end of the adventure.

well, after 4 months and a few days, I had to say my goodbyes to Jubilee childrens center. For our last night, my roommate and I spent it in the boys dorm. we gave away clothes and other random items to the boys who thought it was christmas. we did not sleep however till about 12:30 am due to the shenanigans. at 4:30, i woke up for the goat slaughter. i was tired, cold and sad that it was my last morning, but i knew that i wanted that goat dead in 2 min flat, any longer, and i would feel horrible. after i sliced her, she was gone in a little under 2 min. thank the lord. i removed the offal and then started work on the head. just fyi, skinning a skull of an animal is a somewhat difficult task. all day friday was filled with last minute things, like picking up 5 crates of soda for the kids, getting classes gospel bracelets, finishing unit chapters for bible classes and so on. it was sad to be closing the door to something my roommates and i all loved. we spent the whole day with the kids, trying to get the most out of our last hours with them. the kids thanked me for the generous portion of goat meat in their food that night, and then we went off to our last chapel. all 3 of us were wrecks, we were tired, sad, and for me, a little worried about making it in time for my flight. when called to speak just a last word to the kids, i almost did not make it through, and for the first time in my life, i was at a true loss for words. what do you say to the kids who have impacted your life right before you leave them?

our 8:30 pm leaving time was pushed back in true african fashion to 9, only because the kids and us were crying and saying goodbye. the kids gave me all they could give me before i left, and that was notes and letters. they tried to put them in our pockets so we almost would not notice till we reached in. we drove away looking back at the sad faces of the kids, they seeing the sad face masked with a fake smile. it was truly the toughest thing to do.

the airport though snapped me back into reality, when i was charged $300 for my luggage being 4 and 5 kilos over weight. i boarded my plane just fine and arrived in zurich. after walking around for a while, i finally figured out the train system and took one in to a nice area 20 min away from the airport. i walked the streets for 2 hours and fell in love with the country. the alps make a breath taking background to an already beautiful city. I am now sitting and waiting for my plane to start boarding to go home. funny enough, it's the same gate that i sat at last time waiting to board, but then i was going into nairobi.

this whole adventure was truly God planned. i walked nearly blind into a trip that God designed. I am coming back changed, it's been over 12 hours since i left the kids, but yet i already am starting to see the changes. i was blessed to have an opportunity like this and to have tools to do it.

I want to thank everyone who sent me emails or facebook wall post and messages of encouragement. though it may of seemed like nothing to write a few sentences, it meant the world to me. your prayers were felt and your so was your love. Africa showed me how much i should be thankful for when it comes to what i have, but you all showed me how much i should be thankful for who i have. this trip would not of happened logistically or mentally if it was not for my mom, who gave a lot of money that i did not ask for in order for me to provide for the kids. my sister who helped keep mom sane, and also sent me updates on whatever i needed to know about. to the Jepsen family who heaped on the encouragement and prayer for me, and also put me in contact with Bryan Burr of convoy of hope. Holly peters who A)gave me the title of this blog, and B)was my first and only legit pen pal. Shayne Heidt who made me my bible verse cards. they were my secret weapon for emergency sermons, tough days, and making sure my day started out on the right foot. all of you who prayed for me, you know who you are. the Shipmans though, my goodness, spent hours up past their bed times to video chat with me, gave me prayer and encouragement like no other and also made the homesickness melt away. Missions press for trusting me with the amazing work that Missions press does. Every missionary and pastor who met with me, every taxi driver who drove me, every person who helped me out when i needed it.

so all i can say for me now is this, now what? one adventure down, praying that more are to come.

there is a quote that says "America is my country, but Paris is my home". i thought about this everyday, the reality of feeling at home, away from your birthplace. i understand it now, how it's not the house, or the things that make home home, it's the people. i feel as if i have 2 homes now, and to change the quote, "America is my country, but Kenya is my home". 

squirrel hunting and emotional list of lasts.

