Update - Aug 22

Aug 16

We've been in Maseno, Kenya for a week, and it's been great. This is a small village, so visitations are done during the day. Most people are farmers and are happy to take time during the day to share with us. There is a spiritual structure here that doesn't exist in the compound in Nairobi. Here, there is quiet time every morning from 6:30 to 7:30, then we all come together in the Chapel to discuss what we got out of quiet time, and to praise our Father and to pray. Then we eat, then we do visitations. Then there is another quiet time in the evening and we all come together again at 7:30pm to share and do a Bible study with Abouna. We just finished the book of Esther, which was very cool. I had never read it before - check it out. It shows that God can change any situation and that the faith of just one person can save many. Today was a particularly fun. In the morning (at 6:00am) we climbed up the mountain that is just outside the compound. The view is beautiful from the top of the mountain, especially at sunrise. Then we came back to play games with the orphans who come visit us every week, then we went to visit the street kids – to feed them physically and spiritually. Then all the servants went to Lake Victoria (the source of the Nile) to have a nice dinner. We saw the sunset there, and again the view was spectacular. We were unfortunately late for Bible study, so we prayed in the car for Abouna not to be mad, and he wasn’t J I took a bunch of photos today that I’ll post on Facebook when I get back to Nairobi because there is no Internet here.

We have become good friends with the servants in Maseno. There are 4 girls here from Egypt and they are so nice. Each one of them is so sweet in their own way. I am glad we got to know them. The doctors and pharmacists here are a fun bunch as well.

On Monday, we are going to Tanzania, where we’ll stay for about 5 days, then it’s back to Nairobi. I’d love to take the spiritual structure from Maseno and start it in Nairobi. Nairobi needs it desperately, because currently, it’s very hospital-focused.

A new guy arrived today in Maseno. His name is Shibu, and he’s Indian Orthodox, from the same place where my brother Jeju is from! Imagine that! He seems like a cool guy.

It’s been really nice to have so much time to dedicate to my Father. I keep asking Him to change me. I am still quite lazy and I need His help and your prayers. There are dark parts of me that I continually ask Him to get rid of. It shames me incredibly when I ask Him to be my janitor L Can you imagine that? It’s like asking God to get down on his hands and knees and clean my dirty floor. I cry when I ask Him to do this for me, but the crazy thing is that He Is Willing to do this! What kind of love is this? I don’t understand it, but I am grateful for it. More than anything, I need to change into a good soldier for His army so I can fight the good fight. Please Father, hear and accept my prayers.

Aug 20

Tanzania has been more ‘interesting’ than Kenya so far. We had some adventures. First of all, getting across the border was a learning experience. At the Kenyan border, you have to give a ‘leaving the country’ form and leave your car’s log book (it’s like the registration) there so that you can’t sell your can in Tanzania. Thanks to God, things went pretty smoothly. One of the only glitches was that the car insurance had expired, so we had to purchase some. Also, some bribes helped.

So Christine, Nevine and myself are staying in the same building. We share a kitchen and bathroom. This morning, we were supposed to go have quiet time at the lake at 6:00am. Nevine woke up early to make tea. She knocked on our door to wake us up, but we kept on sleeping. Then, not a minute later, we heard a loud scream coming from the kitchen and we jumped out of bed to go help. There was a rat in the kitchen! Nevine and Christine ‘hid’ in the hallway and sent me in to get rid of the rat, as if I had any clue how to do that. Nevine told Christine that rats hate noise, so they began banging on door and walls and stomping their feet. I went to the kitchen and got a broom and started banging on things to see where it was. I managed to scare it into running towards the door, but it hid behind some boxes near the door. Then I came up with a genius plan. I used a couple of long benches turned on their side as walls to guide it out the door after I was going to scare it out from behind the boxes. So I put the benches into position, used the broom to scare it, and the little bugger ran in between the two benches, past me, and straight into the hallway where Christine and Nevine were! As you can imagine, their noise making turned into loud, continuous screaming. I ran to help, but by the time I got there, the rat had crawled under a door to another room, and we used a blanket to seal the bottom of the door so it couldn’t come back. That was my first rat encounter. I found him to be a most worthy adversary.

After that encounter, we went and had quiet time by the lake. There was a tour group there, and the group had Canadians! They were from Lethbridge and Vancouver. It was nice to chat with them. The lake is beautiful. There was a multitude of bird species at the shore.

The compound here has a Chapel where we had a Bible study last night. We could hear lots of high-pitched sounds. We thought they were rats, but it turns out there is a bunch of bats that live in the ceiling, and the floor of the Chapel near the Altar was covered in bat droppings. I had a good chuckle at this because just the day before I was asking God to clean the dirty floor of my heart and I told Him that I would gladly clean the floor of His house, so of course I volunteered to clean the Chapel (and yes I volunteered Christine too). We spent the afternoon cleaning up the Chapel. We swept up all the droppings, took all the carpets outside and gave them a good beating, mopped the floor and then put the carpets back. It was SO symbolic – We have a bunch of crap in our hearts that we need God to clean.

We went on house visitations at 4:00pm to a nearby part of the village. God totally spoke through us and I was really proud of Christine. She spoke with insight and authority. Usually she is shy and doesn’t want to share the Word of God, but today she really impressed me. As we were walking back to the compound, we were both saying that we ask God to help us deliver His words, and He does! We just sit there, mouth open, thinking ‘DUH, what am I going to say next?’, and then beautiful and meaningful words come out. And we don’t remember half the things that come out of our mouths. It’s very cool.

God Bless.