7 days in Kenya

Seven days in East Kenya (pictures are below after text)

Seven days in East Kenya, we've taken 1000's of pictures and will update here, when one shows up the rest scroll down as the rest will be there. - may be a few days.

Thursday

Flat tire driving into Nairobi from Airport
Lost luggage (Guitar) Still at airport
Learned about Kenyan Drivers and the Matatas
Checked in to the Santa Maria Mystical Spiritual Center
Ate out of gordes at a late breakfast
Went to Nairobi Museum
Nairobi National Park
Carnivore for dinner

Friday
Kenyan Banking (DO NOT BRING TRAVELER’S CHECKS!!!)

Bought 2 full sets of soccer uniforms (Bright Green and Bright Orange) and 4 leather soccer balls.
Took the bus from Nairobi to Garissa This trip was delayed b/c of Friday Prayers for the Muslims so we left 2 hours late.

Bruce decided to buy some random So-called Camel meat from a “non pushy” Muslim street vendor, This mystery meat was actually really good.

He also picked up some amazing cookies that we shared with other people on the bus. These lasted for days for the desperate people -- us.

Once on the bus Eliza was propositioned by the Somali help to hire him for work and he would be happy to marry her daughters for her.

We thought it was crowded we found out later that if there is still room to stand and only move by crawling over the seat then there are still tickets to sell.

The healing tonic of East Africa we have found out is Camel Milk. According to local taxi’s take 1 drink, expel everything from your body and you will be fine… we don’t agree.

The bus ride was about 6 hours.

Arrived in Garissa at night and checked into the Nomad Palace Hotel. The nicest place in Garissa, which has been great. Of course only the team leaders got Hot Water, and the rest of us all got A/C which is a huge treat!

We had an amazing dinner prepared by Eunice Ochieng.

Saturday.

Meet with Ken and headed downtown to dive into the market. Here we met up with Jacob who was our Nurse Practitioner who bought the medical supplies for our medical mission that day.

Headed out to a school in a local Muslim Community. Here we set up the medical distribution. Lori and Jacob checked the patients, Caleb and Lupita became pharmacist and Eliza and Sean handed out mosquito nets while Bruce tried to keep control.

We found that when dealing with Muslim women that a man’s voice won't go very far, however, another Muslim with a big stick can make a crowd move. Check out the video… wow.

The money for the well ($3000) was given to this community, we preformed a ground breaking ceremony and learned that this well will be giving water to the school and the local community which has about 150 households with an average of 10 people per house.

Bracelets: We each handed out at least one “Good News Bracelets”

Sean taught spelling, math and the colors of the rainbow.

Bruce played with the kiddos, and found that kids in Kenya are amazing with a camera.

We were at this school for about 6 hours.

Eliza was blessed by being asked by two of the mothers to visit their local homes which is a great honor. It was obvious that they appreciated us being there.

That night, we split up and started our teaching.

Caleb and Lupita headed over the Garissa Teachers College with Eunice while Bruce, Lori, Eliza, and Sean headed over the local Catholic Guest House to give a short Marriage Encounter to the local Pastors. This was our first experience presenting with an interpreter and ended up using flashlights to light the room as all the lights went out.

After feeding us a great dinner the pastors headed out and as they van was out we headed back to the kitchen and had a blast washing the dishes.

We headed back to the Nomad about 11 pm.

Sunday:
Divide and Conquer

This morning we headed out in groups of 2 to preach the good word to the local churches.

Lori and Eliza headed off to the Garissa Teachers College

Bruce and Sean headed over to the Mororo Baptist Pentecostal Church and
Caleb and Lupita went to Redeemed Gospel Church
We had an awesome time and loved to preach, experience the worship (WHICH IS AMAZING) and meet the congregation.

That evening we all headed back to the Garissa Teachers College and listen to Caleb speak about planting a seed and harvest.

After the talk we headed out to dinner at the Almond (which is another hotel in town) This ended up being not such a great choice, especially for Lupita who fell ill. No worries she gets better and it is a great story.

Monday:

At 7 am we had the honor of being a part of the Life Frontier School Flag Ceremony where we got to hand out the books to the students. We also got visit many of the classrooms where we listened to the students sings songs about God and we taught topics on the spot. Life Frontier School is the school that Ken help establish.

We then got to meet with Jacu the Manager of the school and the Head Mistress and talked about different ways the school is advancing the students education and collects funding.

This is also the place where the Solar Cooker manufacturing shop is located. They also create Solor Dryers. This small business is helping local tribes prepare food and creates a source of income by selling the cakes and breads that they make in the cookers.
Pullman Foursquare purchased 6 of these cookers to be donated to local tribes.

