Missions Trips

We had pancakes for breakfast. Zach was still trying to figure out what he was going to talk about at church in an hour. After breakfast we paired up and joined Sunday school classes. Diana and I were with 8 year olds. We were put on the spot and Diana did really well. We sang too. Afterwards I played with the kids on the zip line for a bit.

At church Zach did a good job speaking and we taught them the song. I played a drum that was kind of crappy. I need to find a good dijumbe drum around here.

After Adriel and I went chameleon hunting with some of the kids. At one point the kids all started eating sap straight off the trees. Like, lips on the tree bark. It was a weird sight. The said it was sweet. We tried some later, and it didn’t really have any taste.

Later we drove to Kiero point. We met some Kenyan boy scouts on the way and took pictures with them. One of them had a crush on Brit. The view at the point was awesome.

We went back and played dominoes. Kiegan showed up. I talked with John (Laban’s son) about computers at dinner. I paired up with Devon to read to the boys on the east side. We taught them a 4 corner game thing. They kept playing with my hair. One little kid in a big puffy jacket jumped into my arms, and so looking down all I could see was a big jacket and a head. He said, “I love you so much.”

Woke up and went for a run with Zach. I was winded after only 8 min. It’s very hard to run here. We went straight to keying after breakfast. Adriel, Philip (on of the fathers) and I finished a big portion of the wall. We welcomed George and Sue with the same singing line. They both work at APU and George had a lot to do with us getting to Kenya.

We ate lunch and then the kids had naptime from 2-4, so Zach and I played dominoes. We taught Jothem, George, little Ruth, and some of “the youth”, Isaac, Jordan, and Hillary. In Kenya the youth are between 18 and 30, or until you get married. It was a lot of fun. A quote from Jothem was “That’s the name of the game.” At 4:15 it was movie time. All 90 kids crammed into the eating hall and watched Finding Nemo. All the kids cheered when Nemo was reunited with his dad. It was really cool. We did a devotion on the east side, and taught them Isaiah 41:10.

We ate dinner, and had a small devotion time. Then we practiced “Holy Spirit, rain down on me” or “Rohomtakatifu, nyesha juu yongu,” or something like that. We’re going to sing it at church.

Today we had another busy day. In the gazebo before breakfast we read Psalm 22. I think the plan is to read a Psalm every morning. We at breakfast early so we could go teach at the school. We acted out the Pharaoh Pharaoh song. The kids already knew it, along with everything else we tried to teach them. I think they expected us to take longer teaching, but we didn’t have much prepared. We’ll prepare more for the next times now that we know what to expect.

We came back and “keyed” from 9:30 – 1:00. Keying is filling in the gaps between bricks on a building with cement, and then drawing a line in it with a bent flat wire. I think it helps insulation a bit, but it’s mostly for looks. It’s interesting and hard work. We mixed the cement just like we had in China. This time though we had to sift dirt through a screen to be mixed with the cement.

We ate lunch, which was beans and mash potatoes. We did a house visit at Sally’s. Her parents were very, around 97, and had big holes in their ears where they used to have plates. In earlier days, missionaries would come and tell Africans that the plates/piercings were bad, so they stopped wearing them. They were very nice people. A fly landed in my chai.

We had a break so I worked on my “Armor of God” devotion that I would have to do with the kids soon. A girl named Nicole who had worked here for a few months, and 2 of her friends arrived, and were welcomed like we were.

Dinner was chicken (kuku), ugali, and chapatti (really good tortilla like things). Zach and Diana told the story of their dating and engagement. It was pretty funny, and the Kenyans enjoyed hearing it. Dating doesn’t really happen in this culture. I went to Nelson’s boys’ house to read to them. We mostly talked about airplanes.

We had a very long day today. I woke up early and had hot cocoa in the gazebo while studying memory verses. After breakfast we were given a tour of the training center. They have an amazing garden/farm, with many inventive ways of planting and cooking. We did a house visit at Mama Chiri’s home. Here, parents are called Mama or Baba, and then the name of their first-born. So Mama Chiri’s daughter is Chiri (I think). We had chai (Kenyan tea with milk) and talked with here.

Later some of us played football (soccer) with the kids. They’re very good, and I got tired quickly. I want to blame it on the high altitude, (about 7000 ft.) but I think I’m out of shape too.

We did a devotional with Nelson and Dorcas’ kids in their gazebo before dinner. They all told us what they wanted to be. Many wanted to be pilots or doctors; there was one politician, and one museum director.

I was extremely tired at dinner and wanted to go to bed. After dinner we were supposed to read to the kids, but Nelson’s biological son was turning 1, so they had a birthday party. They pray A LOT and give a lot of speeches. About 6 adults and kids were asked to stand up and give a short speech about the baby. Then they cut up a caked into small pieces and passed them out to the people there (about 30 or 40).

Both toilets were broken, so I got them working, but I think only temporarily. I’m really ready for bed now.

We left APU at 5pm June 18th. We flew British Airways. In the airport I talked to the drummer of a German hardcore metal band called Mad Sin.

They were on a world tour, and had just played at the Queen Mary (a haunted ship/hotel in Long Beach). They said there was a ghost in one of their photographs. I also talked to a man in a turban that earlier Adriel made a joke that he’d probably be part of a “random” search. It turns out his son was going to attend APU in the fall for the pre-med program. He said he’d talked to Casey, an admissions counselor who’s a friend of mine. Pretty random.

10 hour flight to London, 4-hour layover, 8 hours to Nairobi, Kenya. I slept most of the way. We met Julius who was going to take us to Ilula. He was a very nice guy. He said “karibu” to me, and I couldn’t remember what that meant at the time, so I said it back. I later remembered it meant, “welcome.” Oops. Julius’ kids are away at boarding school, and his wife has a work contract with the government that forces her to work far away, only coming home some weekends. I came to find that it was not rare to have a parent that worked too far away to come home at night.

It was a 6-hour drive to the training center/children’s home in Ilula. The road was mostly unpaved and very bumpy. We saw zebras and baboons along the way, and I leaned to count to 999 in Swahili. When we arrived, all the kids (about 100) were standing in a half-circle singing songs and holding flowers for us. It was quite a welcome. We settled in and had dinner. It was a beef and tripe stew, and ugali. Ugali is there staple food made from corn. It looks like mash potatoes, but is textured like thick cake.

We’re staying in dorm rooms on bunk beds. One of our toilets is a squatting toilet. It’s like a normal toilet, but the top of the bowl is at floor level. The other toilet is normal. We have showers, which is a blessing, and they’re pretty cool. You turn on a switch and the water is heated right at the spigot. There’s a lot of spiders in the showers, which would be weird at home, but no one on the team seems to care too much here. We’re pretty spoiled to have what we do. Zach and his team in 2001 stayed in tents and didn’t have any of this.