hey everyone, this blog only has about maybe a week and a half left cause i am home in less then a week. so just a heads up.

it's been calm here for the most part but i have about 5 days till i leave. we are trying to make the best of it and get a lot of stuff done but its tough to do with the things planned here. bill, my roommate, is the computer teacher for the school, we just got the school hooked up to a network so 2 computers can run off the internet. i know it sounds high tech and totally crazy, but it's a yellow cord that goes to one computer to another, not as crazy. but his computer classes are writing emails to his friends and are in the computer lab from 8 am to 9 pm trying to get everyone to send out at least 3. its good stuff for them to learn, but takes a lot of work to execute. after we leave the computer lab might or might not be open anymore since the only people that know how to work with and fix computers are leaving. but who knows. this place is a graveyard for donated computers.

monday was a fun day, i found out the school had a squirrel problem and they were eating all the seeds that have been planted, crazy right? i also found out that they caught one in a trap right when i was debating finding meat for dinner (lack of meat makes me go crazy). i asked if i killed it, if i could have it, the technician said sure and it was mine. easy to kill and clean, fur comes off like nothing. threw it in a pan with some oil and it tasted amazing. it has the color and texture of chicken, but a way better taste. i loved it. also i got free meat. everyone that tried it liked it too, even the kenyans who thought i was crazy. so now i am checking the trap everyday for a male that is crafty and cocky. i baited it with oranges and still waiting.

early saturday morning i went out with the cook to search for a goat for Madaraka day which is independence day for Kenya. we walked 3 km to a nice ranch that raised them, but they were asking for 5000 and i only wanted to spend 3000. so we walked backed, discussed options such as going to a strange part of Nairobi and visiting a slaughter house. 20 min after i got back, Lucy our team mom called me down to look at one that was 3000, it was small, but i liked it. so now i am the owner of a animal again. this one will last maybe one meal but feed all the kids.

i gave my last 2 sermons here to the kids and am officially done. today is our last sunday here so it will be a strange, sad day. i still teach everyday this week, since i leave late friday. 2 new housemates are coming on wednesday i guess, but who knows if it will happen. no school for Madaraka day, so only 4 days to teach. it will be tough to leave, but i really will be happy to be home. Kidscamp will go on at the end of june, and i am very excited to be going for my 5th year in a row. i have graduation parties to go to and such also, and many things that i am very excited for. my grandpas 90th is what i am excited for the most i think, cause it makes it easy to see the whole family and also see my grandpa.

no real updates other then that. i leave friday night at 2355 and arrive in Zurich at around 0600 then leave zurich at around 1300 then back in the u.s june 4th at around 1635. so yeah.

my toilet runneth over

so much has gone on since i last posted, so thats why i avoided the introduction. lets jump into the awesomeness that has been my last week.

-school started at the school and i am teaching a whole whole lot. I picked up 2 more bible classes and now i am head p.e teacher which is fun too.

-last wednesday, we helped deliver food to a IDP camp near by. IDP stands for internally displaced person, a nicer term then what they really are, refugee. they come from areas that were hit with the violence of the past elections that ruined most of this country. the "camp" was nothing more then an empty field that the people live in and wait for the area they used to live, to get better. for some, homes were burned, families were killed, people were chased. it's tough to see, but the delivery of food makes it somewhat better. there was a camera crew and many local officials who came to see the delivery. it was a great 2 hours.

-last friday i hauled all the materials i brought through Nairobi to drop off with a pastor. the bag was around 50 lbs and awkwardly shaped. i got looked at a lot but i liked it. i called the bag "50 lbs of trust" because missions press trusted me with every once of that bag. i loved being able to haul it.

-came home after a long day of hauling the bag to the news that we were having our last all night prayer meeting here. so the whole night was filled with prayer and mini sermons and mandazies and tea. i went to sleep around 4:30 am.

-at 7:30 am, i woke up to go to Nairobi to help my roommate find a suit. suits are cheap here, like really really cheap. so we went to an area called Eastleigh that is really the suit district of kenya. it's full of refugees who came and made a living here. it's great to see, but they tough to make a deal with.

