Paul Machira mod­els his run­ning style in the lead up to the 8th an­nual Run for the Bibleless, a fun run in Kenya’s cap­i­tal city, Nairobi. The run was held in March 2015 to raise funds for, and aware­ness of, com­mu­ni­ties in Kenya with­out a Bible in their lan­guage. The 10 kilo­me­tre event drew over 6000 en­thu­si­as­tic par­tic­i­pants from all over Nairobi and raised an es­ti­mated $74,000 to­wards the work of Bible trans­la­tion in Kenya.

Paul works for Bible Trans­la­tion & Literacy (BTL) – the lo­cal Wycliffe or­gan­i­sa­tion in Kenya – and co­or­di­nates the run. His fer­vency re­flects the shock he ex­pe­ri­enced when he first learned that there are still com­mu­ni­ties within Kenya with­out a Bible in their lan­guage. “That’s the ur­gency” says Paul, “with which I go to churches, schools and uni­ver­si­ties. I tell them that in our gen­er­a­tion we must make a dif­fer­ence. Come and make a state­ment… let’s bring Nairobi to a stand­still… Chris­tians are run­ning on be­half of those that have never heard about Jesus.”

The ba­ton is be­ing passed, and as BTL re­lies less and less on out­side help they are rais­ing up lead­ers and fi­nances from within their own na­tion. Let us pray for, and cheer on, our Kenyan broth­ers and sis­ters who press on to­wards the goal set be­fore them.

Photo & Words: Rod­ney Ballard