Hi faithful followers,
Sorry again about the order of these blogs. Its our very last day here, in Kenya and I wanted to let you know about some things that happened in our last week in Nairobi. There was absolutely nothing on our agenda for the week... the purpose of it being our "rest week" was to obviously rest, reflect, shop at the markets, and try to enjoy the sun whenever it would break through the clouds...
On Wednesday we wrapped up the sight-seeing by going to a game park (safari) and saw the wonderful African animals (lions, zebras, giraffes, African buffalo etc etc..). One day some of us ventured out to the city and took a four hour long walk to do some last minute shopping. Sam and Molly Ray went to the movie theater and saw HP7P2 for a second time.
As you can see from the title of this blog, we have most definitely been so incredibly blessed this summer. Kenya has been so good to us, we have learned so much from the LIA organization, we have been influenced by the people of this nation and the faiths they profess, and we have learned so much by being in so many different communities.
One way that we have been specifically blessed is by the community that we were introduced to at the beginning of the summer at the local church we attended while in Nairobi. The fellowship that was offered at that church was unbelievable and so wonderful to be a part of. With the people of this church we learned new ways of praying and worshiping, we climbed a mountain, we were baptized, and most of all, welcomed and loved by each person. This past week we were really touched by how they came together and threw us a "farewell" party at our apartment. After attending our last church service on Sunday, the people of IKF came to our place with snacks and drinks and we sat together getting to know each other better, playing games, laughing and praying. Wow. We what grace they have shown us this summer. We will miss all of them so much and are so grateful to have gotten to know them.
Yesterday we had our final day of fasting and prayers with the LIA office and got to spend time giving all of our thanks, praises, and prayers to the Lord. It was a sweet way to end our time with the LIA staff, but what followed the prayers was even better... We went to a restaurant called Carnivore where they serve outrageous meats in a different fashion... Anyone who new me before this trip would never guess that i would even look at the meats, but things have changed this summer and I tried everything that they offered me. This is the list of what we tried: Pork sausage, pork spare rib, roasted potatoes, chicken, turkey, lamb chop, beef, chicken wings with honey, crocodile, camel, and ostrich... Yes, we tried everything and ate it all. It was such a fun and awesome experience, and it was a sweet way to celebrate with the LIA staff as we close our time in Kenya.
We have loved every single moment spent here, we have become a family, and we are sad to leave our new home. We are all mostly packed and ready to go eat at our favorite restaurants and head to the airport in just a few hours.
We have been blessed, God is good and he is faithful. We have learned so much this summer and are excited to take all this back with us and share with all of our friends and family. Please be praying for our travels and for our transition back home. thank you for all of your love and support. see you soon!
Blessings,
Elise (on behalf of the Mi2 team)
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Ready or not America, here we come.
Hey there faithful friends, family and followers,
We fly out at ~10pm Nairobi time tonight (3pm EST). Hard to believe it's been nearly 3 months since we arrived here, time flies!
Anyways, we just wanted to shout out a huge thanks to everyone who made this summer possible. We couldn't have done it without you, really. We're excited to come see you and we praise God for the friends we have to leave here. Keep our travels in your prayers please. We only have a gazillion more stories for you when we see you.
See you soon,
The Mi2s.
We fly out at ~10pm Nairobi time tonight (3pm EST). Hard to believe it's been nearly 3 months since we arrived here, time flies!
Anyways, we just wanted to shout out a huge thanks to everyone who made this summer possible. We couldn't have done it without you, really. We're excited to come see you and we praise God for the friends we have to leave here. Keep our travels in your prayers please. We only have a gazillion more stories for you when we see you.
See you soon,
The Mi2s.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Who is Frank?
Hello Friends and Family!
A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to spend a week in Thika, Kenya after our time in Samburu. I remember Sam thinking he was "swimming in a sea of estrogen" at the very beginning of our time here this summer, and that's just because he has been with six women all day, every day while here... If he thought that was a sea of estrogen then... what do you think he was thinking when we were in Thika we helped host none other than.. a Women's conference! A team of women from the Women's Ministry at South East Church in Kentucky flew to Kenya and put on a conference for women in Kenya who traveled very far to learn about how to remain strong in their faith. I think about 100 women were there that week, but luckily Sam had two MALE LIA representatives who helped keep his sanity that week. As Mi2s, we got to spend a lot of time behind the scenes and offer our help whenever needed, but it was a great week to see how God moves through women throughout the world. It was so much fun for us to be able to reconnect with people we previously met earlier in June. It felt great to say that we had already met some people and were able to talk as friends a few weeks later.. The South East team went through the book of Joshua to try to relate that to the womens' lives to stand strong and firm in their beliefs in God, and through that, God will tear down the walls in their lives and help them overcome any obstacles that life brings.
As Americans often think, we go into trips/meetings/conferences like these and think that with leading these powerful bible studies, we can change lives of others.. But I believe that through the moments of "girlfriending" (yes, this was on our schedule for the week. And no, Sam was not involved with it..) and through times of sharing and hearing testimonies of married/unmarried women in America and testimonies of married/unmarried women in Africa- lives were definitely changed... Not only did the Kenyans learn from the American women from their Bible study, but the American women walked away changed and transformed because of the stories that were shared by the Kenyan women.
This was one of my prayers throughout the whole week, and I can see where God was faithful in changing lives all around. We serve an awesome God who is the same in Kentucky, Colorado, and Kenya. He is mighty to save and uses our personal trials/struggles to help other people see that they, too can overcome similar trials in their lives. -This was obvious to see in our week in Thika and I am grateful to have been behind the scenes to see it all lay out.
Although none of us Mi2s are necessarily "fit" to host/run a women's conference (no matter where we are in the world), we had a great time getting to know more of the LIA staff members, the women of the different communities LIA is connected with, and of course the wonderful women from South East. It was very special for us to be able to talk with them, get to know them, laugh with them, and hear their life journey's (and one lady even set up a hair salon in her Guest house room and cut mine, molly rays, nicole's, and sawyer's rugged, african-worn hair!!)
Thika was good to us, God is good, God is faithful, and we owe all of our praises to Him, who provides.
Sorry these blogs are so out of order, but we hope you're enjoying the posts. We are all healthy and "rested" (it is our rest week here in Kenya...and our last week here as well). We love you all and are praying for you.
Mungu aku bariki,
Mwende/Naserian/Elise/Omi
("the loved one" (in Kamba)/ "One who brings peace" (in Maasai) We're so officially Kenyan now with our names.. its insane.)
A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to spend a week in Thika, Kenya after our time in Samburu. I remember Sam thinking he was "swimming in a sea of estrogen" at the very beginning of our time here this summer, and that's just because he has been with six women all day, every day while here... If he thought that was a sea of estrogen then... what do you think he was thinking when we were in Thika we helped host none other than.. a Women's conference! A team of women from the Women's Ministry at South East Church in Kentucky flew to Kenya and put on a conference for women in Kenya who traveled very far to learn about how to remain strong in their faith. I think about 100 women were there that week, but luckily Sam had two MALE LIA representatives who helped keep his sanity that week. As Mi2s, we got to spend a lot of time behind the scenes and offer our help whenever needed, but it was a great week to see how God moves through women throughout the world. It was so much fun for us to be able to reconnect with people we previously met earlier in June. It felt great to say that we had already met some people and were able to talk as friends a few weeks later.. The South East team went through the book of Joshua to try to relate that to the womens' lives to stand strong and firm in their beliefs in God, and through that, God will tear down the walls in their lives and help them overcome any obstacles that life brings.
As Americans often think, we go into trips/meetings/conferences like these and think that with leading these powerful bible studies, we can change lives of others.. But I believe that through the moments of "girlfriending" (yes, this was on our schedule for the week. And no, Sam was not involved with it..) and through times of sharing and hearing testimonies of married/unmarried women in America and testimonies of married/unmarried women in Africa- lives were definitely changed... Not only did the Kenyans learn from the American women from their Bible study, but the American women walked away changed and transformed because of the stories that were shared by the Kenyan women.
This was one of my prayers throughout the whole week, and I can see where God was faithful in changing lives all around. We serve an awesome God who is the same in Kentucky, Colorado, and Kenya. He is mighty to save and uses our personal trials/struggles to help other people see that they, too can overcome similar trials in their lives. -This was obvious to see in our week in Thika and I am grateful to have been behind the scenes to see it all lay out.
Although none of us Mi2s are necessarily "fit" to host/run a women's conference (no matter where we are in the world), we had a great time getting to know more of the LIA staff members, the women of the different communities LIA is connected with, and of course the wonderful women from South East. It was very special for us to be able to talk with them, get to know them, laugh with them, and hear their life journey's (and one lady even set up a hair salon in her Guest house room and cut mine, molly rays, nicole's, and sawyer's rugged, african-worn hair!!)
Thika was good to us, God is good, God is faithful, and we owe all of our praises to Him, who provides.
Sorry these blogs are so out of order, but we hope you're enjoying the posts. We are all healthy and "rested" (it is our rest week here in Kenya...and our last week here as well). We love you all and are praying for you.
Mungu aku bariki,
Mwende/Naserian/Elise/Omi
("the loved one" (in Kamba)/ "One who brings peace" (in Maasai) We're so officially Kenyan now with our names.. its insane.)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Way back when...Mi2 went to Kijabe and Samburu
Well My deepest apologies because I am blogging about the places we visited exactly a month ago. At the beginning of July the Mi2's ventured to a lovely place called Kijabe for 3 days. We were able to visit the Kijabe Mission Hospital, which was awesome. The chaplains took us on a tour of the hospital. It was huge and very well equipped, the Lord really seemed to have his hand over that Hospital. It was very interesting obviously, and very different for the United States--but still the care and attention given to patients was remarkable. We had the opportunity to visit some patients and talk, and pray with them which was a blessing. One thing that struck me as very cool and interesting was that many of the hospital's patients were Somolian, which is very different culture, language and way of life then typical Kenyans. I don't know a lot about Somolia so it was cool to interact with people of another culture. After we had lunch, all the Mi2's split into different areas to experience a little bit more of the hospital. A few went to mother/baby ward, others childrens, but for Katie Lane and myself we had the incredible opportunity to meet some nursing students (o yea, kijabe has a nursing school), which was soo COOL because Katie and I are both nursing students. So we were able to tour there school, although a lot smaller, we still had some of the same textbooks and same struggles with school. It was just nice to talk to someone from a different culture and know what school was like for them. And Kijabe compound is simply gorgeous, it overlooks the mountains and just beautiful. Kijabe town is also where the Rift Valley Academy is and that is where a lot of missionary kids attend, and it is on the American school system so a lot of kids educated there go to University in the U.S. which was cool to hear about too, and if anyone has a heart for teaching and wants to serve in Africa you should look them up. Um what else, on Saturday we went on yet another adventure we were not prepared for. First off we had a wonderful morning of reflection about the summer and me and Elise spotted these crazy looking monkeys. And almost toppled over a hill and a Kenyan man was working a little ways away and straight up laughed at us, it was pretty funny. That afternoon our fearless LIA leader informs us we will be going to find some tunnel up in the mountains and fresh water springs. I mean it was quite the experience of mount longonot, but we did a lot of climbing and sliding and falling and walking along railroad tracks for literally hours, and then seeing a train on the same railroad tracks. But along the way we were able to look out over the rift valley, such a beautiful amazing sight, like it just proclaims how creative God is. We finally made it to the Tunnel and Hot springs and it was epic. Pitch black and slightly scary because there were some large holes in it, but still awesome. At the end of the Tunnel there was graffiti tagged CHAI GIVES YOU CANCER- DRINK IT UP, which I thought was hilarious because I love tea (chai). Also worth mentioning is our guest house in Kijabe, it had this amazing roof that our team spent a lot of time looking at stars and hanging out on.
Onto Samburu, well as per usual we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. And me because I get car sick slept for the first few hours driving to Samburu and when I woke up we were in the middle of the African bush, very far from what we were familiar with. We saw lots of Zebras, a few Giraffes and some other wildlife on the drive and even went through these electric shocking things that stop elephants from damaging certain areas (we didn't see any elephants, sadly). So all we were told was we were staying at a Mission house, that mission house is called Segera. Segera is a mission started some years back and it was very interesting. Segera was very different than anything we had experienced so far because it wasn't LIA run, which kind of threw us for a loop some of the week. Also cool was that some other college kids serving in the clinic were there so it was awesome to get to know some other medical people and they really helped make us feel welcome at Segera. We all had very different encounters in that area, but I'll try and include as much as I remember. It was very American in a lot of ways and the food was delicious, reminded us of home. Some of us discovered new love called weetebix and peanut butter. We served in all different areas including the clinic (awesome), painting, the woodshop, toiling the land, house visit (explain those later), creating the beginning of an orchard. Molly Russell walked away that week with some sweet blisters. Russell and Me got to play some sweet soccer with Kenyans. I worked more on my kiswahili. Sam gave his first shot...to a dog, and did very well. Katie learned she has a lot of love for the clinic, we both got to see a baby be born. Elise enjoyed the opportunity to teach and a few of us learned how to wash clothes by hand which we have taken back to nairobi with us (also it is sooo difficult, Kenyans are so strong). Molly Ray spent some time stirring a big pot of food for school children and getting to know an amazing Kenyan lady. Nicole and Sam helped assist in killing a sheep. Most of the above all happened within the Mission's gates. We all got to go out into the community and seriously encountered some of the most beautiful people. Many of that area is still very deep rooted in tradition, so they wore a lot of traditional beading, shawls, and earrings. That area was also probably the one of the most impoverished areas we encountered, very different living conditions and not very many spoke English. It so hard to describe, but that area just doesn't have many physical resources out in the communities. Also we found that women in that area do mostly everything, including build there homes. Also health it that area was a major issue. So many people came to the clinic, so what a blessing that Segera is able to have a clinic. One many problem is the water from the river and damn which is very very unclean. The mission provides a system that cleans water so anyone from the communities can come there to get it for free. However the problem is for a lot of people the Mission is 10 plus miles away. We saw so many people of all ages carry between 15 to 30 pounds water everyday. The water is a big problem there. There is a lot more, but this blogg is getting quite long and I am getting a tad sleepy. Pray all who read this are blessed and encouraged. And thank you for reading, I apologize for the grammar errors which I can imagine are plentiful, English was never my thing.
