple dropped to their knees and raised their hands to the Lord in thanksgiving. Our joy in giving reminded us of how much God loves to give to us.

Our plan is to return in August or September and do seminars in Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Kakamega, where Moses lives. Those seminars will have very specific guidelines and ground rules about who attends and what the format will be. We want to do it right for the students who attend and provide them a decent learning environment. As in any other country, our goal is that as soon as possible they coordinate all the elements of the outreach in their own country. Right now it looks like I (JAL) will go to Africa, but we are not sure who is going with me. It is possible that we may combine about three weeks in Africa with about two weeks in India, as it looks like doors are opening there for us. We solicit your fervent prayers about this. If it is on your heart to help us financially with the trip or to help any of the individuals we have mentioned, please do not hesitate to let us know. If you feel you should go, let us know that also.

We hope to see you at the CES  Winter Fellowship in Ontario, CA at the end of this month, or when we are out on the road in your area. We love you very dearly, we pray for you and we are available to you anytime you think we can help you. Thank you for loving God and for loving us. John and Jenivee Schoenheit and Karen Anne Graeser join us in our love for you.

On safari with the Lord,

John and Mark

The original February 1, 1998 deadline for registration has been extended for a short time. If you are considering going with us to Israel, you must act immediately and contact CES . The dates are June 27 - July 10, 1998 and the total cost is $2498 per person.

Donald Snedeker's new book, Our Heavenly Father Has No Equals: Unitarianism, Trinitarianism and the Necessity of Biblical Proof , will be published and available by the end of February. In the book, the author discusses many of the various Trinitarian arguments, the history and development of Trinitarian dogma and why the doctrine of a triune God is not to be preferred over the supremacy of the Father. Jesus' exalted position is maintained according to the Unitarian system, but is actually diminished according to the Trinitarian system. Snedeker covers many of the verses Trinitarians commonly rely upon to support their system. The book is 550 pages long, including indexes and appendixes.

The publisher is making it available at a pre-publication price of $32 (paperback only). The regular price of the book, if ordered from the publisher, is $54 for the paperback and $75 for the hardcover.

If you would like a copy of Our Heavenly Father Has No Equals , send a check for $36, which will cover shipping and handling, to International Scholars Publications, 7831 Woodmont Ave. #345, Bethesda, MD 20814.