Adventuring with God We Survived—You Can Too: Adventures and Trials the Courseys Experienced Following God to Kenya

By Claylan Coursey and Patricia Coursey

The greatest opportunity one has is to go on a venture with someone important. The Courseys went on an adventure with God as he called them into a special task with him. He performed wonders as he led them toward the fulfillment of the task he assigned them. They have written fifteen true life stories, mostly of Kenya, of different events that occurred along the way.

Not all the situations were fun filled at the time, but with them in the rearview mirror, the Courseys enjoy laughing about them. There were troubles on the road and at home, in floods and dry times, by slithery creatures as well as by two-legged and four-legged creatures, and there were times of good health and times of health concerns. Some of these could have turned into quite bad situations.

As the Courseys look back, they can enjoy and laugh at many of the situations with their children and friends and appreciate the ways by which the Lord brought them through each one. They desire to share some of them with you. They recommend that everyone follow God wherever he leads them and, in doing this experience, the best life possible. God brought the Courseys home. He will also bring you home as you venture with him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781973612490

Claylan Coursey

Clay and Pat Coursey, parents of Mike, Laura, and Scott, are native Texans who met at Lubbock High School. They have bachelors degrees from Wayland in Plainview and attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Clay received the M.Div. and D.Min. He has M.Ed. from UNT in Denton. They served as a church-planting team with the International Mission Board, SBC, until retirement.

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Copyright © 2018 Claylan and Patricia Coursey.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-1250-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1251-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1249-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919758

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/29/2017

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1     Can God Use a Person Like This?

Chapter 2     Discovering Northeast Kenya

Chapter 3     What Does It Mean to Be a Friend?

Chapter 4     Dealing with Troubles on Kenya’s Roads

Chapter 5     Three Elephants

Chapter 6     How to Handle Break-ins

Chapter 7     Is It Off Time?

Chapter 8     When I Had to Live Alone

Chapter 9     Marriage, Mixed Drinks, and Maternity

Marriage

Mixed Drinks

Maternity

Chapter 10   Who Gets to Drive?

Chapter 11   How to Add Excitement on a Mountain Road

Chapter 12   How to Get the Most out of Flannelgraphs

Chapter 13   Flats and Bedbugs

Chapter 14   When Not to Ask Questions

Chapter 15   Reasons for Not Conducting Seminars

Chapter 16   Summary

Preface

by Claylan Coursey

In these stories I want to share with you real experiences of everyday life as it happened to us when we were on mission, representing Southern Baptists and our Lord. I hope you can see and feel the humor as well as the excitement in them. These stories are factual and as accurate as an eighty-two-year-old man and his eighty-year-old wife can remember them. To ensure accuracy, we also tried to use the memories of our three children.

We experienced many things that could have gone badly, but God was always there. It is always great to be where God is and where He wants you to be. You never lose with Him. If He brings you through the tough stuff here on earth, He is with you. If you don’t survive tough times, you are with Him where He is. It is always a win-win situation. You will never go wrong when you trust Him in faith through Christ Jesus. Is it safe to go on an adventure with God? I can guarantee it will be exciting.

There are two stories included that occurred here in the States. All the others took place in Kenya, Africa, as we were adventuring with God. My wife, Pat, and I cowrote one of the stories, Marriage, Mixed Drinks, and Maternity. I wrote the first part, and Pat completed the other two parts. The final six stories are about some of her adventures.

The first story relates to my early days. Its purpose is simply to show that God can take anyone and do something with that person to cause him or her to be more than he or she ever would be outside of Christ. I hope you can see that the person isn’t the most important factor in traveling with God. It’s not a matter of our qualifications as much as it is of God and His ability. God looks into the heart as He did when directing Samuel to David, the future king of Israel. He looks to see whether a person is willing to let Him be the Lord and Master. If so, the outcome becomes a matter of who God is.

Introduction

by Claylan Coursey

The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) appointed Pat and me in October 1968. (The name Foreign Mission Board was later changed to International Mission Board [IMB]). We served with IMB until our retirement in 2000. We had the opportunity to be assigned to the Baptist Mission of East Africa, which later became the Baptist Mission of Kenya when the missionaries of Uganda and Tanzania formed their own missions.

