A late night visit and waking up to the general election result.

We drove out into the dark night to a small village near to Asebu, not that Asebu  is large about 6,000 people. We went in the truck which was necessary as we rode the potholes to get there. A brief look at yet another church in the process of being built, and having  pointed out the place the congregation actually worships outside the local school. They have about 50 in the congregation which makes it compared to many of our Sheffield congregations large. In the night the simple brick constructed  homes look even starker with odd lights on giving a sense of activity. We stop at the home of a church member, immediately we are welcomed chairs pulled out (plastic)  and wiped down for us to sit on. Music blares from one of the rooms of the two building home , three rooms in all. Inside the son a young man, while the power is on is playing music and on an old computer. It seems out of place, but why not. There is just a bed and a simple cupboard that furnishes the room. My daughters have all had far more even when at University.

So with the 72 year old farmer and his wife we sit and talk. He produces oranges, limes , casava and maize and with a good harvest feeds his family. What does he need? Nothing for himself but for his church. He wants to see it finished. They are supported by Asebu, as if Asebu is the wealthy church. Asebu has grown doubling its membership while Revd Eric has been its minister.It is this growth and the   energy of Revd Eric and Mary his wife that has seen the potential for a new circuit even here in this poorest area. The farmer has four children and again remembers me from the camp meeting. We laugh because he says a white man has come to his home. Tradition here says if you meet a white man you meet Christ. I responded, as I must,  for me we meet Christ in the stranger, and surely this has been my experience here. I notice a woman sitting  in the semi dark by the house, she used to go to church but not now. So she has drawn back from our conversation. I would loved to have heard her story. She reminds me of so many who sit on the edge of our churches life. Some who  have drifted away or who are part of what we do, but don't seem to have their voice heard. Do we exclude them by our busyness? Are our  expectations too much? So they hold back in the end not fully participating in a way of doing things that is so all or nothing. And of course we ended our time with prayer and genuine thanks for our visit. Will we come again please? If we are able to.! I may be with them Sunday morning to take communion if so it will be good.

So I went to bed with exit polls still saying conservatives will be largest party but not a majority. Now as I write the political landscape has changed. It maybe a majority conservative government after all. My heart sinks at the thought of the cuts that will come. The poor will become poorer, the further fragmentation of education may be speeded up. Food banks will not disappear!  We may all end up wanting to emigrate to Scotland, though I can't help seeing the landslide to the SNP as an own goal. They brought down a labour administration that brought in the Thatcher years. So unless we have a resurgence of an alternative, it may prove hard in future not to have a conservative government. So what the SNP  claimed they did not  want they have contributed towards. 

Well its not a landslide victory and the right will want their pound of flesh so it wont be easy for Mr Carmeron. But this all pales into insignificance as one of the young men at the church has developed malaria. He has had injections and we pray he recovers quickly. Here I am with my tablets giving me protection and almost forgetting the dangers. 

Jehu the youngest continues to entertain me so we had to take a photo of him in my sunglasses!