"Gus Time" does not equal "Bus Time"

Friday was the beginning of an adventurous weekend. We managed to arrive at the church where the Namanga mission team was meeting promptly at 8:30 am. We had been told that everyone should arrive at 8:30, the bus would arrive at 9, and we would leave at exactly 9:30. “If you’re not on the bus by 9:31 you can start walking to Namanga and meet us there.” Thus, we were early. The bus didn’t arrive until 11. We have decided that there are several variations of timeliness in Kenya. There is Kenya time (approximately 15 minutes late), Gus time, and then there is bus time (approximately 1-6 hours late). Needless to say we were running late at this point. So we loaded the bus and were ready to set off…except the bus was making this funny wheezing sound. The sound prompted Robin to turn to Bailey and say, “What are the chances the bus breaks down on the way to Namanga?” Turns out the answer was 100%. The bus broke down approximately 10 minutes later in the middle of downtown Nairobi. So we lurched into a place to park the bus and waited. Another bus arrived around an hour later so we loaded that bus and were ready to set off until the leader of our group told us that we wouldn’t be taking that bus and to unload again. So we did. We then waited another two hours until around 3:15. Around that time we were all super hungry so with the help of Beth, our guide, we ventured into the city to find food. We had just arrived at a restaurant when our phone rang saying everyone was loaded on the bus and waiting for us. So we quickly grabbed our chicken and fries and ran back to the bus. It was so much fun being the only five people with food on a bus full of hungry people. Don’t worry moms, we shared.

Finally, around 4pm we left Nairobi (six and half hours late). After a grueling three and a half hour bus ride we arrived in Namanga to find that our large bus was not meant to fit through the small gate of the church compound. Evie almost lost her head to a large sharp bar threatening to bust through her window. After around 20 minutes of maneuvering we finally pulled through the gate, parked, and got off the bus. Once off the bus we gathered around a campfire to have butter and jam sandwiches, chai, and a wonderful foot washing. The purpose of our being in Namanga was to teach the Christians and the pastors of the area how to best minister to the Muslim population. We had our first teaching session that evening around 9pm, ate dinner around 10:30 and finally fell into our beds (one inch foam mattresses on concrete floors) around midnight. --I should clarify that the girls had the one-inch foam mattresses while the boys managed to commandeer some nicer 4 inch foam mattresses. Don’t worry though…they paid for them when they woke up with around 150 bed bug bites. We considered that they may have gotten small pox but the symptoms don’t match WebMD-- We all slept like rocks despite the not so cushy mattresses.

5:40am came very quickly on Saturday morning. We all got out of bed before six, the boys at 5:15, and were in our not so glorious “Morning glory” church service by 6am. Breakfast was at 7 and the first session was at 8. The morning dragged on as we were all ready to fall asleep sitting up and the vast majority of the speaking was in Swahili. By midmorning tea we were all struggling. Most of us were dehydrated because we were trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the grossest squatty potties we’ve seen in Kenya. It is never good news when 50 people are trying to use the same two “toilets” for an entire weekend. Most of Saturday is a blur. Robin and Jacob got sick. The afternoon was spent napping or resting despite the sessions that were supposed to take place. Evie and Zach went on a prayer walk into town and across the border to Tanzania. By the time Saturday night rolled around we were all ready to pass out. Unfortunately for Jacob and Zach, the Kenyans on our team wanted to watch the Ghana v. USA game in the sanctuary where the guys slept. They kept Jacob (who wasn’t feeling well) up through the entire game. Zach gave them a nice 20 minutes of gloat time, at which point it was 12:30am, before he sat up in his bed and exclaimed, “You do realize we have to be up in less than 5 hours!” After a few blank stares he exclaimed again, “FIVE hours! GO TO BED!”

