Mpenzi Yangu Alikuja Kutembea! (My boyfriend came to visit!)

April 28 to May 4, my boyfriend, DB, came to Kenya! Although he was here for only a week, we jam packed it with as much Kenyan experience and fun as possible.Being in a long distance relationship is not ideal, but we have grown closer and as individuals so much since I moved to Kenya and being a part of this process with him has been nothing but a blessing. I am excited for this journey we are on together and thankful that I get to have my best friend with me every step of the way, even if he is an ocean away. Literally.

First of all, he brought a whole second duffle bag full of things I could not fit in mine when I moved here along with some of my favorite snacks like POTATO CHIPS (ruffles...the good kind), peeps, cadbury cream eggs, crystal light, a 5 lb tub of BBQ sauce, and two huge containers of ranch dressing. All things I cant get here but consider necessary in America :) I was so excited and thankful! Especially since he paid the same amount for 15 cadbury cream eggs in America that I did for 6 in Kenya.

So, Monday was the first full day DB spent in Kenya and I basically just showed him around Limuru and my everyday life. We walked up to Brackenhurst and I showed him some of the beautiful views of the tea fields and then we walked to Uhuru Academy so I could show him where I work. Then, we got some Kenyan coke because its made with sugar cane instead of high fructose corn syrup and showed him around Tigoni Market. He also got to meet Lydiah and Francis, two of our Kenyan Uhuru staff members who were hosting him for the week he was here!

Tuesday, we visited an orphaned elephant sanctuary!! These baby elephants mothers had died and the babies were found alone and taken in by this organization with the intention of eventually releasing them back into the wild when they are of age. So, we got to watch as they bottlefed them and even got to pet some!! They were sooooo precious and their skin is so hard and rough, I was surprised. But luckily the came up to us before they started flailing around in the mud and getting themselves dirty. They were so playful and precious though and we had a great time! Then, we went to the giraffe center where we fed and took pictures with some Rothschild Giraffes. I learned all about the different kinds of giraffe that Kenya has and difference between them. It was awesome! Then we headed over to this really nice new restaurant in Nairobi called Seven and wined and dined ourselves.

Wednesday, Christine and I finally got a car!! Its a purple Mazda Demio and we couldnt be more in love with it! All of the cars here are either SUVs, trucks, or mini SUVs because the roads are so back so our car, also know as Lilly Lavender, is very practical here in Limuru. She is a little hatchback and we ride in style :) Then, after riding around in Lilly all day, we prepared a meal together. We made pizza and drank Fanta blackcurrant (my favorite) and moved the furniture onto our back patio so we could have a romantic candlelit dinner. We even got to shag dance while the rain poured down around us. Luckily, we were covered by our back patio ceiling. All in all, it was a perfect date night :)

Thursday, we went to Jikaze, the IDP camp that our lettuce, tomato, and chicken farms are at and where most of our girls at the school come from, so DB could meet some of these lovely ladies. We only got to see Teresia and Josephine because the other girls were at the far away farm digging. But, he got to drink some Kenayan chai at Teresia's house and her and Josephine showed us the huge rift in the ground from all the water washing away the land! It was like a huge cavern had been carved out. Then, we went to Windsor Country Club where we spent the rest of our day laying out in the sun, eating and drinking by the pool with poolside service, and swimming! It was soooo relaxing :) That evening, Kelvin, a close friend and the one who planned all of our adventures that week, made dinner for DB and I. He has a team house for volunteer teams he hosts on trips and so he set up this candlelit dinner outside on the patio with freshwater fish, roasted potatoes, kales, and chapati to eat! And some South African wine! It was all so delicious and very thoughtful!

We also stopped at the view point of the Great Rift Valley!

