God's goodness through a medley of experiences!

What a mixture of experiences this past week has brought! And I must first thank you all for your prayers as I traveled to Bungomo district, Western province last weekend.

My friend, Ruth, and I left on Thursday, taking a 9-hour bumpy bus ride (and when I say bumpy, I mean, throwing you around the seat row, causing you to involuntarily jump up and down every couple minutes kind of bumpy!) to her home district. Her mother and 6 siblings and uncle and neighbors gave me a royal welcome. It was dark by the time we arrived, but we ate and sang by kerosene lamp.

Her village is called Napara. Grass roof huts are scattered across the farm fields - maize, tomatoes, cassava, and sunflowers everywhere and such friendly, welcoming people. There definitely were no other muzungus in sight!

I had the opportunity to attend a wedding in Malaba (near the Ugandan border), where I met a Rwandan pastor that Ted and I may meet up with in Kigali. I rode on motorcycles (as a passenger, not a driver!), bicycle taxis, and even milked a cow.

Ruth's family was so generous. Her mother is such a strong, God-fearing woman. Maktilda is her name, and she ensured that we got home safely on the night bus, by her persistent prayers and by helping us onto the motor-taxi.

That evening alone was a string of answered prayers! We had a tricky time getting to the bus stage in Bungomo, and we really believed we had missed the only shuttle back - but God had one waiting right there for us; and the fare was cheaper than ever, and Ruth's pastor had even sent a friend to make sure we got on the bus safely! Oh, it was so good.

And now, I am in my last 2 days of being in Kenya. Wow This time has been so rich. It has gone by much faster than I anticipated. Ted has now arrived (sweeet). It is great, and so different to have a familiar face around consistently! I am so thankful for his safe arrival, and for the great 3 days we've had so far, visiting his peace corps friend from Davis, Rachel, visiting the Somalian refugee neighborhood in Nairobi (it really felt like we had traveled out of country!), and exploring new parts of Kibera and it's bordering posh neighborhoods.

The second phase of my time in Africa has officially begun! I thank God, and am thankful for you all too! :)

Much love,
Katharine

* The Sierra Leone Servant Team is approaching as well ... I am excited, and keeping certain issues in prayer, such as Visa applications, etc. I am anxious to share more of what I'm learning about our team's mission and goal there. I just finished reading "Blood Diamonds" for our pre-trip assignments, and I highly recommend it, for a picture of the horrific civil war and what caused it in Sierra Leone.
* I'll write again soon; g'night to you all!
(picture: me and my friend Ruth)

chattin' with god

Thank you all for wanting to know what's going on in my life here, and for praying for me. I would appreciate your prayers in the following ways:

* I am traveling to a village in Western province tomorrow. I will be on the road for 8 hours with my friend Ruth. It is her home that I will be visiting for a couple days. Please pray for safety, and that I will return to Nairobi BY Sunday evening!

* For Ted's safe arrival in Nairobi on Wed, 12/19/07 at 4:00 am. We will have 5 days in Kenya before taking a long bus ride to Kampala on Christmas Eve.

* Support-raising, Sierra Leone. My deadlines are coming up fast. I have just raised 49.63% for financial support.

* Visa issues, Sierra Leone. The saga continues ... if my team doesn't raise sufficient funds soon, our plane tickets won't be purchased until January, at which point it will be too late for my parents to apply for a SL Visa in the States. This means I will need to pay an additional $250 to get an in-country visa. Please pray that God will continue guiding the visa process until it is secured.

Thank you all - also, Praise God for the friends He has given me here, and for His protection of me and His great love.

a little bit of me

I simply cannot write. There is much to express, but I cannot do it. Maybe after having the regular company of Ted (who arrives in just 8 days!) I will have experience at expressing myself again and be able to better share with you all. In many ways, this is like my road trip. I am so disconnected from everything familiar, a lot of my false securities are stripped away, and here I am. It's just me, with no fancy masks or decorations. I haven't even been writing in my personal journal much.

kajiado: a breath of fresh air (literally!)

Last Sunday, I hopped on a psuedo matatu and headed south of Nairobi to Maasai land, just a few kilometres north of Tanzania!

