The Last Supper

It seems that where discipleship is concerned, a last supper is implied. After a few hours of rest, we were invited to Veronica and Juma's for our final evening meal in Bungoma. I had been to their house yesterday while we were out visiting women, but only for a few minutes. Their house is certainly nicer than any of the other homes we had visited, but still very modest by any standard other than Bungoma standard. Juma built it himself. The walls are of brick, as opposed to the mud typical of the area, and the roof is of tin, as opposed to straw. They have a sizable living room with several couches perfectly suited for hosting small bible studies. The remains of their previous home lie just across the footpath leading to their front door, and I'd have missed the ruins entirely if Veronica hadn't pointed them out. Their old house is now literally just a pile of mud that could easily be confused for the site of an archaeological dig.

We were joined by Godfrey, a close friend and ministry partner who works with Juma at the church, and Juma's mother, who is one of the women involved in the women's micro-finance ministry, and is one of the most joyful women I've ever met. Veronica fixed a wonderful dinner of traditional Kenyan delights; rice, vegetable stew, cabbage, potatoes, chicken, and our favorite - chapati. Chapati is very much like Mexican tortillas, except thicker and (I may have to condemn myself as a heretic when I say this) better. They don't have electricity, so we ate by the light of a ingle kerosene lantern. My long-held, but seldom-tested suspicion was confirmed; black people are really hard to see in the dark. Often, two eyes and a smile were the only visible features. I felt as though I was sitting at a table with Mike and six cheshire cats. My camera experienced similar difficulties seeing in the dark. I resorted to focusing manually, and holding my breath for every 2-3 second exposure. Few shots were very good. Da Vinci would have been completely stifled.

About fifteen minutes into dinner, our nightly visitor showed up. Tink. Tink, tink. Tinkatinkatinkatinkatink. The sound of the rain on the tin roof added to the enchanting ambience provided by the lantern. Had we not been so accustomed to the habits of the rain, we might have been worried about having to walk back to our hotel in the downpour, but we knew that it would only last an hour. So we fellowshipped a while longer (sounds like a Big Red commercial) in the dark, and sure enough, the rain let up. What we were a bit worried about was still having to walk back to the hotel in the pitch black night over the very uneven, and now very muddy terrain. Little did I know that Juma moonlights as a matatu driver. Matatus are the white and yellow taxi mini-busses that flood the streets of Kenya. I had a handful of delightfully chaotic matatu experiences during my last visit with Ed, but very few this time. Tonight, Juma's moonlighting was quite literal. We loaded into the van, and bounced back to the hotel, very satisfied with the food, and with the work that had been done over the course of the week, but not without a few bittersweet feelings.