Greetings from Kenya....

In five hours, I'll be leaving to make the 2.5 hour trek from Nakuru to Nairobi. We have a car and driver taking me, so we won't have to worry about any car challenges getting in the way of me making my flight. I'm due to arrive at the Nairobi airport by 8pm for my 11:20 departure (that's 4:20pm EST if you are keeping track of me in "real time"...). So this is my final Kenya Adventure Log.

The hotel we stayed at in Matunda (outside Kitale), where the Pastor's Conference was being held, was the Olive Inn. It is famous for its butchery and roasted meats. Wednesday we had roast mutton; Thursday we had roast goat. (And no, for my warped friends, it did NOT taste like chicken!)

While I was there, I had a chance to watch some of the Olympics on TV while we waited in the lounge for the pastor's conference to begin each day. Got to see Michael Phelps and the USA relay team win the gold medal and I stood up and sang along with the National Anthem. It was funny to think that four years ago I was there at the Olympics enjoying the medal ceremony for the sailing events.

While I was at the pastor's conference, I met a nurse named Agnes who has been to America twice for training conferences; she's originally from Nairobi but retired and moved to the Matunda area about seven years ago. (That's Agnes in the green print dress, standing on the left.)

She's created a ministry with Pastor Evans' of Matunda's church for the Widows and Orphans projects - many of whom are living with AIDS. They are educating and providing women and orphans in the area with better nutrition and health care. Most AIDS support is based on education and prevention rather than on how to live healthier with AIDS so what she's doing is groundbreaking in Kenya. She also provides counseling and has trained peer educators who go around and reach the women and help talk them through what's going on in their lives.

People keep writing and telling me that they see another book coming out of this adventure. You have no idea. There are at least three that I can fathom already. One, interestingly enough, is a title I've had in my head for a long time, and a rough idea of what the book's concept would be, but no clear focus for it until now. The title:

THEY WILL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE:

Moving from Fear-Based to Faith-Based Ministry

The focus was inspired by the events that went on at the Pastor's Conference on Friday and other comments by the people and the pastors we've met during my stay. At the conference, we had pastors representing more than 15 different denominations, including Pentacostal, Assembly of God (a female pastor!), Church of God, Christ Unity and many others. One older pastor, Pastor Williams, did the closing prayer each day. (That's Pastor Williams on the left, with Bridget (pastor Evans' wife), Pastor Evans, their 5-month old Grace, me, Evans' mom, her youngest, and Pastor George).

On Friday he shared that he had heard many great speakers and ministers in his time, including going to Nairobi to hear Rev. Billy Graham speak and he was here to say that those other speakers didn't have anything on me and that he had enjoyed my preaching and learned more from me than he had from any other preacher. And he asked how many of the men and women had ever experienced a female preacher teaching at a pastor's conference, and no one ever had, which was pretty cool. My ego was in check and I simply enjoyed the compliment and was delighted that the work I did here made a difference. They all got a copy of my book, which was really awesome too.

Friday night, we drove back to Bungoma so that we could be up and at Pastor George's mom's in the morning for a prayer and celebratory meal for her four grandsons who underwent "the cut" this year. On the way, we picked up some passengers who were coming to the celebration. Polygamy is still practiced in many parts of Kenya. If a man can afford to have more than one wife, he often will. Pastor George's late brother, Josephat, actually had 3 wives during his 52 years. Our passengers were his first two wives and their children, the older two of whom had undergone "the cut." They were Brian and Anthony, who are brothers, a year apart.

People here think nothing of walking 2-3 kilometers to get to work, or walking around for 4-5 kilometers in their flip flops! Amazing people. One of the pastors who came to the conference had traveled more than 15 kilometers on foot to attend. We gave him a ride of about 8 kilometers to where we were turning off, to help him get a head start on his walk home.

Speaking of distances, it's about 3 kilometers from Pastor George's mom's house to Miriam's Well which was dug and installed in 2004 (seen here when it first began to flow) by a previous ministry that came to visit. Two months ago a part broke and they didn't have the the money to fix it, so they haven't had easy access to any fresh water for some time now. The well is located about 300 meters from the hospital up in Bungoma and serves nearly nine thousand families who would otherwise have to travel many kilometers to get fresh, healthy water. It's amazing what a small amount of American money can do. Just $100 of a donation we received will replace the part and service the well. I also recommended that Pastor Evans of Bungoma encourage people to leave a small token of their appreciation, a handful of rice or beans, or whatever, when they come to get the water. That way they can use that food and save up money so that they can have the well serviced every year so the part doesn't break again.