We arrived in Kenya with our three children in July 1969, and after enrolling our children in school, we began to study the Swahili language full-time while we lived at Brackenhurst Baptist Assembly in Tigoni, Limuru, for several months. Our children are Michael (Mike) Claylan, Laura Gayle, and Scott Steven; in 1969 they were twelve, ten, and seven, respectively. Mike immediately started attending boarding school at the Rift Valley Academy (RVA). During the time we were in language school, Laura and Scott attended a day school for missionary kids living in the Nairobi area. Laura and Scott both moved to school in Mombasa when we completed language school and studied there until they decided to go to boarding school with Mike. We feel God blessed us with the best children in the world. Even my dad loved them, and he was a hard man who found expressing love to be difficult.

After completing language school at the end of February 1970, we moved to Mombasa to begin our assignment there. At Mombasa, Baptists had established a high school to help Kenyans and begin reaching out to the people of this target country. There were only enough high schools to help a small percentage of the youth of Kenya. Baptists also had a reading library, which was open to the public; and they started a community center in the Changamwe area on the mainland. I was assigned to teach English, social studies, and Bible at the high school. In addition to teaching and coaching track, I worked in our churches as much as possible, encouraging the starting of new churches.

After returning from our first leave to the States, I continued teaching but also had another assignment. Louie and Jo Scales, who have played such a large part in our lives and ministry, recommended that Pat and I be asked to cover their work while they went to the States on their first leave. In the annual mission meeting of our organization, after our return from furlough in August 1973, Pat and I were asked to move to Malindi as soon as a replacement could be found for my teaching position at the high school. Dan and Cathy Schellenberg were appointed and completed their language study in April 1974, freeing us to move to Malindi. From that time until August 1999, I served as the station evangelist/church developer for the Malindi Station with Pat as the one responsible for developing women’s work. We were given many additional jobs and responsibilities along the way.

When we moved to Malindi, there were only six small Baptist churches in that area. God blessed until there were hundreds of churches in the Malindi area when we left Kenya in August 1999, anticipating retirement in 2000. The Malindi Baptist Association had multiplied until there were several associations of churches, ministering all the way to the north, to Garissa and Lamu. The association had established an ongoing Bible school as well as a branch of the Kenya Baptist Theological College to train the large number of pastors in the area.

Now, let us share with you some of the trials and experiences we came across as we lived out these years of going with God. If God brought us through these events, He can bring you through many challenges as you follow Him wherever He leads you.

1

Can God Use a Person Like This?

Three Examples That Brought This Question

by Claylan Coursey

WE LIVED ON A FARM in one of the communities near Paris, Texas. It was early 1938. I was two years old.

This is probably the earliest of my memories. Our cousin William had come to visit. He and my sister Ruth, who was two and a half years older than I, decided they wanted to take a walk in the thick woods that bordered our farm. I remember crying and begging them to take me with them. Although William, who was a bit older than Ruth, didn’t want me to go, my protective sister gave in and allowed me to tag along. The woods were deep and dark, especially for youngsters like us. We found wild fruit and berries to eat. At first it was a great adventure.

Eventually, William and Ruth realized we were lost. The more frantic we were to find the right path out of those terrible woods, the more we realized we were in deep trouble. I tired quickly. At first, Ruth carried me. Then she tried to get William to help me. He reminded her that allowing me to come along hadn’t been his idea. Ruth also got tired and didn’t know what to do. She reached the point that she was afraid she could no longer help me and carry on, too.

It was decision time for them. William’s idea was to put me up in a tree, where I would be safe from any animals. Then he and Ruth could carry on, trying to find their way home. When they reached our home, they could get the parents and come back to get me. They debated back and forth. It scared me. I knew that if they left me, no one would ever find me. I cried and cried, filled with fear I can remember to this day. I’m thankful for a sister who wouldn’t give in. Ruth insisted that we rest and then continue trying to find our way out of the woods. It wasn’t long after this scare that they discovered the path, and we got out.

Can God use a fellow who can be so full of fear? Can God use one who cries and begs to have his way? Perhaps He was teaching me that I can’t make it in life alone. Perhaps He was trying to prepare me for being out on a limb and alone at times in ministry. Perhaps He was starting to teach me at this early age that I had a sister who wouldn’t give up in supporting and praying for me.

I do know that during the years of serving on mission with my wife, Pat,