It wasn't all hard work though, we got to go to an elephant orphanage, a giraffe feeding centre and even went on Safari. The Lord brought out all His splendor in creation as we saw over 30 giraffes, Eland, Ostrich and their many babies, Pumba(Warthog, my favorite), zebra, heartebeast, gizelle, crocks(a huge one,10 feet), and many more.
Robbie and Elizabeth live in the coolest place the backyard overlooks the National game park and every evening we saw and heard many animals, even Lions attacking a zebra. The whole house is surrounded by an electric fence and we had night security on the property again reminding us of our need for God's protection there.
We stayed in the Massai Lodge, which I thought was going to be a kip, but turned out to be amazing. Our bedroom overlooked Buffalo valley and we could see and hear a river below us. In the morning Baboons would come to eat whatever we had for them, and even the Warthog's would make an occasional appearance. We had good food there and the team really bonded with the staff. There was 24 hour security there and we felt so safe, being walked to our rooms each evening, and a guard was never far away even while relaxing. In the evenings Robbie would drive us back through part of the game park to our accomodation and some of us got to sit on the roof of the Jeep, this was such a cool experience and a little scary especially on the nights we saw a herd of Buffalo(most feared animal in Kenya) and upon arrival at the Lodge we heard a guard shout Simba(Lion) is around.
After the team went back both myself and Linda got to stay on in Kenya for an extra 5days and what an experience that was. We got to meet a kid that we sponser with Compassion child and that was both amazing and heart breaking as we got to see where he lived and heard what he had come from. Praise God that he provides for all our needs this kid was certainly in need and still is. We also go to go on the public mitatu's with Elizabeth to downtown Nairobi, now that was some experience, Linda almost got run over by a Mitatu as we tried to jump off the one we were in :) We also got to see the Rift valley and go to a tea plantation so that was all great. It was so hard to say goodbye when it came to tuesday morning. But we are so grateful for the time we had.
Anyway what an experience, God is utterly amazing, we had a brilliant time enjoying His creation, both People and Animals and we were all truly blessed by this incredible trip. Any takers for next year?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Kenya was Amazing.
What a time we had. The team bonded well for the most part and we all enjoyed each other and had to get used to all of our quirky ways. We often spent 5 hrs each day in a mitatu(glorified Hiace with seats) and the girls would serenade us with songs and Phil would keep us in hysterics with his take on daily life.
God really led us there to seek Him and often our plans would change to help the different needs we saw. Most of our time was spent out in the middle of no where past a town called Kiserian with the Massai ladies. It is amazing how dependent on prayer you have to become in Africa, whether it be your vehicle breaking down at night(not safe) or an attack of the enemy on the team, through sickness or attitude, pretty much everything can go wrong at any moment and it does wonders for your time with God.
While there we spent time building houses from scratch(including digging ten holes for foundations, 2 feet deep into hard African soil).
We also saw God provide water from the well, and witnessed the final work of construction on this which will see it produce 5000 litres per day which even Mozungu's(white people) can drink from.
Other days saw us build a much needed double toilet over a pit in the ground, complete with toilet roll holders and sit down seat for the visiting teams(very grateful, they will be :). We also put up stud partitions in houses to give parents and children alike some privacy and we put proper beds into these houses too. God even led us to put up a wire fence around the Massai property to protect the families there, it was so encouraging for Linda and I as we saw the land God purchased the last time we were there, complete with running water, houses, toilets and even a fence for protection.
The verses in James Ch1 were very much in my mind during our time there, which talk about true Religion. They say, true religion is this, to help widows and Orphans in their distress. God led us to do this as we helped 1 widow with 6 kids and other widows with 4 children, it was us who were truly blessed by this experience.
Other days saw us at an Orphanage where we held babies and saw some haunting sights. The orphanage has 350 children, 45 babies and some only 4 days old, abandoned by parents but not by God. There we met the lady who takes care of all these kids, her name is Faith and wow what a strong woman, she even made time to prepare us lunch.
We found a spyware problem on one of their computers and we were again reminded of the evil in the world as it appeared someone was looking through their files on these kids, Paddy got on the case and we are working out a solution to the problem.
God really led us there to seek Him and often our plans would change to help the different needs we saw. Most of our time was spent out in the middle of no where past a town called Kiserian with the Massai ladies. It is amazing how dependent on prayer you have to become in Africa, whether it be your vehicle breaking down at night(not safe) or an attack of the enemy on the team, through sickness or attitude, pretty much everything can go wrong at any moment and it does wonders for your time with God.
While there we spent time building houses from scratch(including digging ten holes for foundations, 2 feet deep into hard African soil).
We also saw God provide water from the well, and witnessed the final work of construction on this which will see it produce 5000 litres per day which even Mozungu's(white people) can drink from.
Other days saw us build a much needed double toilet over a pit in the ground, complete with toilet roll holders and sit down seat for the visiting teams(very grateful, they will be :). We also put up stud partitions in houses to give parents and children alike some privacy and we put proper beds into these houses too. God even led us to put up a wire fence around the Massai property to protect the families there, it was so encouraging for Linda and I as we saw the land God purchased the last time we were there, complete with running water, houses, toilets and even a fence for protection.
The verses in James Ch1 were very much in my mind during our time there, which talk about true Religion. They say, true religion is this, to help widows and Orphans in their distress. God led us to do this as we helped 1 widow with 6 kids and other widows with 4 children, it was us who were truly blessed by this experience.
Other days saw us at an Orphanage where we held babies and saw some haunting sights. The orphanage has 350 children, 45 babies and some only 4 days old, abandoned by parents but not by God. There we met the lady who takes care of all these kids, her name is Faith and wow what a strong woman, she even made time to prepare us lunch.
We found a spyware problem on one of their computers and we were again reminded of the evil in the world as it appeared someone was looking through their files on these kids, Paddy got on the case and we are working out a solution to the problem.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
We're back!!!
Ok just to say sorry as we had no internet for the whole time we were in Kenya and have just flown back from Nairobi tonight!!! So we're pretty tired but will update you asap. Need some sleep...........
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