Here are a few pics...some of children we've seen. One pic of us taking communion at church last sunday. The one pick of us sitting down outside in a wooden shack...that is actually a church. They meet on those wooden benches and its located in the middle of a cow field. It was kinda cool. There is a pic to of betsye and I serving some kids juice and cake after we did a childrens program.

It's a Jungle out there!

Well, oh boy oh boy oh boy...
We had an adventure today. If mom was here, she would never have let me do this by myself...hehe.

This morning around 10am Betsye and I went to the bus stop. We saw the City Hoppa bus coming and got on. We rode the bus all the way downtown..its kinda far to walk. It cost us 20 shillings to ride the bus. We were downtown once before with a friend who lives here but we didn't pay attention to where we were going. We were headed downtown blindly this time. We had a list of items to get, but we were not given a store name or street name to find these stores. The only thing that looked familiar was this Statue in the middle of a roundabout....so when we saw that we got off the bus.
We stood on the side of the street for a minute trying to figure out which way to start walking. We knew where the souvenior stores were at because they were right next to the Hilton hotel and thats easy to find...so thats our meeting place and point of reference. We just began walking and walking and walking...we didn't konw where we were going. There were tons of people!!! and so many cars!!! Its a real task and risk to cross the street here. I feel like I have become a real expert at crossing the street. Even if the cross walk light is red you still go it doesn't matter, ha. I feel like we almost got run over several times, oops. Last time we were down here with Dorcas and Vickie we went to a 100 shilling store...where everything in it is 100 shillings. It is equivalent to our Dollar store here in the states. It took us a long time to find that store. When we were at the kenyan dollar store we bought ice cube trays!!!! yay!!! Now we can have cold beverages! I am sooo tired of warm drinks. I love ice. We kept trying to call Dorcas and have her give us a street name for where the store is located...eventually we figured it out. We walked amlessly for a couple hours. We walked around down town from 11am-130pm. We called a taxi to take us to Java House where we ate lunch! shoot...I had myself a double mocha milkshake. I needed it after that adventure downtown. There weren't too many white people downtown. We got lots of offers from people...they wanted to give us a ride somewhere or just have us come in there store...everywhere we went people were staring at us and wanting us to talk to them. I was determined to find those stores so...there was no stopping to talk to people. Ha, but we made it back alive. The first thing we did when we got back was take a nap!

now we are ready to take the other three students who are coming tonight downtown and show them around....because now we know street names!! Tomorrow we are going to an orphanage and that should be fun, im excited.

We did it!

Today, betsye and I ventured out on our own for the first time since being here. We thought we would brave the Kenyan roads and city...so we walked to the grocery store. It is quite a ways to walk. We were given a list of things to get at the grocery store. We got there...in a very timely manner...of course there were lots of people yelling at us from the cars driving by...we've learned to ignore that. We got to the grocery store and purchased all the items on the list. We then stopped by the movie store and picked up Pocahontas and Mulan! yay! Last night we had called the movie place and had ordered for Pocahontas to be delivered. (they deliver movies here, its great!) When the movie man arrived...we were expecting to get the disney version...but instead we got a weird version that said it was for ages 4-9 on the cover....ha. We watched it anyways...and it was funny because it was so bad.... SO when we got to the movie store today and found the disney version we were sooo happy!!! Our bags were very heavy so we didn't want to walk all the way home. So..we got a taxi! Yup, we got a taxi all by ourselves. Its kinda funny that the only taxi rides I have ever had have been in different countries...Israel and Kenya.

We had a short power outage last night..and so we put up candles and played Pit. I love that game. Tomorrow we have three more college students arriving! It will be a nice change. They will be here for two weeks, and they will be putting on a VBS program...so we will help them with that.

Well, Today was not a real busy day. We went with Wendy and Peter, a couple from the UK, to a small feeding program they have. We went to the otherside of Nairobi today kind of on the outskirts of the slum. They have scanned the neighoborhood area for the 20 most needy children, and they feed them lunch several times a week. A few of the kids or physically and/or mentally handicapped. So, we went today and played with the kids and helped set up the lunch and such. We also helped them sort out clothes. They had recieved a big donation of clothing, so we sorted them out as well. It was pretty fun.
Driving in Kenya is crazy...the drivers here in Nairobi are crazy. It took us almost an hour and half to get home because of traffic jams.
It is the end of the rainy season here and the beginning of the "winter" season for them...ha...July and August are the two coldest months for them...and cold meaning as low as 70-75 degrees...ha. You will see some kenyans walking around in coats because they get cold so easily.

