Instead of going to our ministry site with the Massai tribe
the first ten days we ended up working along side our team leader’s, Megan,
church. It was no quincidence by any means.
A few days in to our stay in Nairobi before having
difficulties with our ministry contact we as a team decided to go to a
restaurant and have lunch together. After ordering and while waiting for our
food Megan commented that the guy sitting at the table next to us facing away
looked like a guy she knew at her home church. Time and time again we told her
that she should just go up and ask if he was. It took her awhile before she
ended up going up to him and lo and behold it ended up being him. He was in
Nairobi because they had an office there.
His name was Mark. He was there with his wife. They both
lived in Kenya for a couple months out of the year working with the church and
the ministry that they had dreamed of years ago. The ministry is
a home for girls. The girls were either taken their because they were promised
to be married to a man decades older or was found out to be expecting to go
through a common procedure done in Africa tribe called FGC or Female Genital
Circumcision. The girls at the site range from 10 to 18 years old. The girls
were usually taken to the site because the chief of the tribe was told about
the girl’s situation and then would contact Mark. The marriages between the
young girls were typically arranged to pay off debt that the parent has
established and the circumsion used to be done as part of the tribe traditions,
but it is now illegal for this procedure to be done. The procedure is very
dangerous and many girls die due to blood loose. The girl’s home hasn’t been
around very long, but there are many plans in store for the home.
In addition to their involvement with the home Mark and his
wife were there in Kenya to run a 14-day mission trip with some people from
their church. They were going to be doing a soccer camp, vacation bible school,
and renuvation at the site of the girl’s home.
After Megan explained more to the dream the team thought
that being able to work with Mark and his team would be a good opportunity and
at the time it was just a dream, but due to the situation with our initial
contact our dream came true. For the first ten days we worked alongside the
mission trip team from Christ Community Church located in Greenly, Colorado.
Each of us did what we felt most capable to do and what God laid on our hearts.
David and Jonathan worked at the girl’s home doing construction around the
compound. Leyna, Glenalyn, and Cat worked with the vacation bible school. Megan
and I ended up working at the soccer camp.
After the time in Kitengela, Kenya we loaded up our packs
went to Nairobi. We spent the day their celebrating Jonathan’s birthday, eating
good food, and surfing the internet. Later that day we ended up meeting with
our initial contact and heading off to Narosoora in order to catch start our
second ministry of the month.
