Day 5 & 6

7/1/10
Today was definitely a day full of "God moments". First we went to the clinic to get to work. We actually had many people at the clinic today and we felt very helpful! The people working at the clinic and the people that came to the clinic could not be more excited that we were there. We kept getting many hugs. I love being at the clinic and being able to help. It is so different how things are done there compared to here. After we were done we ate lunch (pumpkins, rice, stir fry, goat, lamb, and sausage (intestinal organs grounded up and stuffed into the intestine...yum)) but this was a delicacy here! Then everyone invited us outside to plant a mti (tree). One of the guys here has a mission to plant one million trees, so everyone that visits is able to plant a tree. It was like a ceremony and each person planted their tree one at a time, and there will be a plaque there later. My tree was a thorned acacia tree. Then we had to say goodbye. Just with these three short days we met so many people and we grew such great relationships with them. They are such incredible followers of Christ and they taught us so much! The ladies sang songs before we left and we all danced and sang along. What an amazing experience we had at this site.

7/2/10
Today was the best day yet. I feel like I keep saying that but it keeps getting better and better! We got up and went to the macai market. What an interesting place to go. You have to fight to get around in it, and everyone wants you to come to their stand. It is such chaos. You also had to bargain for everything so I was exhausted after the 2 hours of shopping. Then we went to St. Andrews Presbyterian church where they made lunch for us, and we talked to some of the elders of the church. Then we went to an AIDS orphanage, which was the best experience yet. When we got there all of the children were yelling jamba ( welcome), and as soon as we got out of the car every single child came and gave each one of us a hug (talk about heartbreaking). Then when we went inside all the children took off their shoes and one of the ladies in charge of the house asked them to sing us a song! What an amazing moment it was to see all the kids that had gone through so much sing about their love for Jesus. After we all introduced ourselves we went outside to play!! We first started with balls, and then the kids wanted us all to spin them using their hands, and after I got dizzy I pulled out the bubbles! I got attacked by kids in all direction, and we used over a liter of bubbles in less than an hour! Afterwords, we all had bubbles all over our clothes and in our hair! Then we played more games. I loved these children and I could have stayed there and played with them forever! What a blessing it was to be able to play with them a while. After the orphanage we left and went straight to carnivores. This place serves weird types of meats. We had ostrich, ostrich meatballs, ox heart, crocodile, lamb, chicken liver, beef, pork, and other various meats! What an amazing day! Thanks again for the prayers and I will write again as soon as I can!

Day 4..

I have been so blessed with all that I have been able to do and experience here. Even though everything has not gone exactly to plan I have just had the most incredible experience of my life..and its not even over. The people we have met are just so grateful for us to be there. God has completely changed my life through this experience. Today we got up and went to Ng'undu and the ladies of the church made us "tea" again which really means breakfast (field corn, arrow root, sweet potatoes, muffins and bananas). The first day we were at the clinic there were a couple of people that came and we were able to help. The problem is that there is one exam room and most of the people that are coming do not speak very good English. But we try to communicate and the nurse is always there to help. The nurse that is there never does an assessment she just listens to what they think is the problem, so she was stunned when we had our stethoscopes and all our other nursing equipment. They also have a lab tech that works there and it is so amazing that between those two people they can completely run the clinic. Most of the people that we have seen have had malaria, worms, or lung infections. They also do have immunizations that they can get there so some people come in for those. When we are not doing clinic work we are helping outside laying bricks for the maternity addition to the clinic. We had to carry about 250 bricks and each one weighs approx 41.8 lbs so needless to say, my arms and legs feel like rubber. Then we were able to start "mudding" with the cement and I am an expert. We ate lunch at about 3 and we had (mu kee mu (a pumkin leaf, potatoes corn mix), rice, beef stew, and oranges). We were very tired and dirty when we got home...but it was an amazing day!

Day 5 was one of the best days Ive had here so far but i have to run because we are going to to the masai market to buy my mother some fabric so you all are going to have to wait in suspense :))

Day 3...

