ASANTE (Thank You)

I would like to thank all of my friends and family for your prayers while I was in Kenya. What an experience! I also would like to thank all of you who gave monetary donations for the mission projects. My goal of this blog is to inform and show you of how your donations were used for the different projects of this mission trip

Introductions

I would first like to introduce a few people who made this mission trip possible. Harun and Anne Gatobu are Methodist ministers originally from Meru, Kenya. They now live in Kentucky with their three boys, Mutethia, Nabii, and Munene. They were ministers for the churches in Wallace, Hershey, Sutherland, and Paxton, where the seeds were planted for this mission trip. Also, Charles Mwiti, Anne's cousin played an instumental role in our trip. He lives in Nairobi with his wife Lucy and four children and owns Lindberg Safari, which is a travel agency for safari tours. He made all of the travel arrangements and provided transportation for our mission group of around 30 people from both Nebraska and Colorado. Charles is originally from Meru, Kenya, where the mission site and projects were held. I am so thankful for Anne, Huran, and Charles for making this mission trip possible.

Zurich, Switzerland

We left Denver International Airport on Wednesday, June 17th and arrived in Zurich, Switzerland on Thursday, June 18th at 10:00 am. We toured the countryside and visited a cheese factory and a chocolate factory. The countryside is very lush and is renowned for it's high quality milk because of the lush grass. We stayed the night and left Friday morning for Nairobi. The total air time was about 20 hours.

Nairobi, Kenya

We arrived at the Nairobi airport around 5:30 p.m. By the time we got all of our luggage and left the airport it was dark. Being close to the equator the days and nights are pretty close to 12 hours year round. We arrived and stayed at a Presbyterian Guest House. We also visited the Kuzuri Bead Factory, the Giraffe Center and a curio shop. We returned to the guest house where our host families picked us up and took each of us to their homes for an overnight stay.

Sunday, June 21st

Our host families are all members of the Charles New Methodist Church where we attended church this Sunday morning. The church service lasted 3 hours. There was lots of music and introductions of our group members. The church served us lunch. We left for Meru, the mission site around 4:00 p.m. and arrived in Meru around 9:00

First Day at the Mission Site, June 22nd

The Mission project's goals are to educationally support orphaned children in Kenya. MWAKI is the Meru word for a Builder. MWAKI is an initiative of Pastor Anne Gatobu who was confronted by the saddening statistics of the many children orphaned at an very early age due to the devastation of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. In many cases both mother and father have been claimed by the unrelenting AIDS pandemic.

The donations provided by many helped with the educational support of the 40 children who are part of the MWAKI program, which includes school supplies, books and uniforms. Without these supplies a child in Kenya cannot attend public school. If you would like to consider sponsoring an orphaned child, please contact me.

The first day of the mission site was held at the Mulathankari Methodist Church where the MWAKI students came to meet and eat lunch with the mission team. There was a lot of singing, dancing and rejoicing. A few students recited poetry, stories, and songs. In turn, David Rowe and I put on a puppet show for the children. We also passed out back packs with school supplies and clothing for the MWAKI children.

I took individual pictures of the children. I brought a small printer and printed their individual photos right before their very eyes. I had about 15 kids surrounding me watching as the pictures appeared. They then decorated picture frames for their photos.

Second Day at the Mission Site, June 23rd

This was a big day for the members of our mission team who are part of the quilting project. The donations for this project was used to purchase sewing machines and supplies in order to create employment for some of the village women. Our mission team taught and trained the women in quilting and also, in organizing and managing a business. The entire week was spent in training and teaching the women. Also, donations went towards the construction of a community building where the women will store the sewing machines and work. The building will also be used for community events, etc. One of our mission projects was to finish the building with construction and painting, but it wasn't in the finishing stages while we were there.