Hello friends. Sorry, I’ve been lacking in my postings for the past few days. Let me turn back the page to Thursday, 9/26. We finished the work we had to do at Bishop Okullu College. I drove home from the college in Asembo to the Kodia’s home in Kisumu. I’m proud of myself for handling the driving, which is on the left-hand side of the road, with lots of traffic once you get close to Kisumu. It’s been great to have the independence of a vehicle to get around it. When we got back to Kisumu, I did a bit of window shopping at some computer stores to find out what printers and other equipment I could get locally for the college. We needed a new laser printer, a UPS Battery Backup unit, a wireless bridge device to bring the Internet into the library building, and some other minor items. It was helpful so I could find out how much money I needed to get from a bank ATM to pay for it all. Here in Kenya, they have a very convenient system of making payments through cell phones called M-Pesa. That works for the locals, but I needed cash to purchase items.
Friday was a school visit day. This time, we went to Chianda Boys High School. Chianda is a big school with over 2000 students. It is, aswith the other schools, sponsored by the Diocese of Bondo. Church and related activities are a normal part of life there. For this visit, we were there to lead a dedication service for the Form 4 students who were about to start their final exams in October. Bishop David assigned me to be the preacher for the service. One of the scriptures for the day was Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. I used this scripture to encourage the students as they prepared for their exams not to think that these will determine their lives but will give them a sense of direction going forward and to look to the Lord for guidance for their future. As it says in verse 11, “He makes all things beautiful in his time.” I ended the sermon with the song “In His Time” and taught the students the chorus. It was fabulous having all those voices singing with me. It was a wonderful time of worship.
On Saturday, I spent the day at home at the Kodia’s. I went out briefly to get some cash and purchase the wireless bridge unit so I could test it out and make sure it would work properly for the college. In testing, it worked perfectly for bridging a wireless network to wired computers. This also gave me a chance to record the bridging procedure for Robert. He will be the one to configure and put it into service at BOC.
Sunday, I worshiped at the nearby St. Stephen’s Cathedral here in Kisumu with Bishop David and family. It was nice having a day off from leading anything during the service. Instead, we could just participate in worship with the congregation. Afterward, we came home and spent the afternoon with David and Janepher’s cell group (home group). There were about 25 – 30 people who came to the house for food and fellowship.
Monday was equipment shopping day. Robert was in town from the college. We got together and went to the Mega Plaza, where the stores were located, to pick up the new printer, UPS Battery, mouse pads, etc. I was wondering how they would get these items to the college, but as it tuned out, Principal Okellu was also in town for a meeting, so we were able to meet and pass the equipment along to bring to the college.
This week, I’m off duty! I’m relaxing here in Kisumu and will start to prepare for travel to Tanzania on Thursday, 10/3. I will probably not post anything until Saturday, as much of my time will be spent traveling and getting settled in at the compound in Kasulu. Thank you all for your prayers while I’ve been on this journey. Other than missing having Cathy with me, it’s been almost perfect!
Yours in Christ,
Canon Bill
e
On Sunday, I had the chance to visit St. Peter’s Church in Masala, Kenya. I sang “Blessed Assurance” with the congregation, as they were familiar with the hymn, especially the chorus. I used a guitar tuning called DADGAD that gives the song a bright, open-string sound. It was well received and sung by the congregation and choir. One of the highlights was the choir. They lead the congregation in many songs, choruses, and liturgical singing throughout the service. And again, it was all acapella, so you could hear the harmony in the voices.
Afterward, we moved on to Nyagoko Secondary School, where I was the guest preacher for a dedication service for the students. I had the same scriptures that we had at St. Paul’s on Sunday. I spoke about the Mark passages, which read, “If you want to be first, you must be last and servant of all.” My challenge to the students was to be ambitious but for the best reasons: to serve the Lord’s purpose and not for any selfish reason. I shared a story from my experience where I learned this important lesson. I encouraged them to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added you”.
Along the way, we planted a few trees on the school grounds. I’ve done that several times with Bishop David at various church gatherings. I’m unsure of the significance, but I’ll have to ask the bishop when he returns from Nairobi.
Monday was the start of the new server setup for the existing Thin Client network. They also have installed StarLink Internet. It is a vast improvement over the 3G LTE Data service, which was spotty at best. With StarLink, we could download various drivers and files that we needed for the installation in no time at all. As I noted in one of my previous blog posts from 8/27, one of my goals for this trip is to update Bishop Okullu College’s computer lab with new equipment to run the virtual server environment. 
They have two five-year-old Mac Mini computers running the virtual server environment. It was time to upgrade and speed up their operations. The great thing about thin client computing is that we can still use the original units (which are nine years old now) and get a big boost of speed for the MS Windows sessions the thin clients run just by updating the server hardware. We spent all of Monday and part of Tuesday and Wednesday working on and configuring the entire setup. I also took some time to go through some TCP/IP network training with Robert and Lynette. We also repurposed the Mac Mini computers. One is now set up to be used as a Library Catalog system. The other is configured with a large screen monitor in the seminar room for presentations and online meetings. 
Tomorrow, we’ll finish moving the StarLink WiFi router to the main office and run a wire back to the computer lab to connect everything up. All in all, it was a productive few days. I’m glad we could get so much done in a relatively short time.