With love and joy,
Sawyer
Onto Samburu, well as per usual we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. And me because I get car sick slept for the first few hours driving to Samburu and when I woke up we were in the middle of the African bush, very far from what we were familiar with. We saw lots of Zebras, a few Giraffes and some other wildlife on the drive and even went through these electric shocking things that stop elephants from damaging certain areas (we didn't see any elephants, sadly). So all we were told was we were staying at a Mission house, that mission house is called Segera. Segera is a mission started some years back and it was very interesting. Segera was very different than anything we had experienced so far because it wasn't LIA run, which kind of threw us for a loop some of the week. Also cool was that some other college kids serving in the clinic were there so it was awesome to get to know some other medical people and they really helped make us feel welcome at Segera. We all had very different encounters in that area, but I'll try and include as much as I remember. It was very American in a lot of ways and the food was delicious, reminded us of home. Some of us discovered new love called weetebix and peanut butter. We served in all different areas including the clinic (awesome), painting, the woodshop, toiling the land, house visit (explain those later), creating the beginning of an orchard. Molly Russell walked away that week with some sweet blisters. Russell and Me got to play some sweet soccer with Kenyans. I worked more on my kiswahili. Sam gave his first shot...to a dog, and did very well. Katie learned she has a lot of love for the clinic, we both got to see a baby be born. Elise enjoyed the opportunity to teach and a few of us learned how to wash clothes by hand which we have taken back to nairobi with us (also it is sooo difficult, Kenyans are so strong). Molly Ray spent some time stirring a big pot of food for school children and getting to know an amazing Kenyan lady. Nicole and Sam helped assist in killing a sheep. Most of the above all happened within the Mission's gates. We all got to go out into the community and seriously encountered some of the most beautiful people. Many of that area is still very deep rooted in tradition, so they wore a lot of traditional beading, shawls, and earrings. That area was also probably the one of the most impoverished areas we encountered, very different living conditions and not very many spoke English. It so hard to describe, but that area just doesn't have many physical resources out in the communities. Also we found that women in that area do mostly everything, including build there homes. Also health it that area was a major issue. So many people came to the clinic, so what a blessing that Segera is able to have a clinic. One many problem is the water from the river and damn which is very very unclean. The mission provides a system that cleans water so anyone from the communities can come there to get it for free. However the problem is for a lot of people the Mission is 10 plus miles away. We saw so many people of all ages carry between 15 to 30 pounds water everyday. The water is a big problem there. There is a lot more, but this blogg is getting quite long and I am getting a tad sleepy. Pray all who read this are blessed and encouraged. And thank you for reading, I apologize for the grammar errors which I can imagine are plentiful, English was never my thing.
With love and joy,
Sawyer
Monday, August 1, 2011
More Makueni
Although slightly out of order and delayed, I am going to piggyback on some thoughts on makueni. Since we are currently in rest week we will be playing blog catch up as we process our summer together before returning home. I picked makueni as my blog subject because it was probably one of my favorite parts of our summer. Everywhere we have gone has been amazing in their own way but I particularly loved makueni for the relationships. I got to know three women from makueni the week before in thika at the women’s conference. There was a lot of time spent hearing about their family and church lives, and it was amazing to show up to makueni with friends already made. I got the privilege to yell a greeting out the window of the van as we passed one of my friends on the road. It was at that moment that I felt truly Kenyan—to pass people I know driving through town. I also got the opportunity to preach at the church of a couple of the ladies I had met. There is nothing quite like worshipping alongside ladies whose faith you have come to admire in many ways. I preached at the church of Pastor Steven who a couple of us had come to know as host after staying the night at his house Saturday night. We got to spend time getting to know his family and experiencing how they live in the day to day as we journaled by lantern light and took bucket baths. I think it is safe to say that the majority of churches in the area had white people preaching in them that Sunday because we had nine different churches with foreign guests. We got the opportunity to work alongside a short-term team from Indiana all week in makueni and they were absolute all stars. I admire their fire and positive attitude all week long through our various activities. Despite additional the additional Americans on board with us for the week, I actually spent my time growing close and learning from some amazing Kenyans. Not only did I reunite with some friends from earlier in the summer, I got to spend some time getting to know and laughing with the LIA staffer in makueni. I admired her faith in action all week long and took advantage of pretty much every moment I had to get to know her and even her church friend that taught at the local school. After about a week and a half of great fellowship and encouragement, I found makueni very hard to leave—probably only second to leaving Kenya entirely—but it was a much-needed boost and positive week for everyone. It was beautiful to see the transformation in action possible only by the movement of the Lord in makueni.
Blessings,
Molly Russell, aka Nafula
That’s right, I finally received my awaited Kenyan name. It is from the tribe of Luhya—my tribe apparently—and it means “born in the rainy season.” Was I a little disappointed when everyone else’s names meant things like “happy one”, “peaceful”, “beautiful”, etc? maybe a little, but here I guess it’s a good thing to be associated with rain so I will take it.
Blessings,
Molly Russell, aka Nafula
That’s right, I finally received my awaited Kenyan name. It is from the tribe of Luhya—my tribe apparently—and it means “born in the rainy season.” Was I a little disappointed when everyone else’s names meant things like “happy one”, “peaceful”, “beautiful”, etc? maybe a little, but here I guess it’s a good thing to be associated with rain so I will take it.
Vacation Week in Kajiado :)
Well we just got back from our vacation week in Kajiado (Maasai land). It was a GREAT week. We stayed at a house with Pastor Josiah and his wife Sarah. They were amazing hosts. By the end of the week we all felt like part of their family. We brought with us lots of rain. The moment we arrived at the pastor’s house, it started pouring. We ran inside and Sarah served us some of the best tea we have had this summer. We sat inside their house and listened to the rain on the roof. Katie Lane was in heaven…she loves thunderstorms. The whole week was very relaxing. We reflected on the summer and ate some of the most delicious food in this world. Sarah was an incredible cook. She cooked us pancakes, rice, beans, chapatti, tea, coco, and many more delicious things. My favorite was the chapatti. Those things are officially my new favorite food:) Sarah taught us how to make them…good thing…otherwise I might have had chapatti withdrawals when I got back to the states. During the day we spent time with God, went on walks, and did a little bit of work. On one of our walks we saw about 10 giraffes! They were just walking around in the wild. They are such cool animals! At night we sat around the campfire to eat dinner, drink coco, and look at the stars. The stars were amazing. We saw so many shooting starts! So cool! Elise and Russell counted and they saw 15 in one night! Wow:) Every time I look at the stars it reminds me that God is so big. The night sky is so beautiful and carefully designed, and God took even more care as he was designing us. Cool! This week is a week to close up lose ends and prepare to come back to the states. I know that I am sad to leave, but I am really looking forward to seeing my family and friends! I’ll see you guys in less than 2 weeks☺ Love you all!
Molly Ray and team
PS: I am not sure we mentioned this yet in the blog, but before we left for Makueni and Kajiado our team went to see HARRY POTTER! I’m slightly obsessed with Harry Potter, so I was SO excited to see the movie…in Africa. It was amazing! ☺
Molly Ray and team
PS: I am not sure we mentioned this yet in the blog, but before we left for Makueni and Kajiado our team went to see HARRY POTTER! I’m slightly obsessed with Harry Potter, so I was SO excited to see the movie…in Africa. It was amazing! ☺
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Makueni
Hello everyone
It's been about a week since our last blog, and we're over a week and a half behind in our writing, goodness! Sorry for the delay, we're now under three weeks left here and our days are flying by at a 100 miles per hour.
I'm going to skip writing about Thika because we were there for a women's conference, and for obvious reasons I had little role in the event. I'll let the girls tell you about it.
We're here in Makueni now and its great to be here. The two and a half weeks preceding our time here had schedules that drained us physically and spiritually. Makueni has breathed a lot of wind back into our sails, our first day here was monday and like we have for the rest of the summer, we spent it in prayer and fasting. This week was different though because we prayed with the local pastors fellowship, and after an entire week with ~80 women, lets just say it was great to be around other Y chromosomes worshiping God. Even for Kenya, these pastors are full of joy, and also so full of life...its contagious, which is exactly what we needed after those draining weeks.
As we drove through the rural landscape and town to get here to Makueni (very rural and dry) I half expected to see John Wayne walk out of one of the general stores and hope on his horse and ride off into the sunset. speaking of sunsets, they're very pretty out here. There isn't a plant out here that isn't covered in spines, thorns or stickers of some sort. Yesterday I got a thorn stuck in my finger somehow? The river here is completely dry except for a couple of small springs and the "dirt" is very sand like, most of the plants aren't very big except for the MASSIVE Baoba trees. They're huge, just massive.
Um...back to the people. Like I said it's quite rural, theres a big demon presence and a lot of witchcraft here. The people here stare at you if you're white. Molly Ray put it best when she said that when we're in Nairobi, we celebrities, and here we're aliens. Its kid of creepy to be honest, yesterday I felt like a caged animal with the number of kids that gathered around me from a distance and stood there and gawked at me. yesterday we held a conference on the importance of saving and the forming of Co-ops. Molly Ray taught on saving and gave some biblical context for the session and Commander Ponton taught about Co-ops. Then a kenyan taught about more stuff but he spoke in swahili so we don't have the slightest clue what he said.
Pray for us that we finish strong and for the eventual transition home
Sam and the Mi2's
It's been about a week since our last blog, and we're over a week and a half behind in our writing, goodness! Sorry for the delay, we're now under three weeks left here and our days are flying by at a 100 miles per hour.
I'm going to skip writing about Thika because we were there for a women's conference, and for obvious reasons I had little role in the event. I'll let the girls tell you about it.
We're here in Makueni now and its great to be here. The two and a half weeks preceding our time here had schedules that drained us physically and spiritually. Makueni has breathed a lot of wind back into our sails, our first day here was monday and like we have for the rest of the summer, we spent it in prayer and fasting. This week was different though because we prayed with the local pastors fellowship, and after an entire week with ~80 women, lets just say it was great to be around other Y chromosomes worshiping God. Even for Kenya, these pastors are full of joy, and also so full of life...its contagious, which is exactly what we needed after those draining weeks.
As we drove through the rural landscape and town to get here to Makueni (very rural and dry) I half expected to see John Wayne walk out of one of the general stores and hope on his horse and ride off into the sunset. speaking of sunsets, they're very pretty out here. There isn't a plant out here that isn't covered in spines, thorns or stickers of some sort. Yesterday I got a thorn stuck in my finger somehow? The river here is completely dry except for a couple of small springs and the "dirt" is very sand like, most of the plants aren't very big except for the MASSIVE Baoba trees. They're huge, just massive.
Um...back to the people. Like I said it's quite rural, theres a big demon presence and a lot of witchcraft here. The people here stare at you if you're white. Molly Ray put it best when she said that when we're in Nairobi, we celebrities, and here we're aliens. Its kid of creepy to be honest, yesterday I felt like a caged animal with the number of kids that gathered around me from a distance and stood there and gawked at me. yesterday we held a conference on the importance of saving and the forming of Co-ops. Molly Ray taught on saving and gave some biblical context for the session and Commander Ponton taught about Co-ops. Then a kenyan taught about more stuff but he spoke in swahili so we don't have the slightest clue what he said.
Pray for us that we finish strong and for the eventual transition home
Sam and the Mi2's
Thursday, July 14, 2011
part of our samburu experience
Woah. It’s been a while since we’ve blogged. We’re currently just outside of Thikatown (~1hr outside of Nairobi). We’re here to help with a women’s conference that is being hosted by a team from the women’s ministry at Southeast Christian Church. We arrived here Sunday night after being picked up from Samburu.
I apologize now for the scatteredness of this blog. The time we had in Samburu was busy and we all have many, many stories that have come out of it. I’m going to do my best to capture as much as I can in this post, but the girls will have to supplement it with their own stories.
Samburu…wow. What a week. I’ve yet to figure out if the place we were at was actually called Samburu, but we were in the area of the Samburu tribe, and the mission we stayed at was called the Segera mission. The closest city was Nanyuki, but the only way to get there was on 4-wheel drive through the rocky/dusty country roads.
If you want to get a visual image of where we stayed, picture this: the lion king with a big barn like building and some smaller one-story buildings. It was rural and rustic. The area outside of the mission is very different from what we had experienced to this point. First off Segera is not a partner of LIA, so we didn’t have an LIA organized program/field oriented staff member to come alongside. We got to experience a more traditional mission during our time there. Segera operates a medical clinic that is the only medical facility for 400 square miles. Two nurses operate it, and they have help this summer from three American students (one medical student and two nursing students), and us while we were there.
It was an intense week for many of us, but it was a good week. We really felt like we were on a short term mission, which was really different for us. The climate was semi-arid, sort of desert like; all the soil was more dust than actual soil. It was as warm as Kisumu during the day and colder than Nairobi at night, (about 90 during the day and 40s-50s at night). The stars and moon were so clear at night, it was incredible; the cold made it unpleasant to lie out and watch them like we did in Kijabe (details to follow in another post, we went to kijabe before we came to samburu). Story time:
Like I said, the mission has a medical clinic and several of us spent a good amount of time in it. Our first day at the mission had a time for home visits (our specialty), so we split into two groups and went to two locations. My group (Rayray, Commander Ponton, Myself and Jayne (LIA Staff that came with us)) went to visit a widow who was living in a mud hut with a grass roof. The home was tilting quite badly, and was propped up by a log on one side. We took tea with the homeowner who shared her story with us. Unfortunately I remember few details of her life, but like many of the people in the area, struggled with tribal traditions. After taking tea, she showed us the inside of her home. It was a one-room building, and typical of homes the cooking fire was kept inside the home which had no chimney. We then took some time to visit her two neighbors. One of the neighbors turned out to be a pastor who had worked at the mission as a night guard for 7 years before resigning to become a full time pastor. We visited him (Tony) and his wife (Phyllis) and heard how, in addition to pastoring a church of 150, they had just begun their own real estate business. They both spoke fluent English, and Phyllis looked to be about 6 months pregnant (turns out she wasn’t). After the home visit, we got a tour of the mission from it’s director, Richard. He showed us the place and gave us all sorts of fun facts about where it’s come from and what his vision is for the future. When he was showing us the water cleaning system, I took a short gander at the source of the water (Filthy river is putting it lightly) and was informed by Richard that the tall grass I was standing in happens to be home to some spitting Cobras. I thought he was joking at first, then I realized that he never jokes and ran out of the grass faster than I ever have in my life. We took dinner in the dining hall, and during that time a mother getting ready to deliver came in. The nurse helped her get settled and we continued on with our night. Sawyer and Emily (one of the other nursing students previously mentioned) helped Samuel (the clinic nurse) with everything while we waited long into the night for the baby to come. At 12:03 am the baby came, and it came in a hurry, I barely made it in before it was out. It was a baby boy and surprise, the mom was Phyllis. Turns out she wasn’t six months pregnant, she was full term! Went to bed a few hours later.
