the photo again...

Thought I'd re-post this photo and tell you who is who.
Christine, Danson (Dau-son), Mary, Joseph, Beth, Rose, Joseph, Samuel. The first 4 are ABC and the second 4 are ACC&S.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the vice president was staying at the Nomad Palace in Garissa the night we stayed there...

to market, to market

last friday: We went to the massai market that happens every Friday afternoon at the local mall. One whole level of the parkade is set up with vendors hawking their wares (at very inflated prices for muzungus - white people) but we had "our Kenyans" with us and they helped us with the bartering process. I really enjoyed that, and since we were told it might be our only chance to shop for souvenirs, I bought lots. The other great thing about that mall is the internet cafe with the cheap phone. There's only one, but I got my chance to call home... and I've been waiting all week to get back there tomorrow.

monday: Our quick journey to Garissa began. It's 5 hours away and we stayed one night and came back yesterday. The drive was not too bad - we saw lots of camels and goats and cows and nomadic people and their makeshift homes. We passed through Mwingi, which is where Jess and Dave were a couple of years ago. Nice to be able to see what they saw.

We met a fellow named Mohammad who shared his story with us. He was raised with one parent a Christian and one a Muslim, and it was very interesting to get his perspective on faith and God. It gave us lots to talk about, and some good insight into ministering to Muslims. (Bottom line, very hard.)

tuesday: We had a quick visit to a TB clinic that CBM has a part in, and saw what they do. CBM supplies funds to provide daily meals for the patients so they are strong enough to handle their medication. Then we had a quick visit to the school that is another project CBM partners in to meet the lady who runs it and spend half an hour in the classes.

We have 3 days set aside for Muslim ministry - tomorrow is the third one, when we get to play and paint. We have 4 days each to connect with each of the denominations CBM partners with. Today we went to the ACC&S headquarters and school and cathedral in Thika, an hour down the road, and met the students, headmaster and a number of people on the executive, including the moderator (head). We had lots of time to ask questions and then had lunch together. Friday to Sunday we will be with the ACC&S, visiting projects we partner together in, and then Monday to Thursday will be with the ABC. The last few days are for debriefing and relaxing before we head home. Although we are just at the halfway point, it does feel like the end is in sight.

Mary, one of our ABC friends on the team, is not well and is leaving tomorrow to head home to recuperate. (She is the wife of the Bishop of the ACC.) Hopefully she will feel well enough to join us again soon.

Sunday night

The weekend has been good. It's been a break between the intensity of the course and the travelling and experiences of the coming week.

We saw the elephants at the orphanage in the Nairobi National Park - they brought out the 7 little ones (from 7 months to 2 years) to give them their bottles and let us watch for a while, then the 3 older ones (between 2 & 3 years old). The littlest one was the cutest. I got some video of them... We also saw pumba there - warthogs. Then we did lunch at the Karen Blixen gardens (That name will sound familiar if you know the movie Out of Africa). Then to the big treehouse in the Giraffe Center to feed the giraffes and get slimy giraffe kisses. Didn't get quite as many photos there, as my battery was wasted from the videos. When we get back to Toronto, though, we are going to put all 8 of our photos on one CD so we can have a copy of everyone's shots. That will fill in the gaps nicely.

Today we went to a church service that was multi national, and not too unlike what we'd see at home. Even the size was similar, except this church met in a tent - it's a big permanent structure that reminded me of a circus tent - only the colors and the flags were missing. The next two Sundays we will be going to churches in our partner's denominations. Next Sunday, one of our guys has been asked to preach.

After lunch we had some different options for our free day - I elected to stay here and do some laundry and read and rest. There were a few of us who stayed, and it turned out to be a great day. I'm not tired of always being with people, but some preventative measures are good - hopefully we get enough down time like that so we don't all get sick of each other.

I'll fill you in on the next couple of days since we'll be gone - tomorrow and Tuesday we will be in Garissa which is 5 hours away. While we're there we will spend some time with a Muslim man who converted from Christianity, we will teach in a school - each of our groups will have about 45 minutes with about 15-25 students. We're adapting a Bible story to tell, and will fill the rest of the time with questions, songs, and games. We're also working at the center they do ministry out of; two groups will be priming a couple of rooms for painting, and the other two will be playing with children. (I'm in the play group.) The rooms need to be painted because during the conflict, the center housed a lot of children whose parents left them there to be safe, and that many children living there for that long left the rooms very dirty. So we get to help fix it up.

We're leaving today for the next leg of our adventure. Some of the people on our team feel bad that we are not roughing it more - contrary to what I thought, we get to drive by the slums - we won't be in them, and we are going to Garissa where they work with Muslim Somalis, but we are not going to the Somali refugee camps. And they are putting us up in the nicest places in each town - we'll see how those end up, but I'm pretty sure we'll be mostly comfortable. Preparing for anything sort of left out the possibility of being comfortable. I am okay with it, because we will see and experience lots and we are here to learn. When we get back we can figure out how the reading and this class information and what we saw all goes together.

Supper is at 7 here. Lunch is at 1, and there is tea mid morning and mid afternoon (drinks and snacks). Supper last night was out in the bush, which was awesome! I guess every Thursday they do supper out in the bush and have entertainment - music and dancing. The have the buffet all set up and move all the tables and chairs and umbrellas from by the pool and have a bunch of bonfires going... I was glad I wasn't one of the ones who got pulled up to dance! It was a really good end to our time here.