On Sunday morning bustle began at 4:40am when a man named Charles had the brilliant idea to flick on the lights in the boys’ room and announce that it was 6am. We think that his hope was that if we all thought we were running late we would get ready faster. Unfortunately, he failed to remember that Americans were in the room and that we always have clocks on us. Zach and Jacob both promptly sat up in their beds and informed him, rather forcefully, that it was NOT 6 in the morning but that it was 4:40 and that he should immediately turn the lights off, get back in his bed, and wake them in 40 minutes. After a little bit more sleep our team got up for morning glory. We don’t think anyone that morning was feeling very glorious except for Charles because what would’ve been a morning church service turned into a karaoke session starring Charles and a guy on the keyboard. After their jam session, we all ate breakfast and waited for the children to arrive around 8:30. Our sole purpose of the weekend was to be in charge of the children’s Sunday school from 8:30-10. Evie did an amazing job of telling the story of Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego. We have decided that she is the best Sunday school teacher ever. She even managed to get the kids to act out the story through a language barrier. Talk about impressive. After we wrapped up with our bible story we played games for the remainder of our time. At 10 the church service began. It was a little trying for us because all except for the sermon was spoken in Swahili. Zach says he had lots of fun time traveling…he would close his eyes and then open them and a new person would be talking or it would be 15 minutes later. He is now an expert time traveler though his learning was unintentional (keep in mind we were running on around 10 hours of sleep total for the entire weekend). Bailey simply fesses up to having slept a bit. The service was very lively and the singing and dancing was awesome! The service wrapped up around 1pm and we all gathered to have lunch before leaving Namanga. We set out from Namanga around 2pm. Robin caught a ride back in one of the small cars that drove separately while Evie, Bailey, Jacob and Zach rode the bus. We got back to Nairobi around 6:15 and enjoyed nice hot showers.

Over the weekend we learned to find laughs in little things. There was a chicken in Namanga who Zach and Bailey affectionately named RoboChicken because he walked really funny. RoboChicken was slightly pigeon toed; lacked feathers on the entirety of his neck and was clearly the outcast of the other chickens. He was a good source of entertainment for our team until we ate him on the last night. While a lot of what is written probably makes it sound like we had a terrible time, it is quite the opposite. There were 5 other mazungus (white people) there and they were an amazing inspiration. Thomas and Dorothy Renner are a missionary married couple who have been in the field for 11 years! They are the chaplains at Kijabe Hospital and were great to talk to about what being a long term missionary looks like. There was another woman there from Kijabe hospital named Stacy. She gave us a different perspective because she has been in the field for 3 years with her husband who is a surgeon at Kijabe hospital. She has her entire family here and we enjoyed talking to her about the American to Kenyan missionary perspective. She was a great encouragement to us and will hopefully be in Louisville in the fall for the Global Missions Health Conference with her family. The other two missionaries were Cara and Daniel. They have both been in the field for 2 years but Daniel (while German) was raised as a missionary’s child in Kenya. His total time here is 15 years! They are both doing work with Somalis. Cara is originally from Texas, thus she understands our American cravings and told us we could get brownies at the yaya shopping center (we had some last night after dinner). Daniel and Cara met here around a year ago and were married two months ago. They live in Nairobi so now we have friends who we can have over for dinner! You see this weekend was successful in an entirely different way than we expected! In Kenya you learn to take the hardships with the laughs and the good with the bad. Pretty typically we find that the good far outweighs the bad.

We love and miss you all!

The Mi2 Kenya Team

Robin

Thika and our first trip to Mathare

Well, last week in Thika turned out to be an awesome week. Thursday we went to a church—which serves as a nursery school during the day—and we met up with the pastor. From there we went with him and the local Community Health Evangelist (CHE) to do two home visits. The first family we met was a lady and her husband who have five children of their own, and have also taken in two orphans. It is amazing to see the compassion from people who have just enough to provide for their own family yet also seek ways to help others. The next home that we visited was of a widow named Mary. Mary just lost her husband one month ago and was still having to find ways to provide for her two children. It was truly amazing to see that she was completely trusting in God through these difficult times.