-made a new friend in a shop in Nairobi.

-sunday i got hit with a very, very nasty fever and the flu. i struggled out of bed and questioned me staying in it the rest of the day. after service, i crashed for 5 hours and then was woken up saying that i had to go to a dinner at a woman who has grown fond of us. i never turn down meals, but this was crazy. if i declined, it was like spitting in the face of the woman who invited us. so i went, ate great kikuyu food, and then struggled back.

-the title of this blog was taken from the words i mouthed while trying to fix our toilet. the floor has been looking like hurricane katrina washed through since last week. i still laugh every time i see the water.

so yeah, there is my last week. i only have 16 days left till i leave, which makes me sad that my time is up, and that i have to return to the normal life that America holds for me. i will cry when i leave, and will always miss these kids. i am in the process of trying to find a final feast for the kids to have. it's between 50 pounds of pig, or one goat. tough choice. but i want to leave them with something good.

love you all. 

what TIA has taught me

I think my favorite and most frequently used term used since coming here is TIA or time in Africa. It got really popular from the movie Blood diamond, but here it’s an every day thing. You might use the term in reference to what we call “African time”, which is when you’re supposed to start at one time, but several hours past the original time, you have yet to start. Like on Sunday, I went to a church and they had a car to pick us up, it was supposed to pick us up at 8 am, but did not get there until 9 am. We went to a crusade right after the service that was supposed to start at 3 pm, but started at 5, we were supposed to be back before 6, but we did not make it home till after 10 pm that night. TIA. But it can also be used for when something goes wrong. Today as I washed my very dirty clothes, a thunder head filled the sky and poured rain non stop, again TIA, but it was not over, as the rain poured, my clothes line broke, dropping all my clothes. TIA. So this happens quite a bit, and sometimes it sucks. Like when the internet won’t work on a computer it always worked on or when your matatu breaks down when you’re trying to make it home before dark. Kenya teaches you a lot about life but even more about your faith. You can’t put your reliance in anything but God. You can’t plan for anything either, video chat dates get interrupted by the annoyance of no power, dinners get pushed back because the kitchen is not cleared of people, and the lesson you want to teach a class gets pushed back due to classes flooding with water. But that’s life. And to be honest it makes the good moments better. Its one thing that I kinda enjoy about Kenya is the unpredictability. I like setting times and dates, but it takes the surprise out of the moment. Here its fun to have the element of surprise and being unsure of what will happen in that day.

Kenya teaches other things though that makes life harder at first but grow accustomed to as time goes on. Washing your clothes takes time and energy and is nothing like it is at home. At home, you toss in the clothes in the washing machine, put in the soap and crank the knob. Here it requires 2 buckets and a bar of soap and a lot of water and of course a clothes line. Most of the time as your clothes dries on the line, they will fall off and land in the dirt, and you must wash again. This would be annoying to most, but it teaches you patience and to work hard for the simple things. Showering used to require a bucket and cold water and a wash cloth. Bathing was a chore, and cold water sucked during cold nights and cleaning yourself was a lengthy issue. But I learned again that these simple tasks take more energy to most people around the world. I get to experience what it would be like to be someone who lives their life doing these things. It enhances the life I lived back home. I kick myself now for mocking the food served at camps, because now I wish for that food. There is always that person that comes back from a mission’s trip and says “it really makes you thankful for what you have”, though it’s a cliché, it’s true. Everything that we have is a luxury, eating steak for dinner is not needed, but it’s wanted over eating ugali and beans. Showering in a nice heated shower is a luxury, when your option is pouring water over yourself with an empty sprite bottle with somewhat unclean water. It’s one of those things that everyone must do at least once in their life. I know I have changed because of it. And I realize that I have become the person I make fun of that comes off a 2 week mission’s trip and says their life is changed forever. I used to look at those people as wannabe missionaries and philanthropist who only want the fame, but not the work. I was that person for a while, after I came back the first time, I thought of how cool and good it was that I went, but now as I sit here waiting for the power to kick off at any moment, I realize how small my contribution is to the world. when I think of other missionaries who devote their lives to one country or area, and work everyday to make it a little bit better, I can only realize that I devoted not my life to Kenya, but 4 months. I’m not saying that this trip is nothing, because doing work for FMP and teaching the kids is hard work. But it’s not me alone doing the work. I am a very small fish in a big pond when it comes to FMP, and I am one of many teachers and volunteers and missionaries who have devoted time to helping these kids. I think the transformation that is really taking place happens more to me then the world. That alone makes the trip worth it. My faith, personality, breaking point, and ability to love and understand people has changed, which I think is the greatest thing I could ever learn. So in short, I love Kenya not because of the food, or the buildings and living conditions, but for the way God can work through a land and people that have little material wealth, but can love and need love.