Our praxis team finished class at noon - the rest are preparing for a couple of days in the field applying what they have learned about project development, but we are done. We spent the afternoon talking about the work with Somali Muslims we'll be seeing and doing next week and preparing for that - we are in 4 groups of 4 for the next while - I'm with Kristen from Acadia, Rose from the ACC&S and Danson (pronounced Dau-son) from the ABC.

So this weekend we are doing more touristy things around Nairobi, then head out to Garissa on Monday (Sean says when you use Google Earth, you can totally track where we are). Tomorrow we will get to go to the elephant orphanage and the giraffe center. I'll update you on all that once we've been there!

zzzzzzzzzzz

So much for not feeling the jet lag. Sunday was ok, but we've all been pretty tired for the last couple of days, and waking up at night... We have spent both yesterday and today sitting in class all day, too, which doesn't help. 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. That's a long day, but the stuff we're learning is good. It's similar to our Carey courses at Westhill in that the Community Development workers can sign up for the series of 10 classes and earn a certificate (from Carey) in Integral Mission. It's all very practical development stuff. It will translate to Canada, but is pretty specific to work here mostly. The 10 courses will all be in Kenya over a couple of years, and then they will offer it in India and then Bolivia maybe.

It's getting to be winter here, so while the sun is hot in the middle of the day, the mornings and evenings are cool. Nothing to complain about, but not much different than home (although probably cooler!) so don't be jealous about us being in a great climate...

Mike got sick last night and went in to the hospital this morning - he's got a bacterial infection. They caught it pretty quick and he's already feeling better, but you can pray he gets fully better and that no one else gets sick on this trip. While they were on their way back they saw giraffes and gazelles. Lucky! Today I saw a really big frog.

We generally pair off at meals and sit with people we don't know, so we're having a great time meeting all sorts of interesting people.

Finally in Kenya!

Habari! (That's hello in Kiswahili)

We had two uneventful flights over - Air Canada from Toronto to Zurich, which had great technology, and Swissair from Zurich to Nairobi, which had great food. We all have gained about 5 pounds so far... With the time changes, it felt like one long day instead of two, so jet lag hasn't been much of an issue. We are now 9 hours later than Regina, and 8 hours later than Winnipeg, so while I write this at 9:45 PM, you are all probably just leaving church.

This first week we are at a retreat center just outside of Nairobi, and it's pretty cushy - by preparing ourselves for anything, we thought about all the discomforts we might have to endure, but didn't consider staying in a hotel setting with comfortable beds, showers, plenty of food, a pool and free internet.

We arrived at the airport at dusk, and so drove (on a crazy road with crazy traffic) here in the dark - this morning was our first experience really seeing Kenya. The vegetation is great - so lush and colorful.

We have met our 8 Kenyan Praxis members, and have spent much of today looking at our cultures and what the differences are - it's been a great orientation for us to the country, and a great chance for us to have good conversation and get to know each other.

The course that we are participating in here is one of the two parts of our experience - the other is visiting the different development projects in our last 2 weeks. This course is us joining about 50 other development workers in CBM partner countries. That's much bigger than I thought it would be. There are people here from Kenya, Rwanda, Angola, India and Bolivia - a few you might know are Ana Salamao from Angola who was at Westhill for Missions Encounter last month (she's sitting next to me on the other computer, actually!) and Ivan Gutierrez from Bolivia who has visited Westhill, and who led our STEP team that was in Bolivia. Gordon King, Director of The Sharing Way, who was at Missions Encounter is also here.

This course is the first in a series that will lead to a Diploma or Certificate for these development workers that is offered by our favorite cutting edge Seminary, Carey.

A Good Start!

A few minor disappointments have been outweighed by a pretty good day.

The disappointments:
*My email on this computer is not working, so I couldn't send a note home to tell Sean I found the suprises he hid in my suitcase... (but I could phone, so that wasn't a big deal.)
*There was a typo in our information and 6 PM is not when we leave Zurich on Saturday, but when we arrive in Nairobi - so our stopover there is brief. Oh, well. That was just a suprise bonus anyway.
*The toothbrush in the travel pack I bought sucks. (Here's me rolling my eyes and laughing!)

We met the last of the team this morning and have been getting to know each other all day - we had a chance to share about ourselves this morning, but then in between orientation sessions and over meals there's been lots of talk, and what a bunch of great people. We're all very different, and while we've been warned that a couple weeks in we might be sick of being with the same people all the time, (and who wouldn't!) I'm sure that we are going to have a good time together.

There are two guys and six girls. One girl is German, and one is Bolivian. Four of us have travelled lots and four haven't been off the continent (a couple not even out of Canada.) Both the guys and three of the girls are married, and one of the guys has three kids (ages 7, 9 and 11 - imagine them all hanging off his legs telling him not to go...) Two are 23, three are later 20's and three of us are 35. Most are just students, but one is a full time pastor as well as a student. Their names are Claudia, Leona, Candice, Heather, Kristie, Mike and Craig.

In orientation today we learned about CBM, about the Sharing Way and their work in Kenya, and about the expectations for the class side of things, among other things. Tomorrow we learn more about Kenyan culture and cross cultural communication before we head to the airport. There's a lot of great people that work out here, and it's been enlightening to get a sense of what CBM is all about from the HQ and the people who are hands on involved in these great things.

I think my favorite part of the day might have been after lunch when we took a bit of a hike through an amazing wooded path just minutes down the road from the office. Very cool.

Don't know when I'll write more, but good bye till then!
Thanks for reading.

PS - they have chapel here on Thursday mornings with all the staff, and they did a pretty cool comissioning for us.