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Josephine (left) Teresia (right)

Friday, was our safari day!!! It both of our first safaris so we were really excited about it. We went to this park about two and a half hours from Limuru called Lake Nakuru National Park and it was beautiful! We saw soooo many animals too! Although, some of the roads had gotten covered by water because it has been raining so much so there weren't as many flamingos as normal. But we did see some waterbuck, water buffalo, zebras, giraffes, impala, gazelles, baboons, all kinds of birds, and LIONS! We were told to not be upset if we didnt see lions because they hide very well in Nakuru. But we saw two lionesses, a cub, and a young male all lounging underneath some bushes in the shade during the middle of the day! We were literally ten feet from them and if DB hadnt just barely seen the back of one we would have missed them altogether! It was incredible and the young male even got up and walked around so we got some pictures! We were out in the park for about 5 hours and then headed to the lodge for lunch where we were greeted by some baboons trying to sneak in to get our food. Luckily, they had a Maasai tribesman guarding the restuarant to ward off any hungry baboons. Then, we headed to Lake Naivasha National Park where we went on a boat safari and saw some hippos in and OUT of the water! They were so big! And we saw some African Fish Eagle swoop down and catch some fish, as well as more giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, pelicans, and waterbuck grazing by the watering hole in what seemed to be the perfect African landscape. It was a great capper to our adventure week and we both love wildlife so much that we both enjoyed every second of it!

Lake Nakuru!

The water has basically taken over....

Cape Buffalo

Baboons

Giraffes (twiga)

Zebra (punda milia)

when one of the lionesses showed us she was there!

a young male lion (simba- swahili for lion)

two lionesses

a cub! (the real simba)

waterbuck

warthog (swahili- pumba)

male impala

Lake Naivasha!

Waterbuck

African Fish Eagle swooping for a fish

Giraffe poking its head over the trees

Hippos! Out of the water!

Saturday was the day he left for America and the goodbyes get harder every time. But, we are both thankful to be in each other's lives even if its thousands of miles apart for the time being. We know God does not withhold any good thing from us and if there is anything we have learned in this process it's that God is faithful and we can trust Him to not lead us astray. We are even thankful that DB could even come to visit me because it was not a cheap trip! I am so glad he could come and experience my life here for a week and see the new place I am calling my home for the next two years and even meet some of the girls I have fallen in love with here. I am beyond thankful to have such a supportive boyfriend who is helping me achieve my goals and follow Jesus where ever he calls me. Even if its to another country for the next two years of our relationship! He is a godly man whom I am proud to call my boyfriend and pray that we will see each other a lot more over these next 2 years and for the rest of our lives ;) I couldn't have asked for a better week with him! God is soooooo good!

It's officially the end of Uhuru Academy's first term!

It's so hard to believe that our first term is already over and I have lived in Kenya for almost 3 months! Its true what they say about living here, "the months are short and the days are long." With this contrast, you really do lose track of time! But I have enjoyed being part of this school and organization over the past 3 months and cannot wait to see what the rest of my time here will look like.

As for what our last day of school looked like, it started with the girls having their last two exams and then heading to Rosslyn, the international secondary school in Nairobi, for a scrimmage volleyball game! Our girls had never played volleyball until January so we were kind of nervous how they would handle all of the official rules and a game setting, but they played so well! We played a 3 game set and we lost the first one and third one, but the second we won! And neither of our losses were landslides so I would definitely define that a success! Especially for girls who had only been playing this game for 3 months! Sadly, not all 19 of our students can play do we picked our star 8 and the rest of students, and teachers!, came to support our team! They even brought posters to show their excitement! It was nice too to get our school's name out there since it is really new and not many people know about it. Below are a few pictures from our Rosslyn adventure!!

On the bus on the way to Rosslyn with one of my favorites, Ann Gathonie :)

Precious little Elnorah waiting for the bus to arrive (she is only 14! The baby of our school)

Lynette, Ann, and I waiting for the bus trying to get out of the rain!

Mary, Ruth, and Eddah trying to keep warm (it was only 50 degrees!)

The diva, Teresia!! (and the oldest girl at our school, 18 years old)

The girls posing with one of our workers from Jikaze, Minae, who also Faith's (the right of Minae) aunt.

