May in Kenya

It's time we give a bit of an update and some pictures. May was a full, stressful, and fun month all in one. One of our key staff lost his wife and we had to fill in a lot of hours while he dealt with funeral arrangements. We hired 2 new staff, renovated a new room, and began training staff to work in management roles. We hosted EMM's "first ever" World Mission Institute at MGH, with over 30 participants from 8 countries. (We attended a similar event as part of our orientation last year.) And, to top it all off we took in a 6-day whirlwind tour of Kenya, seeing new places and meeting churches.
But first, just a couple of pictures of the home front. This is Priska on top of the Trooper picking mapera (guavas) to distribute at church. The seemingly hundreds of children who attend devour them as fast as we can hand them out.
And you see her in her Sunday school class--she is the one with the pasty white skin like us. The first few Sundays she was quite skittish, but is learning to sit down for a minute or so at a time and respond a bit to Swahili. She loves playing "chase games" with the children.

Heading out of Nairobi, we climbed to the top of the escarpment for the best view in the country--overlooking the Great Rift Valley into which we then descend. In this shot you can see Mount Longonot, an inactive volcano which rises from the floor of the valley to around 11,000 feet.
Somehow I assumed that Rift Valley region would be a stinking hot desert region. In fact much of it is high altitude, with cool weather and vast fields of wheat and corn, (lower altitudes) forests, (more remote regions) and tea fields (above 7000 feet).

We spent the night in a guest house in Eldoret, then headed over to visit an orphanage with both DOVE and EMM connections. On our way out, we visited the church where 35 people, mostly women and children, were burned alive during the skirmishes. It was a disturbing and emotionally exhausting visit, but we were fortunate to have the events narrated by a couple of the IDP's returning that day to the land they had been chased from.

We were able to visit a couple of IDP (internally displaced persons) camps, both near Eldoret and close to Kisumu where the local Mennonite churches have been providing some assistance in partnership with EMM. As usual, our children were instant celebrities, although they have no idea why. Priska just thinks everyone is super friendly. We heard a lot of sad stories at the camp--it seems that nearly every tribal group has a few people willing to do terrible things to people of other groups.

We then spent 3 days visiting with Mennonite churches close to Kisumu. We stayed at the homestead of one of the bishops, deep in beautiful, rural sugar cane country. The churches there are quite poor but industrious and capable. They are doing astounding work with IDP's, AIDS, orphans, and church planting. Their hospitality was also amazing--we felt bad for all the animals that had to die because of our visit!

The guy talking to Priska is an AIDS orphan who was caught in sudden melee while visiting his brother near Kisumu. (Nearly all of the casualties in this area--hundreds--were demonstrators/looters shot by police, mostly in the back as they were running away). A bullet struck him in the buttocks grazing the large intestine--you can imagine the unsavory complications. Clair and Beth were concerned he wouldn't make it without surgery (out of the question since it would cost around 1500 dollars.) So they found some money somewhere and we arranged for transport to a good hospital.

My story is getting quite long, but we spent another night in a guest house in tribal border town (read "burned out and kind of scary") where one of the groups from the World Mission Institute was doing their outreach. We then stopped by Olepolos, where Clair and Beth Good had worked, and finished up with a drive through Maasai land (much of which is now vast corn or wheat fields.)

Back in Nairobi, our guest house did great while we are gone--we are really making progress at reducing the amount of time we have to be present. This is freeing us up for a lot more Swahili and church work. We even took the weekend off--what a great feeling!

Time to go. We'll have more soon. Blessings to all.