Relationships

This morning was beautiful!! The sun was shining and it was warm. I hear it's snowing back home. Hehe. Africa is so beautiful. There isn't anything like it. I feel like I'm just walking in a picture.

Today was good! Woke up around 7:30am and went to eat breakfast. After breakfast we had a devotional and the awarding of "the warthog"!
-I forgot to tell u about the warthog! Hehe. Basically, every day someone will get the honor of receiving the warthog (stuffed animal) by showing good Christian character or just being extra helpful, etc. yesterday, my roomie for it and today she awarded it to Nathan. It was a lot of fun. :)
After the devo, we loaded up in two vans to head to the village. One can, (the newbies) went to the "Junction" to exchange their money and buy water etc. While we went straight to the village. Once we got there we helped set up the clinic a little, cuz we will be opening it tomorrow. A lot of the older kids, like in college or highschool started showing up to talk and visit and it was at this point I realized what TRUE service was.
-I realized that yes, there are times where you have to go in and get work done and do small jobs here and there... But it's not all about that. It's about relationships. It's about showing Christ's love and talking with someone to see how they are. Really listening and having fellowship. That means soo much more to them than bringing food or building a church and leaving... This was so new to me. I have never been on a mission trip where the mission was to talk and build relationships with people. I mean, grant it we will do other tasks as well, but the relationships were THE MOST important. It's definitely something I need to work on and I feel like God was trying to say, "See Chealsea, this is what it means to love my children. This is how you love them and help them." It's still very new to me and something that I'm not very good at and kinda scared of.. But I know God is teaching me and growing me, I just need to listen and trust in Him.

Later, we went to the market in town to buy maiz flower, butter, sugar, erc. to give to the elders when we do home visits. Once we got our supplies we walked back to the clinic to organize and visit a little more with the students.

When we started out for our home visits we split into 2 groups and each group would go visit 2 homes. We had a translator go with us because most of the elders don't know english. (FUN FACT: there are two main lang. in Kenya, Swahili and English. In the village they know Swahili and their native tongue called "kikuyu". The kids start learning English or know it well by 8th grade, so the little ones don't know a whole lot.) Basically, we would go into the homes and give them the gift and ask if we could pray with them. Their houses were made of mud with dirt floors and VERY small. (I'll put pictures up later). I got to pray for one of the homes and it was really neat.

We finished our homes and started back to the clinic. Now, in case you didn't know, the little ones LOVE having their pictures taken and they are sooo cute! They laugh and laugh when they see they're picture on the camera. (I'll put those up later too)

After playing with the kids, a few of us went to see the quarry. There was supposedly a great view of mount walgamot. (spelling?.. Hehe) On the way up, a student named James came with me. He is about 22 (I think) and going to the University here, studying food and beverage management...? We had a nice conv. about the economy and agriculture in America and he also pointed out a lot of the scenery to tell me what it was. It was a fun walk and talk. :))

After we got back, I sat down under this umbrella shade thing and two girls came to sit with me. Their names are Jasmine and Veronica. They didn't much English so it was a lil awkward at first trying to communicate with them. But one question changed it completely.. "Do you want to play with my hair?" and they smiled real big and said yes! So I took my hair down and they began braiding and messing with it and slowly we started communicating. They were trying to teach me some kikuyu and laughing at me when I said it wrong. It was a lot of fun! I let them take pictures it was great! It was then time to go but not before we brought out the bubbles!! Omgoodness!!! They LOVE bubbles! It was amazing to see their faces laugh and smile! :) it was amazing!

We then left at 4pm to go back to the guest house for dinner at 6:30. I was exhausted and tools nap when I got back. Dinner was delicious. Fresh fruit and veggies! Yumm!

After dinner we had a meeting, that was just to discuss what was going in tomorrow and how we felt about today, our impressions/expectations. And then we prayed and left for bed. :)

Wow. So many things happen in one day! It's hard to write about them all and there is still more I could write! Tomorrow, one group is leaving early (8am) to head to the village and start setting up the clinic, while the rest of us (me included) go to the store to get a few last minute things before we go to the village. We will have the clinic tomorrow and Wednesday.

Well I think that's about all for tomorrow. Wake up call is 7am! Yay!! Haha. Thanks again for ur prayers! :)

A Fresh Start

I started writing this blog entry at around 11pm last night but kept falling asleep while I was writing. Haha So it's a day late sorry. I will write another one for today in a minute. :)

New Years Day. Wow. It's the beginning of a new year, with so many possibilities! :)

Today was a little better according to my sleepiness, hehe. And tonight, I think I'm gonna get to go to bed before midnight... Maybe ;)

We left for the village around 9am this morning to go to church at 10am. We split our group into 2 teams to go to 2 different churches to fellowship with all the people there.

I keep talking about the team but haven't really introduced them. Well, When we came on the 30th, it was only half of us. The other half arrived here tonight about an hour ago. So now we are all officially here. :) the first group I came with consisted of: Brenda (leader), Rebekah, Ellen, Nathan, and Tom & Nancy. The ones that came tonight consist of: Doug (Brenda's husband), Jamie, Elizabeth & Denise Pointdexter (mother and daughter), and Deb.

Anyway, back to the village. The Church I went to was cool. We prayed and sang songs and collected offering. :) Mind you it was all in swahili but we had a translator, which was nice. His name is Evanston. We got up and introduced ourselves and they asked Ellen if she would like to speak and she gave a wonderful sermon about having a fresh start and how God completely saves us. It was great. Plus they said the Lords prayer and I actually recognized it when they started. It was neat. Church lasted about an hr and a half. Btw, there was no speakers or lights or microphones. Only the sound of voices, a drum, and a music triangle, which was actually a circle haha. It was sooo awesome to just watch Gods children worship!
After church we headed back down to the clinic, where we played with some of the kids. :) We taught them the electric slide, to Kelly clarksons' song "since u been gone". They loved it :)

While we were there some of the kids, hung around and played with my hair! They think my hair is so strange cuz it's so different from there's. :)

We left the village around 4pm to go shop for souvenirs and eat dinner. The place we went to get souvenirs was called the Masai market and I guess you could compare it to Chinatown in NYC. You had to barter, and I am NO good at that haha! But I got Nancy and Tom to help me and be my body guards. Haha! It was a lot of fun! After, we got done we went to the "java House" for dinner. It was really good and I got to have good, fresh fruit! :) it was really yummy.

We then started our journey back to the guest house for some MUCH needed rest! I got to bed early and slept well!

Thank you so much for your prayers! They have definitely been a huge help and blessing. :) more to come.