Our big God adventure: episode 28 — God used property we bought ‘by the way’ to show us ‘His way’

In the previous episode missionary Lydia Venter shared how they unexpectedly bought a piece of land in an obscure Kenyan village called Lomolo. In this chapter she writes about how God directed their steps to Lomolo.

Initially we used the little mud house on the property in Lomolo as a storeroom. We were quite settled in Nakuru and had no real plan to get involved in out-of-the-way Lomolo. Yes, we were happy to have land and yes, we had an inclination that we eventually might do something there, but definitely not more than perhaps to enjoy a little “hiding place” where we could rest in between ministry responsibilities.

Our ministry activities at that time revolved around Christian education and overseeing a few churches that we had helped to plant. We also still had the Hope Centre boys in our programme plus a few fundraising initiatives to help generate local money to support the mission. We definitely didn’t want to take on more responsibilities. 

In Episode 16 [“… and you will dream dreams and see visions (part 1)] I shared about how the Lord woke me up one night and downloaded exact instructions in my spirit on how to make bricks from plastic waste. 

I literally woke up and told Wilco: “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly” — Gen 11:3 ?. Little did we understand the beautiful and profound ways of the King and how these bricks would one day be used to build something unique in a marginalized village in an arid land where it’s easy for people to ask: “What good can come from this place?”

I also shared in that chapter how Wairimu who worked for us, was taught the process of making the bricks, and how the Lord encouraged us to eventually hand her the business. She flourished! For years we bought 60 bricks a week from her, so when the place where we stored the bricks got sold in 2018, we knew exactly where we would take the bricks — to Lomolo, of course.

Arriving in Lomolo with our 1-ton trailer that we had arrived with from South Africa in 2001, was a sight to behold. What are these “wazungu” transporting in the huge 2-wheel white “box” pulled by their vehicle? Of course they all came to help carry the bricks into the two-room mud house that would later become our home. 

This was the first time, since we had bought the land, that we had some sort of a reason to be in Lomolo. And in retrospect we know that the Lord was already starting to align our lives with His divine purpose. 

I love how Abba talks to us in Jeremiah 31:3 (The Voice): “I have loved you with an everlasting love – out of faithfulness I have drawn you close.”

We started getting to know the people of the neighbourhood and every time we visited Lomolo, we lost our heart a little more. Seeing the children inspired us to do something for them, and that is how Holy Spirit started talking to us about building a library — an idea that finally came to fruition in 2019.

Our unique bricks taught us a lot about the Father’s heart and about us being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. — 1 Pet 2:4-5

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” —Eph 2:19-22

In episode 29 I will share the wonderful testimony of how the first plastic library in Africa, and possibly the world, got built in Lomolo, a humble village about 210km north west of Nairobi. It’s true that Jesus never ceases to amaze us.

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