Kenya Update 12/9/09 - The Wedding Weekend

How many days have I not posted in my blog just because "I don't even know where to start"? The answer to that question is 2. The problem with this particular excuse for inactivity is that the longer you wait, the more happens, and the more difficult it is to start writing about it! Craziness.

I will start with Friday and walk through one of the coolest weddings I've ever been to! Friday night all the groomsmen and bridesmaids came to the campus of ANU for the rehearsal and to spend the night so there would be no complications in the morning. The rehearsal was, well, a wedding rehearsal (slightly painful but necessary), and I had 2 groomsmen spend the night with me in my flat. It was a nice time, though Samsung (the fellow I was sharing my bed with) didn't come to bed till 4...some folks have some seriously weird sleep cycles/body chemistry. Saturday morning we woke up nice and early and headed to where Dibo (the groom) was getting ready for breakfast and harassment. I'm proud to say all the groomsmen were there on time, the ladies were a bit late, but all in all the ceremony was extremely punctual, starting at 10:30am with a published start time of 10:00 am (bravo!) This is very foreign for African weddings, evidenced by the fact that very few people were at the ceremony when it first started (even 30 minutes later than what was on the invitation!) Dibo tells me that guests were still arriving at 3 pm, surprised that they missed the ceremony...so funny.

African weddings are awesome. Even Americanized ones. Everyone was SO excited. It reminded me of the state of the union address in that the pastor could not finish 2 sentences without the crowd bursting into cheers and applause (though the cheers and applause were definitely more genuine then they are when our president speaks!) What else was cool? There was a troupe of women from Dibo's family and from around campus who surrounded Jeannette before she even entered the church, singing dancing and celebrating. Such a cool tradition. During the reception they have public presentation of gifts - which was great. It was fun watching Jeannette figure out what to do when one of Dibo's relatives gave her a live rooster. The reception was very nice and wrapped up by about 3 o'clock. Dibo and Jeannette stayed around to spend time with Jeannette's mom (Cathy) who flew in from Oregon for the wedding.

You can find some sweet pictures from the wedding on my Picasa page.

The Dibo Wedding

Sunday was also a very neat day - church was a lot of fun. My Congolese neighbor's son Gustaf decided he wanted to sit with me on my chair while I was playing my drum during worship...so that means I was multitasking keeping him well behaved (no shadows in the projector), keeping him from falling off the chair, and playing my djembe the whole time...it was quite the challenge! After church Pastor Gift grabbed me and we went to help fix the roof on the home of a church family...it was hot work, but it definitely helped (when it rained the water flooded into their front door, so we put up an extra piece of sheet metal to help keep the water out.)

It is eye opening to see some of the needs people have in Kenya - they are often so simple to meet. Just a few dollars can make such a difference in these peoples lives who are struggling to feed their families, much less buy material to keep their home from flooding!

Tuesday was a very fun day as well. I spent the morning working on data entry for the registrar (slightly more fun than invigilating...slightly...) and giving Rao Yi an english session. After that I met up with Jeannette, Dibo and their Mom to go see some elephants. Unfortunately we were 15 minutes late to their feeding which means we did not get to see them. Very sad. We went and got pizza to make up for it. After lunch we spent a bit over 2 hours at St. Paul's children's home playing with the kids. It is so great having Dibo there. He's got such a gift for children's ministry, and he knows Swahili which is a huge help. Jeannette got some pictures, I'll start a Picasa album for St. Paul's. Though the kids kind of go crazy when there are camera's around, so I might avoid pictures more than I want to.

Lots of walking, lots of friends and good times in Kenya. Like I mentioned, I'm doing data entry for the registrar, doing my best to get to the orphanage whenever I can and I'm also helping the student council plan their "cultural week" in February. It's hard to plan things here - lots of hoops and you're forced to hop through.

I miss the snow, but I'm loving the weather here. It's perfect, and I have the most impressive farmers tan of my life!

Kenya Update 12/4/09 - Invigilation

This week I learned a new word: invigilation. This is like the old school style of proctoring exams, literally defined as "keeping watch over examination candidates to prevent cheating" (thanks Google define:!) I think sometimes how "cool" a word sounds influences my gut reaction to how cool something is. For example: I was asked to be an invigilator for the final exams that were help this week! That sounded very cool, like I would get a sash or a whistle... but it turns out invigilating is not as exciting as it sounds - indeed the act of saying the word "invigilation" is more fun than the act of invigilating itself! The way that final exams work is super intimidating though - 400 students in one room with invigilators walking up and down the aisles looking for cheaters...for 3 hours...in silence...fun? Reminded me of the standardized tests we took growing up.

My students did well enough on their exam, both passing, one with flying colors and the other with muted earth tones. Uncanny how there is a direct relationship between how much you study and how well you do on exams. Who would have thought?