After our home visits we became tourists for the afternoon. We took “boda boda’s” from the church to a local waterfall. We were quickly greeted at 14 Falls by a group of local men who were following us and trying to get us to let them take us on a tour. They finally figured out that Zach is the adventurous one and they were trying to get him to go cliff diving with them. Thanks to mom, Evie, there was no way Zach was going cliff diving at 14 Falls. After our time at the falls we settled in for the evening at our Catholic guesthouse.

Friday was the last day of our time in Thika, so we packed the LIA van and headed towards a local economic empowerment group. This particular group that we visited was a group of women who gather once a week and they each put in 25 Kenyan Shillings, which acts as a way for each of them to save money. Many of these women are saving this money to start up small businesses in their community and some save their money for their children’s school uniforms. For that particular meeting they had planned a home visit for a member in their group whose husband died a week prior. We got to spend some time with this widow in whom we were able to encourage and pray for about her current trials. After a brief visit with another economic empowerment group in Thika we headed back towards Nairobi.

This past weekend was a time of rest. Saturday we did some grocery shopping, watched The Truth Project, and relaxed. Sunday we went to church with Gus and Rose and did some more relaxing. This past weekend was very non-productive but it was a much-needed time of rest.

On Monday we joined the LIA-Kenya staff for a day of prayer. Each week we start the week in prayer and truly search for God’s guidance on the various programs that LIA is doing in the communities. It is also a time in which we seek the Lord’s guidance in each one of our lives. Starting this way truly makes the week better and provides clear direction for the goals of the coming days.

Today, we had our first visit to the Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi. Mathare is the smaller of the two slums in Nairobi but is still the home to approximately 800,000 Kenyans. We had the opportunity to go to visit one of the local churches, which also serves as a school during the week. We played with the children and got to be a part of their feeding program. Each one of us took a separate class and got to serve food to the children. It is amazing to see the work that the church is doing for this community. This particular church was a church that LIA partnered for several years. Last year LIA was able to withdraw themselves, as an organization, from this church and the church continued to provide wholistic ministry to their community in Mathare Valley. The children at this school were so wild. I don’t think there was a single minute that we were there that any of the five of us did not have at least two kids hanging onto us. It was such a great opportunity to be able to interact and show God’s love to these children. The second half of the day was spent at another school in Mathare Valley slum. This school recently had many people in the community donate supplies for them to build a new schoolhouse, and today was their first day in the new building. We each took a different level class and helped teach the children. Evie and I took the nursery/baby classes together and worked with them on the alphabet and numbers. I had an amazing time today working with the children in Mathare Valley.

Tonight we had most of the LIA-Kenya staff that is based here in Nairobi over for dinner. We decided to make them a good American meal and made two huge pots of chili. Although it was a little spicy, everything turned out well. The time of fellowship was great and we really had some time to get to know each other. I am looking forward to spending more time with all of them.

Well, it is officially midnight here and the kids wore me out today so I am headed to bed. Hope all is well for everyone and we thank you for all your continued prayer and support.

Love you all!

Mi2 Team

Jacob

Who knew Germany was so close to Kenya?