p.s Bin Laden being dead is not as good as it sounds when your over seas in a place that was once attacked by friends of Bin Laden.  

revenge of the sheep

Kenya has a unique way of educating you. like if you want to know what matatu goes where, sometimes you must get on the wrong one. to learn what foods your body can't handle, you must get sick, and to love Africa, you must first hate it. the 2nd point relates to the title of this post. i planned an easter feast that i was very very giddy about. everyday i would look at the sheep who was going to be slaughtered and i would tell him, 'i love you, but your going to be food soon'. evil? maybe a little, true, of course. all i could think during the execution was that there would be good food for all the kids and me. i felt proud. until i cooked up my feast. the feast contained: liver and onions, fried heart with leg meat, and of course, rocky mountain oysters. it was frozen for 3 days, and i was very excited, i spent 3 hours prepping it, and it cooked just fine. but after eating the meals, we decided the meat had gone bad, except for the testes. the next day we paid for it, and tuesday i was in bed the whole day. we all reacted differently but i hated the feeling. revenge of the sheep i say. 

easter weekend was very fun, I gave the good friday message which made me very very happy to do and made me feel right at home. saturday we went into nairobi, but then sunday was the strangest day. at home, you all celebrated easter sunday, but not here. sunday was an average day. the main event is on monday. the reason behind this is that they want easter to be special, and since every person attends church on sunday already, make it even more special and do it monday. we were all sick for it, but it was interesting. the kids had a blast, they got tea and bread and butter in the morning, stew for lunch and dinner, and chapatis with their stew. they don't eat that well ever. we were so happy to give it to them, it was such a blessing to have them thank us for it, i almost cried. for about $70, we changed their whole weekend.

wednesday i got my visa renewed, fun process, like going to the dmv but with more english speakers working behind the counter (is that racist?). i found pepsi and snicker bars here, AHHHHH. so i spent a whopping $5 and bought as much as i could. Kenya is a coke dominated zone, so when i find pepsi hidden away like a refugee, i can only thank the lord, it's manna from heaven. my 3 month mark was thursday, which means that i have a little over a month till i return. idk how i feel about that. i love kenya, and i have made it my home and it has accepted me. it will be hard to leave. our internet took a header this week and won't work with our computer, so now i am at a cafe in nairobi that has free wifi, cheap food, and nice people. i am nursing cake and black coffee right now so they don't kick me out. 

school starts next week for the kids, which means i am back to teaching for my last month. i will be glad to see the kids who left again. but movie nights will have to stop. we watched a bootlegged version of diehard the other night, not a good movie for kids, but then we watched home alone and i felt a bit better about it. i buy bootlegged movies for the kids that are made for kids. Rango will be played tonight and it will be served with popcorn. very nice nite for the kids. 

your prayers are felt here, and the kids thank you for every prayer that you send their way. 

i love you all, naku pende. 

the past 7 days

well hello again. it has been a crazy past 7 days and after you read this entry, you will know why it was not posted sooner.