Christine, doing what she has to do to keep her outfit dry during the rain!

The girls supporting our volleyball team!

Gladys, Martha, Esther, Eddah, and Mary

Josephine and Lynette!

Our volleyball champs!

Back row: Nicole, Ruth, Gladys, Faith, Ann Wangui

Front row: Teresia, Elnorah, Margaret, Ann Gathonie, Lucy

Warming up before the game!

Getting ready for the win!

Getting loose!

The scrimmage after the scrimmage where our girls mixed and mingled with Rosslyn girls to make new friends!

After our trip to Rosslyn, we found out a tree on our school property had fallen on our power line and we could not continue with the festivities we had planned such a serious DANCE PARTY! The girls were pretty bummed. But, our dinner made up for some of it. Soda was provided (that's a huge deal because they don't get it at our school) and a lot of mokimo (a favorite Kikuyu dish) was consumed! Oh, and the candlelight definitely set the mood for the rest of the evening!

Our romantic candlelight dinners! Poor Ruth was so tired but Ann Wangui had enough sass and energy for everyone!

Caught Elnorah doing her hair while trying to capture the mood lighting!

Lynette, Josephine, and Lucy posing with their sodas!

Me and Lydiah at dinner! Love her so much!

Gettin rowdy in the dining hall with these sassy girls!

Me and my roommate and bestie Christine at dinner! She is wonderful :)

Then, after the girls were stuffed, since we could not have our dance party, we had our closing ceremonies where awards for the top 3 students in each form are given, as well awards for the "most tidy", "most initiative", and "most improved" are also given. Every staff members gives a little speech or pep talk to the girls before they go home and we spend some time praying and singing together. It was a lovely intimate little ceremony where we can all bond before the girls are gone for 3 weeks. We will miss them so much!!!! Luckily, about 6 of the girls live in the IDP camp, jikaze, where our lettuce farms, tomato farm, and chicken farm are so we can go visit them all at the same time over break! Which will surely be happening because I don't think I go 3 weeks without seeing their beautiful faces! Also, it'll give me a chance to practice my swahili if I am hoping to become fluent by the end of this year!

Also, our lettuce harvesting has been going great, with bigger orders as each days commences. It got a little hectic this past week with all hands on deck at 6 am every morning and we even had to bring in a few extra hands to help the process go more quickly. BUT GREAT NEWS! We finally got a lettuce spinner which is supposed to make a huge difference in our preparation time because the longest part is always the drying! This thing can apparently dry in 10-15 seconds. Talk about revolutionary for those who are waking up before the crack of dawn to make our shipments on time! So as our process becomes more concrete and efficient we are hoping for more and more customers to help fund our organization through our social businesses as well as getting the name of Uhuru Child more well-known. Also, the farms help fund the school so that's definitely an incentive to keep the production going!

Cleaning our buttercrunch lettuce

Working merrily with Lydiah, Francis, and Christine! Hahaha so candid.

Francis, Tim, Joe, and Christine accomplishing different projects to make the process smoother and more efficient.

Jody and Francis sealing and pumping air into the bags

Joe and Tim candidly filling the bags with our four different types of lettuce leaves

The finished product of Uhuru Shamba lettuce farming and processing!

One last thing, our car fund has been slowly growing as well. We have about 2600 dollars put towards our car and we extended the deadline to the end of April!! So there is still plenty of time to keep giving! Especially since we had to raise the goal amount because we can not get a car that runs here for 4000 dollars basically. In Kenya, car owners do the smallest amount of repairs necessary to keep their cars running, so the running cars that are decent are more expensive. We have raised our goal amount to 6000 dollars now even though we know we will have to wait longer to get a car. It makes more sense to us to get a working car that will last for years even if it requires waiting longer, than a car that we will have to put 3000 dollars into for repairs over the next 2 years. Yes, this stinks for my impatient heart and our plans to go into surrounding schools as soon as we can, but we also don't want to run the risk of breaking down and having to constantly have our car be put in the shop. So, we will continue to ask for your help as we RAISE MONEY for this necessity! Again, the link is http://www.youcaring.com/help-a-neighbor/help-christine-and-jordan-buy-a-car-for-ministry-in-kenya-/41234

I will also do my best to let you the progress of the car fund as time goes on so you can be telling friends and family about it!! And so you can be praying for God to provide so He can continue to advance His kingdom through Christine and me.

