I made it back from Kenya all in one piece and without Malaria, in part to the mosquito net you see above, but probably more to do with the fact that I only saw about 10 mosquitoes the entire time I was there and not a single bite :-) The trip was truly amazing!!!! God blessed our team in both breadth and depth. This was my 3rd time to Kenya, but the first time I lead a team. I was a bit nervous, but we didn't leave anybody at a terminal, nobody got sick, and everybody grew in Christ so I have chalked it up as a success.
We got into Nairobi late Friday night and stayed the night at a hotel there. The next morning we got up and went straight to our village. The camera battery was dead the first day so no pics of us driving down the rift valley or of the wonderful welcome the ladies of Kwambekenya gave us as we pulled up. On Saturday we spent most of the afternoon singing with the community and then introducing the team to the different projects that the community has worked on with the support of 410 Bridge. If you haven't yet visited www.410bridge.org I encourage you to do so....it is really an amazing organization with a unique protocol for helping the communities it serves. 410 is all about developing leaders in the community and then simply partnering along side them. A much better model than going in and saying this is what we want to do and seeing if the community will go along with it.
On Sunday we split into two groups and went to two churches there in the community. I went to the one you see pictured above. A couple of our team members brought guitars and they went to a different church across the way (and boy were they a popular duo....especially with the kids). Inside the church was very dark since there wasn't any electrical lighting, but man was the worship AWESOME!!!!! It lasted 3 hours and it felt like only one. I loved worshiping physically. By the time we were done I was tired. I would feel like a total doofus at home but there it was so fun to just dance and jump around with them as they sang praise songs and beat their cow skin drums. It was a great experience.
One of the things you quickly notice is that it is mostly women and
children that go to church and there is a real ministry opportunity to
raise up men for Christ. Later in the week we spoke/counseled the 7th
and 8th grade boys and I really drove home to them what it meant to be a
"real man." I said a real man has three attributes, 1) he loves his
wife, 2) he loves his Children, and 3) He loves Christ more than
himself. Finally, I encouraged them to stay involved in their
churches. But what I had to say was nothing to what one of our team
members shared with them. He shared his testimony and described how
important it was to stay away from drugs and in school and that only
Christ can bring true happiness. It was amazing what the boys got out
of the talk...one of the leaders of the communities asked them what they
learned and they were able to describe it all back to us. It was
really an amazing opportunity to share with the kids about Christ in the
public school system.
One Monday we started working on the pre-primary (pre-school) school building that the community had started a couple of weeks ago. You can see the pile of rocks below that we would smash into gravel for the floors and side walks. It was very physical work and what was really cool is that many people in the community would come out and work on the project....all volunteer, only one mason and about 4 of his workers were paid. The other 100+ people that worked on the project in different shifts were simply people from the Kwambekenya who had bought into the 410 Bridge model of taking ownership of their community.
This is a pic of the snow peas one person was growing. Basically everybody in rural Kenya is a farmer and it serves as their only source of income. While working on the school I made a strong relationship with one of the local farmers. I asked him about his farming and here are a few tidbits I picked up. For the peas he could get about 3 groups a year (never freezes) for a total of about 1500 kgs (since this is America and nobody understands how the rest of the world describes things that is about 3300lbs). The price he could sell them for varied greatly from 6.5 cents to 60 cents/per pound! If you figure an avg of 40 cents a pound you are looking at only about 1300 bucks a year....and that doesn't count expenses!! I was amazed at how many people I came across that earned less than 2 or 3 dollars a day.
This family above was really special. Mary is a widow who lost her husband about 2.5 years ago. Her husband died on a Sunday and her youngest was born the following Tuesday!! This picture was taken outside of her kitchen. We again split the team in two and went and did a house visits to two homes in the community chosen by the leadership council. We brought her "provisions" and then made a fry bread like meal called chapati....oh so good!!! It is something that often only gets made for very special occasions like Christmas or Easter. As we were cooking it kids from everywhere started showing up at Mary's house...it was hilarious. The kitchen has a dirt floor and we are using a stool for a preparation table of the food. It was very dark and very, very smoky inside. The kitchen is often not attached to the house because of the fire danger and the intense smoke.
This is a group of kids that would great us each morning as we drove to the community. They were just so cute we had to stop and take a picture of them.
This is a camel that was near the hotel we stayed at. I got a kick out of his smile. I guess we could have ridden him for 10 bucks but nobody on the team took him up on it.
One the last day before going back to Nairobi we did "vacation mode" and went on a boat and ground safari. The lake was so full that where I walked last March was full of water and beautiful lilies. We again split into two and went on a boat ride in a lake full of hippos and amazing birds!
We were very fortunate and got to see two hippos completely out of water. This is very hard to come by, but our guide happened to notice them in the shallows and basically followed them as they tried to get into the actual lake. In order to do so they had to come over a small land mass. Hippos are the number one killer of humans in Africa (in terms of wild animals that is), so it was an experience being out in a little boat by the hippos.
This is a picture of a Fish Eagle swooping down to snap a Tilapia out of the lake....that was really cool to see.
This is a Water Buffalo telling us it was time to leave him alone. One the ground safari we saw a ton of them, but this one was neat b/c he was by himself and in a really picturesque place.
Lots of babies running around. The baby zebra here is very cute. In this specific place there were now predators or water buffaloes so you actually walked among the Wildebeest, Zebras, Impalas, Water Bucks, and Giraffes.
This was at the safari lodge where they did a show on traditional African dances.
On Friday morning we left the wildlife reserve and headed back to Nairobi to start the long trek home. I loved this pic of the lone Acacia tree with the mountains in the background.
This is our team that went on the trip from Brookhaven and LifeBridge church. The lake below is Lake Nakuru and it is famous for thousands of flamingos, but they migrated just a week before we got there.
Finally in Nairobi we stopped at a bead and pottery place called Kazuri which is an amazing place that employees hundreds of widows and orphans from the slums of Nairobi. Here is its story: http://www.kazuriamerica.com/story Next to this place was a place where you could feed a Giraffe...I mad him work for his alfalfa pellet from me and man do they have a long tongue.
The entire trip was just amazing and some of the relationships built and opportunities to share Christ and encourage brethren halfway across the country was exhilarating. God is so good to us and I am thankful that Brookhaven Church helped sponsor me to be able to go and show our love to the village of Kwambekenya. I encourage all of you to take a mission trip to a country like Kenya and be touched by the joy you see in these believers despite the fact that most live on less than 2 or 3 dollars a day. It really does change your perspective and remind you just how blessed we are.
God is so Good and I pray for Kenya so often!
Love you all,
Aaron
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