i am home

i know lots of you are anxious to hear about my trip. amazingly enough i feel like i don't have much to say. i mean, i do, but.... i am still processing thoughts and making sense of what i experienced. in a sense i feel dumb founded. my experience was amazing and i most likely will not have this same experience again. we took in so many things in so few days. my thoughts seem so random in my brain. our team was amazing.... coming from all over the place too. we had some members from alabama, georgia, texas, south carolina, ny and north carolina. God knew what he was doing when he pulled all the parts together. we did not have any conflicts amoung our group, which to me is amazing. our leader, jennifer was truelly a woman of God. you never really saw her get flustered (well, maybe that time in ny in the airport :))... but she had every good reason to be that way that time! we were joined by her husband once arriving in nairbi and the two of them together make a great pair :)

i will start off by telling you my favorite day of the trip was the day we visited the havilla house. this was our first stop (after showering) once in nairobi. it was about a 45 minute drive. let me tell you that one must be a very offensive driver to drive the streets there. it felt like anything goes there. cars going in all directions at all different speeds. there were cars and people in the road. they drive on the opposite side of the street as us so that was a bit confusing. we would be stopped in a traffic jam and having street vendors coming up to our windows trying to sell us anything and everything under the sun. they were not lazy. we made our way to the havilla house and were greeted by open arms. i was blessed to be able to hug denzel, mercy, rahab and gladys. all four of them were there :) it was so cool to be able to see them all again and to be in their native land... where they live and do life. i was introduced to denzel's mom and sister, cherie and got to talk with them and get to know them a bit. we got to tour the new house that they had just moved into two weeks prior to our arrival and they were all soooo proud of their new place. we got loved on, hair braided, and sung to. they blessed us again... by thier huge smiles and hearts for God. we got to meet moses and silome thier parents that have taken them in. i believe they have 45 children who live there now. we got to help them with some chores... chopping lettuce for dinner and getting some feed together for the cows. we did not partake in this next act, but lucky us got to experience the slaughter of a goat. got pictures/video to prove it! that goat was just given a name by emma... beckett... after her son. she did not realize the fate of that goat. poor beckett!

i continued to reflect on my time at havilla the whole trip i was there. we would listen to the daraja children's choir cd in the bus going on our many many trips to karima. i had been so emotional about a week leading up to the trip and then going into our journey and trying to process everything my eyes were seeing as i looked around. it was really hard for me. i started not feeling well going into the 3rd day there (which was the beginning of the time IN africa). by day 6/7 i was tired of being sick and noticed that i just wasn't being "moved" by anything. with the cancellation of our saturday home flight we added an extra day in karima, so we started off thursday by getting packed up at the hotel. we would be heading to karima to make a home visit or two and visit a clinic that was built in a close community by another 410 team. on the trip there the daraja cd was popped in and i started singing along with the cd and listening to the voices of last years choir (which included denzel, mercy, rahab and gladys) and my emotions came back full force. i was looking out the window and taking in the landscape and the people of kenya as they passed by my window and all i wanted to do was go back to the havilla house and pack each of those kids in my suitcase and tell them they can't breath till we get back to the states.... to what i see as a much better place for them to live. i was trying to make sense of thier faith... the God they were singing about in those songs... and still they had joy that lit up thier whole life despite thier circumstances that life has thrown at them. it is still overwhelming. very overwhelming and i have yet to make sense of it. those of you who have that cd, EVERY thing that jeff foxworthy says is true of that place. no one should have to live in such circumstances. WE are blessed here by soooo much. they have soooo little, but the smiles on thier faces and in thier hearts are genuine, because of the love and faith in God. i cried the whole cd. i will be praying extra hard for denzel and his family, mercy, rahab and gladys! and also for myself, that God will continue to show me things he wants me to see and learn from my time with those precious people.