September 5-25th

September 5 Monday
Wow, I’m a week behind on my journal. Highlights. On Wednesday we had a field trip. We left the kids at home. We went to SIM (Service in Missions) where they talked about Islam and the different projects and resource material they have available. It was good to make more contacts but the information we got during EMM training was much more helpful. Afterward we went to yet another Western style mall to eat dinner. It was near the YAYA center. The only good thing there is a used and collectible book store so we now have a place to go find used books. I am really getting tired of going to all the rich places. I much prefer the places the Kenyans go. Everyone else in language school have vehicles so we end up going were they go usually. It makes it easy for us but I feel like I am missing a lot as well. But then we will be here for 3 years plenty of time to explore. We then went over to the Mennonite Guest house and Ellen finally got the hazelnut coffee my mom sent over. It made her week. We ended up at the Sarit Center for a little while and then headed home.
On Friday we had on Outside Learning unit. We were to practice greetings, we where we were from where we were going etc. The class was not too happy about it. We had not gotten any notice and some people felt it was too advanced of an assignment. I was content to go do the best I could. Some how it ended up that we went down to the Village Market (western style mall) to the Masi Market. The Massai Market is there on Fridays and is craftsman from all over the country selling their crafts. It was yet another very touristy thing to do. I really had no interest in buying anything. We would just have to transport it to Shirati. We have to much stuff now. Anyway I’m sure we will get plenty of this stuff straight from the source in our coming 3 years. I talked with several vendors and they were more than happy to try and help with my Swahili. Off course they kept asking me to buy something little. That is of course how they make their living. I had spent about a half an hour with on young man who was very nice and extremely helpful. He was from Meru, central Kenya. He had some greeting cards made from banana leaves. I had bought some a Brackenhurst for 120 KSH. We had haggled to 130KSh another language student came up and told me I was paying too much and I should not pay more than 100KSh for the 2.

September 6-25th
September 6th
I got a new language helper today and she is awesome!!! We started having language helpers last week for an hour each afternoon. We have a different person each week. Today I felt like I actually had a clue!!! Beginning next week we will have another hour of class added on in the afternoon. A total of 6 hours/day, not including study time, homework or “outside learning units”.

August 14, 2005 Sunday

Today we got up late. We still have a lot of information we need from Brackenhurst. We are supposed to get it tomorrow. Apparently they do not have church services on campus. If you want to go to church you need to walk or drive if you have a car about 2 kilometers to the local Baptist church. So we slept in late ate breakfast and then we had church in our living room. We started with a prayer and then had about 10 minutes of silent reflection and thought. I had told the kids before we started that I wanted them to each think of a bible story they knew to share after quite time. Leah was first. She shared about Daniel and the lions. We talked about what the story meant and the kids agreed it was about having faith and trust in the Lord and he will protect you. Gerry shared about Adam and Eve and the tempting of Eve. He really knew the story well. We talked about this meaning our need to listen to and obey God. We talked about the punishment for the snake, Adam and Eve. I read the verses about Adams punishment because we were all a little fuzzy on that one. Then Alex shared about David and Goliath. Alex really embellished the story with lots of flare. We talked about the story demonstrating Faith and trust in the Lord and how he protects us when we listen to him. I finished with reading from Mathew about Peter getting out of the boat and walking on water. We talked about the faith it took to do that and how other than Jesus Peter is the only person to walk on water. We talked about Jesus reaching out to Peter when Peter lost faith. We ended with sing the first verse of Guide My Feet. Gerry was very hyper so I took him on a long walk. We went on a lot of trails and saw most of the ropes course and other parts of the training areas. When we got back the kids played down on the play ground and Ellen and I worked on computer stuff for the website and emails. About 4 we all went for a walk together and then stopped for a soda. Ellen’s working on dinner.