Some kids at the school in Kericho. And us at the equator!

This is a mud hut of one of the widows we visited in her home. Also a picture of a zebra we saw on the side of the road!

Back in the City!

So...its been a few days since We've written anything. We just got back today to Nairobi. It was a six hour car ride from Eldoret...another town in Kenya. We traveled to three different places this week. We went to Kericho, Shirut/Koitabut, and Eldoret. I had said that Kericho was the place of Tea feilds. In Kericho we did the childrens program and met with the widows. It was fun to watch the kids do their traditional african dance. We left Kericho to go to Shirut and Koitabut. They are much smaller than Kericho and they have no electricity. hmmm...yes you are thinking the same thing I am, ha. No showers, tv, or toilet...ha. We stayed in a mud hut/house. The house reminded us of a Hobbit house!! It had several rooms, but the house was short...like I was as tall as the door ways! Ha...we'll try to put up some pics of it. Betsye and I shared a room here. It was so dark at night...so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face. We journaled by lantern at night. In the morning we took a bucket bath....mmm...my favorite. You were in a little wooden shack outback, and you had a bucket full of cold water and a bucket full of hot water. You were to mix the two buckets to make warm water and then you poured it on yourself. It wasn't too bad...just different and I don't think I could do that forever. Then the potty (out house) was interesting. It was a clean out house at least. Except...everytime I went out to use it...there would be a ton of lizards in there! ah! it freaked me out. Once again there was no variety in the food...we had just killed the chicken and cooked it...some rice and pumpkin leaves...it was good...I was just a bit bored with it. We were both really really exhausted by this point. We had done a lot of traveling...and meeting new people does wear you out.
So....out here in the village there are some kids who have never seen a Mzungu (white person) before, and the others ahve only seen a Mzungu a few times. So...everywhere we went we drew a crowd of children. There was one time Betsye and I were sitting at a table filling out some papers and we looked up to see about 15 kids just standing there staring at us. Yup, they had been there for about 2o minutes just looking at us...they never said a word. Then the pastor came out and told them to all leave. When were driving to a ladies house, I saw a little girl that we passed and I could see her and she just mouthed the word, WOW! ha it was funny because they all yell Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu! and point. It was kinda hard for us to just get used to people just standing around staring at us.
I am tired of eating so much!!! We are guests in everyones house and so they feel like they have to make us some food..we have to eat it or we offend them...but guess what we are doing all day? visiting peoples houses!!! so we just get to eat a lot. We met with the widows again in Shirut. Betsye and I had to talk in front of them. We were to give them some encouraging words or a story of how God has been faithful to us etc. I was a bit nervous...but they told me I did fine. We had a translator with us. There were about 21 widows there. We then drove to koitabut and spoke to the widows there. There were about 95 widows with a few single mothers there!! now...thats a lot. Betsye and I had to talk in front of them again! this time I was a bit more nervous because there were a lot of them. But we did fine...they liked what I had to say. The superintendent of the church, James, told me I did a good job, and that they were surprised when I got up there and began to TEACH. He said I had a lot of wisdom that they weren't expecting because I am young still. So that was encouraging...that they liked it so much. It was still sad hearing all the widows stories, but it is also very cool to hear how they have persevered and grown closer to God. This group of widows meets everynow and then to pray and encourage one another. They also raise money as a group and give it each month to the widow who is in need the most, which is cool because they don't have money to begin with.
While in koitabut we stayed at Mama Evelyns house. She is a widow that lives with several of her grandchildren. Mama Evelyn wanted me to tell all ya'll hello. We exchanged addresses because she wants us to send her a post card sometimes :) It is sad to hear how society here treats widows. They treat widows as outcasts...they no longer get respect. Relatives are very hard on them and a lot of the times disown them even though their husbands died and they couldn't do anythign about it.
We went to church yesterday morning and church went for three hours! Shoot...if church went that long in the states people would complain so much. We had communion. Church is a lot more charasmatic here. We had to sing a song with Vickie in church today! I was nervous..because I can't sing! but it went alright, ha...and now I can't get it out of my head. Its a song in Swahili. After church a widow gave me a necklace that her and some orphans had made and she told me that everytime I wear it I need to remember them.
Well, I am very happy to be back in Nairobi. I took a nice hot shower! I ate some ice cubes! ha...while in the villages..I just kept wanting a coke so bad!! Tomorrow is going to be an easy day for us...so we can rest up. We watched finding nemo tonight, ha...because we had been quoting it so much this past week.
Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!