The next day Katie Lane and I were in the Clinic. There are a lot of cases of water related illness, and lots of coughs. When you constantly have a fire going in a house with no chimney, you’re going to have a cough. Another common condition is thorn sticks. Everything that has leaves in this area also has thorns, big ones. On this day, a girl came in with a two inch thorn stuck under the skin in her head. I have no idea how it got there, but it was buried in there. With no anesthetic we had to remove this thorn or risk a life threatening infection from it. The girl was about 10 years old and tough as nails, but it took three of us to hold her still enough to get this thing out. I had to hold her head down in my lap so she couldn’t squirm there, her grandmother held her legs, and the missions mechanic had to hold her arms while Samuel did his thing with a scalpel and needle and Katie wiped up all the blood and pulled the thing out. Ouch. After we got the thorn out, the girl sat up and looked like nothing had even happened to her. The next day, we repeated with another girl who had one stuck in her foot, similar story.
There are so many water borne illnesses from the river and a nearby dam. Apparently a team of engineers from the US came out sometime in the past to examine the water from those places and determined that if they were in the US, a human being wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it. It’s ripe with E. Coli, Typhoid and all sorts of pesticides and other pollution. The mission offers clean water for free but not everyone takes advantage of it. Apparently, many people like the taste of the river water because it tastes sweet, and there’s also a traditional tribal history of drinking from the river.
Tribal traditions are prevalent in the way of life in the area, which really isn’t good for the women. Common traditions are female circumcision and full FGM. Girls as young as 7 (usually 12) are married off for their dowries. Women are also the source of income as the men just sit around all day. I can count the number of men I saw outside the mission on one hand, all sitting on the side of the road doing nothing. In this area, wealth is measured in livestock (cattle, sheep and goats). It’s really the only industry out there (90% unemployment, really puts our 10% in perspective), though there needs to be a paradigm shift for that to change.
Another cultural difficulty we saw involved a 10-year-old boy. He had a badly injured right knee, which prevented him from walking. It was swollen and it looked like his patella was not in the right place, but we couldn’t be sure of anything. What is sure, is that the treatment of his injury at the hospital in Nanyuki cost about 600 Kenya Shillings. His father said he didn’t have the money to pay for it and expected the mission to pay for the treatment of the child’s injury. Here’s the problem with said proposal: he had more sheep and goats than we could count…well over 100, probably closer to 300. Selling one adult sheep would have garnered about 2,500 Kenya Shillings. Two cultural issues, 1. Livestock are more valuable than children in this area. 2. Even though he had plenty, he still thought he was poor.
Much more to come
Sam and the Mi2s
I apologize now for the scatteredness of this blog. The time we had in Samburu was busy and we all have many, many stories that have come out of it. I’m going to do my best to capture as much as I can in this post, but the girls will have to supplement it with their own stories.
Samburu…wow. What a week. I’ve yet to figure out if the place we were at was actually called Samburu, but we were in the area of the Samburu tribe, and the mission we stayed at was called the Segera mission. The closest city was Nanyuki, but the only way to get there was on 4-wheel drive through the rocky/dusty country roads.
If you want to get a visual image of where we stayed, picture this: the lion king with a big barn like building and some smaller one-story buildings. It was rural and rustic. The area outside of the mission is very different from what we had experienced to this point. First off Segera is not a partner of LIA, so we didn’t have an LIA organized program/field oriented staff member to come alongside. We got to experience a more traditional mission during our time there. Segera operates a medical clinic that is the only medical facility for 400 square miles. Two nurses operate it, and they have help this summer from three American students (one medical student and two nursing students), and us while we were there.
It was an intense week for many of us, but it was a good week. We really felt like we were on a short term mission, which was really different for us. The climate was semi-arid, sort of desert like; all the soil was more dust than actual soil. It was as warm as Kisumu during the day and colder than Nairobi at night, (about 90 during the day and 40s-50s at night). The stars and moon were so clear at night, it was incredible; the cold made it unpleasant to lie out and watch them like we did in Kijabe (details to follow in another post, we went to kijabe before we came to samburu). Story time:
Like I said, the mission has a medical clinic and several of us spent a good amount of time in it. Our first day at the mission had a time for home visits (our specialty), so we split into two groups and went to two locations. My group (Rayray, Commander Ponton, Myself and Jayne (LIA Staff that came with us)) went to visit a widow who was living in a mud hut with a grass roof. The home was tilting quite badly, and was propped up by a log on one side. We took tea with the homeowner who shared her story with us. Unfortunately I remember few details of her life, but like many of the people in the area, struggled with tribal traditions. After taking tea, she showed us the inside of her home. It was a one-room building, and typical of homes the cooking fire was kept inside the home which had no chimney. We then took some time to visit her two neighbors. One of the neighbors turned out to be a pastor who had worked at the mission as a night guard for 7 years before resigning to become a full time pastor. We visited him (Tony) and his wife (Phyllis) and heard how, in addition to pastoring a church of 150, they had just begun their own real estate business. They both spoke fluent English, and Phyllis looked to be about 6 months pregnant (turns out she wasn’t). After the home visit, we got a tour of the mission from it’s director, Richard. He showed us the place and gave us all sorts of fun facts about where it’s come from and what his vision is for the future. When he was showing us the water cleaning system, I took a short gander at the source of the water (Filthy river is putting it lightly) and was informed by Richard that the tall grass I was standing in happens to be home to some spitting Cobras. I thought he was joking at first, then I realized that he never jokes and ran out of the grass faster than I ever have in my life. We took dinner in the dining hall, and during that time a mother getting ready to deliver came in. The nurse helped her get settled and we continued on with our night. Sawyer and Emily (one of the other nursing students previously mentioned) helped Samuel (the clinic nurse) with everything while we waited long into the night for the baby to come. At 12:03 am the baby came, and it came in a hurry, I barely made it in before it was out. It was a baby boy and surprise, the mom was Phyllis. Turns out she wasn’t six months pregnant, she was full term! Went to bed a few hours later.
The next day Katie Lane and I were in the Clinic. There are a lot of cases of water related illness, and lots of coughs. When you constantly have a fire going in a house with no chimney, you’re going to have a cough. Another common condition is thorn sticks. Everything that has leaves in this area also has thorns, big ones. On this day, a girl came in with a two inch thorn stuck under the skin in her head. I have no idea how it got there, but it was buried in there. With no anesthetic we had to remove this thorn or risk a life threatening infection from it. The girl was about 10 years old and tough as nails, but it took three of us to hold her still enough to get this thing out. I had to hold her head down in my lap so she couldn’t squirm there, her grandmother held her legs, and the missions mechanic had to hold her arms while Samuel did his thing with a scalpel and needle and Katie wiped up all the blood and pulled the thing out. Ouch. After we got the thorn out, the girl sat up and looked like nothing had even happened to her. The next day, we repeated with another girl who had one stuck in her foot, similar story.
There are so many water borne illnesses from the river and a nearby dam. Apparently a team of engineers from the US came out sometime in the past to examine the water from those places and determined that if they were in the US, a human being wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it. It’s ripe with E. Coli, Typhoid and all sorts of pesticides and other pollution. The mission offers clean water for free but not everyone takes advantage of it. Apparently, many people like the taste of the river water because it tastes sweet, and there’s also a traditional tribal history of drinking from the river.
Tribal traditions are prevalent in the way of life in the area, which really isn’t good for the women. Common traditions are female circumcision and full FGM. Girls as young as 7 (usually 12) are married off for their dowries. Women are also the source of income as the men just sit around all day. I can count the number of men I saw outside the mission on one hand, all sitting on the side of the road doing nothing. In this area, wealth is measured in livestock (cattle, sheep and goats). It’s really the only industry out there (90% unemployment, really puts our 10% in perspective), though there needs to be a paradigm shift for that to change.
Another cultural difficulty we saw involved a 10-year-old boy. He had a badly injured right knee, which prevented him from walking. It was swollen and it looked like his patella was not in the right place, but we couldn’t be sure of anything. What is sure, is that the treatment of his injury at the hospital in Nanyuki cost about 600 Kenya Shillings. His father said he didn’t have the money to pay for it and expected the mission to pay for the treatment of the child’s injury. Here’s the problem with said proposal: he had more sheep and goats than we could count…well over 100, probably closer to 300. Selling one adult sheep would have garnered about 2,500 Kenya Shillings. Two cultural issues, 1. Livestock are more valuable than children in this area. 2. Even though he had plenty, he still thought he was poor.
Much more to come
Sam and the Mi2s
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
we're alive
hello faithful followers
we're in the sticks of africa right now. It's a small miracle that I've found this internet signal. We're alive and well, don't expect a blog post until sunday at the earliest. pray for safe travels as we drive around. we're currently at the segera mission serving the samburu people. it's crazy cool. sawyer and I saw a baby born last night, and katie lane is helping the delivery of another as I write this. lots of stories to tell soon. love you all. don't forget about us.
Sam and the Mi2s
we're in the sticks of africa right now. It's a small miracle that I've found this internet signal. We're alive and well, don't expect a blog post until sunday at the earliest. pray for safe travels as we drive around. we're currently at the segera mission serving the samburu people. it's crazy cool. sawyer and I saw a baby born last night, and katie lane is helping the delivery of another as I write this. lots of stories to tell soon. love you all. don't forget about us.
Sam and the Mi2s
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
God Moments
Hearken back to a time when the Mi2’s were accompanied by two teams from Southeast Christian Church. This was our first week in Kisumu. If you remember back to this, you’ll know that we spent a great deal of our time doing home visits to community members to encourage them and hear their story. On one such visit, my team visited a long widowed grandmother who was caring for four of her grandchildren, whose mother had died from AIDS. Three of her grandchildren are HIV positive and are young. When we entered her home, we saw one of her granddaughters sitting up on a bed crying from pain. She is HIV positive, looks to be about 9 years of age, and her legs are so thin that it makes her knees look like abnormally bulbous. She has spent the last month at home out of school, and the preceding month in the hospital but was sent home because they weren’t able to heal her. The grandmother hasn’t been able to run her business for two months because she has had to care for the granddaughter. We heard the family’s story, and prayed for healing and provision, and went to the next home. Four days later on Sunday morning, before Nicole preached, the congregation of 14 was asked if there were any answers to prayer that came during the week. Nicole and I are sitting in the seats of honor in the front row, so we can’t see who’s coming up the aisle, but to our surprise we see this girl and her grandmother come to the front of the church. The girl is walking under her own power and is experiencing zero pain. What an answer to prayer.
I know some of you may be wondering what else has happened in the time that passed between our prayers and that Sunday morning, and the honest truth is I don’t know. But let me ask you this: is it really that difficult to believe that there is a God capable and caring enough to do such a thing as to heal a little girl? I know I believe him to be real and even if he didn’t heal the girl and some new medication did, I believe he could and would. If you don’t agree with me, I’m sure you have your reasons for believing such, but I hope that someday you’ll see as I do that there is indeed a God that is that wonderful.
Fast forward to last night. Several weeks ago, I mentioned to the Mi2 team that I was interested in being baptized here in Africa. To my surprise, the idea was echoed by a number of team members. So on Saturday we asked the pastor of our “home church.” If he would be willing to baptize us this week before we leave for our next adventure. He agreed to if he could give us a lesson on the power of baptism beforehand. Last night five us (Myself, Molly Ray, Molly Russell, Elise Omi and Kate Sawyer) received our lesson on baptism and were killed and raised again in the pool of our guesthouse complex. The water was cold, but it worked out fine.
Today we went into Kibera again, we were split into two groups. One group went to a school to play with kids and love them. The other group, pair really (Myself and Molly Ray) did a home visit to a CHE (Community Health Evangelist). Our home visit was atypical compared to our previous experiences in the homes of the community. This one was far less structured and was more conversational than our previous ones. The woman we visited was not a widow, her husband is still living and is actually the pastor of one of the churches in the community. Her name is Mercy, and speaks amazing English. To keep this story shorter, I’ll leave our some of the smaller details. They have two children, seven and three years old, and live in a concrete home the size of my bedroom with her sister, two other children and another woman. Mercy’s business has been out of commission since she has run out of capital due to the recent spike in inflation and high oil prices (which cause the cost of goods to shoot through the roof). We sat and talked about many things, including some of the difficulties of life in the slum. One of these difficulties is the ever-changing price of water and of course the limitations that come with poverty. Nearly three hours into the conversation, Mercy goes out to get us Coca-cola, and comes back with a liter of Coke and some dinner rolls.
Now, so far in this internship, I have held hands ever so lightly with another man, had to lead a church in a worship song, preached, been put on the spot to speak publicly more times than I can count, and countless other awkward moments. However, nothing has come close to making me as uncomfortable as I felt when Mercy offered us the refreshments. Having to watch someone give up a need of their own to provide you with a luxury is something so backwards and uncomfortable in our culture and lives. We had just finished listening to Mercy explain the difficulties of how her business has gone under and how she’s trying to pay her school fees, her sisters school fees, her children’s school fees and live off of her husbands earnings (which are little). To top it all off, she gave us the water that she had just finished explaining the unpredictable price of, to us to wash our hands before we drank and ate. When you’re put in a situation like this, you don’t dare turn down their offer even if you know they might not eat later because they’ve given you the resources for these refreshments. It’s a huge honor for them to host us Mzungus, so you have to accept the offer. It’s a kind of love and generosity that I admit, I’m not sure I’d be so willing to replicate. It’s one of those forms of love, sacrificial, that tells you that you mean something important to these people. And we’ve only just met them. It’s been said that we accept the love we think we deserve, and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t think I deserve this kind of love. Watching someone else go hungry because they hosted you, I can’t even describe it. After I had finished my glass of Coke, she refilled it with what I had assumed would have been her portion. It was never going to be her portion, it was always intended for us. Mercy was willing to give from something she had no excess of; perhaps we could all learn something from her.
-Nabii (Sam)
I know some of you may be wondering what else has happened in the time that passed between our prayers and that Sunday morning, and the honest truth is I don’t know. But let me ask you this: is it really that difficult to believe that there is a God capable and caring enough to do such a thing as to heal a little girl? I know I believe him to be real and even if he didn’t heal the girl and some new medication did, I believe he could and would. If you don’t agree with me, I’m sure you have your reasons for believing such, but I hope that someday you’ll see as I do that there is indeed a God that is that wonderful.
