We have been in Kitale, Kenya for just over a week now and I LOVE it here! Kitale is situated at the base of Mt. Elgon, which means incredible scenery including rolling green hills! The contrast of the green hills, the red brown dirt roads, and the crazy intense blue sky takes my breath away sometimes. It is SO beautiful and I am loving every minute of living here! The fact that we are at a higher altitude makes our morning jogs a little bit more challenging, but we are hoping to summit Mt. Elgon at the end of the month if the weather permits so we just consider it a part of our training.
Picture of the beautiful area we live in, with Mt. Elgon in the distance.
Our contact, Pastor Moses, is one of the wisest men I have ever met. We have the incredible privilege of staying with his family in their home, and have felt nothing but welcomed since the day we arrived. We have comfortable beds and hot showers, which was the last thing I expected in Africa. The other day we found out that Pastor Moses’s wife, Roslyne, fasted and prayed for us for a week before we even arrived. How amazing is that? That is just a small glimpse of just how incredible our contact is this month. Pastor Moses pours wisdom into us every single day and treats us like we are his own children. We have nicknamed him Papa Bear because of how much he cares for each for us. The amount of love that he has shown us in just a week’s time has blown us all away! I am SO excited to continue to soak up as much wisdom and knowledge as possible during the rest of our time here.
The food that has been cooked for us every day has been delicious! It is probably my favorite food of the past eight months, mainly because no meal looks the same. Variety is quite rare when you are living on $4 a day for food, but somehow Roslyne manages to blow us away with every meal. We are especially excited when a meal includes our absolute favorite food: chapatti, which is kind of like a mix between a tortilla and a crepe. We may have a tendency to burst into song and dance whenever we are served chapatti because it is just that good! Pastor Moses thinks our excitement for chapatti is a little crazy, however he does not know just how appreciative we are to have chapatti and not ugali. We have managed to only eat ugali once since being in Africa, and I am SO grateful!
Our ministry this month is going to consist of a variety of different things. Each Sunday one of us will have the opportunity to preach at local churches that our contact oversees. So far Christina and Cara have spoken incredible truth that I am sure impacted many lives. Apart from preaching we have also had the opportunity to visit a local private hospital, where we talked with and prayed for the patients that were there. It was quite an experience to see how primitive a private hospital is, and I can’t imagine what the public hospital is like. We will have an opportunity to visit the public hospital at least once this month, which I am sure will be an eye opening experience to say the least.
The labor and delivery ward.
The one treatment room.
We also spent a few days this past week teaching at a rural school for poor and orphaned children, which I LOVED! Teaching is not my favorite type of ministry; however, dancing and singing with 60 beautiful African children quickly changed my perspective on things. We will be teaching for two more days this upcoming week, and I will have the opportunity to use some of my nursing skills to teach one of the lessons. Many of the children have to take care of their sick parents or grandparents, so the teachers asked if we could do a simple teaching on how to care for the sick. It is going to be quite different to teach a 6 year old how to care for a sick adult, but that is their reality and I am going to do my best to teach them how to best care for the ones they love with the limited resources they have.
The rural school that we taught at for four days.
The sweet children we had the privilege of teaching.
(Photo taken by my teammate Angela)
It took me two days to get sweet little Agape to warm up to me.
If we even looked at him the first two days he would burst into tears,
so the fact that I was able to hold him for a few minutes with no tears was a huge success.
(Photo taken by Angela)
Then he had the realization that I was a mzungu….
(Photo taken by Angela)
(Photo taken by Angela)
I decided to try my luck with Agape one more time before leaving.
However poor Agape was tired, hungry, and sick of mzungus by this point.
(Photo taken by Angela)
I am excited for the other amazing ministry opportunities we are going to have this month including house to house evangelism, visiting a local women’s prison, visiting the local slum, and visiting an orphanage. So far my time in Kenya has been incredible and I only see it getting better as the month goes on.
Sweet kids from one of the churches we went to.