Distance can often mean the difference between life and death here. For example, Pastor George's mom is 45 kilometers from the nearest hospital (about 25 miles). When walking is your only mode of transportation, 25 miles can take days to travel. Malaria is a quick working virus and in 2 days can take a life, as evidenced by her grandson. The new hospital that is being built is 3 kilometers away which can be traveled in an hour. There are 9000 families that live within 10-15 kilometers, so this hospital will make a world of difference for this community.

I mentioned last week that I toured the hospital. Things move slowly in Kenya, as finances permit. The concrete walls have been poured and the electric has been roughed in and the doors and windows have been framed (and the doors have been hung inside and the hardware installed). They also have dug the pit for the septic and have located what looks to be a promising fresh water hole. They have the tank and tower for the water and have a meditation fountain that was built of stone. The dormitory right now is a rectangle of concrete pillars that are topped by a concrete and rebar supporting beam that rims the entire top so you can easily create a visual of what the in-patient area will look like. The initial funding was donated by a man in Texas who lost his young son. Instead of flowers, he asked people to make a donation so that they could put the money toward building a hospital in Kenya. The fountain is a beautiful memorial for the son. (Here I am, with the Bungoma Praise and Worship leader, Isabella, in front of the fountain.)

When we got to the celebration at Pastor George's mom's house on Saturday there were about 50 people there, including about 25 children. I enjoyed a feast of stewed chicken with the richest chicken broth I'd ever tasted, a side dish of fresh beef liver had been cut into bite-sized bits and was so flavorful, plus rice. There was also an abundance of roasted meats, but that was too rich for my tummy this week. I gave George's mom the dress I'd gotten for her in America (made in Sri Lanka, but hey, at least it came from America!). I also gave her a mosquito netting hood that she can wear when she's in the field or cooking outside, and a yard of very fine mosquito netting that she can use for over the smaller children's bed. She was so overjoyed. Pastor George said that after the last few years she'd had (losing a son, a daughter and a grandson), it was wonderful to see her laugh so much.

She apparently was overjoyed that I was a "good eater" too. Which is another part of where the focus for the book I mentioned earlier is coming from. Over and over again, people have talked about how incredible it is that I drink their chai, eat meals with them, eat their home cooking, stay in their homes, come to their homes and pray with them, play with their children, am open and friendly, and talk with them, and ask questions and interact, work to learn Swahili, and are truly interested in their lives.

Their previous experiences with other missionaries have all be filled with judgment and fear. Which made me realize how judgment and fear can truly distance us from and harm people in ways we can't even imagine. It's made me even more mindful of my judgments and fears and made me pay attention to what I say, think or do and where they are coming from any place other than love.

We gathered up our growing brood and headed out from the homestead about 3pm, just ahead of the rain, so we wouldn't get stuck in the mud. Our plan was to make the entire 8 hour trip and arrive in Nakuru Saturday night so we could rest up for Sunday. God, apparently, had other plans!

We made it as far as Eldorat, about 120 kilometers from Nakuru. About an hour earlier the driver's side windshield wiper decided to stop working and it was beginning to rain more heavily, and in the dark, with the roads the way they were, we made an executive decision and stopped.

We headed out about 7am, and after 3 hours enjoyed a breakfast of chai and chipati at our familiar Eldame Ravine. Folks at the church kept calling us every 30 minutes or so, wanting to know if we were going to make it to church. They started the praise and worship at 10am and we rolled into town about noon. Luckily, the church and Pastor George's house are 200 meters apart, so we made a quick pitstop so I could get out of my truly filthy jeans and into dress pants and a white shirt before heading to church.

The place was packed. They had every plastic chair filled and had pulled out all the children's chairs and benches from the school to handle the overflow.

I celebrated my 44th birthday by feeding 200 Kenyan families from the church service thanks to a donation we received for food. Probably my favorite birthday ever. I told them during my talk that this wasn't charity and it wasn't a handout, it was a gift from God, to show that good is all around us, if we're present in the moment and open our eyes to see the overflowing abundance, rather than focusing on the contents of the cup at the moment. The most touching moment was when I saw one man kneeling on the ground and sharing the flour he had received with other families, who had more people to feed than he did. (You can use cameraman Ken's thumb to help you gauge the size of the crowd.)

Some people even brought me presents. My favorite was wrapped in newspaper with the little girl's name on it, Racheal. She's a sweetie from the school with the biggest smile, about 7-8 years old. She had gotten me a beautiful handkerchief. Her mom, Suzanne, is one of the women in the women's ministry. I also got to play with Anit and Faith, Eunice's children who had accompanied me on our prayer rounds as we went from house to house.

The only challenge this week has been this silly little chest crud that wants to hang on. Thank God for Doreen from Nature's Haven and her little bottles of potions. I've been rubbing "Joyful Healer" all over my chest, putting "Peaceful Breath" under my nose, spritzing "Peaceful Pillow Mist" on my pillows at night and alternating adding drops of "Immune Enhancer" and packets of EmergenC to my water bottles. I'm still flowing on.......