We departed on Monday morning for our 5 day trip to Thika. Monday is always a prayer and fast day so we were engaging in prayer and fasting as usual. As my parents and close friends know, my stomach has never been the strongest, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I wasn’t feeling well in the van on the way out. We got to Thika around noon and joined the pastor’s fellowship of eight local pastors. Their discussion that morning was about revelation and discerning what would happen in the end times. While some of our views differed from the pastors, but it was an awesome discussion because they were seeking different opinions. It was a very interesting conversation. After the discussion wrapped up around one, we met and played with the kids in the church nursery school. We all had fun chasing and picking up and tickling the kids. I managed to find the quietest two girls at the school though and spent time with them. I picked up one of them, Winifred, and just held her on my hip. She was so precious. She leaned her head forward and touched her forehead and nose to mine and just smiled. It wasn’t until after I put her down that I realized my shirt was damp with urine. It was totally worth it though. Around three we returned to the Catholic guest house we’re staying in. We found it rather funny that the building we are staying in is called Germany. The building directly next to us is Austria and Kenya is two buildings over. (Real porcelain toilets, although seatless, and actual showers were amenities that we have greatly enjoyed!) We broke our fast around 4pm with hot cocoa and muffins. After hanging out for a while we walked with Keziah, our host, to her house a fair distance away to get her clothes for the week. On our walk we gathered quite the entourage of children walking home from school. Zach gathered a nice gaggle of girls and Evie had some of the other older girls teaching her Swahili. I decided it would be fun to play soccer with the younger boys while we were walking. The dirt road had ditches on the sides that went into tall grass so when one of the boys passed me the ball that was a little ahead of me I ran to keep it from going off the road and ended up full blown wiping out. I’m pretty sure the kids thought that I was seriously injured. It hurt pretty bad but with the help of my team, we laughed it off pretty well. After gathering her clothes we took a matatu back to our guest house, ate dinner, which was delicious, and retired to our rooms. I know we all enjoyed our warm showers to wash off the dust we were caked in.
Yesterday, Tuesday, we woke up and ate breakfast which was also awesome. Yum pancakes. Then we took a matatu to a church a little ways off and played with a nursery school of children ages 3-6. We taught them several songs as well as how to play duck duck goose and red light green light (which turned into a game of go stop go stop go stop go). After playing with those kids for around two hours we walked to another local church and started playing with the kids there. We were doing the exact same round of songs and games when the kids from the other church showed up….they followed us. So we still followed through with the same songs and games but just had double the kids. We left the church around 1:15 and got back to the guest house just in time for all of us to take a midafternoon nap. My nap lasted three hours while everyone else’s lasted around one and then they played Frisbee ( we have yet to find anyone here who knows what a Frisbee is or how to throw it…Bailey included). I woke up just in time to get dinner and play a few rounds of nerts. We all went back to our rooms at a relatively early time but I stayed up reading until after midnight. The plot thickens. Once I put down my book (aka Evie’s Kindle) I was still unable to fall asleep until around 2:30am.
After a night of very restless sleep I woke up at 7am and immediately bolted to the bathroom. Round two of travelers bug. After puking and emptying my entire system of anything that it may contain I went back to bed in hopes of sleeping off the illness. Evie, Jacob and Keziah then came into my room and informed me that Gus and Dr. Emily wanted me to go get checked out at a hospital. So I dragged myself out of bed and off we went. Mt. Sinai hospital is not like the hospitals in the US. After a short wait we went in to have a consultation with the doctor who ordered lab work. I should mention that Evie is actively filling the role of my mother and was so helpful at the hospital. We went into the lab room and the nurse tied a latex glove around my arm to serve as a tourniquet. Sketchy. For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve never been able to give blood because my veins are smaller than most needles. So when they said they needed to draw blood I knew we would have problems. The nurse stuck me in my left arm and I kept my eyes closed hoping she would finish quickly. Unfortunately after about 15 seconds I opened my eyes and looked down to see her wiggling the needle around IN my arm. Just to make sure she hadn’t hit a vein she unsuccessfully tried to suck blood out of my arm. OUCH. I may have been a bit rude in telling her to take out the needle and in making Evie go get Jacob. Fortunately, Jacob is very good at his paramedic job, and stuck me in my wrist and drew blood on his first try. I’m very grateful he drew it from my wrist and not my neck…as he joked…semiseriously. We then waited for my lab work to come back. No worries I don’t have typhoid, probably just a bug. They gave me some medicine (also sketchy…dispensed in a brown bag with directions hand written on the bag). We returned to the guest house in time to eat a little bit of lunch and for me to go back to bed for another four or five hours. I unfortunately ruined all the plans for today with my hospital trip. We were supposed to go see a local waterfall, Fourteen Falls, but we’re going tomorrow instead. While my day was mostly sleep, puke, hospital, sleep, eat, sleep a few other team members had a relatively successful day. Zach managed to clean all 52 of his playing cards…individually. Bailey practiced her Frisbee throwing. Jacob got to stick me and Evie was just an all star mom. I’m proud to report that our team is closer than ever. We all enjoy lots of laughs with the help of cheesy soap operas and Zach’s jokes. He loves to quote the soap opera “Love Spell.” His all time favorite quote is: “Did you come here to get badly beaten up?” Response “No I didn’t come here for a fight.” While we enjoy making fun of these soaps we do not request to watch them…they are on every where including the dining room and the hospital. Hopefully I’ll feel a little better tomorrow and we’ll get to do a little bit more than we did today.

