Potatoes were everywhere! This is how a lot of people made their living... farming.

Dirt roads... with ditches.... but, the view was absolutely beautiful!

Not too far from the Havilla House. Most walk every where they go.

Street life. Garbage everywhere we looked.

An apartment building right down the road from Havilla. All I could do was to look and take in all that was around me... and thank God for what He has given to me. Often times I felt myself thinking why I am so blessed.

Our flight into Nairobi was a good one and I actually got some good rest. Our whole team made it through immigration fine~same with Ghana~ & the lack of the yellow fever vaccination was never an issue my whole trip. Thank you, God!

I am going to hit on different highlights of my trip now, starting with my favorite... which happened to take place on our first day in Nairobi.

Like I have said in earlier posts, we were blessed to be a host home last November for some girls who were apart of the Daraja Children's Choir. Well, our first stop after getting freshened up

and some food in our bodies was to visit the Havilla House. That is where quite a few of the children from the choir lived. That meant I was going to get to see Mercy, Rahab & Gladys again and love on them again!!! You do not know how

excited I was!! On top of that, our family started sponsoring one of the boys, Denzel, from Daraja

and I was going to get to see him as well. I was jumping out of my skin. Who knew that when I told those girls that one day we would come to Kenya to see them... that it would be within the next 8 months?!

This photo is of Denzel, along with his mom Roz and sister, Cherie and me. I got to meet his family and hang out with them. How cool is that? Denzel has Facebook so we keep in contact with each other pretty regularly now. I had told him the day we were planning to be at Havilla. His mom said he had them up really early that morning to make sure they were there in time to see us. they walked around an hour from their house that morning to be there when we arrived. Both his mom and sister told me over & over again how grateful they were for me and my family to help Denzel out with his schooling fees etc. I was the one that was so blessed that day!

Here is a picture of the new Havilla Home. Everyone there was so very excited to show us around their new house. It had just been completed 2 weeks before we got th

ere. We drove right by the place they used to live... for them, this new home is a major answer to prayer!

This here is a picture of part of the side yard there at Havilla. They have their own cows, chickens, rabbits and goats. Speaking of goats... we got in on a goat being slaughtered. FUN STUFF! We saw him running around the yard earlier that afternoon... and hung upside down later in the afternoon :( I believe there are around 45 +/- children living there at the home. They all pitch in with chores- meals preparations, laundry, animal care and caring for the younger children. A new building is underway right now that will be an all purpose type of structure for classes/eating/ playroom. It was nice to be able to see where Gladys and Rahab live.

kenya on my mind

who knew that still after 5 months that i would be revisiting kenya every week and sometimes daily, in my mind. my experience and time spent on kenyan soil left an impact on my life forever. i will go back one day, but until then... i have captured moments in my brain that i hope to never, ever lose.... feelings and fond memories of the dusty roads in karima. so many ranges of emotions on my journey 2 kenya. the anticipation of the trip covered in prayer with a thankful heart to get over and beyond what i needed in form of monies to make it even possible. it was such a blessing and encouragement to me to see friends and family pour out and give of what was theirs so that i could be the hands and feet of Jesus in a distant land. i knew God was all over it right from the start. i honestly did not doubt the fact that i needed to go. simply put. God had a plan for me there.... and i think he is still working on that plan, quite honestly, even with it being 5.5 months ago.

i am going to start trying to recollect some things from my trip with the help of my journal i kept while i was gone. some of you have waited a LONG time to read and hear about my time spent in kenya this past summer, so here you are :) enjoy it!

the LONG trip started early the morning of july 9th with our flight from charlotte to atlanta. i would say about a week or two before leaving i started feeling anxious about actually going. i think it had more to do with me leaving my family back home. i knew victor would be just fine and new my kids were in great hands with him as well as his parents who came in for the time while i was gone. i had never been apart from them for that long... ever! it was hard to say good-bye to them at the airport that morning. yup... tears were had! and not the only ones on that trip, that's for sure! our first leg of the trip was to atlanta where we met up with the rest of our team. we had 9 of us coming from charlotte, several from atlanta, some from alabama and some from texas even & all together we had 21 team members. we thought we were leaving from atlanta to head to ghana, but they stuck in a detour to ny first! we caught our 9 1/2 hr. flight out to ghana. we then had about a 10 hr layover there. i actually had one of my favorite meals in that airport which was jollaf & chicken, a spicy rice and chicken dish...yum! our flight was bumped an hour or two due to president obama and his family landing at that airport. we had to wait around until airforce one was unloaded and the president was safely on his way to his destination. pretty cool, i guess. we just were anxious to get on with our trip though... tired of being in the airport. we were finally able to board our flight to our final destination: nairobi, kenya. all in all, the flights there were really good. we did have a few gliches with boarding and seating etc, but we were greeted with such warmth & big smiles in nairobi.... made the trip worth it!

stay tune for day 3..... coming soon, i promise!