More than once, when talking to my family and friends back home, I am asked what a typical day looks like for me while on this trip. So I thought that I would write a blog about what a “typical” (as typical as life gets out here) day looks like.
A day in the life of a world Racer living in Eldoret, Kenya.
6:00 I wake up with my bladder ready to explode since I haven’t used the bathroom all night. We are locked into our house for safety reasons and to get out I must wake up our contact. I never like to bother Emmy to unlock the door so I just wait till morning. On my way back to bed I pass Pastor Patrick and Paris preparing breakfast. Today we will be eating Mandazi(Kenyan doughnuts) I stay and help. I always find my way into the kitchen in each new country and this place is no different.
(Mandazi)
7:30 The rest of the teams wake up. I finish cutting up and frying the last batches of of doughnuts while Pastor P fries up sausage and Paris strains the hot tea made with fresh cows milk we drink every morning.
9:00 After we finish our breakfast and showers, for those who choose, we make our way back to the house where we gather for prayer and a quick word from the Bible. We give thanks, lift up the ministry we are working with, give over our day, pray for our families back home and pray for health for our squad. We have had six cases of Malaria and one of Typhoid fever just since arriving in Kenya. We know the enemy is threatened by us being here but we also know that our God is bigger so in this we find peace and rest.
10:00 or 10:30 or 11:00 we leave for door-to-door ministry. It is true when you hear that Africans have no sense of “time” as we Americans have. (This time line I give is pretty open ended.) Anyway we leave for the day as soon as Pastor John arrives to pick us up.
We travel house to house, followed by the local neighborhood children a.k.a our “disciples” as we have named them. We enter the homes that welcome us, share a Word with them, pray for them and their families and then move onto the next one. We go as the Lord leads and then turn around at 12:30 to make our way back home.
1:00 We eat lunch. Our menu for lunch has varied over the last week but there are two things that are common at ever lunch or should I say every meal time. 1…..LOTS of carbs. 2…….An ABUNDANCE of food. It has been a hard concept for all of us to grasp that we are being fed as much as we are in Africa. A continent where hunger is such a real and present issue. Today we come home to plantains in a tomato sauce with pasta. Other days have consisted of mashed potatoes, beans, or fried potatoes.
2:30 We leave for our trek into the hills for our home visit. Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we walk to a different home and have a mini worship/bible study in the home of one of the members of the church.
3:20 Arrive at the mud hut we will be having bible study today. After a time of prayer and worship consisting of Swahili worship songs, and African dancing Lindsay shares a message translated by Emmy. Following the message the women sing us another song with more dancing and clapping. We share a cup of African porridge. A hot drink made of water, sugar, sorghum, maize, and wheat. It was definitely far from my favorite drink but I was able to get this one down unlike some drinks that have been offered to us in the past. Normally we will have tea and more mandazi at these home visits. We have learned that it is custom to always drink two cups of tea in Kenya if offered by your hosts……..Refusal is not an option. Lets just say my stomach is expanding by the day.
6:00 We arrive back home where we are greeted by Paris and a thermos of more tea with sugar and a bowl of leftover mandazi from the morning, just in case we were still hungry for some reason. We relax for a few hours. Depending on our moods we will watch a movie, read, have some God time, talk, play spades, sit with Paris and Emmy and help prepare dinner or share our testimonies.
8:00 Dinner is served. Tonight it is chapati and lentils, my favorite. Other times it is pilau or Ugali with beans or meat. We enjoy dinner together followed by feedback if we didn’t get around to it earlier in the day. After that we all file outside to brush our teeth and make our way to bed. Most nights we are in bed by 9:30. It is a glorious thing. I love early bedtimes.
(Lentils, Chapati and Coleslaw)
There you go. I hope that enables you to picture a little better what life is like for me out here on the plains of Kenya. It is a beautiful country, filled with even more beautiful people.
Well I miss you guys all very much.
Until Next Time
Annalisa
