"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