Kenya in a Nutshell

I really am sorry for my blogging silence recently. It seems that every time I’ve sat down to write a blog nothing really comes, I’ve probably started 4 blogs that I’ve discarded. It’s not that the month in Kenya was a bad month; instead it just felt like it wasn’t very different than our month in Uganda. I felt like it was just the same thing over and over and that there wasn’t very much to tell. However I do want to tell you all about what Kenya was like, since it’s a country that will always hold a special place in my heart.

 Our team was near the town of Malava, Kenya in the western part of the country. This part of the country was pretty much all farmland and for a city girl this was definitely out of my comfort zone, but in many ways what I needed. We lived on our pastor’s farm with his family and it was one of the most tranquil locations I’ve lived on the race. 

Our ministry was very similar to what we did in Uganda. Every morning after breakfast (tea or hot chocolate with bread and butter) we would walk to church with our contacts where we would meet up with some church members.  We’d split up into three separate groups and visit the farm and homes in the nearby villages until it was time to head back home for lunch.  Door to door ministry is still not something that I look forward to, but I do enjoy getting to meet people and hear their stories. Most of the homes we visited were the homes of Christians and so we usually just got to pray for them and encourage them. Other days we visited the local hospital and some of the high schools in the area.

We usually had our afternoons free and would spend our time hanging around the compound. I found the perfect place for my hammock  and it became one of my favorite spots (not just for me but for most of the team actually). This month was a restful month in many ways but when we arrived back in Nairobi for our 8 month debrief at the end of the month I was exhausted. I think I was just worn out, just done, I wasn’t sure that I actually had the energy to give the next three months my all. After our debrief my team along with most of the squad headed to Tanzania while I and 11 others remained in Nairobi waiting for our parents to arrive, it’s the first time that parents have been invited to join their racers on the field and it was a week that I’ll never forget . But more about that later!

-Jess