We then headed over the Boji Village on the outskirts of town. This is about the most primitive village anyone on the team has ever been in. No water, no electricity or sewer of any kind. This of course is 100% Muslim. There were 3 communities within this Nomadic Tribe. They live in small huts that most of us had to get on our hands and knees to enter.

They are progressing and like most of Kenya, believe that education is the best option for their children. Their school is the only permanent structure around.
We were privileged to see local dances by the older women in the tribe and introduced ourselves to the group.

Sean is the only member of the team who is not married and we found that to be a highly desirable trait for the local women. At this instance Sean was offered new born babies and at least 4 wives if he decided to convert, Sean is still single.

Speaking of babies, Eliza was offered a little, this one was not yet born, she is waiting for John’s approval. We will all wait and see.

At this tribe we handed out medical supplies, water judges, a solar cooker, eating spoons, cooking pots, mosquito nets, 1 soccer ball.

These materials were safe inside the school b/c of our leader Bruce who was not afraid to touch/ shove / knee in the rear Muslim women to keep them out. Thank You Bruce.

We handed out hundreds of items to these women and their children.

That night Eliza, Lori and Sean gave the first part of another Marriage Encounter at the Anglican Church of Kenya. Once again the flashlights and headlamps came to the rescue as the lights went out.

The enemy tried to keep us in darkness, but with the Word of God there is no darkness only light! AMEN

After this encounter Lupita and Sean stayed home while the rest of the team went to the Ochieng house for dinner. Unfortunately Lupita has gotten food poisoning and Sean had a head cold.

Lupita’s illness got worse over the night and ended up having to go to the local hospital where Ken, Caleb, Lori and Jacob got her taken care of. Not only did the hospital do a great job and were very caring they did not CHARGE for any of the services! AMEN
She was much better by later that day and was able to travel with us to Dadaab.

Tuesday:

We missed our first bus due to Lupita’s need to check out the local medical facilities so Bruce and Ken got us a bus later in the day.

This bus ride was 1 in a million. Luckily the conductor did a great job and got all of the ladies a seat, the fellas on the other hand got the chance to stand. This ride took us 2 ½ hours for a 4 hour trip on an all sand road. Just enough bumps to throw your head against the ceiling and make you hold on for dear life.

Lori was concerned about the bus actually tipping over … well yeah it happens.. about 3 times in the past 3 months, thank God ours made it just fine. To show how small the world is, Lori ended up sitting next to a women from Seattle WA. Who was visiting relatives in the camps.

DADAAB!
We arrived in Dadaab (which is the local city surrounded by the 3 UN Refugee Camps which house approx. 150,000 people.) Dadaab is about 80 KM from the Somali Boarder.
We were housed at the Canadian Baptist Ministry Guest House in Dadaab. Ytani and Irene were our host and treated us with great hospitality.

To get a little extra work out in the heat of the EQUATOR we had a stair stepper pump to pump water to the houses. Nothing like working up a little sweat while you are already dripping in it.

For dinner we headed over the UN Compound, which took about 1.5 hours to get permission to get in. Once in we visited a restaurant that liked to use dirt as a spice. Mmmm mmm. Delicious.

Wednesday:

It took a little long to get a cab due to the Canadian Commissioner in town and no cars were allowed to drive. They also shut down all cell phone communication which made it hard to find out what was going on. After prayer and patience a cab arrived and we headed out to IFO Camp and the Gambella Block. Gambella is an Ethiopian Tribe.

Here we did our Encounter at their beautiful churched called “God Help Church” This was a non denominational hand made brick church that houses over 100 members. The brink was covered by sand plaster that had amazing art work.

Their praise and worship was truly amazing and glorified God with every part of their mind, body and soul.

These members have been traveling here since 2003 when the massacres started in Ethiopia. We heard many devastating stories that broke our hearts. It is amazing what these people have gone through and still they praise the Lord and have Jesus as their Savior. AMEN!!!

The Encounter was broken into 2 days.

Day 1 Morning Session was Sean, Lupita, Eliza and Bruce and was translated into 2 languages as the same time, Ethiopian and Somali.

The afternoon session was Lori and prayer for deliverance accompanied with local worship.

Over 100 people plus children came to the Encounter and the church overflowed with people, song, prayers and the love the Father.

During our lunch time we got to listen to Ali’s (who was the Somali Group Leader) story of his life with Christ and the persecution he has gone through from Somlia’s. He is the Somali Track Master and handed out tracks in Arabic, Somali, and local languages.

We also found out that Ethiopians do not have the Old Testament Translated in the local tongues. This of course makes it very hard to understand the full message of the word.

