Dogwood Trip Part 2

To pick up where my last post left off, the Dogwood team spent two more days around Limuru working with Imani Baptist last week. On Thursday, we held a seminar at the church for all of the church members and clients - about 60 people overall. Members of the team first taught about personal finances and good business practices, especially focusing on the importance of saving and tithing. It was a great message for the people to hear - the concept of saving is extremely foreign to most Kenyans in this area who live meal-to-meal and have never thought about putting aside what little extra money that they might have. After the talk, people from the audience asked a lot of insightful and detailed questions, which was a great reassurance that they had listened and really learned something! After sharing lunch, other members of the team talked about spiritual growth and a variety of spiritual disciplines that are necessary to grow as Christians, and we all spent some time worshiping together. It was clear that the team from Dogwood had put a lot of time and effort into preparing these seminars, and I think it really paid off for all of the people who attended!

The next day we met with all of the clients at Imani to fellowship together with them for the morning. After singing some lively Kenyan songs and dancing together, we got to hear a bunch of the clients give their testimonies and share how the CARE for AIDS center has affected their lives over the past couple of years. Because Dogwood Church fully supports this CFA center, it was awesome for the team members to see where their financial support is going and hear directly from the clients how much they appreciate the center. The team brought a collection of clothes and supplies, so we distributed those to the clients while serving them Kenyan tea and bread. For lunch we all walked over to Cornel's house, where his wife Irene served us a fantastic Kenyan meal of rice, stew, beans, chapati, and potatoes. It was clear that she had worked hard on the meal, and the whole family was so excited to have a whole group of "wazungo" eating and laughing together with them.

This marked the end of the trip itinerary that I was somewhat responsible for, so I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief and a big prayer of thanksgiving for an amazing week and - I hope - a truly meaningful experience for the mission team. Friday evening we all drove into Nairobi and visited the Maasai market - a big collection of pushy vendors selling carved animals, beaded jewelry, spears, African paintings, and all kinds of other souvenirs. It's always entertaining to watch people bargain and haggle to get the absolute best prices! For dinner we got to go to what is possibly my favorite restaurant in the world - Carnivore. Its an amazing restaurant...you sit in a covered outdoor terrace while waiters in crazy African outfits bring around giant swords holding pieces of chicken, pork, turkey, beef, lamb, and ostrich - truly a feast for anyone who likes meat!

All of the CFA vision trips go on a safari after their week in Limuru, and I decided to join this team for the trip out to the Maasai Mara, one of the most gorgeous and animal-filled places in the world! We left early Saturday morning in a van for the 4 hour drive southwest through the Great Rift Valley, arriving at the Fig Tree Camp around lunchtime. We relaxed for a little bit in our tents - point of clarification: "tent" here is not what you're thinking, its basically a really nice hotel room, with a balcony overlooking the savannah, a permanent bathroom, big beds, and hot water - and then went out on our first game drive. While driving through the park, the top of the van pops upward about 3 feet, so we could all stand inside the van and look out all the way around. Over the next two days, we got to go on four game drives through the savannah and even out to the infamous Mara River. We saw countless antelopes, gazelles, warthogs, zebras, giraffes, elephants, buffalo, and hippo. Some of the highlights of this trip were a 5-meter long crocodile, two black rhinos (which are extremely rare in the Mara), a group of 3 cheetahs, and a leopard perched in a tree. For me, though, the best parts of the Maasai Mara are the lions. I know its a somewhat small thing, but God really answered my prayers for this trip - after not seeing any big male lions on my safari in March, I had been praying for weeks that God would give us some awesome lion encounters, and over the weekend we saw a total of 7 full-grown male lions...amazing! They are truly magnificent creatures, and when you find yourself staring one in the eyes from less than ten feet away while it jumps to its feet, its hard not to have your breath taken away! Places like the Maasai Mara are such a testament for me to the awesomeness and power of the Creator - seeing such beautiful animals, vast golden grasslands, glorious sunrises, and generally breathtaking sights points my heart and my mind to the glory and beauty of God like few other things. Praising Him for the beauty of nature has always been a strong component of worship for me, and few places inspire that praise like the Mara! It's almost impossible to capture this kind of place in a picture, but I'll put some shots from the whole week on my facebook page if you would like to check it out.

Thank you all so much for your prayers over the past few weeks! It has been busy and hectic, but also extremely exciting and rewarding. Now that all of the Americans are on a flight home, it's time for things to settle down here, but we have been given a vision for the next few months with CARE for AIDS and there is a lot of work to be done to make that a reality!