Hey everyone!
Thankfully I was able to get plenty of sleep on the flight from London to Kenya, which was a good thing as we went to church hours after arriving. Our flight landed in Nairobi minutes before six Sunday morning. I have never been so excited to reach a destination, I was finally in Africa! After approximately forty-five minutes of waiting in lines, filling out paperwork and collecting our luggage we finally made it through customs.
After customs we stepped out of the airport and I had my first true look at Africa, it was beautiful and not at all as I had expected! I don't know why, but I had this mental image of Africa as some picture out of the "Lion King," and while it is that way in some areas, it is not like that in the part of Kenya we spent most of our time. Nairobi is a beautiful mixture of tropical, hills and just a hint of midwest America!
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| Outside the airport. |
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| Some statues outside the airport |
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| Excited to finally be in Kenya!!! |
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| Dad excited to be here too! |
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After a short time we found our ride and loaded our luggage into the truck and then climbed into the twelve passenger van and began to make our way to the home where we would be staying. We were originally going to stay at a local hotel, but one of the guys on our team, Bryan, was friends with one of the CMF interns, Zach, so they arranged for us to stay at the guesthouse. Within minutes of leaving the airport I saw some giraffes off in a field off in the distance. It was unbelievable! The roads were really bumpy, but that just made it more fun in my opinion. When we started to enter the city, we began to see homes made of logs and corrugated tin. Pedestrians were everywhere, it takes a talented driver to weave in and out without hitting anyone. It was amazing though, it was gently raining and yet there were ladies walking to church in the mud in high heels! I was glued to the window trying to take everything in, this was my first view of Kenya and I did not want to miss a single moment.
The Kamau's (the missionary family) home was beautiful! I loved being able to stay there, it was such a nice relaxing setting for our team to be able to be in the evenings.
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| Our sitting area where we hung out and were able to have worship in the evenings. |
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| Behind the sitting area were these stairs leading up to the bedrooms. |
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| I shared this bedroom with Anita and Lynn. You can see our mosquito nets tied up above the beds, at night we would untie them and they covered the bed to protect us from the mosquitoes. None of us ever experienced any problem from the mosquitoes though, thankfully. |
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| My bed. :) |
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| The dining room where we had our meals. |
The staff had a wonderful breakfast awaiting us when we arrived, for which we were all so thankful. While I loved all of the food in Kenya (Lucy was a phenomenal cook) one of my favorite parts of breakfast was the fresh fruit, I have not had such wonderful pineapple in a long time.
After breakfast we all hurried to get ready for church. Within two hours of arriving we were all back in the van again, headed to Mathare for church. I don't know how to explain what I thought when I first saw Mathare. In many ways I wanted to cry over the poverty I saw, but I was also partially in a state of shock and was kind of numb from it. Swiftly though, I began to notice the children. They were smiling and waving to us, calling out greetings. It brought a smile to my face and I found myself waving back. As we stepped out of the van and walked into the church, children would come up and touch us or shyly wave from a distance.
Church was incredible. I cannot think of another word to describe it, I mean, how do you describe church in Africa? It is a wonderful, very humbling experience. It was not a grand, beautiful church like I am privileged to attend, it was just a simple frame of logs with corrugated tin nailed to it with a dirt floor. Yet, the people were some of the most joyful people I have ever met, praising and worshiping God with everything in them. I wish I had the words to describe it, but all I can say is, you must go for yourself and experience it, I promise you will never regret it!
After church we went to lunch at Java House, a restaurant that would become a favorite among our team while we were in Kenya.
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| Dad, Peter our driver and Steve at Java house |
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| L to R: Anita, Bryan and Jake |
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| L to R: Jake, Jim, Aubrey and Josh |
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| Me at Java house. |
After lunch we went back to the house. We spent the afternoon taking it easy trying to adjust to the time change. A few from our team were very tired and went ahead and took a nap, but most of us tried to stay awake. I spent a large part of the afternoon sketching out the church we had attended, I would share the sketch with you, but I still have not finished it yet.
I hope you have enjoyed this peek into my first day in Africa. Hopefully I will soon have part three in this series of posts up!
Blessings,
Michelle
