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!