Welcome to Kenya

Covering Monday June 9th, 2008

Acts 11:23

When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.

I never dreamed I would go to Africa. Shots alone were terrifying to me. Once in Africa, it's hard to know why at one point you never wanted to be there. I still hadn't slept, but I was overflowing with joy even though I was only getting my visa and was told to vote for Obama-- isn't it strange that when on the other side of the world you're being told to vote?

I was a minority. For the first time in my life I truly was a foreigner. We began to gather our luggage.

The girls were instructed to ready carts for the 26 pieces of luggage; the boys were to find the luggage and bring it to us. After a few minutes, I sat on the floor by the carts. The seconds were ticking away. Every few minutes one of our suitcases would be found. We waited for a long time before turning in a missing luggage report. Initially, only 7 of our pieces came off the flight. Several of the found suitcases had torn zippers and holes. I was one of the unlucky ones that had neither suitcase. At this point, I had been wearing the same outfit for two days and I reeked. In my carry-on, I had a couple pair of jeans but no shampoo. It was frightening. A good portion of my wardrobe (I only have a few pairs of jeans) was brought along with certain things that had sentimental value. I kept all that too myself because I thought it was petty. I had to fight myself.

Several of us were facing the same dilemma. Although, Josh and Nicole were fortunate enough to have two of their suitcases. We circled around the carts containing the lucky pieces of luggage and we prayed together. We prayed that no matter what God would prevail and to remember that he would provide. Some had so much hope; they believed our luggage would make it without anything being stolen. I was not so sure. However, I believed no matter what that the most important thing was our mission for God and that if we had to lose every article of clothing we ever owned then so be it: we would survive. In actuality, it wasn't my measly clothes that bothered me but that in those suitcases were hundreds of supplies that we were taking to Hekima academy for the children. I would hate for that to be lost, but again we had our team and that was most important.

After a century was spent in the Kenyan airport, we finally headed towards our lodging. The girls would stay in a Christian ministry location called Ufungamano while the boys stayed in a YMCA. As we drove away from the airport, in the vans that would carry us for most of the trip, I came to several realizations all at once. My first realization was that many people in Nairobi were walking along the sides of the road. It didn't matter if it was in the middle of nowhere or in the busiest part of the city: there were always people walking, or carrying things on their heads, pushing a cart, shepherding herds of goats, or a mob of children in their school uniforms would pass by with many of them holding hands. Second, not having universal road laws or any laws makes driving a daring adventure. We were driving on the left side of the ride with no stop signs in sight, while we attempted to dodge cars and people. There were giant sized pot holes that could have been used as swimming pools for decent sized animals. The drivers knew every dimension of their vehicles because they would cut around every corner of, literally, everything. It was a matter of pulling into traffic and letting it resolve itself. Surprisingly, they have little to no accidents in Kenya, or so we were told.

But, that may be because most people can't drive in such conditions and gas is deadly expensive. Our gallon of gas is quickly going to four dollars as I write this now. They buy gas in liters, which is about a fourth of a gallon. Their gas costs at least 99.99 shillings which is about 3 American dollars (making this about 12 dollars a gallon). They have no set minimum wage, so some people could easily be working for a mere 200 shillings a day which would only pay for about half a gallon of gas in America. So, why have a car if you can walk?

My third realization: I was shocked by the amount of advertisement. When I originally thought of Africa, billboards did not first come to mind. Their clothes were different from what I'm used to seeing: lots of people in business suits with shoulder pads. In some of the more impoverished areas, the clothing would drastically change. There was a great amount of smog in the air. Most of the parks and bushes, if not all, were barricaded with barbed-wire fences. Most of the buildings had similar architecture, not artsy just simple plain buildings.


We finally arrived at the girls location and were introduced to Brent. Brent would be our guide for our mission trip's stay in Nairobi. He was the director of the Journey-- the campus ministry who worked alongside us. Brent was born in California and moved to Kenya when he was seven; he was one of two or three people I met in Kenya that were white. He helped us a great deal and sacrificed much of his time for us and we were exceedingly appreciative of him for that. We were also told that Tim, Kristina's brother, would be staying in the girls place when he would arrive at the end of the week. Therefore, his room was still open so one of the boys could take his spot-- eventually Lance volunteered.

