TEA!

Today we went to Kericho and visited several widows. Kericho is known for Tea fields. There are a ton of tea fields. We drove by and saw a ton of people in the fields picking the tea leaves. It is a very mountainous area. We visited three widows today. We talked to them and they told us their stories. They are very sad because Widows here are despised and disrespected. They kept telling us that once their husbands died, they were no longer respected. Their familes don't help anymore, and a few of them lost respect from their own children. They are having to provide for their families and now be the mom and dad for their family. Their houses are just shacks...mud shacks with a grass roof. The custom for them to do is when they have visitors they prepare something for the visitors...because if the visitors leave the house without anything then they feel bad. So...every house we went to they made us Chai (because we are in the land of tea) and Maize or rice and beans. I have never had soooo much tea or chai before in my life! I don't like tea at all...I don't like any kind of hot drink...so I didn't like this but I had to drink it or they would be offended. Every where we went they offered us Chai...oh man...so much chai. Ha and then we got to walk through the tea fields. We took pictures in the tea field. We did a childrens program too. The kdis are so funny here. I am exhausted. We are headed off to a small village now outside of kericho. We will not have electiricity for three days. So...please keep us in your prayers.

Kericho

Today we traveled to Kericho. It was about an 6 hour car ride....on Kenyan roads...which means it was filled with lots of pot holes and crazy drivers. We were able to see Zebras, Baboons, and Warthogs on the side of the road as we were driving. We pulled over to get close to the zebras and take pictures!!! I got like ten feet away from the zebra! it was awesome. It is a beautiful country. There are tons of hills, mountains, and valleys. We drove through the famous Rift Valley. When we arrived in Kericho we checked into our hotel, and then we drove to the church/school. We were given a tour of the school. It was soo funny when we first arrived in Kericho because all of the children and others kept staring at us because we were white and stuck out like a sore thumb. White people are known as Mzungus. We had several groups of little girls that would just stand there for like fifteen minutes just staring at us....they acted like they have never seen white people before, ha. I guess they don't see white people that often becuase it is further outside of Nairobi. When we got to the school a group of the students were practicing a song and dance. It was a traditional song and dance and they wore their traditional african costumes as well. It was really cool to watch them. We hope to get video of it later on this week. The kids here at the school were funny. Betsye and I were walking down the side of the building to the church and we turned around and had like ten kids following behind us...ha it was so funny and again they all just say "How are you?" because its all the english they have been taught when greeting someone. It stormed while we were at the school...it rained really hard and they said that was unusual for this area at this time of year because the rainy season is over. Tomorrow we are doing a program with the kids at the school and in the morning we are making some more home visits to widows.

Cheryl's Childrens Home

yesterday Betsye and I went with a small group that meets once a week at the church here....and every month they do an "outreach". This month they have chosen to go to an orphanage called Cheryl's Childrens home. There are about 65 children living in this orphanage, and it is run down, but at least the children have somewhere to call home and it is better than living in the slum. Some of them are complete orphans and some of them are not. Some of them have been taken away from mentally, sexually, emotionally, and physically abusive homes. We just hung otu with the kids for a few hours and helped do some chores around the home that needed to be done. It was fun! The kids were awesome and sang us some songs to welcome us there. Right now I am off to church! Tomorrow we leave for a village. We will be gone for a week...so I will try my best to write on here while we are at the village.

Feel free to leave comments, thoughts, prayers, or words of encouragement! Thanks! Also, if you have any questions...please ask them! I would be more than happy to answer them or find an answer for you.

Wiodows...cont.

I have posted a picture of Miriam, one of the widows, and betsye and I. I told you I would tell you about the other widow. I can not remember her name very well. I know it started with a P. She was an older woman probably in her 60's or late 50's. She has been a widow for almost 30 years. She has around 7 children but 5 of them have died. She has three grandchildren living with her. Two of the children's father died and their mother ran off...the other grand child lost both parents. We asked this Widow why she can't go back to her husbands family and have them help care for her and the children. She told us taht the village and her husbands family blame her for the deaths of her kids. they say she is killing them and so she is not welcome at home. Therefore she is forced to live in the Slum. When her last son died which was almost 25 years ago...she took his body back to the village where her family was, but they would not let her burry him there. Ever since that day she has been ill. Miriam the other widow, and this one, stay in touch and encourage each other because they share in the same struggles. We will be meeting with more widows this week. We are traveling to a village that is several hours away...i think we will be driving 6 hours...which is gonna be rough considering the condition of the roads here. We will be gone for a week.

