Kibera and Asbury and Birthdays... Oh My!

So when you think of what might be the best day of our summer you wouldn’t think trash pick up, but Tuesday is a contender for the best day of the summer. We woke up to a call from Robert at 7am informing us that we needed to make not 30 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but over 110! Unfortunately we didn’t have enough jam to do the job right away so we went back to sleep until the supplies arrived and then went to work! Over a hundred sandwiches later we were ready to go and were picked up by Jacob who took us to join the Asbury team in Kibera. (They had gone ahead of us because the sandwiches delayed us in the morning) None of us were all too excited to spend the day cleaning but we arrived in a cloud of dust, threw on our face masks and gloves and set to work. Turns out the clean up was phenomenal. Getting to work with the Asbury team and the people of Kibera was amazing. The people of Kibera thanked us profusely and some even joined us in our efforts. It felt like we were literally participating in a movement. Indescribable. After we had cleaned the length of a street and out of the slum we went to Pastor George’s church for our lunch where we ate in fellowship with all of the people who participated. Everyone loved our PB & Js!! After the cleanup we went back to the guesthouse where the Asbury team was staying and then set out for the Maasai market (a few people had forgotten to get a few necessary gifts). Everyone had great luck and came out with some awesome treasures. When we got back we had to have training for the health evangelism. After training, we had pizza for dinner since it was “Terrific Tuesday” (pizza was buy one get one free). The pizza was delicious and the night was relaxing.

Wednesday was my birthday!!! Yay finally 20! Before I start explaining the greatness of this day I must preface by saying that my teammates were very unkind leading up to my birthday. They had told me over and over again that because the day was so busy we would just have to celebrate the 8th so I was fully expecting to be totally disappointed in the day. I had even searched their closets for cake mix but didn’t find any. Anyways, I woke up Wednesday morning to the smell of cake! I came out and found that they had decorated the entire apartment with balloons and streamers. They had gotten up around 6 to make sure my cake was baked by 8. Evie even used some of her white icing to write my name in the chocolate icing. It was amazing. We got picked up from the apartment around 9 to go to the guesthouse and sort medicine with the Asbury team. Us Mi2s popped iron pills out of their wrappings and packaged them in groups of 30 for around 2 hours! It was fun though because we turned on music and had good conversation with the Asbury members. After lunch we went to Nakumat (the Kenyan Walmart). We were totally out of groceries and also had to get the supplies to make a very large amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (to be accurate, we made 116 sandwiches). Once back we made dinner and cupcakes to be shared with everyone and were taken to Biblica where we had a small birthday celebration. Overall it was quite a successful birthday.

Thursday and Friday were the medical clinic days. They were amazing! There were five stations set up: the waiting tent, the registration tent, the physician and clinician tent, the pharmacy tent, and there was a place for voluntary AIDS counseling and testing. The Asbury team dispersed themselves; some going to the registration while others went to the physician tent and the pharmacy tent. Evie and Bailey helped in the pharmacy tent and although it made for a long day of counting pills and dispensing liquids, it was very much enjoyed. Jacob was in charge of taking pictures with the LIA camera and buy the sheer volume of pictures he took one could tell he was having fun. Zach was playing with the children the whole day… He met two children in particular who were his shadows: Jackie and Michael. I helped out with the wormer station – each person was to get a dose of anti parasite medicine (unless the were pregnant or breastfeeding). The look on some of the children’s faces as they swallowed the liquid was priceless. The days were tiring, but they were fulfilling. It was neat to be able to help with the physical needs of people and then to see their spiritual needs taken care of as well. On Thursday the clinic saw 200ish people. On Friday the count was over 400 people!

Friday evening, we went to the Nairobi Java House for dinner with the Asbury team. They have really good food there, and this time we all tried the burritos – they were heaven in my mouth! After dinner, it was back to the guesthouse for a good nights sleep.

Saturday was our rest day. We decided to be adventurous and go downtown by ourselves and go to the Saturday maasai market. After a slight mishap that occurred while trying to get off the bus (don’t worry no one got lost or hurt…) we made our way there and cleaned the market out. We have all gotten pretty good at haggling and enjoyed our time. Saturday afternoon was spent listening to a sermon and preparing for our sermon that would be given Sunday morning at the teen service. That evening we said goodbye to the Asbury team as they headed out and were able to pray with them before their flight left…

Tomorrow we not only preach a group sermon but we also leave for Mombassa with Beth from LIA. It should be an adventurous week!

We love you all and hope that you all are having a wonderful day!

The Mi2 Team

-Robin