Fast forward to last night. Several weeks ago, I mentioned to the Mi2 team that I was interested in being baptized here in Africa. To my surprise, the idea was echoed by a number of team members. So on Saturday we asked the pastor of our “home church.” If he would be willing to baptize us this week before we leave for our next adventure. He agreed to if he could give us a lesson on the power of baptism beforehand. Last night five us (Myself, Molly Ray, Molly Russell, Elise Omi and Kate Sawyer) received our lesson on baptism and were killed and raised again in the pool of our guesthouse complex. The water was cold, but it worked out fine.
Today we went into Kibera again, we were split into two groups. One group went to a school to play with kids and love them. The other group, pair really (Myself and Molly Ray) did a home visit to a CHE (Community Health Evangelist). Our home visit was atypical compared to our previous experiences in the homes of the community. This one was far less structured and was more conversational than our previous ones. The woman we visited was not a widow, her husband is still living and is actually the pastor of one of the churches in the community. Her name is Mercy, and speaks amazing English. To keep this story shorter, I’ll leave our some of the smaller details. They have two children, seven and three years old, and live in a concrete home the size of my bedroom with her sister, two other children and another woman. Mercy’s business has been out of commission since she has run out of capital due to the recent spike in inflation and high oil prices (which cause the cost of goods to shoot through the roof). We sat and talked about many things, including some of the difficulties of life in the slum. One of these difficulties is the ever-changing price of water and of course the limitations that come with poverty. Nearly three hours into the conversation, Mercy goes out to get us Coca-cola, and comes back with a liter of Coke and some dinner rolls.
Now, so far in this internship, I have held hands ever so lightly with another man, had to lead a church in a worship song, preached, been put on the spot to speak publicly more times than I can count, and countless other awkward moments. However, nothing has come close to making me as uncomfortable as I felt when Mercy offered us the refreshments. Having to watch someone give up a need of their own to provide you with a luxury is something so backwards and uncomfortable in our culture and lives. We had just finished listening to Mercy explain the difficulties of how her business has gone under and how she’s trying to pay her school fees, her sisters school fees, her children’s school fees and live off of her husbands earnings (which are little). To top it all off, she gave us the water that she had just finished explaining the unpredictable price of, to us to wash our hands before we drank and ate. When you’re put in a situation like this, you don’t dare turn down their offer even if you know they might not eat later because they’ve given you the resources for these refreshments. It’s a huge honor for them to host us Mzungus, so you have to accept the offer. It’s a kind of love and generosity that I admit, I’m not sure I’d be so willing to replicate. It’s one of those forms of love, sacrificial, that tells you that you mean something important to these people. And we’ve only just met them. It’s been said that we accept the love we think we deserve, and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t think I deserve this kind of love. Watching someone else go hungry because they hosted you, I can’t even describe it. After I had finished my glass of Coke, she refilled it with what I had assumed would have been her portion. It was never going to be her portion, it was always intended for us. Mercy was willing to give from something she had no excess of; perhaps we could all learn something from her.
-Nabii (Sam)
Monday, June 27, 2011
Rest Week update: Babies, Backpacks, and Back breaking Mount Longonot.
I am going to give a very brief overall summary of our rest week here in Nairobi.
Monday: prayer and fasting in the LIA Kenya office, so great.
Tuesday: Holly Garrett arrive back to our team safe and sound and we had our mid-term debrief. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT IS MIDTERM ALREADY, SERIOUSLY!
Wednesday: BABIES, the team visited the New Life Home in Nairobi and we were all so impressed with the facility. It was super modern and had the ability to see to the health needs of so many orphan children. Also we learned that the U.S. and U.K. are now allowed to adopt from Kenya which like two weeks ago was not an option. EXCITING! Also the love that these orphans receive is unbelievable, they have committed volunteers that come in everyday! We were able to spend some time playing and feed the little ones, so fun but also so heart breaking because you know these kids don't have parents. Afternoon time we just chilled and relaxed, some of us ventured on a walk around Nairobi. A dreams of ours was to be able to walk down the street in Kenya and see people we know-- dream come true we saw 2 different LIA people driving so cool.
Thursday: In the morning we went to visit a ministry that teaches and helps develop the skills of Somalian refugees. They make some really cool stuff from aprons, to bags, to backpacks that look so cool. In the afternoon we experienced some african time, before we had a meeting with a man from Life Ministries (same as campus crusades state side)
Friday: Chill morning for most of us, I went to Java to get some school work done and enjoy a cup of tea. In the afternoon we ventured with Jakes to visit baby/ orphan animals. It was so cool, except they we in cages, but still we saw african animals in actual africa. We also witnessed a little baby (3 days old) try to figure out how to walk, so tender (molly Russell's word). We saw some simba's get fed and Nicole got attacked by a monkey. We also drove through Kibera and felt very American because we were not walking, weird feeling. The girls also ventured out to Java for Shakes to celebrate Holly Garrett safe return.
Saturday: Well the previous Sunday at church we were invited to attend a fellowship event of "going on a little hike" to Mount Longonot. If a Kenyan EVER tells you to join on a little hike, remember a little hike is a straight up climb, hike, crawl, sweat more than ever in your life, fall more times than you can count, laugh so hard you can't breath even more because you already couldn't breath, use muscles you probably have never used in your life. So around 17 people made up of Kenyans and Mazungos climbed this mountain. Some facts about Mount Longonot and Kenyans that are interesting:
1: It costs foreigners (aka us) 20 U.S. dollars, it costs Kenyans approximately $2.27. haha, they really know how to capitalize on foreigners.
2: 5:30 a.m. is early now matter where you are in the world. (thats the time we woke up to go to the mountain)
3: Bring food, you'll need because Mount L will take all your energy before you even start climbing.
4.This park bears the privilege of being the host of the highest volcanic mountain in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, rising from the shores of Lake Naivasha up to 9108 ft above sea level. Mount Longonot is the most recent and one of the youngest volcanoes in the world, making Longonot National park the ‘hotKenya Vacations’ of all the parks in the Rift valley. The scenic beauties in the area are astounding both in length and breadth, making a concoction of many features of the Rift Valley basin. ( http://www.enhols.com/kenya_safari/mount-longonot/default.aspx)
9108 ft! Rift Valley! Best Day Ever, most painful but Best!
3 miles up, 6 miles around the rim, 3 miles down in four hours, less for commander, rayray and holly, and Mr. G who went around the whole thing crazy fast.
5. Commander Ponton, Rayray, and The Lovely Holly Garrett definitely have competition in there top ten strengths. Sam definitely does not.
6. I was told to use every adjective I could think of to describe the beauty of the masters hand's we saw on Mount Longonot. Here goes, it was beautiful, breathtaking (literally we couldn't breath at some points), wonderful, awe-inspiring, incomparable, gorgeous, fantastic, phenomenal. Some other words could be used to describe the experience are painful, Colorado ain't got nothin on Mount Longonot, very dirty, most difficult physical challenge many of us have ever been apart of, I will never wear chacos hiking ever again, bare feet hiking is the best, rain on the top of the mountain is also epic. Reaching the top of the summit is the best feeling ever and finally walking down the mountain is probably the most painful walk i have ever experienced.
7. Kenyans know how to barbecue, for real. Many interns tried lamb intestine, liver, kidney and the normal stuff too. It was delicious, I wasn't so keen on the liver or kidney though, I liked the intestine taste like chicken.
8. I will never forget seeing Pastor yell back to his wife who was like a mile away saying, "I am so proud of you", and "keep going baby, you got this". And then to see his wife make it all the way around the mountain was the coolest thing ever.
9. It now almost Tuesday and I am still sore.
10. Words cannot seriously describe or detail the experience, what I have said does not do it justice. I just don't know how you can look down on the rift valley and not be struck by the thought that "man, God is so good, look at the detail he puts into everything, this was not world was not just an accident", that is just my opinion though, I hope one day you can climb a mountain too and tell me all about your experience.
Sunday: Went to innkeeper fellowship, the church we enjoy attending in Nairobi. And then it stormed all day. Me and Austin had quite an adventure walking home in the downpour. People and rain in Kenya is just so funny to witness.
With love and a lot of respect for babies, backpacks and back breaking mountains I wish all who read this blessings.
Mungu Akubariki
K. Sawyer
Monday: prayer and fasting in the LIA Kenya office, so great.
Tuesday: Holly Garrett arrive back to our team safe and sound and we had our mid-term debrief. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT IS MIDTERM ALREADY, SERIOUSLY!
Wednesday: BABIES, the team visited the New Life Home in Nairobi and we were all so impressed with the facility. It was super modern and had the ability to see to the health needs of so many orphan children. Also we learned that the U.S. and U.K. are now allowed to adopt from Kenya which like two weeks ago was not an option. EXCITING! Also the love that these orphans receive is unbelievable, they have committed volunteers that come in everyday! We were able to spend some time playing and feed the little ones, so fun but also so heart breaking because you know these kids don't have parents. Afternoon time we just chilled and relaxed, some of us ventured on a walk around Nairobi. A dreams of ours was to be able to walk down the street in Kenya and see people we know-- dream come true we saw 2 different LIA people driving so cool.
Thursday: In the morning we went to visit a ministry that teaches and helps develop the skills of Somalian refugees. They make some really cool stuff from aprons, to bags, to backpacks that look so cool. In the afternoon we experienced some african time, before we had a meeting with a man from Life Ministries (same as campus crusades state side)
Friday: Chill morning for most of us, I went to Java to get some school work done and enjoy a cup of tea. In the afternoon we ventured with Jakes to visit baby/ orphan animals. It was so cool, except they we in cages, but still we saw african animals in actual africa. We also witnessed a little baby (3 days old) try to figure out how to walk, so tender (molly Russell's word). We saw some simba's get fed and Nicole got attacked by a monkey. We also drove through Kibera and felt very American because we were not walking, weird feeling. The girls also ventured out to Java for Shakes to celebrate Holly Garrett safe return.
Saturday: Well the previous Sunday at church we were invited to attend a fellowship event of "going on a little hike" to Mount Longonot. If a Kenyan EVER tells you to join on a little hike, remember a little hike is a straight up climb, hike, crawl, sweat more than ever in your life, fall more times than you can count, laugh so hard you can't breath even more because you already couldn't breath, use muscles you probably have never used in your life. So around 17 people made up of Kenyans and Mazungos climbed this mountain. Some facts about Mount Longonot and Kenyans that are interesting:
1: It costs foreigners (aka us) 20 U.S. dollars, it costs Kenyans approximately $2.27. haha, they really know how to capitalize on foreigners.
2: 5:30 a.m. is early now matter where you are in the world. (thats the time we woke up to go to the mountain)
3: Bring food, you'll need because Mount L will take all your energy before you even start climbing.
4.This park bears the privilege of being the host of the highest volcanic mountain in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, rising from the shores of Lake Naivasha up to 9108 ft above sea level. Mount Longonot is the most recent and one of the youngest volcanoes in the world, making Longonot National park the ‘hotKenya Vacations’ of all the parks in the Rift valley. The scenic beauties in the area are astounding both in length and breadth, making a concoction of many features of the Rift Valley basin. ( http://www.enhols.com/kenya_safari/mount-longonot/default.aspx)
9108 ft! Rift Valley! Best Day Ever, most painful but Best!
3 miles up, 6 miles around the rim, 3 miles down in four hours, less for commander, rayray and holly, and Mr. G who went around the whole thing crazy fast.
5. Commander Ponton, Rayray, and The Lovely Holly Garrett definitely have competition in there top ten strengths. Sam definitely does not.
6. I was told to use every adjective I could think of to describe the beauty of the masters hand's we saw on Mount Longonot. Here goes, it was beautiful, breathtaking (literally we couldn't breath at some points), wonderful, awe-inspiring, incomparable, gorgeous, fantastic, phenomenal. Some other words could be used to describe the experience are painful, Colorado ain't got nothin on Mount Longonot, very dirty, most difficult physical challenge many of us have ever been apart of, I will never wear chacos hiking ever again, bare feet hiking is the best, rain on the top of the mountain is also epic. Reaching the top of the summit is the best feeling ever and finally walking down the mountain is probably the most painful walk i have ever experienced.
7. Kenyans know how to barbecue, for real. Many interns tried lamb intestine, liver, kidney and the normal stuff too. It was delicious, I wasn't so keen on the liver or kidney though, I liked the intestine taste like chicken.
8. I will never forget seeing Pastor yell back to his wife who was like a mile away saying, "I am so proud of you", and "keep going baby, you got this". And then to see his wife make it all the way around the mountain was the coolest thing ever.
9. It now almost Tuesday and I am still sore.
10. Words cannot seriously describe or detail the experience, what I have said does not do it justice. I just don't know how you can look down on the rift valley and not be struck by the thought that "man, God is so good, look at the detail he puts into everything, this was not world was not just an accident", that is just my opinion though, I hope one day you can climb a mountain too and tell me all about your experience.
Sunday: Went to innkeeper fellowship, the church we enjoy attending in Nairobi. And then it stormed all day. Me and Austin had quite an adventure walking home in the downpour. People and rain in Kenya is just so funny to witness.
With love and a lot of respect for babies, backpacks and back breaking mountains I wish all who read this blessings.
Mungu Akubariki
K. Sawyer
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Kisumu Community/Eugene
Hiiiii everyone! My apologies for the late blog post from me. I didn't get the memo that everyone else posted their update blogs last night, so I'm sorry that this is 24 hours late.
I'm excited to blog though, and tell you all about what is happening here in Kenya and what I am personally experiencing. When we were in Kisumu we all experienced many things and were all encouraged by the community we were surrounded by.
We spent a few days in the Nyalenda Slum visiting the homes of widows, visiting some of the small businesses people run to make a living (which include selling clothes, selling jewelry, making and selling maize or chapatis, etc...), and we also spent a day walking around the houses and evangelizing to random people. Molly Russell and I spent the day together with one of the TOT's in the community (her name was Eugene and she soon became one of our best friends), and by the Holy Spirit's power, we helped lead three people come to Christ and were saved by accepting Jesus into their hearts. We walked away from that day completely amazed by how God is at work in our lives, in the Kisumu community, and around the world. We were so grateful and humbled by these experiences and could only give the glory to God because it is by Him and through Him that all things are possible.
If you're not already aware of this, we absolutely loved being in Kisumu. The LIA staff treated us so well and welcomed us with arms wide open. We so enjoyed getting to know the different pastors of the churches that are connected with LIA, and we especially loved getting to know the members of the churches who are the TOT's. We really got to know the individuals because they told us about their families, where they grew up, and they even welcomed us into their houses. We were so blessed by the people there and miss them all so much.
