Kenya 2025 Part 1
Thank you Michael Smith for this awesome Kenyan sunrise at the CMM compound. This year was the first Wellspring Mission Trip in who knows how long. I took my family along with the team, but I booked our flights really early in the year, before I even knew we would have a team going. Therefore our travel was not together.
The team arrived EARLY Sunday morning, got about 3 hours of sleep, and went to church. They are troopers. Meanwhile, my family was traveling, and we arrived EARLY Monday morning, got 3 hours of sleep, and met the team for breakfast.
Monday was the day when all the pastors would begin arriving for the CMM conference, where we would be ministering to 700 pastors from all across Africa. The first ministry was to carry their bags to their rooms for them. It’s hard for us to imagine how impactful that simple act of service was. Ronnie Matheny told us that it would be mind-blowing for these pastors to show up to find mzungus (white people) carrying THEIR bags rather than the other way around. It seemed to be true. I had to practically beg some of the people to let me carry their things.
Thanks Drew and Cat for taking some pics of that part of the day.
The MVP of that part of the trip had to be Michael Smith, though, as he relentlessly carried bag after bag for hours, hitting around 25,000 steps that day! I wish we had a picture of Michael carrying bags, but you'll just have to wait until glory to see replays of that.
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The conference started Monday evening at 5pm and consisted of some very lively worship and a message, but the highlight had to be when they honored Carrol Sprenger for his years of service to that ministry. One of the most important things we do for CMM is that we collect, sort, clean, and ship books, Bibles, and other highly needed resources. Carrol has worked for years to collect, sort, and clean nearly every book that the church sends.
For years he has done this without ever seeing the faces of the pastors who would receive them. I’ve gotten to see the pastors on the receiving end, and this ministry is no small thing. They are beside themselves at the opportunity to receive a few books, a Bible, and a concordance. It's hard for us to imagine in the USA, but in Kenya and other East African countries, the pastors are starved for Christian educational resources like books. I can't imagine trying to preach every Sunday with NO extra help from books and commentaries.
Here is a video of Carrol seeing the Wellspring Library at CMM campus for the first time. Every (or nearly every) book that is on these shelves went through Carrols hands in untold hours of sweaty warehouse work that Carrol has done for years in the Wellspring warehouse here in Texas.
I snapped this picture at the conference when Pastor Chola, asked Carroll to raise his hand to be acknowledged during the first session on Monday night. He is sitting in the very back, but once the people saw him and heard how he has been serving them, he got a standing ovation. Click the picture above or this link to see the video of Carrol Sprenger being honored at CMM.
Day one was complete, and day two was hot on its heels.
Click the picture below or this link to see more photos from the first leg of the trip. It has a few traveling photos, lots of pics from the window of the car, a few pics from church on Sunday, and some pics from the first session on Monday evening.
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