Two weeks can surely feel like a lifetime. Its crazy how fast you can adjust when thrown out of your comfort zone into a completely different lifestyle (well when you are willing to). Anyway of all the things that are becoming easier and easier to do, like the squatty potty, basins, and walking everywhere there are an equal number of things that just make me say “Wow this doesn’t happen in America”. But it all comes from the best of intentions. For example last night our Kenyan friend John was really sick and we needed to take him to the clinic, but Kenya has a lot of blackouts with electricity so we had to collect all the headlamps we had and give them to the hospital so that they could use them to have light. Im thankful for hospitals having light in America. Then today we walked an hour and half into the bush to go bring sugar and some cooking supplies to a family because there is a sugar shortage here and many families cannot afford sugar (sugar here cost about $5 US dollars for 1KG). To show their appreciation for us the family gave us a live chicken. His name is Ralph and although I have grown attached we will be eating him tomorrow night. Sad. But seriously this family doesn’t even have enough money for sugar yet they gave us a chicken, it doesn’t make sense but its changing my attitude everyday. Ok well this list would not be complete without the one hundred taxi stories I already have. Point blank driving here is WILD, (and by wild I mean terrifying) but terrifying in a safe way mom ☺. Anyway while driving back from town we were in a busy area and had to stop for speed bumps the size of a small house, apparently this was the perfect opportunity for someone to jump in the taxi, making it 11 people total (four people alone in the front seat). Well about 5 minutes into the drive we stop on the side of the road and no lie our new friend gets out and just starts running, and then a couple minutes later gets back in the car. Yep he went for a little run and then got back in. The best part is when he got back in and we asked what that was for the response from Pastor Abraham was “I don’t know that just happens here” I guess it’s totally normal, this is Africa.
We’ve been able to get involved with some pretty awesome ministries lately. There is an orphanage started in memory of a girl from America who passed away called Brittany’s Home of Grace, The organization is Kenya Relief. This place is fantastic. It houses 70+ orphans and has a medical clinic attached for the locals. We were able to spend yesterday hanging out with two girls from the states Emily and Beth who work for Kenya relief and tour the orphanage. Check it out though online its awesome. We were also given 100 dress’s from the orphanage made out of pillowcases to give out to girls here in the community, that was wicked fun they were so happy. The craziest part of the day was that we were planning on going and visiting the prison in the area, bringing shoes and food for the prisoners, and to share a message with them after the orphanage. It turned out that the orphanage had bags full of soap to also bring but no way of getting them to the prison, hmm coincidence ;). We were able to bring Emily and Beth along with us and visit the prisoners. Ok I could go on and on about this but that experience was so many things, overall though humbling. Many people in Kenya are in Prison under false convictions and that alone was hard to hear. These men whether truly criminals or not though had so much hope and really love God, it was amazing to see, they really understood that change was possible.
Tomorrow we will be cooking our Kenyan family an American meal. Fried Chicken mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. This is where Ralph comes in handy (once again sad). There are no ovens here or stoves this is going to be hilarious to say the least. Well im missing everyone, much much much love!!
Baby feet 🙂
