The Trip...Part 2

Well here I am finally back again to talk more about my amazing mission trip to Kenya. When I last blogged about it, I was still having trouble having normal sleep patterns, but I was actually getting a lot done between the hours of 4 or a.m. to 7 a.m. The problem was that I wasn't going to bed early, so then I would get tired and need a nap around 10 or 11.

So now I am finally back to my normal sleep pattern, but I'm not getting up as early, even though I really need to in order to finish everything that needs to be done. I think all of the parents out there understand what I'm talking about. 

I started working on this blog a few weeks ago and that was when my month of sickness began. It started with a cold, that turned into a sinus infection, that turned into a upper respiratory thing...on and on. Anyway, I am not trying to complain, but I don't know if you are like me and have problems using my brain for writing when my brain is all clogged up!! I am so happy that I am now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and am coming out of my fog. 

That being said, I am glad to finally have made the time to finish my post about Kenya. The funny thing is, the only way I made time for it is because all of my kids have a stomach bug today and my 2 year old literally napped for 4 hours. I guess I'm making lemonade out of lemons!!

Day 6

I believe I left off last time with what we did at the camp on Monday, so let's start with Tuesday. On Tuesday we were kind of in our pattern for camp, which was we would get there and chat with the kids for about 30 minutes, and then we would go to a short worship time. After worship, the groups would split up into small groups and Kim and I would go get ready for craft time. Then the entire group would be split into 2 so one group would do sports time while the other group would do craft time, and then they would switch. Then in the afternoon, we would have a second craft time.

Our first craft for Tuesday was making pillow covers for some small pillows we were giving them. They really seemed to love making stuff, so this was a fun craft although we did have to help out the younger kids a little more with this one. But I didn't mind that because it helped us to bond with them more. Here is a cute photo I took after the younger group of girls had finished their pillows. They enjoyed being silly and pretending to sleep on their pillows.

And this is my favorite photo of Petronila. She just had so much intensity and grace in her eyes.

The boys enjoyed making the pillows as well. Here is a photo of Michael and Vincent making pillows. 

We also brought T-shirts for all the kids to decorate as the second craft for that day. Some of them decorated their shirts with beads, others with buttons, and others just wanted to write their names and sayings on their shirts.  

Bev helps Diana decorate her shirt. 

Day 7

Wednesday was our last full day with the kids at the camp, but boy did we get a lot in. Our craft for the day was probably one of the most simple one we did, but I would say it was their favorite. We just brought several bags of beads and some materials so they could make bracelets and necklaces out of the beads. So we all sat around with them and we made necklaces together. It sounds simple enough, but that really was one of my favorite times because we were sitting there just enjoying time together and talking about other things with them while we strung beads on a peace of string. 

Some of the older girls show off their necklaces they made. 

 It was very interesting to us too that the boys enjoyed making the necklaces and bracelets just as much as the girls. One of the boys, Jeffter, even invented his own creation of bracelet that he showed all the other kids how to make. They were all so creative!

In the afternoon on that last day, we didn't have an afternoon craft because we split all the boys and girls into separate groups and did what we called a "summit." Basically, it was just a big group session where the students could write down questions for the leaders to answer without fear of being embarrassed because they didn't put their name on the questions. It was then that we realized these teenagers faced a lot of the same issues are American teenagers face. We had a lot of questions about dating, marriage and sex. But then some of the questions made us realize some of the differences they do have because of the culture and some of it because of their circumstances. One girl asked, "If another boy wants to make sex with you at your aunt's house, what should you do?" There were also questions about health and abuse in their homes. 

Because the girls were so open with the issues they were facing, it really was such a great session. We can only pray we had some positive influence on these tough decisions they face every day.

Needless to say, we needed to have a little silliness after that, so at the end of the day on Wednesday we had all the kids put on their shirts they had decorated, and our team all had our Mission T-shirts on, and we had our photo made together. It was a lot of people to get in one photo, but we had fun being silly together. 

Day 8

The next morning, we all woke up with a heavy feeling as we were eating breakfast together. We knew it was going to be difficult to say goodbye to these kids we had only known for five days. It really is difficult to explain, but these kids get in your heart in a way you just can't even imagine would be possible. But as we pulled up in the drive of the camp, my heart just felt so heavy as I knew we were only going to be there for a little more than an hour and then we would be gone. 

Here is one of my favorite photos I took that morning. 

And of course my creative one with Petronila and Max. 

They were standing around singing songs for a little while. 

Then we all went in to the room where we had been singing worship songs together and they performed a song for us they had just put together the night before. It was amazing to watch them sing and dance while one of them pounded out the drum, which was really just a bucket. 

After the big performance, it was time for us to get our last hugs in and say goodbye to our new friends. As we pulled out of the drive, tears just rolled down my check not because I didn't think they would be okay, but because I knew I would miss their cheerful spirits and hearts that were just full of God despite their circumstances. I do worry about them and pray for them daily, but I really feel like most of these kids have angels just surrounding them. They were always encouraging each other or us with how much God is the light in their world. 

After we left the school where we had held the Vacation Bible School, we immediately headed out back to Kissumu to get on a plane and head back to Nairobi. From there, we spent the night at the same hotel again and the next morning we headed out to a small airport to start the part of our trip that was to kind of decompress from our emotional week and see God's nature in its finest--the Safari. So here is a photo of our group about to get on the smallest plane we would travel in to go to the Masai Mara reserve. The Masai Mara is the portion of the Serengeti ecosystem which lies to the north of the Kenya Tanzania border.

Since this is kind of a long post, I will leave it here for now. I will come back and write a separate post about my safari experience, because it was absolutely amazing!! But I definitely don't want to take anything away from the experience we had with the kids and that they were the most important and best part of the trip. 

If you made it all the way through both of these posts, thanks so much for your patience and interest. I also want to thank anyone who prayed for us or donated money to our mission trip. It was definitely something that will forever change who I am and how I look at things. And I hope we were able to love on those kids enough to give them more hope that the God of love reached out to them through a small group of Americans. 

There is one more amazing thing I wanted to tell everyone about that is just proof that God does answer crazy prayers like the sun stopping in the sky. When we left my sister and I still had more money to raise for the trip. She still owed about half of her trip, and I had only about $900 to raise. We were prepared to start making payments to our church when we got an email that a member of our church had requested to help financially support people who might still owe money on a mission trip. When our missions pastor told this person there were still a few people who owed money on the Kenya trip, he wrote a check for the entire balance and paid off the rest of the trip for everyone!! Isn't God amazing?? For me, it was just God saying, "I told you to trust me and that I would take care of things!" Why is it so difficult to truly trust Him sometimes with these big things? 

"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you." - Matthew 6:33