Lots of love.
The Mi2 team
Robin

The Week of Firsts…

Hello to all of you

This week has been a week of firsts for us…

The first time we:

- went to the Nairobi Java House

- went by ourselves grocery shopping

- joined LIA for Monday prayers

- learned in detail about the many programs LIA has

- made chili (with LOTS of chili powder – HOT!)

- had a blackout

- ate raw cake batter (out of the same bowl but with separate spoons)

- met the Post Team from Southeast Christian

- learned how to play the card game nerts (will be played a lot…)

- Zach and Robin learned how to appropriately to shuffle cards

- left Zach alone in the apartment with music and a computer… (check out facebook to see the results)

- went to Junction Mall (saw a movie and had yummy candy)

We are all doing well and are ready for the rain to be over – its been raining a lot!

We leave for Thika on Monday for a week. We are excited to join in with the work that God is doing there and can’t wait to see what God will be showing us.

Have a wonderful Sunday…

Evie

Maasai Land

Jambo! We hope that each and every one of you are doing well.

Grab a cup of coffee and get into a comfy chair, because this is going to be another long post…

We left on Sunday for Kajiado. We drove for about two hours and then stopped at a children’s’ home where we were able to join in a meal and play some with the children. Once we left, we headed down a long dirt road. We were amazed that the van we have been traveling in was able to make the hour long trek… After seeing zebras, wildebeests and Thompson gazelles, we arrived at our final destination, Pastor Josiah’s house. The boys were shown to the tent that they would be sharing for the week, while the girls saw the room that they would share. Pastor Josiah is a Maasai and so we were staying at a real Maasai’s home!

On Monday we visited the local primary school. We were able to interact with two classes, and even try our hands at teaching. The children’s English was masterful compared to our Swahili, but communicating math principles was a challenge nonetheless. They laughed at our attempts to pronounce some of their names, which was ok because we did too. Perhaps the best part of visiting was recess. We all went outside and weren’t exactly sure what to do when the school master waved as he drove off on his motorbike. A quick ratio for you… 80 elementary students to 5 college students. No worries though, because with soccer, Frisbee (a real novelty), and duck-duck-goose, everyone had a great time. The children were so full of joy, all the Mi2s left the school treasuring every minute of the experience.

Tuesday provided a huge lesson in Maasai culture for us all. We visited some of Pastor Josiah’s family members. They welcomed us into a Maasai hut—a small but extremely practical residence built entirely by hand. After some tea (because it is unthinkable to go more than five hours in Kenya without Chai) the elders taught us how to throw Maasai spears. Some of us were better than others (kudos to Zach and Robin for their natural talent) but we all had a great time trying. In addition, our spear-throwing failures greatly entertained the elders who offered suggestions between fits of laughter—hey, we do what we can. The day ended with some unique goat encounters, but I will let everyone give their own accounts about those experiences.