Kibera Slum

Today was our first day doing ministry here in Nairobi. We drove to the other side of Nairobi...which was really far because there are lots of traffic jams. We went to the International Christian Center. The international christian center is located in a heavily muslim and hindu populated area of Nairobi. We went to this center to pick up some books. These books are called, The Book of Hope. It is a childrens evangelistic tool. They are used all over the world, but are changed and updated depending on the area and made adaptable to that particular culture. Here they are written in swahili and english. We picked up about 400 of them and we are going to use them next week when we visit schools. They are really cool. The group we visited explained the books to us and how to use them. They did a lot of research about youth in Kenya. I have a big book full of the research they did and what they found out. I will probably use it to write my paper at the end of the summer. The people at International Christian Center were very happy to see us and to give us the books. Oh, there are also like four different books because they have different ones depending on age too. I think they will be great for Africa and you can already see the difference they are making. They have given these books out to every school in Rwanda. They are almost done with all the school in Ethiopia. The books are being used everywhere and the children in Africa are being given the Word of God. 51% of the Youth in Kenya believe that the word of God is true. 80% believe that once they found God they found satisfaction and it made life worth something.
Then we went with Daniel and Neddie to Kibera Slum. We really felt like we were on a safari, ha...because the road we took to the slum was really really bad...it was dirt and very hilly and lots of holes...and it was surrounded by a forest...especailly the flat top trees taht you always see when you think of Africa. So, we really felt like we were in Africa, ha. We came upon the slum and you could see it stretching for miles and miles and miles. I had seen pictures of it before, but it was different to actually be there. There were tons of people around. We parked out car at the top of the hill and locked it. Vickie was not about to drive into the Slum because we didn't want to run the risk of someone purposely running into us and then taking us to court because that happens a lot in the slum...its how some of them get money. Anyways, we were at the slum to visit some Widows. Neddie is heading up a program to help widows who are in the church here. Neddie said she had known these ladies attended church but had no idea that they were widows. It was really funny because when you enter the slum as a white person, all the children run up to you...and the little english they konw is "How are you?" that is there way of saying hi. So...all we would here was a bunch of "how are you" "how are you" ha it was funny. It reminded me of the seagulls in Finding Nemo. When entering the slum, I was thinking that I had no idea how people found their way around. I would get totally lost. It smelled awful! It smelled like trash, human feces, and animals. After being there for a little bit you kind of got used to it. The houses are made of mud and sticks and sheets of metal for the roof. We enterd one house of a widow named Miriam. Her house was as big as my bedroom at home. She offered us a place to sit and she cooked us food. It is their way of welcoming you, and if you don't eat it then you offend them.
Miriam's story is sad. She lost her husband three years ago. She has 7 children. She hasn't seen her oldest son since 2007. Her oldest daughter is in bording school but has been out for a week because her mother couldn't afford it. Her husband died of TB. He got sick one day and then two days later died. She attends the church here in the Slum and is a leader among other widows. She is an encouragement to other widows and sees that as her ministry.
I have to go, but I will write more about the other widows later.

Downtown

We made our first trip into the CITY today. We took public transportation downtown. We took bus #24. A local lady who is a friend of the missionaries here took us around and her name was Dorcas.
Dorcas took us to some shops, after a few minutes of wandering around we found our selves making our way up a hidden flight of stairs to a hole in the wall shop that sells fabric. The shop was small and full of women and fabric. The store was filled with stacks and stacks of fabric. We purchased after 30 minutes of complete confusion of what fabric and what woman to buy from.Soon we will have our very own African skirt. Over all very exciting.
After an eventful trip for fabric we found an African dollar store, or what we would call dollar tree. Every thing was 100 shillings equal a little more than one U.S. dollar. Followed by our fantastic lunch at Wimpy Burger. (Laugh). Earlier we saw the sign finding it funny,Vickie decided that we would go for lunch. Not bad.
Our trip ended by taking the #24 bus home to take a wonderful afternoon nap.
Overall the day was good. We learned that this coming weekend we will be going to an orphanage with a small group to help out.
who know what we'll doing tomorrow but we will let you know.

We're Here!

We made it!! We arrived in Nairobi at 8pm local time.
Tomorrow Vickie Reynen, the lady we are staying with, is taking us down town to go shopping for some african material to make skirts! We are very excited to be here! I am having trouble getting used to the driving on the other side of the road thing...I was like..."why is everyone sitting in the passenger side of the car and their aren't any drivers...ha.whoops...thats because they drive on the other side. Anyways, We are off to bed because we haven't slept in 24hours. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Its gonna be great!

Betsye Reid and Elizabeth Fink