Kenya hits the ground running!

Upon our arrival at pre-field orientation, we were surprised with an adventurous cultural experience to prepare us for our time in Kenya. During orientation we became unified as a team through the cultural-entry adventure, seminars, team-building activities, sharing our personal testimonies, and spending time socializing together.

We left orientation feeling prepared as possible to serve together in Kenya. Our travels to Kenya entailed an overnight flight from Miami to London.  We endured a 9-hour layover, during which we ate, slept and began to write lesson plans. Feeling sleep deprived, our next overnight flight from London to Nairobi departed at 9pm. After obtaining several hours of sleep on the plane, we arrived in Nairobi, Kenya! Thank the Lord, none of our bags were lost in the process!

We were greeted with a humorous introduction to our host missionary, Elijah Ombati, and one of the gentlemen with witch we will be working, named Isaac.   In trying hard to come up with words to describe Nairobi, we decided Nairobi is best described as “a beast.”  Chicago traffic and congestion does not compare.  After spending hours trying to get out of Nairobi, our fearless escorts, Elijah and Isaac brought us to Narok.  In total, it took us about 4 hours.  Highlights of the drive included seeing giraffes and baboons along the roadside- very fun! When we arrived in Narok, Elijah and his wife Ellen welcomed us with a traditional Kenyan meal of ugali, chapatti, a meat stew, cooked collard greens, cabbage, bananas, and pineapples.  During this welcoming celebration we meet many people from Nasha Ministries, including Anne, who will be our Kiswahili teacher for two weeks.  Everyone was very welcoming and they were a huge help in preparing our house the week prior to our arrival.

After dinner, we were given a tour of our house, which is a huge step above the mud hut we were expecting.  We have a huge kitchen, are sharing two bedrooms and even have two bathrooms!  We have now met many neighbors who also live on the Bible College’s grounds. It has brought us great joy to watch the neighbor’s cows and chickens run freely through our adventurous yard.    Wednesday was a day to catch up on our sleep.  We slept 16 glorious hours, and it felt so good!  Then, we got to take our first Kenyan shower, and we believe it was the most appreciated shower we’ve had in our lives.  We spent a little time getting acclimated to the house, then, we went to town.  As we walked through town, we heard many people excitedly exclaiming, “wazungu”, which means “white people.”  As we walked down the street, it felt as though we had stepped into a movie set of another world.

It was slightly overwhelming, but as we gain more experience we expect it to become more comfortable.  One really helpful surprise was the presence of numerous individuals speaking English as we passed through town.  The evening ended with sautéed eggplant, onion, peppers, and garlic over noodles.  We will be great cooks by the summer’s end.  We are looking forward to our language lessons and making friends with those working with Nasha.  Thank you for praying for us and supporting us on this journey.  We look forward to keeping you updated.