Monday, we packed up the children and bags of snacks and sodas and traveled back across town to the Nakuru Game Park. The baboons we had seen last week either remembered us fondly or have a real love for "blow-pop" suckers because they came right up and jumped on Charlie and Willie and stole their lollipops right out of their hands. And that was before we even left the parking lot! (editorial note: it was actually rhesus monkeys that stole the lollipops. Which doesn't mean the baboons were innocent, as you'll see in a bit!)

We headed out toward Lake Nakuru, which is entirely enclosed within the park (which seemed like tens of thousands of acres - we drove around for nearly 7 hours!). We saw hundreds of thousands of pink flamingos, which nest in Tanzania then migrate back here to Nakuru each "winter." Zebra, gazelle, antelope and water buffalo roam freely in abundance, and we saw three rhinos and three separate herds of giraffe. We visited the waterfall, where we stopped to take a picture. A baboon decided to take advantage of our distraction and attempted to climb in the window and steal our snacks. I spotted him and we came running at him before he could make it beyond pulling himself up to hang from the driver's door and sticking his head into the open window.

We headed out from there to Lion Hill, go to lion hunting. It was getting close to dusk and we were hoping to spot a hungry lion stalking through the grass, but after an hour we still had no luck. We saw one momma up on the rocks and another driver said she had some cubs with her and had been down lower earlier but had gotten scared away.

A few cars came past us later as we drove along and the drivers said that they had seen a leopard up in a tree, so we went to investigate. When we got there, there was something about the way he was lounging there saying "adore me".... I just KNEW it was a big ol' Male LION.... Us Leos...we know these things! Sure enough, he flicked that tail that was dangling down below the branches and the tell-tale tuft gave him away. We took pictures and oogled him for a while (this was only the 2nd time the children had ever seen a lion in the wild) and then we turned around. Once we got turned around, we realized the lion had gotten down out of the tree and was posing for pictures in the grass before deciding to get up and walk across the road, one car away from us. He turned down the road we needed to travel along, so we followed along and he was about 8 feet from us. I leaned over to the driver side window and got some great pictures of him walking. After each picture, Pastor George would say "you get the picture.. and then we go..." The lion turned toward us, and was about 5 feet away when I snapped the last picture just as Pastor George decided "and then we go". I guess five feet depends on your perspective. When it's the distance between your arm in an open window and a big lion, objects may seem a bit larger....

It may not seem like the clearest picture, but when a lion is five feet away and closing, you would move fast too....

It reminded me of the old joke where two guys are walking an a lion spots them. One stops to tie his sneakers on and the other one teased him that he couldn't outrun a lion. To which his companion replied: "I don't have to outrun the lion. I just have to out run YOU!

Ken, the praise and worship leader who came with us to Kitale is a marathon runner. He's looking for smaller name US marathons to run in. He did the Nairobi International in 2:23....very cool. He's a great guy - but not the guy I'd want with me if we ran into a lion, if you know what I mean.

Yesterday, I accompanied Pastor George as he took Irene back to school. It seemed odd at first that you would go to a boarding school in your own town, but given that it takes an hour to go across town and they start school at 5:30am and finish at 9pm, it makes a bit more sense!  We then went back up to Graceland and sat on their lanai for about 4 hours working on budget stuff for the school, church and Pastor George.

We we returned home, we found that Mary Njeri, the cook at the school, had  dropped off a cake that she made for me...it said: Well Done..Praise God in her native tribal language, which isn't Swahili... I took a picture of it. It was heavy like pound cake, super moist and the frosting was white and blue, made out of pure confectioners sugar from the taste of it. It was yummy! Between the late lunch and the cake, I barely had room for any of Penina's dinner, which included one of my favorite dishes she makes, scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

I got up this morning and packed and had tea, rice and bananas to keep my tummy happy. Now it's time to wrap this up and go into town with Pastor, stop at the school and say goodbye to Mary the Secretary and Ken, and then change into my traveling clothes for the trip home.

As I wrap up things here, I want to close by saying THANK YOU to you. I am so overwhelmingly grateful for all your support during this trip, for your generosity in helping me buy my ticket and in providing such incredible assistance in my trip preparations, and while I was here. Your prayers, your gifts, your love, your emails, your energy sustained me in more ways than I can possibly say. There are no words. I have experienced such incredible healing on a personal level and a professional level and have watched some amazing people come into their own power here. YOU made that possible. You with God. I am so blessed to have you as a part of my life.

Asanti Bwana! (Thank you, God!)

I'll be taking a week off to recuperate and then I look forward to connecting with and seeing you soon.

Amani,

Paula