last friday-went into town to meet with some pastors for FMP. i get to a nice area called Nairobi Junction. full of whites. i open the door of my taxi, and accidently scratch the door next to me. the driver of this car get out and starts yelling at me, she's danish. she decides to call diplomatic security to figure this out. i am confused at what just happened at this point. security gets there, very mad that they had to come out for this. the option was work out a deal or they would do something. we worked out a price and i paid. i now regret this and would of rather dealt with diplomatic security. easy to say she was not my fav person of the day. i also left my house keys in the taxi i was in. bughhhh.

last saturday- a month before, we got invited to the wedding of the brother of one of the teachers we work with, the same one who taught us how to make samosas. we were so excited to go to a kenyan wedding. the wedding went for a pretty long time, but it was filled with lots of screaming and amens. the food was amazing, like most kenyan food is. the dancing was fun to watch and the traditions of the wedding. very very fun day.

last sunday-I gave the palm sunday message which i loved to do. I love holy week, so i treated it with as much care as possible. after service, we thought we were playing footbol. what really happened is that we saw a few chickens being carried off and we had to see what was happening. long story short i got a crash course in executing chickens, and dealing with the cleaning of the body. very very good stuff to know.

monday-wednesday-started interviewing teachers for the school, kinda fun, my butt fell asleep. i also bought an axe head for the school since all they had to split wood for the fires that heat the stoves was a sledgehammer. chopped all day wednesday and now my hands are thrashed. but so rewarding.

thursday- got the word that the sheep would be better off dead thursday then friday. hogtied the sheep, did the deed, let it drained and then got to work. work was going fine until the power went out. waited 30 min, came back on. as i am butchering it as carefully as possible, i was told it's not the kenyan way. the gardners came in and wrecked havoc on the body. organs were popped, the hide was in bad shape, a very gory scene that could of been avoided. but the meat is fine which is the most important thing i guess. i have a ziploc full of offal that is mine which will make a very nice easter meal plus a leg which i can never argue with. the kids will be able to eat sheep stew four times this weekend. my housemates bought a lot of things for the stew and chapati mix. we are so happy to be able to give to these kids as much as we are. when the kids thank you, it makes all the hard work that went into making it happen worth it.

good friday-sheep starts cooking today, and i get to cook too. i love cooking, so doing this will be fun. liver and onions are on the menu tomorrow, heart for lunch today, fried meat tonight. but whats even better is the fact that i am giving the good friday message today. like i said, holy week is my favorite. it's the one time of year where i dig into traditions of the church. i made a deal with my roommate that he can do the easter message if i get good friday. last year at olu i was blessed to be able to give the easter message which is still the high water mark of my life. easter here just fyi, is celebrated on Monday, not Sunday. don't ask why, we tried to find out and got very strange answers. but whatever.

i hope all of you have an very awesome easter weekend and are able to meditate on the true meaning of easter. i miss home right now cause i would love to eat ham and go to the cornerstone easter egg hunt, but this is where God put me, so im staying.

love you all.

Food and revalations

Hey everyone, heres blog post number 14.

the last week has been busy. I headed into Nairobi twice, bought a sheep, and learned to cook new foods. i noticed that i have not really talked about the food here as much as i should. so i will list out the foods that i have eaten, cooked, and learned to love.

-Chapati. i call them African tortillas, but in reality they are much better. it's very simple to make, mix flour and water till a dough is made, add oil, make them flat, and throw them in the pan till they brown on both sides. you can eat them with anything, but stew is the best to have with it. once and a while, we will get 3 left over chapatis and we consider it a major blessing if we do. i bought 3 massive ones in Nairobi on friday before i left. they are about the size of med. pizzas. they are an awesome food to eat.

-Samosas. before i came, i did not know much about samosas, other then the fact that they were real. when i got into kenya, it was like a rumor that samosas existed. i looked all over, but never found them. until saturday. my housemate and i took a trip down to one of the teachers houses, and she spent the day teaching us how to make samosas. it took a while, but were very well worth it. a samosa is ground beef that has been cooked with spices and then put into a dough pocket, and then fried. you can eat them with your hands as you walk. they are one of the best foods i have had here.