On Wednesday we tried our hands at manual labor. The community is building a cistern that can hold 150,000 L of water. They are doing it all by hand and we were all amazed at their work ethic. We did our best to jump in where needed, so the guys pushed wheelbarrows of rocks, Evie broke rocks with a mallet (talk about muscles) and Robin and Bailey helped sort rocks out of the quarry. More than anything, I think we were all humbled by the daily effort of the community members. They worked so hard and without complaint, setting an awesome example we could all learn from.

Thursday was our last full day in Maasai land. Robin, Evie, Zach, and Jacob walked to the local church and painted the inside (Bailey was sick). Wasps’ nests proved not to be an obstacle…until later in the day when the wasps returned and were slightly irritated that their homes were gone. Anyway, all five Mi2s returned to finish the second coat after lunch and caught the tail-end of a goat birthing. Some of us were glad to witness the miracle of life; others of us were just grossed-out.

Here are some individual reflections on our week in Maasai country:

Evie: This week was a wonderful week for me. I finally feel like I am in Africa… I think seeing zebras and giraffes on the sides of the road helped… I felt truly blessed to be allowed to see into the Maasai culture – and to see Maasai who have become believers was really amazing. The people whom I encountered had such a joy about them and truly wanted us to understand about their culture… The warriors even allowed us girls to throw a true Maasai spear, which is traditionally thrown only by men! It took me a few tries, but I somewhat got the hang of it.

I enjoyed trying to teach long division to the children at the school in class 4 (like our grade 4). It was a little challenging as though they use the same English numbers we do, they say the numbers with a different accent - that made it a little harder, but I know that I had fun…

I was really challenged on Wednesday as we helped in the water cistern construction. Those women and men were such hard workers – and most had big smiles on their faces as they worked. They knew that the hard work now would pay off during the dry season when they would have no water if these cisterns were not built. What an example to me about being joyful and being prepared… On a side note – The woman I helped crush rocks had a little girl who was about a year and a half. When the little girl saw me, she broke down into tears and was scared of me– she thought I had been skinned!

Jacob: This past week was an awesome week for me. I must admit that when Sunday rolled around and we were on our way to Kajiado I was initially skeptical but was looking forward to what God was going to do in the coming week. When we were at the children’s home in Kajiado they made us feel so welcome. Zach and I got to play “football,” aka soccer with some of the boys which was a blast! After an adventurous van ride we finally arrived at Pastor Josiah’s home. We were introduced to some of Pastor Josiah’s family and were led on a little tour around the property. Kokan, Pastor Josiah’s son, took us up to the local church where we sang a song. For some reason I had this sense of peace just sitting there in the church, singing and praying. It was definitely my favorite place in Maasai land.

Monday I got the opportunity to teach addition and subtraction to a group of fifteen 1^st graders. I am not one to just get up and start teaching but it was such a privilege to be able to participate in teaching these children. I don’t have much more to add to the list of things we got to do this week besides the fact that I drank goats blood. It was not a part of any ritual or ceremony just simply something that the Maasai warriors do, so Zach and I decided to join in the fun. An interesting, once in a lifetime experience!

One of the things that hit me this week was how much worldly things can distract you from truly listening to God. Being in Maasai land where there was no internet, facebook, iPhone, etc really allowed me to listen to God and not get distracted with these other things. That is all from me for now but cannot wait to share more experiences as the summer continues.

Robin: I thoroughly enjoyed this week! The children never cease to amaze me in Kenya. They love to touch our skin and our hair. We are entertainment simply by standing still because they just like to rub our arms J I don’t have much to add as far as content of the week. I am with Jacob in that the church was easily my favorite place in Maasai land. There really is just an indescribable peace in that structure. I think I enjoyed relationship building the most this week though. Pastor Josiah has five children one of whom is an 18 year old girl named Zawadi. She just graduated from their version of high school, and was staying at home so she did a lot of the cooking and cleaning for us. I took an immediate liking to Zawadi and over the week was able to become close friends with her. She reminded me so much of my sister Anna and it was great to just talk to her. It was also awesome to watch Pastor Josiah and his wife, Sarah, interact. They’re so funny and clearly have a great marriage. If nothing else this week gave me great insight into how awesome relationship building can be.