P.s. we have recently discovered that DHL will ship things to Kenya most securely (Christine shipped her new debit card here using DHL and it actually got here unopened) so if you have inquired about sending me care packages, just email or message me in Facebook for our address!! I would love to receive them since we now know how to get things here safely! And I would like to thank everyone who has been reading my blog and praying for us so far, I can really feel the power of prayer working and ask that you don't stop!

Prayer requests:
-6000 dollars raised for the car
-more lettuce customers
-more funding for the school ---->(http://www.crowdrise.com/uhuruchild)
-adjusting to life away from friends and family
-Kenya staff unity and love :)

Heri kwa sikukuu ya Pasaka! (Happy Easter!)

Easter is my favorite holiday of the year, even more so than Christmas! I believe Easter is my favorite because I love pastel spring colors, spring is my favorite season, baby animals are everywhere, THE CANDY IS THE BEST SEASONAL CANDY OF ALL (peeps and Cadbury cream eggs), and most importantly, it's the day my identity and life became validated 2013 years ago when Jesus rose from the dead, defeating sin and death!! I mean everything I base my life and identity on is validated through this act by the Living God to raise His son from the dead. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, I would still be dead and captive to my sins. The crucifixion would have been nothing but a punishment that resulted in death of a teacher but instead it was the fulfilment of a prophecy and covenant from God to His people!

THE DISCIPLESHIP SQUAD and my family away from family! (Lydiah, Christine and I)

Being in Kenya, I did not know how this Easter was going to be, not being with my friends and family or my hometown church, not getting my usual favorite Easter candy I look forward to, etc. but most importantly, was the impact of the resurrection going to be as powerful as it would be, had I been in my comfort zone celebrating?

I don't know if this was the Lord hearing the secret worries of my heart because I am pretty sure I hadn't prayed about this at all before Good Friday, but when Good Friday came at 6 am, time for me to get up and get ready to clean and package lettuce, I was vibrant with belief of this truth. God had given me an understanding of what Good Friday meant and why it had to happen in order to free me from bondage. I not only felt the weight of my sin but I felt joy because I realised how much God had to love me in order to endure the worst punishment in the history of the world.

So, later that day, the church the students attend down the street was where we began walking to participate in the Good Friday service. I was excited because it was going to be my first African church experience! I got to walk and talk with some of the girls the whole way there and of course the service was delayed 30 minutes because the pastor got held up (such is life in Kenya) so the students, myself, Christine, Caitlyn (an
Uhuru child staff teacher at the school), and the matron took a seat in front of the church and read from the bible about the crucifixion. It was awesome to be able to emphasize the importance of that day with some of these girls who have grown up with such a skewed view of Christianity. I mean there are just so many false teachings I would need a whole nother blog to write them all out but I think they just lacked a sense of personal relationship with their Father and that He loves THEM, not their works. So, while Caitlyn read the story and asked some questions to the girls it really helped me too to fully grasp the sacrifice that was made for me on that day and see just HOW BIG MY GOD TRULY IS AND HOW ABUNDANT HIS LOVE IS FOR HIS PEOPLE. While meditating on these characteristics of God, we were told the service was to be in Kikuyu, not Swahili or English. Kikuyu is the most prominent tribe in Kenya and we surely did not know the language so Christine, Caitlyn, and I left. The next day we found out they changed the language because they saw we were coming and I was upset because I missed out on my first African church opportunity!! I'm not too discouraged though because I'll be here for the next 22 months!

