Bill Schrull
Jan 21 – Ready to go!
All set to go to Kisumu, Kenya. Some of you have asked how this trip came about. It started with an E-mail message that came from Rev. David Kodia, the principal of Bishop Okullu College to Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. He forwarded the E-mail to me since I’m the chairperson for a diocesan committee called Companions in Mission for Publishing and Communications, AKA CMPC. The e-mail was an inquiry and request for funding to setup a computer lab and network for the students of the college. I put two plus two together, mainly that I have experience and expertise in doing this type of work based on the years of working with Kasulu Bible College in Kasulu Tanzania (now known as Lake Tanganyika Theological College – say that ten times fast!). I’ve been supporting their computer lab for over 11 years. It did not take long for me to figure that the folks at Bishop Okullu College could use some help in figuring out what would be the best setup for their lab, so I volunteered to travel there and meet with them to offer my services in any way that I can to help them reach their goal.
So I’m here today at JFK waiting for the first flight out to Dubai of a three flight journey to Kisumu. I’d appreciate your prayers as I travel and meet with the leadership of BOC this week. I’m looking forward to meeting with them and visiting and seeing the Kisumu area of Kenya.
Bill
2015 – Chimpanzees!
We are going to leave you with a teaser tonight. Cathy and I are in Gombe National Park and have limited bandwidth and since we were up at 3 am this morning, we are too tired to write tonight. But needless to say we had an exceptional day which included flying to Kigoma, then traveling by boat to Gombe and within 30 minutes or so of our first walk through the forest, we came upon a family of chimpanzees. It was an awesome experience, which we’ll write more about tomorrow when we get to Kigoma.
Getting Ready to go
Here we go again. We’re packing our bags with loads of equipment, a guitar and clothing. 5 bags in all to take with us to Tanzania for our three week trip to Kasulu. We’re pretty excited and a little bit exhausted from the hunting and gathering we’ve been doing for the past 4 weeks to get all of the items we need together for this year’s mission.
Tomorrow morning at 6AM, we’ll be on our way to JFK airport to catch our flight to Dubai. I’m looking forward to the time on the flight, strangely enough. Once we are there, we can really sit back and relax for a while. 12 hours of that on the first leg of the trip and then after a brief layover, we’ll catch the next flight to Dar Es Salaam. That one is about 5 1/2 hours long. Once we get to Dar, there will be a 30 minute or so drive into the city to our hotel. It’s a long trip, but very much worth it. I’m looking forward to getting there. And I’m especially looking forward to the first morning. It’s always great to get up and out into the city. We have some business to attend to there, such as getting cell phone SIMM cards and purchasing more computer equipment for KBC.
The Lord truly has blessed our time of preparation. We’ve been very forward focused for some time now. What I enjoy the most when we are in Kasulu is focusing more on each day as it comes along and looking to be in the moment rather than always looking ahead. That will be a pleasure.
Keep us in prayer and stop in each day. We will try to post each day as time allows.
Blessings to your all.
Bill