Yesterday our mission work began..It was such an amazing day. We got picked up in the morning and went to the Presbyterian church that the Lebanon church has been working with for the past couple years. Everyone is so incredibly nice. The ladies all told us that they wanted to make us tea and they ended up making us a whole breakfast. Then we went to work..in between having patients come to the clinic we helped build the addition to the clinic with stone and morter. This trip is definately all on God's time and plan because some things are not going as we would have them go but we have learned that our plan doesnt matter and all that we should just pray and follow what God has in store. I am having the most amazing time! The ladies there are just hilarious and they thought that I was one of the girls mothers ( ps. the girl is 21- how i felt old!)- but on my defense she could probably pass for 13.

I also need to tell you all about the traffic...there are NO stop sign and only some traffic lights that are "optional". The cars do not stop for anyone crossing the road and our driver almost hit many people on our drive to the site. People also ride on the top of trains as well as hanging out the door and windows because there is not enough room for everyone.

Anyways, its time for breakfast and the start of another day!

Abby

Jambo from Africa :) (Hello from africa)

Ok...I have so much to tell you all and so little time. First off we got here safe and sound. It was a long trip and I bet you cannot believe how good it felt to sleep horizontally after having to sleep in the airport for two nights :/ .
Anyways let me tell you from the beginning...So friday was all travel. We started off in Cincinati and then Chicago and then that night we flew to London.

Day 1 6/27/2010
We arrived in London Saturday morning at about 7 their time. When we got out of the airport we were able to get a whirwind tour of London, England. First we were able to see parliment, big ben. The architecture in london is more beautiful than I could even imagine. We were able to take pictures of things ive only seen in pictures. Then we had to get some breakfast- I found out that they have bake beans as a normal staple of their breakfast diet, we also had some other normal breakfast foods. Anyways we were also able to see Westminster Abbey, the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, the tower of london, and the tower bridge (london bridge). Pictures cannot even discribe the beauty of all these places, the architecture was like nothing ive ever seen before. Lastly we saw St. Pauls Cathedral which was ginormous and beautiful! The entire time we were there the bells were playing a song. This was the best one day trip to london I could ask for! Oh. and ps. london has no trash cans or paper towels...which is not very handy when you are living off a plane and need to blotch yourself when you get hot haha.

Day 2- 6/28/2010
WE ARRIVED IN KENYA!!! It was a long trip but we finally made it! I am just so excited to be here! When we got there we got our two drivers J.C. and J.M. and they took us to our hotel (the nairobi YMCA) which is like nothing I had expected. The YMCA is really like a motel and there are doors to get into your room from the outside. We have yet to get warm water which is suppose to be working but i dont think our water heater is working.
Just so you know it is winter here and I have a mild sunburn and people have their kids dressed up in winter coats and hats.
Anyways- later our drivers took us to a giraffe center and we were able to see lots of saved giraffes. We were also able to feed them hug them and guess what...I KISSED A GIRAFFE :) It was amazing! :) They also talked to us about the giraffes in Africa and we learned a lot. It was such an amazing day and there is just more to come.

I am getting kicked out of the internet room so I should be able to blog again soon!

Thanks for the prayers,
Abby

Mission to Africa

So, a year later than my last post and a lot has changed. I have graduated from the University of Toledo with my degree in nursing, and I have taken my nursing boards and I am now a Registered Nurse. Since the last post I have spent a lot of time deciding when and what type of mission I want to do, where I want to go etc, and nothing was working out for me. At the point in time when I had become frusterated with the process, I found a medical mission through a nearby church (the Lebanon Presbyterian Church). We are going to Kenya tomorrow and half of us are going to be working in a clinic helping wherever we can, and the other half will be helping to build a materity clinic. We will also be going to a national park, and hopefully soaking in their culture. I am so very excited for this trip and have been waiting for a long time for this experience. I will be leaving tomorrow and will be back the 8th of July. I will try to post a couple times through this experience if the internet allows for that (We are told they have internet where we are staying for just a small price). I will also be taking pictures and will be very excited to tell you all about it when I return! Please pray for me during this exciting experience!