Another revelation of mine this week was that I am the wimp of this group. While I may be able to throw a mean Maasai spear, I lack the stomach to watch multiple goat castrations, a goat slaughtering…and you couldn’t get me within a hundred feed of the goat blood the boys drank. NO THANKS. We also got our first taste of public transport in Kenya, which was a cultural experience in itself. Lets just say the roads in America are safer without the Mutatus that blaze the streets here. While we all had a blast in Maasai land I think all of us, or at least I am, are glad to be back in Nairobi for an extended period of time. We’re learning how to cook without some of the “American essentials” like cooking spray. I love you all and can’t wait to hear from you! Love always!

Zach: Well, as you might have already guessed this week was a very interesting and new week, full of many different experiences and fun things to “try.” The warm and friendly welcome that we received from Pastor Josiah and his family was so much more then I expected coming into this week. We felt as thought we were family before the end of our first day. As you have already read, we were on a farm out in the middle of Maasai land, which made our stay feel like more of a camping trip then a visit to a city. One of my absolute favorite things about being more then three hours outside of the touch of the city lights was seeing the millions of stars; I’ve never seen more stars in my entire life! It was such a humbling thing to look up and see the millions lights shimmering in the sky and think about how there is a God who has such a great love for me as a small little human on a planet called Earth!.

Any-hoo enough about the sappy stuff, this week, I experienced and heard about all the things that make the Maasai…well the Maasai! On a visit to one of Pastor Josiah’s brothers’ village, we learned how to throw spears. Another day we shot a Bow with Poison tipped arrows and then of course had many different experiences with the goats, everything from castration to watching birth (eww). The main event came with the slaughtering of a goat. Jacob and I took part in the drinking of the blood along with the others who were present (I did not drink this to partake in any rituals, but merely to take part in a probably once in a lifetime event, get some pictures and a story. And thanks to Robin I am now aware of the verses that speak against it lol).

Another thing that was really awesome to see was the water purification system that the Maasai are building. The system consists of a dam that the Mi2 2009 team helped to build last summer, which pipes that bring filtered water into a large 250,000-liter cistern and will eventually fill a second and third tank that we were helping to make. We helped to break rocks and carry them to piles that will be used for the construction of the second cistern. The thing that floored me was the quality and efficiency that these items have been and are being built with, as well as the dedication to the project that everyone had. Everyone in the surrounding areas were out helping to build these tanks. The dedication to everyone in the community is touching and truly amazing to see. There were many other events and fun things that happened this past week but these were some of the ones that stuck out to me that I thought I’d share with everyone.

Bailey: Each day in Maasai land was so different, and yet they all were so simple and peaceful. I felt I received some awesome lessons in culture and hospitality from the Maasai people. I loved the time we spent with the local kids—I don’t think I have ever had so many little hands playing with my hair at once. Additionally, I got to try things I never would have attempted elsewhere, such as throwing the spear, shooting a bow and arrow, and crushing rocks. I surely was not good at any of the previously mentioned activities, but I was also surprised at how fun failure can be. More than anything, I believe this week proved to me how important relationships are. The Maasai are wonderful teachers of how to build relationships with anybody, even five American strangers.

After such an awesome week, we were all incredibly thankful to have experienced the Maasai people and their way of life. Pastor Josiah and his wife Sara were wonderful hosts, and we cannot thank them enough for being so welcoming. We were all amazed at the beautiful landscape, but more so with the hearts of the local people. They showed us what a true community looks like, and they also made sure to teach us about their awesome culture. We consider ourselves so blessed. We hope everyone at home is doing well and we appreciate all your prayers!