get the real scoop!
August 18, 2005

We went to a nearby market today which took a really long time it seems. We went by matatu (van) where 21 people were all crammed in!!! We also had the pleasure of having a mentally unbalanced gentleman following us around who kept shouting that we were Germans and seemed to run ahead to announce our arrival to all the vendors. It was embarrassing and I could tell Alex was ready to get out of there! We also had the usual entourage of kids in our wake. One I especially liked was a 16 year old named Joseph who was very nice. We ended up buying him (and his friend) some bread and milk. The needs here are beyond comprehension. One man tried to sell his kids to me!!! I hope he was kidding, but I don’t think he was unfortunately. We just have to remember that we are not here to give them money, but to help them to better their lives somehow…Lord willing!!! We have been enjoying getting to know the other families here at school. There is also a single guy that we have spent a lot of time with as well. He will be involved in youth ministry after language school. The kids have enjoyed hanging out with him. Miss you guys and send our love. Ellen

parts of e-mails I have sent to people...including a REALLY good bathroom story (August 16th)

August 13th, 2005
Hey. How are ya’? Didn’t mean to be so out of it when you called…I am just quite tired by the end of the day! We are now in Nairobi at the Mennonite Guest House (ahhh---electricity, running water, hot showers!!!). We leave for language school in the morning. We had a very long drive from Shirati yesterday which took @ 11 hours!!! The missionary vehicle is slow, but at least it didn’t leave us sit anywhere. Did I tell you about the obnoxious bus??? Every morning at 4:30 am it starts this really loud, obnoxious car alarm sound…one of those that has several “tunes”. It does this for at least an hour, although it is not continuously, thank GOD!!! It does this to alert the locals that it is time to leave for Musoma. All of us are already plotting ways to quiet this evil beast!!! (although I can’t be too angry, it allows some folks to earn their living, etc, it is just unbelievably annoying!). Also last Sunday night there was some live band playing nearby. They literally played all night long!!! I remembered that they stopped around halfway through the bus thing. Doesn’t anybody sleep around here????? People definitely get up fairly early here. I have been getting up @ 7 am and I can hear lots of people and activity in town.

Where to start since I have been delinquent in recording my thoughts or journaling.
July 27 –
What a hectic day. We had month to prepare and still it came down o the last day and the last hour. Thankfully Veronica, Karla, Peter, mom and Art cam early in the afternoon. Even so there were many things that we did not get finished. Chet and other church members where gracious and took care of cleaning out the rest of the house after we left. The folks at British airways were great at check in. They made the process easy. We had tried to get everything into 14 bags but 4 bags were overweight. So we ended up taking the 15th bag. British Air had given us five extra bags at no cost. It made everything much easier. The flight to London was delayed for about an1 ½ because of thunder storms. Once we got into the air it was a smooth uneventful flight. Things had been so crazy the last few days the send off and flight seemed like no be deal. Almost anti-climatic.

We are now at Brackenhurst getting ready to start language school tomorrow.

Our address until we leave on November 15th--
PO box 32 Limuru, Kenya

Our Kenya cell phone # is (254-Kenya code) 73-512-7156

We arrived safely in Shirati this past Sunday evening. We have spent the week getting acquainted with the town and new neighbors. We spent a lot of time working on the house. It needed a lot of cleaning and some electrical and plumbing repairs. We went to Musoma on Thursday. It was a good trip . The kids are handling the changes extremely well. We are very proud of them. Last night the boys went and played soccer with some of the neighborhood boys even though they could not speak each others language.
(Click more below)

I am a 12 year old boy and I am moving to Africa in less than a week. I think that moving to Africa will be a good experience for us all. It will also bring our family together more because it already has.
I will miss my friends from the States but I will make new ones. In Tanzania, they play a lot of soccer, but I don't know how to play. They can teach it to me abd I can teach them baseball.
We will be 3 hours from the Serengetti Plains. I would like to go and see all the animals. So I would say UI'm pretty excited.

Just Click on Gallery (above), then click on one of the 2 pictures to view the "album". Click on pictures in the album for a closer look. Enjoy!