While checking into our place, the bookkeeper of the lodging kept our passports-- for no valid reason. Obviously something wasn't right in order for her to confiscate our passports, luckily Brent got them back for us. I, along with Wacey, had rooms on the second floor while Jenny, April, Chrissy, and Lance were on the first. While we checked out our rooms and figured out how we were going to change our clothes, the boys were being checked into the YMCA.

At last! I found a bed. Can you imagine how tempting it was to crawl into that bed and sleep until I made coherent sense again? That actually wasn't too big of a struggle for me. There was an open window with the curtains waving from the breeze. A towel and a bar of soap were laid on the bed. Over the bed was a mosquito net. A desk accompanied with a chair was on the opposite wall of the bed; next to it was a mirror. There was a nightstand next to the window with a phone. A bulletin board was above the nightstand with the rules of the lodging. There was a closet with blankets. The door had two locks. The bathroom had a slide door. There's no way I can say this right, the toilet was inside the shower. There was a sink and water heater button (that wasn't found till later, although it didn't help). And, there was a window like hole in the bathroom to let all the heat out, which was a joke.

I ended up borrowing a shirt from April. I kept my green sweater that I had been wearing since Saturday morning-- it was now Monday afternoon. I had a spare pair of jeans and shoes, hallelujah! And so I took the coldest shower ever known. Actually, I kind of didn't.

I found the rest of the girls, and Lance, on the first floor. We were happy for a change of clothes but it was for the most part an odd change of clothes. We waited for Sevo to call and in the meantime had a few minutes of quality time to unwind.

For lunch, we headed to the Java House-- an American influenced coffee style restaurant. This, is when what little energy we had vanished. I sat with Lance, Josh, Weston, Jordan, and Nicole for lunch. I ordered the quesadillas-- which ended up being a bad choice. It seemed fine at first, but suddenly I realized there was some sort of spice in it that did not belong for my stomach. This, is the only complaint I have on the taste of food in Kenya, and of course it would be in the American style restaurant. Jordan fell asleep mid sentence.


Several of us took pictures of him falling asleep. I could not stop laughing; I had hit the delirious point. I took out my camera to start taking pictures to keep myself awake. When my plate of food was gone, it was incredibly hard not to fall asleep.

I pretended the Java sun logo was the sun from Mario World and I kept myself awake by thinking of Mario. Then I told Lance about the sun; he then took my camera and vicariously took pictures of everything in sight. Josh took a picture of Lance's inner ear. We were deliriously exhausted.

Sevo told us we would be moving onto the next event, which was a surprise. We would be going on a photo scavenger hunt. I, in this delirious state (I know I'm overusing that word), was thinking that was the coolest thing I had ever heard. Josh told Sevo that we might be too tired, and Jordan arose for a moment to chime in with an equal remark. We did not get an afternoon nap. We did move from the Java house into a full fledged photo scavenger hunt of Nairobi. Our teams were made by who we sat with at lunch. I felt like once I would start moving I would be able to stay awake.

When we got outside it dawned on me how insane it was to be running around Nairobi taking pictures. I completely trusted our guides for Nairobi, but still it might have been the bravest thing I've ever done in my whole life. It was also, by far, the most time consuming photo scavenger hunt I've ever partaken.

There was no hiding that we were white or American, so we just embraced it. We ran through various parts of the city, from the parks to the railway station. For the most part, people would look at us as they passed us by and they didn't approach us. Generally, when we stopped was when we were approached. An old man came to Josh and asked for him to pray for his teeth and asked for money.
When we were at the library, a Muslim woman immediately covered up her baby and quickly left the area. About 10% of the population of Kenya practices Islam. Most of the Muslims live in the Southeastern part of the country. The percentage of Christians widely vary in the country from source to source. While we were there most people said about 75-80% claim they are Christian, but you'll find that has little relevance to reality. The Bible was often incorporated into a child's schooling: which in America is often being pulled out or even Christmas trees are banned from schools. Seriously, Christmas trees? Oh no! Don't let the Christmas trees convert your children! Avert your eyes!

