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
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