After the Encounter we headed back to Dadaab for another unsatisfactory meal at the UN. That was the last time we choose to visit there which worked out nicely b/c they decided to ban us from the facility.

Thursday:

Headed back to the Gambella Block of the IFO Refugee Camp for the rest of the Encounter.
Caleb spoke about the Holy Spirit and we prayed for the Holy Spirit to enter the lives of the believers. This was amazing proclamation of faith and we experienced the Holy Spirit enter that church and the IFO Camp. AMEN!

Since not all church members could attend we held another shorter version of the Holy Spirit talk in the afternoon. Ken closed the meeting with a great Vision Talk for the Gambella people. After the Encounter we handed out the soccer uniforms we purchased in Nairobi and watched a match between one of the Somali teams and the Gambella Ethiopian Team. It was a dirt field with ashes from cooking fires as lines on the field. Before the game began the field needed to be cleared… of Goats.. 3 young local boys did the work for us and the game began. They were amazing athletics and it was a great game to watch. As we left in the Taxi that drove across the field during the game (which didn’t stop play) the Ethiopians were winning 3 to nill.

We headed back to the Baptist guesthouse where our host Irene made us a incredible meal that put the UN restaurant to shame.
I also need to mention that the food given to us for lunch at the IFO camp was incredible, Ethiopian Meals are amazing.

Friday:
Caleb left at 6:30 am to head off to Nairobi to catch a plane and head over to visit his family. The rest of the group was ready for our bus at 9 am which ended up being 1 and ½ hours late. We were very happy to all have seats this time around and with room to spare.

The ride back included, 6 goats that reluctantly stayed in the storage compartment under the bus, 4 police checks, 3 hours of travel and a lot of sand.

We arrived back in the Nomad Hotel safe and sound with all of us feeling good and ready for a meal.

This afternoon was a relaxing day of shopping in the local market and having dinner with Ken and his family at the Nomad.

Sean and Bruce and team

Videos

We were having a hard time keeping everyone in line for the medical supplies, it got so bad that we had some local help step in. This was quite a sight.



Here is a video of the Garissa Teacher's College Christian Group worshiping. If you ain't dancing then you ain't worshiping. Yee Haw!

Life Frontier school kids welcoming us with a song.


Boji Tribe women entertaining us with a dance.

Ethiopia vs Somalia Futbol match (we provided the uniforms)

The pictures below are from the Boji tribe. This is a very poor nomadic tribe. They are 100% Muslim. Ken has been working with them so they allowed us to join them. We were able to pray infront of them (which is a big deal) hand out medical supplies, food, cooking equipment and water jugs.


Peeking in a tribal house

1st grade classroom is under this tree

The kids playing futbol

Kids watching us hand out medical supplies

Bruce getting to know some of the Boji women

Here are some pics of the "Life Frontier School" this is the school that Ken and Eunice started. It is an amazing school that has a great curriculum and has multiple classrooms per grade. They also have a boarding house for some students. We had a blast here.







Here are some more random pics of the trip




Garissa Teacher's College

The road are so bad in Garissa that cars drive on the side and people and animals walk down the roads.






When a church is built (on the right) then the local Muslims buy the land next door and build a Mosque. There are about 40 Mosques and 18 churches in town.

Caleb outside our accommodation's in Dadaab at the Canadian Baptist Ministry Complex
Bruce about to pump water for showers



My bed in Dadaab



"God Help Church" This church is the Ethiopian Church in the IFO UN Refugee Camp. This is the Gambella tribe. They have been forced out of their country with violence and death, they come to Kenya, get put in a camp and one of the first things they do is build a beautiful church to worship God. AMEN!!

Back from Dadaab

Great News! We have traveled deep into the heart of Muslim culture and have shared the word of God. We have just returned from Dadaab the town where the UN Refugee camps are located. There are 3 UN Camps surrounding Dadaab each with about 50,000 exiled members. Most of the refugees are from Somali and Ethiopia.
We were housed at the Canadian Baptist Ministry Guest house, Tatani and Irene were our host and were amazing. They took great care of us and made sure we were where we needed to be.
We spent the majority of our time in the IFO Camp on the Gambella Block which houses the Gambella Tribe from Ethiopia. They had to come to Kenya after the mass killings started in 2003.
They stories are amazing and very sad, we ask that you continue to pray for these people as many of them have not seen family members for years. The love of Christ is in the Gambella Camp AMEN!
We lead an Encounter for their church which is amazing (pictures to come) and got to pray and worship with them.
By the way Worship in Kenya is incredible and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Today we are back in Garissa and doing an all day Encounter for local church members.
We are all feeling much better but we ask that you continue to pray for our health and safety.

