This weekend!!

This weekend in a nutshell was wonderful. We started our weekend by packing up the old home that we were renting and moving to a new home that will be ACO’s permanent home. That was interesting, and I found myself turning more and more into my mother in a packing and cleaning house mode. I carried things that were too heavy, I lifted the wrong way, and I allowed my arm to hurt pretty much the entire time (For those who don’t know, I was diagnosed with Reflexive Sympathetic Dystrophy.. don’t google it, but basically my nerves in my arm around the surgery site are messed up and cause lots of pain in my entire arm). I found myself frustrated with how slowly the process was going, and as I worked several of the Kenyan interns and a few of the American interns started to help, too. I was having a pretty discouraging day, and it was nice to get some energy out with physical exertion. Once the moving truck was packed, we hopped into the car to help unload once we got to the new house. Unloading is a lot harder for me than loading, especially since my arm was having some intense pain at this point, but I really enjoyed hanging out with the rest of the guys (I was the only girl helping at this point, everyone else was still at the compound) and working alongside them. I find a lot of joy in serving like that, especially adults and even more so parents. I know they have enough going on, and I find so much joy in doing small things that go unnoticed that make their lives easier. 

We woke up the next morning and headed to Nakuru. First off, we saw the Great Rift Valley- SO COOL!!! Google it- it’s a geographical landmark. We continued on to Nakuru, and first went to a cool rooftop restaurant to get pizza. A little piece of American food!! It was beautiful, and we had some great intentional conversation at our tables. We set up at the house in Nakuru. To clarify, this is also owned by ACO. The original founders of ACO lived in Nakuru, and so when they retired they left the house to be used for ministry. What a blessing this house is!! It has a beautiful garden and just amazing stone work on the outside… I just really loved my time there. It was beautiful!! So we slept there that night after a few hours of reading harry potter and laughing. I woke up at around 6ish, and got up to go run. It was different than my runs in Nairobi. Let me set this up for you: In Dallas Texas, elevation is 403 ft. Nairobi, 5450 ft. Nakuru, 6109 ft. Talk about a difference!! Running has been so interesting here, it’s so dang hard to breathe but I can feel my body adjusting which is an interesting thing to observe. So my run in Nakuru was cool, I got to chat with Julius (the night guard at the house) and get to know him, as well as greet many Kenyans on their way to classes and work. I also met a kitty with really green eyes, and that was cool! We then prepared to leave for the Virginia Home, a local orphanage that ACO does a lot of work with. It was amazing. The students there are so innocent and beautiful, and hearing some of their stories are heartbreaking. I wasn’t aware of any AIDS cases, but I’m confident there were some there. It’s pretty common for parents that have aids to leave the newborns at the hospital. Whether it be financial or emotional, the goal is to either give the kid a better chance at survival or it is to just get rid of the burden. Either way, I’m glad they are at Virginia Home. The time spent there was so fun, and photos will be posted soon. Then we went straight from Virginia Home to picnic at a local safari area, and were charged by many many baboons. One actually hopped in the car trying to steal food, but we had a big African man with a whip guarding us. The whip doesn’t hurt them, just stings a bit- trust me, I checked. Next we went to Ergaton University. We were given an hour to go wherever we wanted and share the gospel. We went to a dorm right next to a river (beautiful!!!) and knocked on one door, and ended up staying the entire hour. It was an awesome group and I really loved hearing the Nakuru-student perspective on things. We then went straight to another restaurant for dinner, and headed home for the evening.

To clarify, restaurant eating isn’t a luxury we have, it actually is the only way to cater to both Kenyan interns as well as Americans, and with the value of the American dollar, it’s cheap! So it was a great day filled with God and sharing His word.

Sunday, today, AND Fathers Day, was a day of travel. We left at around 9am and headed back to Nairobi, getting lunch along the way. There is a resort half way inbetween the two cities so it was fun to stop there and look around at the animals at the resort, as well as get slightly burned :)

Now we are all in bed, exhausted and ready for tomorrow. We are going to be heading to campus tomorrow and practicing real application of what we have been learning in our classes. So this week will be challenging- but great!!!

Be looking for a link to photos on this post!!

Kwaheri,

Molly