On many of the billboards and advertisements were scriptures or other inspiring messages. During our tour, we learned about Kenya's capital. We walked by the U.S. Embassy that was attacked in 1998 where hundreds of people were killed. It was solemn to walk by this location and to hear from the Kenyans how they never thought anything like that would ever happen in their country. In 1998, car bombs simultaneously went off in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attack was done by the Al Qaeda terrorist network, which brought them, for the first time, to international attention. This was only 3 years before the attack on the twin towers. I have also been to the September 11th site as well as the Oklahoma City bombing site (not related to Al Qaeda), maybe God's trying to tell me something here. Immediately after this attack, Bin Laden was put on the top ten list for most wanted by the FBI. There were other attacks before the one that occurred in both Tanzania and Kenya. Although the attacks were directed towards US government facilities, most of the victims were Africans. What does this mean? That's something we should all ponder.

During my freshmen year of college, I had the privilege to meet Mercy. She was a foreign exchange student from Kenya who was in my non-fiction English class. In one of our class periods, I had the chance to read her paper on this particular bombing; I remember how painful it was for me to read about how she lost so many influential people in her life during this attack. She lost her mom, aunt, friends, and many she knew were severally injured.


It was nearly impossible for my mind to take in all that was happening. Before I knew it, two or three hours had passed in this massive photo scavenger hunt. Our team was not as fast as the other, and I don't know if we won because as soon as we got back to our new home for the week I fell asleep. I couldn't contain myself any longer. It was the deepest sleep I think I've had in years. I think someone eventually had to come get me because we were meeting the Journey campus ministry at six, and I was unusually late. I had attempted to use my cell phone as an alarm clock but that had failed so I realized at that point I wouldn't be able to use that while I was in Kenya.


But regardless of that situation, that night, is apart of my fondest memories of Africa. I was at first, beyond groggy.


When we entered the room, we were mixed into a giant circle-- both the Journey and Chi Alpha (we call our group Campus Life at Missouri State University). I sat by Francisco. As a group, we had to play a strange thinking game that involved rhythm. The goal of the game was to mess up the king who calls the first number, everyone is assigned a number. Each time someone messed up-- when they failed to call a new number on rhythm-- they had to move to the very end and take the highest number. The lower the number, the closer you were to being the king. We played for a long time, but the king, which I believe was Gibson who helped us with the photo scavenger hunt, was awesome at staying on top of things and calling out new numbers. The last round we all called on him so it would have been like "King to 1" and then "1" would say "1 to King" then he would say "King to 6" and "6" would say "6 to King." This is all done fast so that can make it hard. For whatever reason, the first time my number was called the king failed. Everyone went into an uproar and before I knew it several people had picked me up and were carrying me and were shouting that I was the new king. They set me in the king's chair and I sat there completely overwhelmed. I've never seen such outgoing behavior in my life, and I've worked with Disney. I was extremely touched. After playing games we broke into small groups.

I was in a group with Justin, from our Chi Alpha, and Alex, Andrew, Florence, and a guy named, if I remember right, Steve. Alex, Andrew, and Florence helped us throughout the entire trip so it it is easier for me to remember their names. Alex took it upon himself to share first, and what I remember most was the refreshing smile he had. Andrew, told us about how God protected him during the civil disputes from the past election. I honestly could not believe what I heard.

We were given Kenyan tea, which might be the best tea on the entire planet, and then things came to a close. The last person in our circle, Steve, barely had the chance to share. As we were leaving several people came up to me and commented on how I was king. Many said "goodbye my king"-- I think I understand Kenyan sense of humor better than American. Then I had the chance to talk with Andrew a little bit and I encouraged him to join us at Mathare Valley. After the journey had left, we finally looked at our photo scavenger pictures and laughed over some of the more silly ones (okay, they're all silly). Then our whole group of fourteen crammed into Chrissy's room to eat dinner-- which was chicken. We then discussed all that we had yet experienced.

Mark 1: 16-18
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."At once they left their nets and followed him.