First Day

Haberi ya gioni! That means goodnight. It is 10:20 pm as I write this from “the bunker” their compound-like places of residence for their Fox Fire ministry team. I, however, stay in the guest house, which is a little bit nicer. My new Kenyan friends are Boniface, Joseph, Esther, and Petie, along with some Canadians who are serving here for a couple of months, Christa and Ryan. Everyone has been very nice to me, and although I have been thrown into a whirlwind of new experiences, I feel like I am being served more than I am serving.

Kenya is awesome. It is probably about 60 degrees, maybe 65, which means that the Kenyans get out their heavy coats, gloves, scarves, and beanies… they do not like the cool. Speaking of which, “cool” is a term that I have taught Boniface (Boni for short), which he is greatly amused by and is now hooked on saying. Today, he and I went to a school to retrieve a Bible that he had left. We took some sort of taxi/van thing that drove crazily through bumpy, congested, and pedestrian strewn streets. I was squeezed 3 wide into the front bench seat (on the left side… the passenger side here in Kenya – which is still strange to me) and one time we even narrowly avoided drilling a baby calf that was crossing the street. Speaking of calves, on the way back, as we were walking through a cattle-grazing field, and I asked if I could take a picture of the picture-esque scene (located a stone’s throw from our compound). As I snapped the second shot, I noticed the cattle-keeper walking towards us. Boni had a somewhat intense Swahili conversation with him. As we walked away he told me that the herder thought that I ought to pay him a little over 6 USD for the picture that I had taken without his permission. So that was a bit of a mess up, but Boniface told me that it was a mindset he had to take advantage of me because I was white. Thanks to Boniface, I still have 6 dollars (more than that, of course, Dad) and 2 pictures of the cows.

We then spoke in a school. It was as you would imagine… a bunch of high school aged kids, maybe 50, all in uniform, (brown, beige, and khaki) crammed into a simple concrete classroom. They spoke about goal-setting, and other than an introduction and prayer at the end, I just observed. Tomorrow, more of the same, including our awesome morning devotions, called Morning Glory, in which we sing, listen to a Word, and pray. It’s awesome to see God’s people gather to worship our same God in different ways, but very much the same.