Week One in Africa Comes to a Close

Here I am again.

I say that because I wrote a painfully slow processed blog on my I phone and was finishing it up when I got a Skype call. I answered the call and then went back to finish the blog and it was gone. Usually it would auto save but I am using a blog app that apparently does not save your blog to draft when interrupted. So, ...

Here I am again, trying to recap this last week,

I think I started to tell you that we arrived safely and after some weathering of our minds through jet lag, we fell into the household of George and Nellie, their daughter Michelle, BT and Mary who cooks for them on occasion. Abba, Amma and Yashanah had already taken up residency 5 weeks prior to us coming in.

You probably have a lot better details on that and the last week if you follow my wife's blog. She is much faster at it than I am. She is also more humorous than I. Here blog is located here if you want to skip mine and read hers, Then again, I'll make you wait till the bottom of the page to find her link.

My first project was to install a Sawyer water filtration system (see the picture} which is a necessary item for here since the tap water is not drinkable. This allows us to filter tap water into 5 gallon jugs and with a hand pump, fill our water bottles and pitcher for meals. Clean, unpolluted water for drinking. A gentleman's delight and a ladies friend for drinking and cooking. It saves money as well since it costs about $5 per bottle to buy about twice a week with the six of us all drinking it.

My next challenge has been acclimating to the Kenyan cultural lifestyle. There are many things to say about the Kenyan life and most of them are very good. The problem is when an Americanized couple drop in for a 7 week visit it is a cultural shock to the system. Mostly the huge change in activity.

I am used to going all the time from work to home, meetings, work days on Saturdays, kids, household, clan men's meetings and any other number of visits and activities throughout the week. It is pretty much go go go until you drop then sleep and get up to do it again. Here is is not the same. Actually it is far from that. I am going a little stir crazy at times as I feel like I am stuck in the twilight zone. Time here is based on a 48 hour day with hours between doing activities. A ride to town breaks the monotony of the week or day as we bump and swerve our way into the downtown section of the city. All the while avoiding the numerous species of livestock, people from many countries, bicycler, motorcycles, men pushing carts, took-tooks (three wheeled motorized taxi's), cars, buses, cans and people walking in the middle of the street. Never a dull ride as we bump our way there and back.

Today we took on another challenge of grand proportions in African Engineering. We constructed an addition to the tent we are using for meeting with the church here. I know that sounds funny but it is a definite reality here. The church is not wealthy enough to do such a thing so Noah and I put our thoughts together an constructing a wooden pole extension to the tent. (pictures are worth a million words.) it is actually a pretty well constructed extension and once finished will accommodate the musicians and choir along with a podium for a speaker. A few poles, nails, rope, tools and Shazam! A tent sun-room.
Hey, Nathanael, I found a new construction model we can adopt for expanding the building business.

Wednesday we met with a few of the pastors in the area for tea and discussion about their churches and living a different life that the traditional church model found around the world. It was interesting as the traditions of men have well rooted themselves in their lives and the lives of their church members.

We have been shopping several times and discovered a new exercise program. See my other blog for more details on the correct process but I can tell you it involves a lot of following and dodging.

This evening we met with the clan leaders of the church and studied Ephesians 1 thought 4. They meet every Thursday night. Saturday is the Kingdom Hikers talent show and Sunday Noah has graciously invited me to talk at the service. I have many things that I can say God has blessed me with and many things I own that I could speak about but for some reason I am at a blank, waiting on God to show me what to speak on. I have a couple drafts but not a solid plan yet.

I did find a new way to lose weight here. There is a way to do that while not even recognizing you are. I'll write more about that in my Diet blog soon. I can tell you that it involves George though. I call it the Eco Wappi George Diet. See link below.

Six more weeks of this visit and then we will have to go home. I wish it were such that we had a gatehouse of sorts here and had a more permanent place here to work from. But for now this will have to do until God shows us another way.

Don't forget to check out Tara;s blog and Brandon's blog and videos. Here are the links

Tara's Blog         Brandon's Blog          My Diet Blog.

Good night for now and lalla salama.