Check out our other blog: www.pullmanfoursquaremissions.blogspot.com

I will be updating the blog tonight with more pictures.

God Bless!

Amazing

I apologize for not keeping up on this blog. We have been extremely busy and done some amazing things.
For the past couple of days we have been teaching to the local Teacher's College, working with Marriage Encounters, going to schools to hand out books, and doing medical distribution for local tribes.

I am amazed at the amount of love and unfortunately the amount of need that exist in this area.
The poverty is extreme and many places dont have access to water or food. It is very sad and we just dont have enough things to give. What we can give is appreciated, but so much more is needed.
Below are some pictures of the kids and local tribes we have met.
We leave today for Didaub, which is a the headquarters for the refugee camp east of us. We ask for your prayers as we enter the camp and work with pastors over there.

We also ask for prayers for Lupita, she has fallen sick with food poisoning, she is feeling better but is still weak, we ask that you pray for her fast recovery and ability to travel.

We are still in great spirits and loving out time here. Thank you all for your prayers and love.

Here are some photos, enjoy
.

LIONS!

Wow! so it is officially day 2 for me in Kenya. Right now it is just before midnight on the 6th of June which means it is about 2 pm on the 6th of June back back home. Our trip so far has been incredible, i had no idea that i would be experiencing so much in such a short amount of time. The people here are great, especially our host, Ken and Unice, they have been awesome and have made this transition doable.
As we arrived, I had a classic "Chewy Moment" as my luggage was lost. It seems no matter where i travel, i always lose a bag. This time it was the new guitar and and gear that we had purchased for the worship team here in Garissa, so i am totally bummed but we are hoping that one day it will arrive.
We stayed the night in Nairobi which was incredible. Thank God we had Ken and his team to drive us around, i really dont know how to describe the driving other than, Rules? What Rules? umm yeah, we are alive that that is amazing, cus WOW.
One gift that we received that we were not expecting is a trip to the National Nairobi Park, which is a huge Savannah that houses all of Africa's amazing animals. This is a pay and drive yourself kind of place and I can't believe they let people do that.
We saw everything and it was amazing, Buffalo, Giraffe, Osterich, Rino, Deer, Antelope, Crocs, Zebra and the KING. They were amazing, and all very close.
Especially the lions, we saw one lion earlier in the day and thought that was a treat, then we started to head back and got lost, so we ended up in the dark driving, when all of a sudden we saw a few glowing eyes, so we slowed down, then we saw a few more on the right hand side of road, It was a pride of lions. Then we noticed that there about 9 more sets of eyes, staring us down, on both sides of van. Amazing and also very creepy. I hope these shots give you an idea. ;0)
Well, we have an early morning so i will sign off, Know that we are having a great time, all is well and I have many more stories to tell and we have only been in country for 48 hours, i am excited to see what the next 9 days will bring.
I love ya! Sean


Prayer request: We ask that you continue to pray for the safety of the group that is preaching and for the safety of those receiving the message. To become a believer in Christ is a very dangerous thing in Garissa and East Kenya which can result in beatings, excommunication from the family and even death, so please pray protection for those who choose to belong to Christ that they may do so with Joy and Courage and in Safety.

The Gang

Here is a picture of the Pullman Foursquare group that is heading over to Kenya. This was our "Packing Party BBQ" on Sunday night where we divided up approx. 180 lbs. of books for the school that we will packing over in our suitcases. I am also very excited that we acquired a guitar to take over that we will leave with Ken and his worship team. Things are set, packing list checked and it it just about time to head over the pond.

Team members from left to right: Bruce, Lori, Lupita, Eliza, me and Caleb.

Getting Ready

Well here I am just 7 days away from my trip to Kenya. I am of course very excited and a little nervous for this trip. I must first thank GOD for this opportunity. I have had it on my heart to go to Africa for some time now, with no real reason, just a desire to go. There was no real options for me until I was sitting in church (Pullman Foursquare) one Sunday morning when the projectionist put up the wrong screen for the talk but the right screen for me. It was the "Pullman Foursquare is Going to Africa" screen with info about the group going. That message hit me square and I inquired after the service. That split second was the voice of God calling out. The team had already been assembled but they said if I worked hard and fast I could join them. Well with the blessings of God and many of you the funds have been raised, the time off work negotiated, the dog taken care of and the ticket bought, I am going to Africa.

Thanks to my best friend and boss Val, I now also have a sweet new digital camera with enough memory to last a lifetime, so when I can I will be posting pictures. This picture is of Ken who is in charge of this ministry in Garissa and a few of his new converts.

Thank you to all of you who have given prayer and $ to this cause. It is b/c of your generosity and prayer that this team will be going to spread the word of God in the heart of darkness.