Memories of Uasin Gishu
Reverend Piet Grobler had once been a Dutch Reformed minister in Eldoret. He came back to visit from 18 to 26 July 1992 and kept notes of what he found. This is a retelling of those notes in English. Grobler came onto the Plateau by way of Ainabkoi and stopped at the old Bwana Loubser Mission, which now belongs to the Reformed Church of East Africa (RCEA). Pastor Festo Okonyene, who had trained there in 1944–48, welcomed him and spoke warmly of the missionaries and farmers he had known. The mission had grown into a school, a new church, a hospital and student housing. The old festival hall had become a Bible and technical college that trained young people in faith, trades and farming, on land that once belonged to Fanie Barnard. At Ainabkoi the RCEA clinic now had a secondary school next to it, and the 1976 church still served the community, though it had become neglected. Grobler credited Adam and Hennie van Rensburg with starting that mission years before. Ainabkoi itself had beco...