A Beginning

My first impressions of Kenya have been great. I have arrived just after the rainy season, so things are really green and colorful.  These are both pictures from the AfricaHope property.

This is the Rift Valley on the drive from the airport in Nairobi to Narok. We're about 2.5 hours from Nairobi.

You can't tell quite how rough the roads are from the pictures. People actually need to drive big SUV's here =)  I haven't braved driving yet, but maybe soon. I'm still mentally adjusting to being on the left side of the road.

AfricaHope (AH) Kenya, the ministry of NMSI based here in Narok has a beautiful piece of property that the Lord is using in big ways. We currently have a conference building where our offices are and a large hall, plus a dining center, and 2 dormitory buildings. They are just doing the finishing touches on the dorms, but we are able to host groups right now. World Vision is using our facilities right now for a 10 day conference, also and World Concern is here for a seminar today as well. The idea is to eventually be self-funding with the income from the conference facilities. AH (AfricaHope) is also able to use the facilities to host different camps, conferences and short-term teams for our own programs. The Truman State short-term team just returned from the field (Elongota Enterit, where Phil & Gwen lived for many years) and will be staying in the dorms, too. In a few days we'll have the US intern team (15 people) staying in the dorms as well as people for an HIV/AIDs education seminar taught by Duane Crumb from NMSI. 

Everyone is really excited about the Grand Opening for the Hope Center happening on July 12th. Please pray for that--I'll give you more details later.

My day begins with morning devotions with the AfricaHope staff (mainly Kenyans). That is one of my favorite parts of the day!  We are meeting outside now (right by where Mr. Sheep is standing) because of the conference going on inside. Their singing is so beautiful, I'm slowly catching on to the songs and understanding more and more of the words. 

Halafu (next) I meet with a language helper during the rest of the morning. We do all kinds of learning activities... one of which has been labeling things in my house. Some of my new words are pilipili hoho (red pepper) and tembo (elephant). 

This is the view of Narok from our back porch. It is about a 20 minute walk to town. 

In the afternoons I continue language study and I'm able to take short trips to the field to see the different programs that AfricaHope is doing. Though we are based here in Narok, our focus is on the rural villages in the Narok District. I had the opportunity to go to the field yesterday and all (I mean allll) day on Sunday. I'll write about that soon!