Belwop Van!

She told the man in the grey suit, in kiswahili, "This van is for the glory of God."

He answered in English, "Madam, I am also a Christian. And what you say, about this being for the glory of God, it troubles me, because I know it is true, and I have never given so much time to pay off a vehicle. Give me an hour to think it over. What you say has moved me, but I just don't know yet."

We had offered him 750,000 kenyan shillings down, and 300,000 to be paid off in 10 months, providing they fix some things with the large matatu van.


 As we sat for that hour at the restaurant of a hotel called Banana Leaf, treated to a free lunch by the manager (who is preparing for our October team's arrival) we received another call.

"I have found another van," said the first honest car salesman I have personally met, "Come outside and see!"

It was love at first site...

An 8-seater, silver Toyota van. Air conditioned, swivel removable seats, shiny and new, with a white sticker that scripts "Noah" on the back bottom corner window.

"Noah's ark" we call it. And it was at exactly our price range.

For 600,000 KSH. Half of the "matatu" 14 seater van, it would be ours. The seats not as many as a bus by any means, but exactly enough to tote building Extreme Response teams, as well as half the kids at a time, to and from church or  Nairobi or the moon or wherever :)

"This is beautiful. This is ours!" Veronica exclaimed.

And it was so. We did not need the other vehicle, and the man did not call back after the hour.

That day, we put a deposit down. As we signed the papers, we saw the man in the grey suit walking towards his matatu, head down. Veronica walked up to him and said, "This was not the time for us to have a bus, but maybe one day. A better one that will hold us all. Now you know about us, and your children at Belwop."  He looked very sad, but smiled and nodded, and shook her hand as we got into our new car.



The next morning, after a long adventure at Barclay's bank with "introducing" me to Veronica's account from my US Wells Fargo via paperwork, we paid the whole van off in HARD CASH! We then got a call from a friend of V's called Mr. Mathenge (Mr. Marengue as I call him...   "marengue" in kiswahili means Pumpkin) called us and wanted to know if we could find another vehicle like it.

"I have just purchased the same vehicle for my personal use, but I got it for 1.2 million kenyan shillings! How did you get such a deal?"

"God gave it to us!" I said on the phone.

"Could you ask Him if He has any more offhand?" he laughed.


Yesterday, after giving the ark a nice car wash, and making the inside velvet cushions smell and feel like new, we drove it to Belwop.  It was Zipporah's 10th birthday, so we had double chocolate cake and ice cream, sang happy birthday, then piled into Noah's ark and took off.

Would you believe it?

We ALL FIT.

All 20 of us.

Maybe all those species in the fertile crescent, thousands of years ago, could fit in that big boat after all?

Not two seconds out the gate the kids began to sing:

...

This is the day,
(This is the van,)
That the Lord has made!
(That the Lord has bought!)
I will rejoice!
(I will rejoice!)
And be glad in it.
(And be glad in it...)


We sang praise and worship at the top of our lungs and drove all round the town of Nyeri, Kenya, thanking God, waving at our neighbors, some of them looked confused but most were excited, and when we returned home to Belwop, 9 year old Irene prayed over the van in beautiful Swahili, thanking God and her mom and sisters and brothers, both here and in the US for our new van.


Praise God, glory to Him in the highest, now and forevermore.

Amen