Saturday, our school was scheduled to show "The Passion of the Christ" to the girls. Lydiah, Francis, and Kelvin brought their home entertainment equipment and we basically set up a theatre in the dining hall that afternoon. To my knowledge, none of the girls had seen it before and so I was curious to see what their responses would be. Because lets face it, that movie is not only a tear jerker but gut wrenching and heart aching. I have only seen it once and that was in 6th grade so I thought it was about time I visualised the crucifixion again, especially since I wanted to be able to truly appreciate this gift this holiday season of eternal life. Needless to say, there was not a dry eye in the room. And the crazy thing is, yes what Jesus went through in the movie is horrible but it's not even able to depict half of what He went through. I had to let that sink in and just thanked Jesus throughout the whole movie to myself for what he had done. I wasn't crying because of how gruesome it was, I was crying because of the godly sorrow I felt, realising how terrible I had to be for Jesus to have to go through all of this to redeem me. But also how big my God was to be able to do all of this for humanity who hated Him. I fell head over heels in love with Jesus all over again. I think for the first time, some of the girls who had a skewed view of the gospel, fully understood the weight of their sin and had a personal revelation of what the gospel means for their lives. After the movie, Francis shared some scripture and spit the gospel to us. It finished off the movie really well and I think the girls really had to question themselves and what they believe about Jesus to be true. We challenged them to come talk to us or pray with us if something was weighing on any of their hearts but I think they needed more time to really think about the implications of what that movie were.

Everyone gathered in our make shift theatre for the afternoon!

Our movie theatre! It worked out quite well and we even had pop corn!

Christine and our Kenyan Uhuru Staff Member Lydiah :)

But you could tell, they were moved beyond belief and in awe of the God that was tortured, separated from God, and crucified willingly on their behalf. So moved that kelvin began to play some Swahili gospel music (which is up beat danceable music with music videos to go along with them) and the girls began to make a joyful noise to the Lord with their voices and bodies. I mean I have never seen so much enthusiasm and joy from them before, even when we play soccer! One girl, Ann Gathonie, did not stop dancing the whole hour and a half we played music. Not even to eat dinner! She was the one girl who stayed seated after the movie, even when everyone went and got dinner because she was just hit so hard by the sight of the gospel. She finally got up and started praising God for His love and mercy toward her! And didn't stop until we turned off the music!

Mary, Ruth, Ann Wangui, and Ann Gathoni

"Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!" Psalm 95:1-2

Then, came Easter! Oh what a happy morning to wake up and realize that JESUS WAS NOT DEFEATED AND OVERCAME THE GRAVE SO THAT I MIGHT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE! Our sermon was about proving that Jesus indeed rose from the dead and that the resurrection is the turning point of Christianity that makes everything we do and believe true. It was soul replenishing! And my favorite contemporary song is "In Christ Alone" and of course we sang it at the end of the service and I was just overjoyed with my God!! Honestly, it was THE most joyful day I believe I have spent in Kenya so far! And it was all because of God opening my eyes and my heart to His glory! I was almost brought to tears as we sang about the gospel. God received the worship and praise He deserves and my King is seated at His right hand where He rightfully belongs!!


Then we went to village market to pick up somethings for a potluck Easter dinner Joe, Caitlyn, Christine, and I attended and at first I could not find ANY Cadbury eggs and was disappointed but moving on because I was still joyful. But then, as we entered in to another grocery store called zucchini I found them!!!!!!!!! They may have been 2.35 dollars a piece but I bought 6 and am enjoying one everyday this week!! Also, I am expected to have some peeps delivered to me in about 3 weeks via my boyfriend who is coming to visit so the Lord is easily showing me Easter is not about the location or the people but His love and mercy for me whom He died for!! Even in these small blessings.

This is my God and Father and I could not be more proud or unashamed of who He is or what He has, is, and will do in my life because of the gospel! I mean really?! It didn't get much better than it did this weekend and this has to be by far my favorite Easter!

And to think I was worried?? God definitely showed me!

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever." Psalm 23:6