Yesterday evening I spent time with the Pitts getting ready for Christmas. This involved eating a delightfully home cooked meal while watching Elf, putting up Christmas decorations and a long conversation. It is very good to have people in your life to encourage you who seem to encouraged by you in the process. This is their first Christmas sans immediate family as well, so it's good to be together. Also, when I was doing lights I shocked myself with good ol' 220v Kenyan AC current...it didn't feel good, but my hearts still beating. More fodder for that "2 Truths and a Lie" game that everyone (teenagers) love so much!

The name of the game this weekend is wedding. Tomorrow Dibo and Jeannette are getting married, which means this evening I'll have 4 of the groomsmen sleeping in my flat, which will be WILD. 2 in the bed, 1 on the floor and one on the coach. Super fun. Tomorrow should be fun too. Dibo asked me to be a groomsman which is quite an honor and pleasure, and I get a nice blue tie from China (um...no lie) out of the deal! I don't know what tonight will hold, but I know tomorrow will be a very exciting day (while it will be exhausting!) I'll be sure to take pictures of the festivities.

My thoughts are with everyone at home during Christmas preparations. It won't be easy being apart, but God is faithful - and we're still celebrating together, we'll just be doing it globally instead of locally! :) Speaking of which, there is a neat thing that the Blood:Water Mission folks are doing this year...for 85 dollars you can buy whats called a BioSand Filter, a device that uses sand to clean water. It is hard for us to imagine how great the need for clean water is in developing countries - but it's true. This filter seems like a natural and efficient way to improve peoples lives where its not possible to get clean well water. Check out the site and video and think about the real difference your dollars can make for people!

Kenya Update 11/28/09 - Basically Beaker.

Nothing to say that can top this:

Kenya Update 11/25/09 - Orphans and Termites

It's been a fun and busy week so far. It took way too long to recover from our late night of games at the Wakias home...I worry that my college "function on negligible sleep" mojo is leaving me. This would be tragic. I went to sleep at 9:30 last night, so today I'm chipper and awake, and not falling asleep during my English lesson (yeah, that was embarrassing!)

Yesterday I walked to St. Paul's Childrens Home, an orphanage about a 25 minute walk from ANU. I was asked by pastor Gift (from the church on campus) to organize the compassionate ministry for our congregation. I am working with an intriguing fellow named Sylvanus Michael Otieno - he's a retired teacher who is aiming to go back to school, but for now he's just helping with the church. An old football player, he has stories upon stories (which, of course were shared on the way to the childrens home!) The home itself was delightful - we chatted at length with the matriarch (an incredible woman named Margaret) about how the good people at ANU can meet their needs and minister to the kids. The kids are adorable, a little girl sat on my lap playing with my wrist watch the whole time we were chatting. There is also a Norwegian volunteer living at St. Paul's who seems like a great guy. He is a digital design type person, and is aiming to create a website for the school so they can raise money more effectively (for little things like food and water!)

Are there any good people at home who would be willing to take his designs and design the web interface? It would be a "fun" project that would make a HUGE difference in a lot of lives (especially for those kids) here in Kenya.

So for the next few days I'll be galvanizing all my friends to go to this home over Christmas break to do music with them, teach a bible lesson and play games. It is exciting to participate in such a dynamic and practical ministry. Pray for St. Pauls Children's home!

In other news: I made the mistake (or, had the wisdom to) lift up the loose linoleum in my bathroom to see a vast army of termites chowing down on the baseboard and stretching across the floor. A good part of my morning today was spent cleaning up and having a maintenance fellow spray the inside and outside of my bathroom...so it's a mess, but hopefully it will be a bug free mess (in a few hours) so that I can transform it back to a bug free bathroom!

Here are some pictures from Sunday's concert:

Jazz n Folk

Kenya Update 11/23/09 - Jazz, Settlers and British Capitalism

It has been a very fun weekend. Saturday we had "Thanksgiving" - after which I went back to ANU and satisfied my turkeyitis by reading and snoozing my way in Sunday. Sunday morning there was church where I filled in on the keyboard. Our preacher was a masters student named Evans Katanga who spoke on the importance of excellence while serving God - he gave the ABCs of excellence (all I remember is that J was "Just do it!" hahaha).

After church I headed into town to see Immanuel Ashene's jazz combo group do a recital. Immanuel is the choir director here and I do lots of stuff with him (including playing ping pong every day at lunch! Excellent!) It was very fun, he did well (on piano) and I'll post some pictures on Picasa.

After the concert I accompanied Dibo and Jeannette to Ken Wakia's house to spend the night playing board games. Some info on Ken: Ken is the former assistant dean of ANU, but now he is directing a few choirs around Nairobi (one of which I sing in: the Nairobi Chamber Chorus). We played 2 games of Settler's (6 players! awesome.) and 1 game of Monopoly. It was super fun, Ken's British wife Joanna won the first game of Settler's, I won the second, then we both decided at 1:30 am that it would be a tie "power sharing deal". It was pretty brutal, but sleep was definitely the best option at that point!