-Githeri. this one has grown a bit on me. its maize and beans, boiled together and then served. we have it everyday for lunch, and when i mean everyday, i mean everyday. other then the few rocks that find their way into the food, it's a fine dish to eat. once and a while, we will add an onion or tomato into it, or in my case, a beef stock cube. i don't know if i will miss it when i get back.

-Ugali. i am still trying to find a way to enjoy Ugali. i have tried a lot of things, but the only way is to just eat it. what you do is take maize, ground it down into a flour, and then add water. it's a heavy block of maize.

-Stew/rice. this is something that we love to make cause A) it's easy and B) it's cheap. you can put whatever you want into a stew, we put: goat, onions, garlic, tomatos, ginger, cilantro, beef stock cubes, and potatoes into it. put it over rice and it's heaven.

-Mandazies. this is considered an awesome treat here. it's fried dough. who can't love that? they are served with tea most of the time and bought in packs of 6-12. they are a nice snack and very cheap to buy.

those are the basic foods that I get my hands on here.

now for the other part of Kenya. The part that does not eat.

I can't walk down the road here with out seeing a child, i say "Jambo" they reply "give me food". I have had this happen so many times. after a while, it starts to hit you harder. I burned through a book last week called "under the overpass". the Author takes a few months of his life to see what it is like to live the homeless life. in it he describes the way that todays Christians in several cities ask him to leave, or walk right past him. but he also describes the way that several Christians in several cities dropped everything to help him. i then started to think of my own position right now, coming all the way across the world to do Gods will, but yet i am the person who walks by the homeless in Nairobi, who all they want it something to eat.

I made it my goal friday to at least try to tackle the issue. Instead of buying a piki piki ride up to junction to get a matatu, i used the 50 schillings to buy a pack of mandazies. so far so good, i also packed along with me tracts from FMP. not a bad touch. i was excited to make it into the city and help a little. they first man i see is holding to canes holding a cup asking for money. knowing that some will use money to buy booze or drugs, food is a much better option. i hand him the mandazi and the tract, told him God bless and moved to where i was going. as i continue to walk, a man starts to talk to me, this is normal for Nairobi, and i know what he is looking for. he talks about the struggle in the country he comes from, and then pops the question that most christians will have to face, "can you buy me rice?". this is the hardest thing to do. of course you want to buy him the rice, but you know if you buy him a bag, why not everyone else? I told him my problem with it, but handed him the mandazis, the whole bag that i thought would be shared with his family that he talked so much about. he then got mad, cause i would not buy him tea to go with it. i handed him a tract and walked away trying to figure out what just happend.

I have always been told by veterans of missions work never to buy anyone on the street anything, cause it will start a chain reaction that can't be stopped. it's like if you buy a mouse a cookie, they will want a glass of milk. those who know poverty, look at Americans as open bank accounts who drop money to the poor and sick. ministry takes a turn here, you want to love them all you can, but the money in your bank account can't handle some of it. you can't feed them all. When Jesus sees the huge group of people, and he wants to feed them, but only has a few fish and a few things of bread, he multiplys them, giving enough for everyone. I wish that could happen all the time, everywhere.

it's emotionally tough to have to say no, and you feel like a bad christian when you have to walk away. but it's the situation that you have to look at, and what will happen when you give in and buy the bag of rice. give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. they will always expect something from Americans who are here for missions, cause they know are hearts are soft, and our pockets are deep(sometimes). it's a harsh reality, that many can't fathom or conform to. i hear stories of missions groups that will toss money out of cars to the poor, or will start pumping money into the churches that have little. i sound like a horrible person for saying this, but it's the only way that ministry can really operate here. if i had millions, i would spend it on Kenya, but i don't and neither do most that come here for the same purpose. we can't fix the nation with money, but we can with God.

thats all i have to say about that.