When I was there, Eugene became my new "mom." She was such an influential and a literal "super mom"- she gave birth to nine children (two sets of twins, two single births, and a set of triplets!!!) After talking with her for five minutes, she started to call me her daughter and we really just bonded right then. Russell and I got to know her very well each day, we got to meet one of her sons, and were welcomed into her home, and needless to say, we really miss her a lot (and talk about her multiple times a day....).
We continue to learn so much each day, are praying for strength, wisdom, and for our loved ones at home. Thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, and support. We love and miss you all!
With so much love,
Elise (on behalf of the Mi2 team).
PS if anyone knows how to contact or get ahold of our friend Eugene, please let us know.
I'm excited to blog though, and tell you all about what is happening here in Kenya and what I am personally experiencing. When we were in Kisumu we all experienced many things and were all encouraged by the community we were surrounded by.
We spent a few days in the Nyalenda Slum visiting the homes of widows, visiting some of the small businesses people run to make a living (which include selling clothes, selling jewelry, making and selling maize or chapatis, etc...), and we also spent a day walking around the houses and evangelizing to random people. Molly Russell and I spent the day together with one of the TOT's in the community (her name was Eugene and she soon became one of our best friends), and by the Holy Spirit's power, we helped lead three people come to Christ and were saved by accepting Jesus into their hearts. We walked away from that day completely amazed by how God is at work in our lives, in the Kisumu community, and around the world. We were so grateful and humbled by these experiences and could only give the glory to God because it is by Him and through Him that all things are possible.
If you're not already aware of this, we absolutely loved being in Kisumu. The LIA staff treated us so well and welcomed us with arms wide open. We so enjoyed getting to know the different pastors of the churches that are connected with LIA, and we especially loved getting to know the members of the churches who are the TOT's. We really got to know the individuals because they told us about their families, where they grew up, and they even welcomed us into their houses. We were so blessed by the people there and miss them all so much.
When I was there, Eugene became my new "mom." She was such an influential and a literal "super mom"- she gave birth to nine children (two sets of twins, two single births, and a set of triplets!!!) After talking with her for five minutes, she started to call me her daughter and we really just bonded right then. Russell and I got to know her very well each day, we got to meet one of her sons, and were welcomed into her home, and needless to say, we really miss her a lot (and talk about her multiple times a day....).
We continue to learn so much each day, are praying for strength, wisdom, and for our loved ones at home. Thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, and support. We love and miss you all!
With so much love,
Elise (on behalf of the Mi2 team).
PS if anyone knows how to contact or get ahold of our friend Eugene, please let us know.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Being a Tourist
Clearly our work in the Kisumu area was excruciating, grueling and draining so we were begging for breaks at the end. Ok... not really. We LOVED our work so so much, and were blessed by LIA with the opportunity to be tourists for 2 days. It was fun!
Towards the end of our last week in Kisumu we were sad to think about leaving but were very excited when we were met by our LIA-Kisumu staff in a matatu, ready to head to the equator!! I think everyone was expecting some kind of large sign or line or indication at the equator, something official. I’m sure we were all mulling over how the government sign and drawn line would look as we counted the number of pregnant goats we saw along the drive and guessed how many kids they were going to have. Elise was so excited she even got out her camera to take a picture of the yellow indication statue informing us that the equator was near, only to find that the yellow globe was the actual equator “site”. Pretty hilarious. If it weren’t for the Lions Club International the world would not know that the equator runs through a large patch of grass next to a highway, behind some people’s backyards 45 minutes outside downtown Kisumu, Kenya. The understated equator was laughable, but we had a great time, regardless. First we wanted to make sure that we established where the equator was exactly, and found that the Lions Club had (thankfully) placed the support of the yellow globe in all correct directions of N, S, E &W. They just forgot to mark those directions. So we started taking photos of us straddling the hemispheres, climbing the equator, jumping off the equator, leaping across the equator, carrying one another across the equator, kissing the equator, licking the equator, burping, crying, smiling, sweating, highfiving, testing gravity, etc. ON THE EQUATOR! Epic. Much more fun than it probably should have been.
The very next day we were blessed AGAIN with the opportunity to go view hippos with our LIA Kisumu staff! It sounds anti-climactic because hippos are fairly underrated in the 21st century. But in reality they are Africa’s number 2 killer, after the mosquito (and it’s bff Malaria). Much respect, hippos of Africa. We got into a boat with our blindingly orange life-jackets at 7am and were taken around the Kenyan coast of Lake Victoria (world’s second largest fresh water lake) to view the wildlife and disgruntled fishermen of the morning. The birds that we saw were fascinating but when we passed by a hippo having his traditional breakfast of lake deliciousness the birds became an afterthought. We saw the bull hippo first and found out that there can only be one male in a territory at a time and the fathers will kill any sons they have if the mother does not isolate or hide them. Being LIA we put our house-visit skills into action, but I don’t think our evangelizing and family reconciliation attempts were too successful. We didn’t get to perform a follow up visit so I guess we’ll just have to keep praying for daddy hippo. A few kilometers down the lake from the bull male were his two wives and 3 kids, also enjoying breakfast. I think the ladies may have gotten into a bit of an argument because there was a lot of splashing and we got to snap the stereotypical “hippo-with-its-mouth-open” shot. Pretty epic. As we continued on our tour of the lake we got to learn about the many birds of Kenya/ E. Africa and just drink in God’s awesome creation. The scenery/ lighting/ weather was phenomenal.
Needless to say our Kisumu experience was awesome, as can be seen in everyone else’s account (below and above this post). We loved the staff, our friends from the community, the short term teams and everything! These touristy activities were just the cherry on top. That made it tough to leave, but we know that Kisumu will forever have a piece of our hearts and a place in our prayers. Thanks for reading! Be blessed
-”Commander” Pontón
Personal note: God really showed himself working in Kisumu and that was really awesome to see. I have never been in a place of so much need and seen so much hope and felt peace spread. Granted, I still feel there is a lot that can be and needs to be done but I felt very little frustration because I knew our Father was taking care of everything in His own time for His purposes. I also just loved getting to know everyone in Kisumu, I was very happy to have time to build friendships, and quality time with Jesus was great. Miss you Kisumu!
Towards the end of our last week in Kisumu we were sad to think about leaving but were very excited when we were met by our LIA-Kisumu staff in a matatu, ready to head to the equator!! I think everyone was expecting some kind of large sign or line or indication at the equator, something official. I’m sure we were all mulling over how the government sign and drawn line would look as we counted the number of pregnant goats we saw along the drive and guessed how many kids they were going to have. Elise was so excited she even got out her camera to take a picture of the yellow indication statue informing us that the equator was near, only to find that the yellow globe was the actual equator “site”. Pretty hilarious. If it weren’t for the Lions Club International the world would not know that the equator runs through a large patch of grass next to a highway, behind some people’s backyards 45 minutes outside downtown Kisumu, Kenya. The understated equator was laughable, but we had a great time, regardless. First we wanted to make sure that we established where the equator was exactly, and found that the Lions Club had (thankfully) placed the support of the yellow globe in all correct directions of N, S, E &W. They just forgot to mark those directions. So we started taking photos of us straddling the hemispheres, climbing the equator, jumping off the equator, leaping across the equator, carrying one another across the equator, kissing the equator, licking the equator, burping, crying, smiling, sweating, highfiving, testing gravity, etc. ON THE EQUATOR! Epic. Much more fun than it probably should have been.
The very next day we were blessed AGAIN with the opportunity to go view hippos with our LIA Kisumu staff! It sounds anti-climactic because hippos are fairly underrated in the 21st century. But in reality they are Africa’s number 2 killer, after the mosquito (and it’s bff Malaria). Much respect, hippos of Africa. We got into a boat with our blindingly orange life-jackets at 7am and were taken around the Kenyan coast of Lake Victoria (world’s second largest fresh water lake) to view the wildlife and disgruntled fishermen of the morning. The birds that we saw were fascinating but when we passed by a hippo having his traditional breakfast of lake deliciousness the birds became an afterthought. We saw the bull hippo first and found out that there can only be one male in a territory at a time and the fathers will kill any sons they have if the mother does not isolate or hide them. Being LIA we put our house-visit skills into action, but I don’t think our evangelizing and family reconciliation attempts were too successful. We didn’t get to perform a follow up visit so I guess we’ll just have to keep praying for daddy hippo. A few kilometers down the lake from the bull male were his two wives and 3 kids, also enjoying breakfast. I think the ladies may have gotten into a bit of an argument because there was a lot of splashing and we got to snap the stereotypical “hippo-with-its-mouth-open” shot. Pretty epic. As we continued on our tour of the lake we got to learn about the many birds of Kenya/ E. Africa and just drink in God’s awesome creation. The scenery/ lighting/ weather was phenomenal.
Needless to say our Kisumu experience was awesome, as can be seen in everyone else’s account (below and above this post). We loved the staff, our friends from the community, the short term teams and everything! These touristy activities were just the cherry on top. That made it tough to leave, but we know that Kisumu will forever have a piece of our hearts and a place in our prayers. Thanks for reading! Be blessed
-”Commander” Pontón
Personal note: God really showed himself working in Kisumu and that was really awesome to see. I have never been in a place of so much need and seen so much hope and felt peace spread. Granted, I still feel there is a lot that can be and needs to be done but I felt very little frustration because I knew our Father was taking care of everything in His own time for His purposes. I also just loved getting to know everyone in Kisumu, I was very happy to have time to build friendships, and quality time with Jesus was great. Miss you Kisumu!
Hosting---Kenya Intern Style
Kisumu, Kenya for 2 whole weeks….YAY!!!!
We ended up leaving Nairobi a day early to get to Kisumu to help the LIA Kisumu staff prepare for the two big Short-Term Teams that were coming from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The first of these, a leadership team from the church, was only here in Kisumu for 2 days…one of their many stops in Kenya in their short trip. The second team was from the College/20’s Somethings Ministry (the Post), who were here for the entire week. One of our responsibilities as Interns is to help host any short-term team that comes to Kenya with LIA. I was really looking forward to this because it is something I have yet to experience, being on the side receiving a team, instead of being the team that is received.
During out time together, we did a lot of fellowshipping, encouraging and praying. The first half of our week consisted of many home visits, splitting up into groups mixed with a few “Post-ers”, an Mi2, some TOTs (trainers of trainers), and a pastor. We were able to visit homes in the community of the slum, talk with the widows, share our own testimonies, give a Word (aka encourage them and/or read an encouraging passage of the Bible), and pray with them. Most of these widows were disowned by their families after their husband died…after their extended family came and took from her whatever belongings they wanted. Many of these widows are taking care of their own children, grandchildren, and children of other families. I believe they encouraged us more than we could encourage them! After our home visits in the afternoon, we would come back to the church to find the Leadership Team playing with 50-100 kids, all who gathered to play with the mzungu! (aka..white people). We all joined in to a massive game of duck duck goose…along with several picture taking opportunities.
On the Thursday of that week we mixed it up a little bit. In the morning we all went to the Kisumu Children’s Remand Home (refer to Sam’s blog for more details) and were able to sing and build relationships with those children. That afternoon we all visited a high school in the Dunga slum (refer to Molly Ray’s blog for more details) and shared testimonies of how faithful God is through the difficult times in our lives (a high school girl came up to us afterwards and said how encouraged she felt because she was under the impression that “white people” never struggled).
To end the week with the Post team…we had a wonderful game day with the LIA staff and our friends in the Kenya church. After a very serious volleyball tournament (congratulations to team Revival Salvation!) we had our first annual Kentucky vs Kenya Egg Toss! (congratulations Molly Ray and Kevin!) No need for clean up after that, thanks to the cows that roam the church grounds…oh the perks of being in Kenya!
It was such a joy getting to know these teams! (Especially for me, since I will be coming home to Louisville in August to over 20 new friends and church family!)
What God is doing in my life: I appreciate God’s sense of humor more and more every day, especially when He decides to push me out of my comfort zone and make me preach at church on Sunday in Kisumu. Oh how He loves to prove His faithfulness, it was definitely a Spirit led service. Coming back to Kisumu for the second time (the first time being 2 years ago) was an incredible experience. I was able to visit with people I already knew and become friends with some that I now consider family and will never forgot…and can’t wait to see again one day!
Bwana Asifiwe! (Praise the Lord!)
--Katie Lane
We ended up leaving Nairobi a day early to get to Kisumu to help the LIA Kisumu staff prepare for the two big Short-Term Teams that were coming from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The first of these, a leadership team from the church, was only here in Kisumu for 2 days…one of their many stops in Kenya in their short trip. The second team was from the College/20’s Somethings Ministry (the Post), who were here for the entire week. One of our responsibilities as Interns is to help host any short-term team that comes to Kenya with LIA. I was really looking forward to this because it is something I have yet to experience, being on the side receiving a team, instead of being the team that is received.
During out time together, we did a lot of fellowshipping, encouraging and praying. The first half of our week consisted of many home visits, splitting up into groups mixed with a few “Post-ers”, an Mi2, some TOTs (trainers of trainers), and a pastor. We were able to visit homes in the community of the slum, talk with the widows, share our own testimonies, give a Word (aka encourage them and/or read an encouraging passage of the Bible), and pray with them. Most of these widows were disowned by their families after their husband died…after their extended family came and took from her whatever belongings they wanted. Many of these widows are taking care of their own children, grandchildren, and children of other families. I believe they encouraged us more than we could encourage them! After our home visits in the afternoon, we would come back to the church to find the Leadership Team playing with 50-100 kids, all who gathered to play with the mzungu! (aka..white people). We all joined in to a massive game of duck duck goose…along with several picture taking opportunities.
On the Thursday of that week we mixed it up a little bit. In the morning we all went to the Kisumu Children’s Remand Home (refer to Sam’s blog for more details) and were able to sing and build relationships with those children. That afternoon we all visited a high school in the Dunga slum (refer to Molly Ray’s blog for more details) and shared testimonies of how faithful God is through the difficult times in our lives (a high school girl came up to us afterwards and said how encouraged she felt because she was under the impression that “white people” never struggled).
To end the week with the Post team…we had a wonderful game day with the LIA staff and our friends in the Kenya church. After a very serious volleyball tournament (congratulations to team Revival Salvation!) we had our first annual Kentucky vs Kenya Egg Toss! (congratulations Molly Ray and Kevin!) No need for clean up after that, thanks to the cows that roam the church grounds…oh the perks of being in Kenya!
It was such a joy getting to know these teams! (Especially for me, since I will be coming home to Louisville in August to over 20 new friends and church family!)
