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
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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 )
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