Thank-you so much for your prayers! This has turned out to be a very good month. I am sitting at a coffee shop in Nairobi at debrief and just wanted to share some of my favorite things about this month in Kenya.
CHALLENGE FARM:
Here are many of the children at Challenge Farm. It was so incredible to see the love that the staff had for these children.
**Holding an Olympics day for the children at Challenge Farm.
**Running around the soccer field with a 10 year old girl, Rebecca at Challenge Farm. She was FAST!
**Playing volleyball with my teammates and some of the older kids at Challenge Farm.
**SHOWERS!! They were cold, but who cares! Actually having dependable, running water was AMAZING!!!
**Really good laundry facilities to do our laundry by hand.
** Having cleaning supplies!! (seriously, this is HUGE. Half the battle of cleaning is having something to clean with!)
**Looking at the beautiful stars in the Kenyan sky.
**Comforting a crying child.
** Going on a nature walk in Kitale.
** Hearing stories that have encouraged me and shown me the power of prayer and the power of GOD!
**Having the opportunity to tutor this girl Ester in math.
STREET KIDS OF KITALE:
**Hanging out with the street women, children, and babies in the city of Kitale.
** Getting to hold one of the babies that lives on the streets with his mother.
These are some of the street boys in the city of Kitale with my teammate Nicole.
VISITING THE SLUMS OF KITALE:
**Just getting to visit the slums was a blessing. I loved getting to hold some of the children and let them know I cared. If you want to read more about the slums, you should read my teammate Nicole's blog titled: Fire, Babies, and Poo! Here is the link: http://nicoleruggiano.theworldrace.org/?filename=fire-babies-and-poo
Here is one of the houses in these slums. It is made of plastic bags.
Here is a sweet little baby that lives in these slums.
MY TEAMMATES:
**Loved the group of 16 girls that I got to work with this month. Here is a picture of just a few of them. It was such an amazing, refreshing, and fun group.
**Slow mornings where I had time to run, shower, journal, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and just hang out with my teammates.
** Teammates that love to run and exercise.
** Children that run WITH us on there way to school.
**Playing Catch Phrase & other games with my teammates just for fun.
**Watching the show Friends with my friend Nicole almost every night right before bedtime.
**Sharing a room with 7 other girls and getting to laugh, talk, and just hang out with each other. (I realize sharing a room with 7 other girls might not be everyones idea of a good time, but it is for me!!
)
**Having the opportunity to cook meals for each other. HEALTHY MEALS!! Every night for dinner we took turns cooking and it was SO much fun to see each others cooking skills and get to share this time together.
Here is an AMAZING meal that my friend Kathryn made for us.
NEIGHBOR KIDS DOWN THE STREET:
**Loved, LOVED, LOVED the sweet children that lived down the street from us.
These sweet children would run up to us and give us huge hugs everytime we walked by them to go into town. Some of us started making extra trips down the road just to see them and play with them for a while. I loved that. We colored with them, played with balloons, sangs, played games, etc. LOVED THEM so much!
Three of these sweet children loving us.
Passing out the balloons.
My teammate Kathryn and I with these neighborhood children.
And finally, another of my favorite things about this month was:
**A reminder that God loves me no matter what I do or don't do. He loves me JUST THE SAME!
You should check out my teammate Nicole's video of our time here. Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jIBqRnQKRg&feature=g-upl
(just so you know what you are looking at: the beginning of the video is one of several circumcision "parades" we drove by throughout our month here!)