Sunday morning (during our bible study on Romans) Dibo told a quick fable about faith:
In the midst of a terrible drought 2 men decide to pray that God would send them rain. The first man spends all his time fasting and praying, pouring out his mind body and soul to the purpose of entreating God for rain. The second man prays, but then spends his time planting seed and preparing his fields for the harvest. When the rain came, the first man had to scramble, rushing through the preparations in order to take advantage of God's providence. The second man reaped a great harvest. Which of these men had greater faith?


This story really made me think about where I am in my term of service in Kenya. The semester is ending, and I will not be here long enough to teach another unit. So, I've got a solid 5-6 weeks where my responsibilities are spread thin. In other words, I will have more time than I've had in the first 3 months here (by the way, it's three months today :) ) I want above all to do what God would have me do (my activities the last 3 months is enough to make my resume look awesome. I'm not worried about that, beyond actually getting a job - yikes!), and I have been trying to figure out what exactly that is. It is complicated, juggling intentions and insecurities as I try to divine what I ought to do. Dibo's little fable is great because I'm encouraged to make it a matter of prayer, but to not sit complacently in flat #3 waiting for something to happen so I don't doubt my intentions or second guess myself. I am working on opening opportunities for me to serve in a few different areas, but never outside the context of prayer. That being said: I hope that enough information for some other folks to pray for me as well :)

Kenya Update 11/21/09 - Happy "Thanksgiving"

Today was Thanksgiving in Kenya! Okay, not really - of course Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Kenya, but we had a big ol' Turkey-style Thanksgiving meal at the field office with all the missionaries and their family today. The food was wonderful (as usual) and I am always struck by how warm, receptive and kind the Nazarene ministers and teachers who live at Mount Carmel are. It is always an encouragement - especially when I get a plate full of food to bring home! :) It's been a good week at ANU. I spent a lot of time planning a trip up-country to visit loads of people (most of whom I have not met yet!), organized by my pastor friend Peter who I've been getting to know more and more.

Things with the student council are going well - things are starting to get rolling because I've found some good people to work with. The Leadership Training organized last Saturday was a huge success and it gave us a solid foundation of transparency to start building the relationship between the Student Council and the administrative staff. I am optimistic mostly because of the competence Charles (the newly elected Student Council chairperson) has shown. So it's alot of organizational strategy type stuff which I find compelling but most people don't care about! Oh well. It really feels like that I've found a niche at ANU that is using my all my skills, refining them and challenging me.

I have been challenged in big ways while here at ANU, challenges that I am still figuring out how to meet in the way God made me to meet them. I think these challenges can be summed up in one statement: "How can I be a Jesus person in a world full of so much desperate need?" This is a question that you could write a book about, for sure. It's a question I think us Christians ought to ask ourselves daily - not only to remember how important it is to be Jesus people, but to remember how desperate the needs of people around the world are.

I wonder if Facebook will update with this blog entry? Perhaps that will make these entries much more public, hopefully more people can enjoy them. God Bless!

Kenya Update 11/13/09 - Ping Pong Parasites

Awwww yeah three P's. I'm such an alliteration junkie. Anyway I've had a busy week since my close encounter of the microscopic kind on Tuesday. Just to be clear - I have an amoeba that totally wrecked me on Tuesday, but has since slipped into latency. I have amoebacide from the clinic at ANU that should clear me up in a few short days. I am so thankful it has eased up too, because I've had a lot fall into my lap the last few days. A busy weekend looms, and I've been asked to organize the student leadership training on um...Saturday. I feel okay about it, I'm worried though because I would claim that the students and administration are not "practiced" at working together or communicating...so, I hope folks hang their frustrations, immaturity and fears at the door for the seminar I've planned on Saturday!
Also, on Sunday I'm traveling with the choir to some church in Nairobi, followed immediately by a rehearsal for the Nairobi Chamber Chorus which will be nice - it's been a while since I've done some quality singing. Unfortunately, another busy weekend means one less chance to go see some animals. Drat! It will get done - perhaps at the beginning of next week I'll take a day off and hit up the Giraffe Center or something.
In other news: I have found equipment to play ping pong regularly on campus...a pair of NICE paddles that the school is letting me use (keep in my flat so they're not broken like everything on college campuses are broken) a net and some balls. So, my neighbor Riao Yi and I play after our english lessons, and now that I've RElocated my phone (yeah it was missing...) I can give my Ethiopian pal Joseph a call (he's quite the player too). Also, on Friday I skipped down to the lounge to play some students, some of them are very good, but I won 3 games to 2. I felt like this was luck. This did not in any way detract from the thrill of victory. I will update tomorrow after leadership training and my day of singing!