What God is doing in my life: I appreciate God’s sense of humor more and more every day, especially when He decides to push me out of my comfort zone and make me preach at church on Sunday in Kisumu. Oh how He loves to prove His faithfulness, it was definitely a Spirit led service. Coming back to Kisumu for the second time (the first time being 2 years ago) was an incredible experience. I was able to visit with people I already knew and become friends with some that I now consider family and will never forgot…and can’t wait to see again one day!
Bwana Asifiwe! (Praise the Lord!)
--Katie Lane
Kisumu - the Guest House
Hellur from Nairobi. We are playing catch-up on the bloggin action, so I will share about our accommodations on our two week trip to kisumu. We stayed in the lovely abode called St. Anna’s Guest House. To our surprise we each had our own rooms and everyone—except me (molly russell) –had a first floor room, which did not seem to be an issue initially. I thought “wow cool, upstairs by myself, and there is a cool balcony” little did I know my neighbors would be quite some characters. I will say it was very convenient to have the toilet, showerhead, and sink within a foot of each other. For the first week, my upstairs neighbors were men acapella singers. Once again initially that sounded great. I would have talented singers serenade me to sleep every night. Not at all what occurred. The nights they actually sang (instead of the typical shouting) involved perfecting one line of a song, usually a rather boring line at that, so it sounded like a skipping CD. They left on a Friday morning, so that night I had the upstairs to myself. I settled into my mosquito-protected bed to read before going to sleep early. Just as I had begun to soak in the silence, I hear a van door slide open and a women’s voice emerge with a loud “We’re here!”—the high schoolers had arrived. My new neighbors were giggly, fanny-packed, chaperone-accompanied high school kids. They really were not crazy or anything, I just found the morning wake up calls and teenage armies to be humorous. Overall St. Anna’s was amazing to us. We had good food and made friends with the guards, cleaning men (yes it was men that cleaned our rooms daily), and desk people, they were all very hospitable. We even had a personal market out front everyday where we definitely contributed to their income for those two weeks. Let’s just say we had a lot of free time waiting in the mornings to become very close to them. I have come to love the “Africa time” that everyone runs on—I can’t speak for everyone on this one though. I would say we had significant chunks of bonding time waiting on food and rides throughout the two weeks there.
So yes, I did manage to write a lot on just our guesthouse, but for two weeks it was our home, as was kisumu. I loved every person I met in kisumu and had a “best day ever” moment everyday. God taught me soooo much, but some of those stories can be heard in other peep’s blogs. My time’s up, so blessings everyone!
Molly Russell
So yes, I did manage to write a lot on just our guesthouse, but for two weeks it was our home, as was kisumu. I loved every person I met in kisumu and had a “best day ever” moment everyday. God taught me soooo much, but some of those stories can be heard in other peep’s blogs. My time’s up, so blessings everyone!
Molly Russell
Kisumuuuuu
Wow! We had an AMAZING time in Kisumu! We had the privilege of doing so many cool things. One of the highlights of our time in Kisumu was visiting a high school in the slums. The high school was considered one of the best in Kisumu. We were able to visit the high school twice – once with the Post Team and once with just the Mi2s and the Kisumu staff. Over the two times we visited we were all able to share a brief version of our testimonies and some things we have struggled with currently or in the past. It was so cool to see and hear their reactions. We spoke to a few students as we were leaving, and they told us that they were under the impression that white people never struggled. Obviously we struggle all the time. I was surprised by how well we could all relate to each other. Although we grew up very differently we all came together to sing songs, pray, and share stories.
Along with all the cool things we got to do in Kisumu, it was also a time of growing closer to God. Lately I have been praying for situations were I had to depend on God. He answered my prayers:) In Kisumu, I was thrown in countless situations where I was scared out of my mind and had to completely depend on God to help me out. Through these situations I feel like my faith has expanded and I am learning to trust God more. God continues to teach me and He is revealing more of Himself to me everyday. I stand in awe of how great our God is! Praise the Lord!!! ☺
-Molly Ray
Along with all the cool things we got to do in Kisumu, it was also a time of growing closer to God. Lately I have been praying for situations were I had to depend on God. He answered my prayers:) In Kisumu, I was thrown in countless situations where I was scared out of my mind and had to completely depend on God to help me out. Through these situations I feel like my faith has expanded and I am learning to trust God more. God continues to teach me and He is revealing more of Himself to me everyday. I stand in awe of how great our God is! Praise the Lord!!! ☺
-Molly Ray
We're Back!
We’re back in Nairobi after two weeks in Kisumu and the most miserable bus ride of my life. We’re all going to be posting our trip in parts, so we don’t have a whole bunch of overlap in our individual posts.
Trying to write a short blog about our time in Kisumu is like asking water to be something other than wet. In my last post, I wrote that we visited an orphanage, turns out that it wasn’t an orphanage. It was actually a Juvenile detention facility; apparently it’s easy for me to mistake a detention center for an orphanage. Anyways, We visited the Remand home again last week. The Mi2 team went in and visited about 100 teenagers in a classroom. We started by sitting amongst them on the benchs, and there was a lot of hand waving and shoving to make room for us mzungus. We sang some songs that they led us in, and they showed off a number of memory verses. Then we sang some more songs. This time during the songs, I began to record some video footage on my camera. This was made difficult because the crowd of boys around me tightened like a noose around my entire body as they were all straining to get a glimpse of the live footage on the LCD screen. In the middle of the second to last song, the LIA coordinator for the trip walked up to me and whispered in my ear “Sam, would you please give a word of hope to them when we are done singing.” (This is quite typical of my experience in Kenya, never in my life have I been put on the spot so many times to provide a devotion, sermon, or testimony). I gave a short word on how we need to make the best of the situation we’re in and that there’s always hope in Christ. After my short message, we were divided into groups. I was put in a group with 14 of the older boys. In my group were a number of runaways who had been caught on the street and were put in the Remand center, a couple of rapists and the rest were thieves. I shared the gospel with them and one of them accepted Christ as his savior! The girls were split up into groups as well, Molly Russell was with a group of girls in the home. The reasons girls end up in the remand center are very different from the reasons why boys are there. Boys generally do something to be there, the girls are usually there because they’re the victim of a terrible situation and have no where else to go. Some of their stories were heart breaking and I really have no desire to share them, they were just awful.
The rest of the team should be posting shortly. Stay tuned
-Nabii (Sam)
PS for those wondering about my health, I am back to full strength now. The day we came home from kisumu I started throwing up at 530am and was miserable achy the whole way home. Dr. Florence made a house call and treated me for malaria and typhoid though it now seems unlikely I had either. After a few days of mild symptoms I'm back to normal. Thanks for all of your prayers! Praise God!
Trying to write a short blog about our time in Kisumu is like asking water to be something other than wet. In my last post, I wrote that we visited an orphanage, turns out that it wasn’t an orphanage. It was actually a Juvenile detention facility; apparently it’s easy for me to mistake a detention center for an orphanage. Anyways, We visited the Remand home again last week. The Mi2 team went in and visited about 100 teenagers in a classroom. We started by sitting amongst them on the benchs, and there was a lot of hand waving and shoving to make room for us mzungus. We sang some songs that they led us in, and they showed off a number of memory verses. Then we sang some more songs. This time during the songs, I began to record some video footage on my camera. This was made difficult because the crowd of boys around me tightened like a noose around my entire body as they were all straining to get a glimpse of the live footage on the LCD screen. In the middle of the second to last song, the LIA coordinator for the trip walked up to me and whispered in my ear “Sam, would you please give a word of hope to them when we are done singing.” (This is quite typical of my experience in Kenya, never in my life have I been put on the spot so many times to provide a devotion, sermon, or testimony). I gave a short word on how we need to make the best of the situation we’re in and that there’s always hope in Christ. After my short message, we were divided into groups. I was put in a group with 14 of the older boys. In my group were a number of runaways who had been caught on the street and were put in the Remand center, a couple of rapists and the rest were thieves. I shared the gospel with them and one of them accepted Christ as his savior! The girls were split up into groups as well, Molly Russell was with a group of girls in the home. The reasons girls end up in the remand center are very different from the reasons why boys are there. Boys generally do something to be there, the girls are usually there because they’re the victim of a terrible situation and have no where else to go. Some of their stories were heart breaking and I really have no desire to share them, they were just awful.
The rest of the team should be posting shortly. Stay tuned
-Nabii (Sam)
PS for those wondering about my health, I am back to full strength now. The day we came home from kisumu I started throwing up at 530am and was miserable achy the whole way home. Dr. Florence made a house call and treated me for malaria and typhoid though it now seems unlikely I had either. After a few days of mild symptoms I'm back to normal. Thanks for all of your prayers! Praise God!
I left a piece of my heart in Kisumu...
As Sam has previously mentioned the team of Mi2's are back in Nairobi and although being home is nice, I left a little piece of my heart in Kisumu and with the team there. I apologize ahead of time if I repeat anything the other Mi2's may mention.
Well for starters because I have tendency to be "allergic to the motion" as a Kenyan once put it, or in American terms Car sick. So I took some Zofran and was given th honor of riding in the front of the LIA van with our brilliant driver Jakes. This is where my love for swahili really began, Jakes would point at things and ask me to try and pronounce them, laugh when I said it wrong and then correct me, so I learned a lot. Now my team has a joke, "O wheres sawyer, found her, she asking a Kenyan "how do you say...blank in swahili?" But that's the learner in me, I guess. Many Kenyans and my team laugh at me but I still love the language.
I also was able to enjoy my 21st birthday in Kenya on our first day in Kisumu. On my birthday we went to church, I stood up an sang in front of everyone, along with my fellow Mi2's, which I would not have done in the United States probably ever. Kenya has a way of pushing you out of your comfort zone and it has been an amazing experience. For my birthday dinner I had Ice Cream and Fruit Salad. One of my favorite birthday's to date.
Monday started with a whirlwind of the SECC teams arriving and being in community with them was epic to say the least. I don't remember all that was said but what I do remember and possibly never forget was the wisdom of a young woman of 14 (I think) named Ivy who spoke and prayed with such integrity and grace. Not going to lie, I'm a little jealous because I wish I was like that at 14. Tuesday arrived and through a series of events I had the incredible opportunity to travel with Pastor Dave Stone and Pastor Kurt Sauder to visit widows with HIV and as a nursing student this was so cool to experience. And the widows were so kind and gracious to us.
O my goodness, so one day I think it was thursday our friend Ephantus from LIA Kisumu looks at me and says "So Sawyer, you are going to preach a sermon on Sunday!" I said, "say what". But here's the thing in Kenya you gotta go with the flow, be flexible, embrace the challenges. But man o man, I was not overly excited about preaching. Let me explain, I am not naturally gifted at speaking in general. When I say that I mean, I really usually don't enjoy it, I break into a sweat, feel the heat rise in my face, start to stutter etc. it's a mess. So I kinda said like "hey, ephantus you were joking about that whole preaching thing right?". Yea he wasn't, but it was comforting to find out the next day almost all the Mi2's were going to preach at different churches on Sunday. So we were all in it together and praying for each other. So I preached on how God has a plan for our lives and it went fairly well I would say, like I would do it again, actually I kind of enjoyed it, so weird. But I was so grateful to be challenged in a new way.
Um, what else am I assigned to write about... O yes, as Mi2's we have a goal of doing what is called a Seed Project in the communities we work in. A seed project is small scale, short term project that involves the community and hopefully has the ability to open doors for the churches in the community. So we (Mi2 and LIA) in collaboration with pastors and TOTs put on a Widows luncheon. We served a meal and LIA provided an excellent Kenyan speaker, who talked about nutrition and gave a demonstration. It was really cool. Some 70 plus Widows came and hopefully walked away knowing more and being connected with other widows in the community, Bwana Asifiwe (praise the Lord). (P.S. how many times can you say community in a paragraph, my english vocabulary needs some work)
Well I think I have written quite enough. But in truth words cannot describe the feelings I walked away with from Kisumu. That LIA team is full of joy, love and the spirit and so funny (even though they don't think so). Those 5 churches partnered with LIA are devoted to their community and serving them. Even just the people in passing were amazing.
Thank you for reading!
Mungu Akubariki (God bless you)
Kate Sawyer
Well for starters because I have tendency to be "allergic to the motion" as a Kenyan once put it, or in American terms Car sick. So I took some Zofran and was given th honor of riding in the front of the LIA van with our brilliant driver Jakes. This is where my love for swahili really began, Jakes would point at things and ask me to try and pronounce them, laugh when I said it wrong and then correct me, so I learned a lot. Now my team has a joke, "O wheres sawyer, found her, she asking a Kenyan "how do you say...blank in swahili?" But that's the learner in me, I guess. Many Kenyans and my team laugh at me but I still love the language.
I also was able to enjoy my 21st birthday in Kenya on our first day in Kisumu. On my birthday we went to church, I stood up an sang in front of everyone, along with my fellow Mi2's, which I would not have done in the United States probably ever. Kenya has a way of pushing you out of your comfort zone and it has been an amazing experience. For my birthday dinner I had Ice Cream and Fruit Salad. One of my favorite birthday's to date.
Monday started with a whirlwind of the SECC teams arriving and being in community with them was epic to say the least. I don't remember all that was said but what I do remember and possibly never forget was the wisdom of a young woman of 14 (I think) named Ivy who spoke and prayed with such integrity and grace. Not going to lie, I'm a little jealous because I wish I was like that at 14. Tuesday arrived and through a series of events I had the incredible opportunity to travel with Pastor Dave Stone and Pastor Kurt Sauder to visit widows with HIV and as a nursing student this was so cool to experience. And the widows were so kind and gracious to us.
O my goodness, so one day I think it was thursday our friend Ephantus from LIA Kisumu looks at me and says "So Sawyer, you are going to preach a sermon on Sunday!" I said, "say what". But here's the thing in Kenya you gotta go with the flow, be flexible, embrace the challenges. But man o man, I was not overly excited about preaching. Let me explain, I am not naturally gifted at speaking in general. When I say that I mean, I really usually don't enjoy it, I break into a sweat, feel the heat rise in my face, start to stutter etc. it's a mess. So I kinda said like "hey, ephantus you were joking about that whole preaching thing right?". Yea he wasn't, but it was comforting to find out the next day almost all the Mi2's were going to preach at different churches on Sunday. So we were all in it together and praying for each other. So I preached on how God has a plan for our lives and it went fairly well I would say, like I would do it again, actually I kind of enjoyed it, so weird. But I was so grateful to be challenged in a new way.