I stayed at Kajiado Children's Home for five nights. This was my first out-of-Nairobi experience, and it was a culture shock indeed! The pace of life - much slower; the car exhaust and air pollution - there isn't any!

Eighty-five children live at Kajiado Children's Home, a project begun by British and American donors ten years ago. The kids range in age from 5 to 18. A few have now left the Home for college and university.

From the moment I arrived, I sensed this was going to be a very different experience for me. A children's home is a far cry from a Compassion project, where the children visit on the weekends but then live with their families or relatives. The Home, on the other hand, replaces the family unit. Each child there has eighty-four siblings, and they all do chores, pick fights with each other and also look after one another, just like kids in a natural family.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do while there, but I also realized that the point of the week wasn't necessarily to do. No, what I needed was to slow down, pray more, and try being a part of this Kajiado family however I could. So, I met many of the children, played games with them, learned how to do laundry from them, cleaned and ate with them, and did a bit of exploring in town and the surrounding acacia forests.

Thankfully there were also tangible ways I could contribute. I became a personal secretary of sorts to the project managerfor the week. A donor from England visited the project during my first two days there. He brought excel spreadsheets that the project manager would need to start using, in order to beef up accountability and detail exactly how all donor money was being spent. The manager isn't too computer literate, so I was able to create and fill in many of the forms for him.

I loved the kids and teenagers I met at Kajiado. They clearly had come from difficult places, and many are currently struggling with being teenagers on top of that. Agnes, Sylvia, Eunice, Grace, Jedidah, Mary - all girls that I will not forget. If you're reading this now, perhaps you can pray for them, and the Kajiado family as a whole. This is a Christian home, but many of the teenagers there need to know that the Gospel is personally for them. Meeting with the British donor also gave me some insights into the specific challengers of running a home like this.

The little kids, like kids anywhere, were so full of energy and just loved any bit of attention given to them. They also were fascinated by my white skin. Even by the end of the week, a few of the kids would still shout "WOOOOWW!" whenever I walked into the room. One morning, I had eight of them crowding around the outdoor sink to watch me brush my teeth! They often had me laughing. :)

By the time the week ended, I was starting to grow accustomed to the slow pace of life in Kajiado. Thankfully, some of the calmness and quietness of that place stayed with me as I re-entered the bustling capitol.

(By the way, I cannot overstate how closely God has been protecting and providing for me. Even on the way back from Kajiado - he used a kind Muslim woman to both save me from getting cheated out of a lot of money and from being stranded in a bad part of town. She walked with me for 40 minutes once we reached Nairobi until she got me to where I needed to go!)

(Picture: here's me at Kajiado with some of the kids. These were the real characters. Asha, Elizabeth, Helen and Esther... And you'll have to excuse my scruffy experience. Though it did feel nice to rough it for a week! A new experience for me was "showering" with just a bucket of water.)

World Aids Day - Dec 1st 2007

Today I had the joy of returning to Waithaka, Compassion project KE 370 for World Aids Day ceremonies. Children and families from four surrounding child development centres joined the Waithaka project for a commemorative walk and a day full of song, dance, acrobatics and testimonies at the church. After my week in Kajiado, visiting Jipe Moyo one last time was like a family reunion. I saw all the staff again, as well as many of the Waithaka project students. I also was so excited to get to perform a poem recitation with six of the Compassion teenagers. We had been memorizing a poem called “CRUEL AIDS” for a week or two prior to this day, and it was great to recite it with them, with Kenyan accents and all! :)

A really sweet 19-year-old girl who is HIV+ shared a bit of her story in front of the whole church; this was a room packed with about four hundred people. She did a Q & A session with the teens. A mother of one of the Compassion students also shared her story, revealing to the public for the first time that she has AIDS. A lot of prayer and consideration went into deciding whether or not this woman should share, as she would be irreversibly exposing herself to the social stigma that openly HIV+ people face. In the end, this courageous woman decided to share, focusing on the long-term impact her testimony may have by eroding the stigma associated with AIDS and increasing people’s concern and compassion for those affected.

It was a rainy, muddy, wonderful day. I am going to miss my good friends here in Waithaka.