Safari!

By Tina

So after the work of teaching, it was time for a bit of Rest and Relaxation. Some have you have seen the pictures posted on Facebook, but if you didn't take the Facebook class (just kidding, we didn't offer one) you haven't seen them, so here are a few of my favorite pictures.

We flew out and landed on the dirt runway about 5 minutes from the resort we were staying at.



Name of the Lodge--

Each of these little huts was a room.

We went on a short drive just after getting there, and another drive before supper. (Below is a picture of the other van taking a picture of a Thompson Gazelle)

Cape Horn Buffalo

Male Impala

Mother Zebra and Baby (we saw lots of babies)

We went on one night drive as storms were coming in--the clouds were so impressive!

Acacia Tree

A Topy ("Another Deer like creature")

Friday morning we went out on a super long drive (5 hours). We got to see elephants, hippos and lions up close.

...and a giraffe from a distance.

Both nights we got rain--which really was a blessing, the area is suffering from a severe drought. But this made driving around on the dirt roads tricky. We got stuck once on Friday and then had even more problems with our early morning Saturday drive. Both vans got stuck.

The guys had to get out and help push.

We were finally free and most thought we weren't even going to go out. But our drivers had other ideas and kept going. We got to see more lions and our first close up of a giraffe.

The lions had just finished eating and were rather sleepy.

We saw these two looking up but they had laid down by the time we got closer. Someone said "You should throw a rock at them" and our driver actually handed Ed a rock. He didn't throw it out the window, no, he opened up the door, got out and then threw it! (The driver told him to not do that again).

...but it did work, and we got the picture we wanted! :)

This guy walked right next to us, and had 4 members of his family hidden in the trees.

It was an amazing time. We all loved seeing more of God's creation up close. We enjoyed the bonding time of being in the vans together--there was lots of laughing during those times. By Saturday though, we were ready to be done and head home. We did all enjoy Saturday night at the Carnivore with our host families, and one more day with them on Sunday. But we were (almost) all happy to be heading home.

More Proof Of Work

Some were feeling bad their only pictures on the blog were of them not working. So, here is some more photographic proof of work:


Did we mention the computer teaching room was small?



Proof that no matter where you go, all IT rooms look the same (grave yards for dead computers).

Mary

This was written by Polly. I added a few pictures I had taken of Mary's work. Tina

Mary lives just outside the NEGST property with her children. She came from the Sudan as a refugee. She has nine children of her own, one of whom is still missing. In addition, she's taken in three orphans. Mary is amazing. Her business is rolling beads from magazines to make beautiful jewelry to sell. She not only supports her family, but uses her ministry to help single mothers with AIDS and Nairobi street boys. She openly and willingly teaches them how to roll the beads and pays them for their work. She's got such a strong ethic, requiring that they commit to learning skills and working hard. No handouts, as that doesn't help them help themselves. But she's always willing to share her last shillings to have juice or lunch for them when they come to bring her the beads or roll them.

Mary is friends with a woman here at NEGST, Christy, who is our on campus contact for vacation Bible school. Christy told us that Mary was worried this month about how she would be able to the next tuition payment for her children (three are currently in school), as all the Christmas orders for beads had been filled and January was a slow selling month. So, we had Mary come to show us her beads. They're beautiful!!!!! She has a gift for taking something ordinary and making it extraordinary. We bought lots of jewelry from her. I wanted to keep buying just so that I could help her as much as possible.

When I had made my purchases, I paid her. My purchases had come to 3,850 Kenyan shillings, about $50. I gave her 4,000 shillings and said, "No change." She looked me in the eyes and took my hand and said, "It's time to pray." We joined hands, Mary, her friend Florence and three of my teammates, and she prayed for us. I was so profoundly humbled. Mary, who is a Sudanese refugee whose husband was murdered in front of her and her children, who was cut by knives by rebels, who came very close to starving to death, who has nine children and a heart for helping those who have nothing … she prayed for us and thanked God that He has brought us to Kenya in her time of financial need when she'd been praying about how to buy food for her family. Mary, who loves the Lord, depends on him wholly to provide for her, who even lived in a church (God's house) when she had no home of her own. Mary, who believes in "sucking it up" (my words, not her's, although I think you get the picture) and depending wholly on God. Mary, who opened her heart to us to share her story of oppression and survival. Joyous, laughing Mary, prayed a prayer of thanksgiving and praise to God. That's a powerful prayer, my friends. I'm privileged and honored and humbled to have met her.



The women of the team looking at Mary's beads.

We're Back!

We made it home after several long days of travel. We're still going to try to update the blog with more pictures and thoughts of our trip. Thanks for checking it out!

A River Adventure

We (Ed & Carol) were able to spend the weekend with our friends David & Patience. We first met David in 2000 when a team from Nairobi Chapel came to Indiana to do the weekend worship service at Grace. David stayed with us for about a week. We have been close friends since and this is our third visit to Kenya and David has been to the US to visit us once. On Saturday, we went upcountry with David to visit with his mom. We had a very nice lunch that his sister had prepared. Then David suggested we go for a walk down to the river that runs through his mom’s farm. The first part of the path was okay, then it took a sharp turn downwards. It was very steep and difficult to keep your footing. As we came into a small clearing, David announced that we were at the river. Now, I expected to see a river, or at least water. The only way I knew there was water was a small trickling sound. As we were making fun of David & his “river”, I snapped the following photo:

On Sunday, we went to Nairobi Chapel and enjoyed an inspiring sermon by Pastor Oscar. We went to an afternoon concert at Nairobi Pentacostal Church to introduce a new CD from Reuben Kigame. David had played guitar with Reuben when he was first starting out. The music was wonderful, very worshipful. I looked over and Ed had tears running down his face, even though all the words were in Swahili. We returned to the guest house where we were staying and were greeted with hugs by Lynette & Teresa – it was like coming home.

VBS Fun

Here are some from the VBS Friday while we played with the kids. Friday is typically Sports Day so we joined in on the fun. First we gave them all the donations people had given to the school. The school has been teaching the kids to pray for their needs and wanted to use this as an example of how God provides.


Then the kids had Warm-up time. This is led by a former soccer player. He takes the kids through an intense warm-up (wore me out at least!). Look at him jumping!

Then the kids were taught Dodge ball by two American volunteers that are here for 2 months. They’d already promised to do this before we got there and we didn’t want to have them break that. That was SO funny to watch! I don't think any child ever got the idea of being "out", they kept throwing the balls back and forth. When they were done, we gave the kids some plastic toy frogs that jump when you push on the back. The kids thought they were so funny!

Weekend Update

Ahh, we need to catch you guys up! The sporadic internet issues are making updating this challenging. While we usually have a great connection from 8-about 8:30, it seems like other people have figured this out and started coming to campus early! So, once again internet is slow and making getting to this blog rather difficult.

Everyone seemed to have a very good weekend with their host families. I’m hoping to get a few short paragraphs from others describing what they did. James and I went to visit friends of ours who are missionaries here, and you can read about it at our personal blog: www.the-miles.org

Monday was another day of training and VBS…it’s fallen into a rather predictable pattern, at least until tomorrow. We all came back to the guest house very tired though. Today we are going to train all day and then we get to go to eat dinner at a student’s house (so yes, a long day). If you can, pray for strength for all of us this evening (which will be morning/mid-day your time).

Tomorrow is our last day of classes, and those are in the morning. Then we’ll spend some time taking tea with various people here and get ready to start packing up for our safari.