Um, what else am I assigned to write about... O yes, as Mi2's we have a goal of doing what is called a Seed Project in the communities we work in. A seed project is small scale, short term project that involves the community and hopefully has the ability to open doors for the churches in the community. So we (Mi2 and LIA) in collaboration with pastors and TOTs put on a Widows luncheon. We served a meal and LIA provided an excellent Kenyan speaker, who talked about nutrition and gave a demonstration. It was really cool. Some 70 plus Widows came and hopefully walked away knowing more and being connected with other widows in the community, Bwana Asifiwe (praise the Lord). (P.S. how many times can you say community in a paragraph, my english vocabulary needs some work)
Well I think I have written quite enough. But in truth words cannot describe the feelings I walked away with from Kisumu. That LIA team is full of joy, love and the spirit and so funny (even though they don't think so). Those 5 churches partnered with LIA are devoted to their community and serving them. Even just the people in passing were amazing.
Thank you for reading!
Mungu Akubariki (God bless you)
Kate Sawyer
Friday, June 10, 2011
Dancing with two right feet
Hi Friends and Family,
Hello from Kisumu! This has been quite an eventful week, and we haven’t blogged yet, oh my! We don’t have internet access at our guest house, so I’m writing this from another guest house! We drove to Kisumu last Saturday. It was an entertaining and exciting 8.5 hour drive. Our friend Jakob drove us the whole way, what a champ. We saw some twigas (Giraffes) and punda milias (Zebras) and baboons on our drive out. The scenery was nothing short of spectacular. We stopped at a couple places to just to gawk at the view, and take some pictures too. The foliage is a richer green and the dirt is almost red, it’s incredible.
After we arrived, we got to meet our LIA staff, Ephantus, Oke, Mary, and Moses. They’re awesome. The following morning we split into two groups and were informed shortly before we left that we would be preaching at these churches. So Austin “Ralph Lauren” Ray (LIA international office intern) and myself preached at our respective locations. Molly “Rayray” Ray shared her testimony, and my group led the church in a summer camp song, fortunately for me, Elise, Sawyer and Rayray are all former counselors. The Kenyan church service is fun, it actually reminds me of my home church (Ft. Mckinley) in a few ways. The pastors all dance, except they have better moves than the Dave Hood Boogie, and the congregations gets nice and loud and into the worship :). Kenyan’s are quiet in person, and loud in church, Americans are loud in person and quiet in church.
We had some down time after church to settle in and rest for the hurricane of activity to come in the week. On Monday, two different teams from Southeast Christian Church arrived in Kisumu. One was a team of families from some of the leadership roles at southeast, and the other is a team of young men and women from their college ministry called the post. It’s been great having other mzungus here, especially other men. Not many men can say they’ve lived with 6 awesome women, and I am fortunate to be one of them. However, I’m still very much a man, and it’s good for my mental health to have another dude around once in a while.
On Monday, we all received an orientation to the work that LIA has been doing here in Kisumu, and afterwards we split into groups and went out to visit the community on home visits. During home visits, we go in groups of 5-9 to visit homes of community members and get to know them. We hear some heart-wrenching stories of suffering and some of the most uplifting stories of faith and joy ever told. They’re difficult to describe beyond that.
We’ve done more home visits, and yesterday had the opportunity to go out into the community to evangelize. A number of people came to Christ and my group had a change to meet Michelle Obama. Contrary to popular belief, she doesn’t reside in Washington DC, but lives in the Nyallenda slum of Kisumu, and she’s only three years old. On a more serious note, Obama’s father is from Kisumu, and there are plenty of pictures of him on the homes of the people we visited.
We also had a chance to go and speak to an orphanage and to a High school. I was pooped on by a bird (on the left side of my forehead) at the orphanage while Chad from the Post team was teaching about Jesus.
A number of Mi2’s and post team members shared our 2 minutes testimonies with the high school students and several accepted Christ, bwana asafiwe (Praise the Lord).
Today, the rest of the team is with the street children playing games while I write this (I had time sensitive medical school details to attend to). The post team will be leaving and we will miss them.
Both the post team and Mi2 teams have had interesting sounds coming from the guest houses. The post team wakes up to a “donkey dog” (whatever that is?) giving birth (so they claim) every morning. I think their reenactments of the sound are far more entertaining and traumatizing than the real thing. The Mi2 guest house is about as big and as loud as a small parade. It has been home to an Acapella group from a University in upstate New York (name intentionally left out). They’re here filming a documentary, and define the term obnoxious American, but are quite kind, just loud and rowdy at all hours of the night. They’ve provided a fair bit of chuckles to our team though. We like to talk about lions when we’re around them (long story, and this one is already long enough).
The other night, I made the mistake of leaving my windows open while I was at dinner. So my room was flooded with mosquitoes when I returned and decided the best immediate course of action was to kill as many as possible. Being a thorough and practical individual, I grabbed my shoe (not the muddy one) and began to kill as many as I could. All the mosquitoes were hanging out on my ceiling around the light bulb, and after I had inflicted a small dent in the cloud, I realized something. There was a more effective method to killing them, and it comes in a metal can. I fogged my room with killer spray and the problem was solved. Somewhere between the smashing and spraying, I noticed something: there was dirt on the bottom of my shoe, and because I had done such a good job of smacking the ceiling, it looked like there had been a redneck with two right feet square dancing on my ceiling.
Speaking of mosquitoes, we have gotten bit many times here but we remember our malaria medication. No one does a better job of bug bite prevention than Elise, who uses enough spray that you might think she’s been sponsored on this trip by OFF. She’s a champ, always the first to smile and always making everyone laugh. The world could use more people like her.
Elise and Molly Russell learned how to make Chapatti (best creation ever) on one of their home visits with one of the local pastors. They eat enough of it that they claim they’re afraid they’re going to turn into chapattis. Russell is great, always laughing and having fun, she really brings our team together as one, can’t imagine this team without her.
Sawyer is a huge inspiration to our team. She’s always the first one to engage new people and knows more Swahili than the rest of us put together. She’s a trooper, she’s battled her stomach a number of times but always keeps going and doesn’t quit until she’s literally falling over, a true missionary.
Rayray is one of the sharper individuals I’ve ever met, and always brings great thoughts to our morning devotions. Probably the best listener on the team, we could all learn a lot from her.
Commander Ponton is sweet. She’s really had an awesome week. We’ve really seen her come into the moment. It’s been awesome to see her really focus on the people at hand. She’s so good at thinking ahead, but it’s been a blessing to watch her focus all her attention on the individual she’s talking with.
Katie Lane is always on top of the situation and willing to put a positive spin on anything. No minor detail escapes her attention, which is a real blessing for our team. She brings an experienced perspective to our group from her previous trip to Kenya.
Overall, our group is blessed to have members who are strong where others are weak. We’ve been blessed with great team unity and chemistry, and our prayer is for that to continue.
We had a cultural night with the Kenyans last night. We got to sing and dance with them, what a blast. At the end of the night we were asked to share some American culture with them. So we sang a song from sister act 2 and “lean on me” which they all joined in on. Pretty cool.
There are endless more stories to tell, and I think it’s best I let them be told by others at this point.
Grace and Love from Kisumu,
Sam and Mi2 Kenya Team
Beard Update, it’s a huge hit amongst the children. Over twice as long as the hair on my head, we will be attempting to braid it once we get back to Nairobi.
Hello from Kisumu! This has been quite an eventful week, and we haven’t blogged yet, oh my! We don’t have internet access at our guest house, so I’m writing this from another guest house! We drove to Kisumu last Saturday. It was an entertaining and exciting 8.5 hour drive. Our friend Jakob drove us the whole way, what a champ. We saw some twigas (Giraffes) and punda milias (Zebras) and baboons on our drive out. The scenery was nothing short of spectacular. We stopped at a couple places to just to gawk at the view, and take some pictures too. The foliage is a richer green and the dirt is almost red, it’s incredible.
After we arrived, we got to meet our LIA staff, Ephantus, Oke, Mary, and Moses. They’re awesome. The following morning we split into two groups and were informed shortly before we left that we would be preaching at these churches. So Austin “Ralph Lauren” Ray (LIA international office intern) and myself preached at our respective locations. Molly “Rayray” Ray shared her testimony, and my group led the church in a summer camp song, fortunately for me, Elise, Sawyer and Rayray are all former counselors. The Kenyan church service is fun, it actually reminds me of my home church (Ft. Mckinley) in a few ways. The pastors all dance, except they have better moves than the Dave Hood Boogie, and the congregations gets nice and loud and into the worship :). Kenyan’s are quiet in person, and loud in church, Americans are loud in person and quiet in church.
We had some down time after church to settle in and rest for the hurricane of activity to come in the week. On Monday, two different teams from Southeast Christian Church arrived in Kisumu. One was a team of families from some of the leadership roles at southeast, and the other is a team of young men and women from their college ministry called the post. It’s been great having other mzungus here, especially other men. Not many men can say they’ve lived with 6 awesome women, and I am fortunate to be one of them. However, I’m still very much a man, and it’s good for my mental health to have another dude around once in a while.
On Monday, we all received an orientation to the work that LIA has been doing here in Kisumu, and afterwards we split into groups and went out to visit the community on home visits. During home visits, we go in groups of 5-9 to visit homes of community members and get to know them. We hear some heart-wrenching stories of suffering and some of the most uplifting stories of faith and joy ever told. They’re difficult to describe beyond that.
We’ve done more home visits, and yesterday had the opportunity to go out into the community to evangelize. A number of people came to Christ and my group had a change to meet Michelle Obama. Contrary to popular belief, she doesn’t reside in Washington DC, but lives in the Nyallenda slum of Kisumu, and she’s only three years old. On a more serious note, Obama’s father is from Kisumu, and there are plenty of pictures of him on the homes of the people we visited.
We also had a chance to go and speak to an orphanage and to a High school. I was pooped on by a bird (on the left side of my forehead) at the orphanage while Chad from the Post team was teaching about Jesus.
A number of Mi2’s and post team members shared our 2 minutes testimonies with the high school students and several accepted Christ, bwana asafiwe (Praise the Lord).
Today, the rest of the team is with the street children playing games while I write this (I had time sensitive medical school details to attend to). The post team will be leaving and we will miss them.
Both the post team and Mi2 teams have had interesting sounds coming from the guest houses. The post team wakes up to a “donkey dog” (whatever that is?) giving birth (so they claim) every morning. I think their reenactments of the sound are far more entertaining and traumatizing than the real thing. The Mi2 guest house is about as big and as loud as a small parade. It has been home to an Acapella group from a University in upstate New York (name intentionally left out). They’re here filming a documentary, and define the term obnoxious American, but are quite kind, just loud and rowdy at all hours of the night. They’ve provided a fair bit of chuckles to our team though. We like to talk about lions when we’re around them (long story, and this one is already long enough).
The other night, I made the mistake of leaving my windows open while I was at dinner. So my room was flooded with mosquitoes when I returned and decided the best immediate course of action was to kill as many as possible. Being a thorough and practical individual, I grabbed my shoe (not the muddy one) and began to kill as many as I could. All the mosquitoes were hanging out on my ceiling around the light bulb, and after I had inflicted a small dent in the cloud, I realized something. There was a more effective method to killing them, and it comes in a metal can. I fogged my room with killer spray and the problem was solved. Somewhere between the smashing and spraying, I noticed something: there was dirt on the bottom of my shoe, and because I had done such a good job of smacking the ceiling, it looked like there had been a redneck with two right feet square dancing on my ceiling.
Speaking of mosquitoes, we have gotten bit many times here but we remember our malaria medication. No one does a better job of bug bite prevention than Elise, who uses enough spray that you might think she’s been sponsored on this trip by OFF. She’s a champ, always the first to smile and always making everyone laugh. The world could use more people like her.
Elise and Molly Russell learned how to make Chapatti (best creation ever) on one of their home visits with one of the local pastors. They eat enough of it that they claim they’re afraid they’re going to turn into chapattis. Russell is great, always laughing and having fun, she really brings our team together as one, can’t imagine this team without her.
Sawyer is a huge inspiration to our team. She’s always the first one to engage new people and knows more Swahili than the rest of us put together. She’s a trooper, she’s battled her stomach a number of times but always keeps going and doesn’t quit until she’s literally falling over, a true missionary.
Rayray is one of the sharper individuals I’ve ever met, and always brings great thoughts to our morning devotions. Probably the best listener on the team, we could all learn a lot from her.
Commander Ponton is sweet. She’s really had an awesome week. We’ve really seen her come into the moment. It’s been awesome to see her really focus on the people at hand. She’s so good at thinking ahead, but it’s been a blessing to watch her focus all her attention on the individual she’s talking with.
Katie Lane is always on top of the situation and willing to put a positive spin on anything. No minor detail escapes her attention, which is a real blessing for our team. She brings an experienced perspective to our group from her previous trip to Kenya.
Overall, our group is blessed to have members who are strong where others are weak. We’ve been blessed with great team unity and chemistry, and our prayer is for that to continue.
We had a cultural night with the Kenyans last night. We got to sing and dance with them, what a blast. At the end of the night we were asked to share some American culture with them. So we sang a song from sister act 2 and “lean on me” which they all joined in on. Pretty cool.
There are endless more stories to tell, and I think it’s best I let them be told by others at this point.
Grace and Love from Kisumu,
Sam and Mi2 Kenya Team
Beard Update, it’s a huge hit amongst the children. Over twice as long as the hair on my head, we will be attempting to braid it once we get back to Nairobi.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Going Dark?
Hey loved ones. Its 730am here, and we're finishing up our packing for the next two weeks. We're heading out to Kisumu in a couple hours and we don't know what the internet situation is there, so if you don't hear from us for a couple weeks, don't freak out, we're fine :)
Yesterday we spent the entire day in Swahili lessons. Our instructor says we picked it up quickly, which is good. We also got a chance to meet a leadership team from Southeast Christian Church, they're a pretty cool bunch. We'll get a chance to spend more time with them in Kisumu.
Prayer requests:
Safe Travel
God would work through us and teach us.
That we would be humble servants.
Love you all, we're praying for you everyday. Miss you, let us know if theres anything specific we can pray for.
Sorry for the short post, in a bit of a hurry.
More Mi2 trivia to come in my next post.
Sam and the Mi2 Kenya team
Yesterday we spent the entire day in Swahili lessons. Our instructor says we picked it up quickly, which is good. We also got a chance to meet a leadership team from Southeast Christian Church, they're a pretty cool bunch. We'll get a chance to spend more time with them in Kisumu.
Prayer requests:
Safe Travel
God would work through us and teach us.
That we would be humble servants.
Love you all, we're praying for you everyday. Miss you, let us know if theres anything specific we can pray for.
