Warm Bread Dripping with Honey

Prior to our wandering through the Malya wilderness with bubbly Baba Tanda, the girls and I spent Saturday afternoon with Elizabeti, Tabitha and Agnus (from the Mamas Group). I love these ladies! 

Sharing chai together

These three (and four others who were at a funeral on Saturday) are serious about the group. Others less committed have now left and these remaining women are keen to work and keen to learn! It is a slow process which does involve dedication and effort, but the rewards will be all the sweeter for it!

So on Saturday, we embarked on lessons in honey soap-making and bread-making. All the while making sure that we kept the two most separate, we coordinated the time to keep sodium hydroxide cooling and yeasty dough warmly rising. All this intermingled with Bible study as we waited for soap setting and bread baking. In the short space of an afternoon while Credo was waiting to take us to his hives, it all required rather Western-style logistical and consequential planning! And needed a good fire consistently kept the "right" temperature in the fuel-efficient stove! This still makes me rather nervous...

We are READY for Some Serious Soap-making

It was lovely to present the ladies with their very own WONDER-POT! This gift from our friends in Canada, makes it easy ("easy") to cook bread or cakes using firewood or charcoal on a single burner or as we used, the fuel-efficient clay stove! They learned to make basic bread rolls, and delighted with the results, they are now keen to make and sell "sconsi" from their own homes. I was also able to give one of these wonder-pots to the women in the Upendo wa Mama group in Mwanza, who will take turns to do the same. Huge thanks to Clifford and Kathy!



Tabitha vigourously kneads the bread dough

Agnus takes the risen dough to cook on the fuel efficient stove

The Wonderpot

It was also wonderful to present the women with their own Bibles, thanks to the generosity of Tadley Community Church! With Bibles in hand, we were able to read together.



Thrilled with their new Bibles

As these women wander from their own wildernesses, they are holding on to the promises. Tabitha read aloud from Deuteronomy 8:6-10.

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land – a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills;  a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

It was a wonderful passage to reflect on while the bread baked outside and as we sat together with wheat flour, olive oil and honey on the table in front of us. Truly God is bringing blessing. When we walk in obedience, out of the wilderness comes promise. The promise is good, and we are tasting it now! And so we fed from the sweet honey which is God's Word. And after a few dashes outside to pull out a stick or blow on the fire, the bread was baked. We broke it up, remembering, and ate it fresh and warm and dripping with honey. Satisfied. Thankful.


Fresh bread and honey

Tabitha with her honey roll and chai