Sorry for the short post, in a bit of a hurry.
More Mi2 trivia to come in my next post.
Sam and the Mi2 Kenya team
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Hello Friends and Family!
Here’s another update from our home sweet home in Africa. We have had a pretty laid back week and have enjoyed our lessons and the sunny afternoons in Nairobi. On Tuesday we had our first scheduled day to be in the city, but we ended up just going to the Nairobi National Museum! The museum itself was awesome and we got to learn a lot about Kenya history, the mammals of Africa, and about the different art featured in the museum. The real adventure of that trip took place driving to and from the museum! All along we have heard about how bad traffic in Nairobi is, but we had yet to experience it first hand until that afternoon. The unpaved roads, the steep hills, the five lanes of cars on a two lane road, and the matatus who think they rule the road made for quite the adventure! Luckily we have great and reliable driver who took good care of us and made us feel safe (for the most part) and got us to our destinations in one piece. The next day was a national holiday for Kenya because they got to celebrate their independence! Most people had the day off and none of the kids were in school, so we had a morning lesson/training but had the afternoon free to do what we wanted. Since it’s a daily occurrence for us needing to run to the nearby grocery store, that’s what some of us decided to- to get the groceries for the rest of the week. But the last part of the afternoon most of us just took it easy around the apartment. Nicole and Russell decided to take a big adventure and tour Nairobi and had quite the experience to share with the rest of the group later that night; Katie did some housework for us and cleaned up the place (which we were all so grateful for because our place was getting a little too dusty), Sam hung out in the apartment, and Sawyer, Molly Ray, and I sat outside by the pool and enjoyed the African sun!
Today we spent some time in prayer and had lessons about how to immerse ourselves into a different community/culture and we took those lessons with us to another slum called Mathare. Its not quite as big as the Kibera slum, but we were still shocked by their way of life and their “normal.” We got to visit a pastor and his church and from there we went to visit a school! It was a great experience for all of us. It was a little overwhelming because we were each assigned a room to go to and were expected to interact with the kids (age ranges: 2 years-10-years-old and anywhere from 15-30 kids in a classroom). It was so fun being able to see the smiling faces and sing with them. We were told that by us just being a presence in that room and spending that little of time with those children is such an honor for them and gives them so much joy, but in return, seeing their smiles, hearing their voices and laughter brings so much joy to each of us and really impacts us all.
We have been blessed by all that we have been able to see, do, hear and learn. We are all in good health and enjoying everything Kenya and LIA have to offer us.
Tomorrow we have a full day of Swahili lessons ( Hopefully our vocabulary list will grow from just knowing how to say “thank you,” “you’re welcome,” and the vague list of words we know from the movie “The Lion King” -to us being able to carry on a conversation in Swahili!).
The weather has been great, we’ve enjoyed Chef Nicole’s cooking, and we’re excited to meet up with the teams from South East next week and to see what God has in store for us while we’re in Kisumu. We appreciate all of your love, prayers, and support. We love you all!
PS: after being in the heart of Nairobi and taking busses/matatus to and from Mathare today, we inhaled so many fumes from the vehicles driving by that we were afraid there was a layer of black guck covering our lungs. But actually, the boogers in our noses saved us and stopped a lot of it from entering. So that’s great, but the down side of that is when we came home we blew our noses and all of the mucus we blew out was charcoal black. Eww. Who knew you’d ever be so thankful of your nose/boogers??!
Love yours truly,
Elise (on behalf of the Mi2 Team )
Here’s another update from our home sweet home in Africa. We have had a pretty laid back week and have enjoyed our lessons and the sunny afternoons in Nairobi. On Tuesday we had our first scheduled day to be in the city, but we ended up just going to the Nairobi National Museum! The museum itself was awesome and we got to learn a lot about Kenya history, the mammals of Africa, and about the different art featured in the museum. The real adventure of that trip took place driving to and from the museum! All along we have heard about how bad traffic in Nairobi is, but we had yet to experience it first hand until that afternoon. The unpaved roads, the steep hills, the five lanes of cars on a two lane road, and the matatus who think they rule the road made for quite the adventure! Luckily we have great and reliable driver who took good care of us and made us feel safe (for the most part) and got us to our destinations in one piece. The next day was a national holiday for Kenya because they got to celebrate their independence! Most people had the day off and none of the kids were in school, so we had a morning lesson/training but had the afternoon free to do what we wanted. Since it’s a daily occurrence for us needing to run to the nearby grocery store, that’s what some of us decided to- to get the groceries for the rest of the week. But the last part of the afternoon most of us just took it easy around the apartment. Nicole and Russell decided to take a big adventure and tour Nairobi and had quite the experience to share with the rest of the group later that night; Katie did some housework for us and cleaned up the place (which we were all so grateful for because our place was getting a little too dusty), Sam hung out in the apartment, and Sawyer, Molly Ray, and I sat outside by the pool and enjoyed the African sun!
Today we spent some time in prayer and had lessons about how to immerse ourselves into a different community/culture and we took those lessons with us to another slum called Mathare. Its not quite as big as the Kibera slum, but we were still shocked by their way of life and their “normal.” We got to visit a pastor and his church and from there we went to visit a school! It was a great experience for all of us. It was a little overwhelming because we were each assigned a room to go to and were expected to interact with the kids (age ranges: 2 years-10-years-old and anywhere from 15-30 kids in a classroom). It was so fun being able to see the smiling faces and sing with them. We were told that by us just being a presence in that room and spending that little of time with those children is such an honor for them and gives them so much joy, but in return, seeing their smiles, hearing their voices and laughter brings so much joy to each of us and really impacts us all.
We have been blessed by all that we have been able to see, do, hear and learn. We are all in good health and enjoying everything Kenya and LIA have to offer us.
Tomorrow we have a full day of Swahili lessons ( Hopefully our vocabulary list will grow from just knowing how to say “thank you,” “you’re welcome,” and the vague list of words we know from the movie “The Lion King” -to us being able to carry on a conversation in Swahili!).
The weather has been great, we’ve enjoyed Chef Nicole’s cooking, and we’re excited to meet up with the teams from South East next week and to see what God has in store for us while we’re in Kisumu. We appreciate all of your love, prayers, and support. We love you all!
PS: after being in the heart of Nairobi and taking busses/matatus to and from Mathare today, we inhaled so many fumes from the vehicles driving by that we were afraid there was a layer of black guck covering our lungs. But actually, the boogers in our noses saved us and stopped a lot of it from entering. So that’s great, but the down side of that is when we came home we blew our noses and all of the mucus we blew out was charcoal black. Eww. Who knew you’d ever be so thankful of your nose/boogers??!
Love yours truly,
Elise (on behalf of the Mi2 Team )
Monday, May 30, 2011
weekend festivities
Greetings bloggers. This is my first visit to the blog for posting purposes, so yeah I know im a slacker but im here now. Im here to report our festivities for the weekend. If you would like a setting for my current position, I am sitting in our guest house/apartment place, slightly perspiring due to a small dance party that just occurred as the power flickered on and off for a bit (and I know what you’re thinking—a natural strobe light!) and its now approaching 10 pm and peeps are settling in to the journaling/sleep prep time.
Sooooo, time traveling a bit back to Saturday. We had a rest day but we got to practice our hospitality skills all day as we visited with various all stars of the mission field. We had visitors from the LIA international board meeting come by on their way out of town, and eventually got to meet Dr. Florence at last. It reminded me of the awesome opportunity God has given each of our team as we get to spend the summer surrounded by people doing big things for God’s the kingdom. We also had a life-changing experience Saturday in town. We all went to java house and had some ridiculously delicious milkshakes—I mean you cant come back from that. But seriously I felt like Saturday was very challenging and eye-opening as we heard intense stories from the various mission fields of our visitors.
Here in Africa, Sunday is the day after Saturday, I mean I know there are time differences between here and America and it confuses me a bit so regardless of the day, it was awesome. We went to church (same one we did last week) and it was amazing once again. The sense of community never ceases to amaze me. The congregation is so welcoming and was even sad to hear we wouldn’t be around next week. We heard a sermon on worship being a lifestyle and having a divine appetite. It was very challenging—as is everything I encounter here. The faith of the people I am surrounded by simply blow my mind, I just feel like crumbling to the ground in comparison. I am so small and so far from living how God wants me to. And if you were to ask any of our team I think they would agree that the general theme of the time here has been prayer. Everything is soaked in prayer, as it should be, and it is so refreshing. Which brings me to today (Monday), our day of prayer and fasting. We got to spend somewhere between 4 and 5 hours in prayer for LIA ministries, departments, nations of influence, staff and even snuck in some personal prayers. It was an amazing way to kick off the week. This weekend provided a lot of thinking time, which I usually don’t like, but it was amazing to look back and see all the things God has already started working in my life. He is simply blowing my mind and we’re not even two weeks in.
So that’s the weekend, as far as I can remember. God’s doin big things fo sho.
Blessings,
Molly Russell and team
Sooooo, time traveling a bit back to Saturday. We had a rest day but we got to practice our hospitality skills all day as we visited with various all stars of the mission field. We had visitors from the LIA international board meeting come by on their way out of town, and eventually got to meet Dr. Florence at last. It reminded me of the awesome opportunity God has given each of our team as we get to spend the summer surrounded by people doing big things for God’s the kingdom. We also had a life-changing experience Saturday in town. We all went to java house and had some ridiculously delicious milkshakes—I mean you cant come back from that. But seriously I felt like Saturday was very challenging and eye-opening as we heard intense stories from the various mission fields of our visitors.
Here in Africa, Sunday is the day after Saturday, I mean I know there are time differences between here and America and it confuses me a bit so regardless of the day, it was awesome. We went to church (same one we did last week) and it was amazing once again. The sense of community never ceases to amaze me. The congregation is so welcoming and was even sad to hear we wouldn’t be around next week. We heard a sermon on worship being a lifestyle and having a divine appetite. It was very challenging—as is everything I encounter here. The faith of the people I am surrounded by simply blow my mind, I just feel like crumbling to the ground in comparison. I am so small and so far from living how God wants me to. And if you were to ask any of our team I think they would agree that the general theme of the time here has been prayer. Everything is soaked in prayer, as it should be, and it is so refreshing. Which brings me to today (Monday), our day of prayer and fasting. We got to spend somewhere between 4 and 5 hours in prayer for LIA ministries, departments, nations of influence, staff and even snuck in some personal prayers. It was an amazing way to kick off the week. This weekend provided a lot of thinking time, which I usually don’t like, but it was amazing to look back and see all the things God has already started working in my life. He is simply blowing my mind and we’re not even two weeks in.
So that’s the weekend, as far as I can remember. God’s doin big things fo sho.
Blessings,
Molly Russell and team
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday May 27
Hey Faithful Followers,
I hope we find you well, safe and blessed as we are here. Today started off like every other normal day, woke up at 5 am and started my quiet time. Got in the shower at 5:20 and the power went out at 5:21. In a matter of five seconds the lights went completely out, casting me into darkness along with freezing cold water falling down on my head. After crawling on the tile for a few seconds, I located my towel and dressed myself and headed back out to the kitchen. In the morning we had more awesome training. We learned about Kenyan culture (some things not to do), and how to do short term missions without doing long-term harm. The latter created a lot of discussion and reflection on previous missions experiences.
In the afternoon, we visited one of the medical clinics in the Kibera Slum. This particular clinic that works with LIA is unique from nearly every other one because it isn’t free. The reason behind this is because they are trying to help the people of Kibera get out of the culture of “free.” There are over 1 million people living in the Kibera slum, and over 1000 NGO’s. Nearly all of the NGO’s provide handout after handout, perpetuating a cycle of poverty by providing relief from immediate needs without developing a way out of the perpetual poverty.
We came home to no power, but thankfully the internet we’ve been borrowing was up and running. I checked my email and found good news in my inbox.
Flashback to last night (Thursday).
Gus, his wife Rose, and their 5 month old son Nathaniel came over for dinner. We have begun to share our “life journeys” with each other and our country hosts, Gus and Holly. I went first and shared about the journey I’ve been on since being born, including the whirlwind that’s been the past two years. At the end of my story, I shared my calling life and my spiritual gifts. I shared that my calling was in medicine, and even though I haven’t been accepted to a school yet, I knew that’s where I was called. I know where the finish line is; I just don’t know how long it is between here and there. At the end, everyone laid hands on me and prayed.
Fast forward back to present time.
Everyone is cooking dinner in the dark. They were preparing chapatti fajitas the old fashioned way. The cheese came from the goat Katie milked in our back yard; the veggies were picked from the field across the way by Molly, the fruit from the trees off the streets, the chapatti was made from the maize meal that Elise ground up and the beef from the cow that Nicole slaughtered. Meanwhile, Austin was washing his pants on a washboard in the river and had to be signaled home for dinner by light signals from our lantern. The meal was cooked over and open fire, and we sat and ate together by lantern light.
Our power came back on after our friend Collins came and looked at it around 7:30pm. We then enjoyed watching LIA’s documentary, This Is My Normal. Everyone except me, because well, I had to share my good news with a lot of people, and thank God. And in case you’re wondering what this good news is, well, I was accepted to medical school at the University of Toledo :-D
Sam and the Mi2 team
Thursday, May 26, 2011
May 26, 2011
We have been in Kenya for 1 whole week now! It feels like we have been here for much longer (in a good way). The past few days we have been doing training in the morning and then in the afternoon we have been going to Kibera. The trainings have been so helpful. We have mainly been talking about the culture here in Kenya. We are learning that it is very different from the United States! Sam experienced this first hand. In Kenya it is completely appropriate for 2 men to hold hands as a sign of friendship. The other day Sam was just standing there minding his own business when a Kenyan started holding hands with him. Sam was caught off guard and he says, “it was one of the most awkward situations of my entire life!” Haha:) We have also started learning a little bit of Swahili, one of the languages spoken in Kenya. Most of the Kenyans speak 3 languages. They speak Enlglish, Swahili, and their mother tongue. We are going to learn lots more Swahili next week. Yay! For the past 3 days, our team has been going to Kibera in the afternoon. Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa. It is 3 miles away from Nairobi. On Tuesday, we divided into groups of 2 and did house visits in the slum. We were able to hear stories and pray with the people whose houses we visited. We were all astounded by their faith and their perseverance. These people work hard every day and have so much hope. They may be materially poor, but spiritually they are rich. As we walk through the slum all of the kids yell “mzungo, mzungo” (white person, white person) and run up to shake our hands. They are so cute and so full of joy.
Thank you to all of you who are following our blog. Miss you and love you all! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)