Post #2!

WOW time has been flying! First off we want to share with you how faithful God is and how His plan for this trip has been a bigger blessing to all of us than we could have imagined! Like we said last time we have been doing A LOT of construction. Tuesday (July 19^th) we finished our last full day of construction. One of the main projects was working on finishing up the green house, so now all of the water lines are put in and the veggies are ready to be planted! The Green house is going to supply ByGrace with so many wonderful veggies that they will get to enjoy harvesting for many years to come! We also moved a lot of rocks to level out an area the size of a basketball court so they can eventually make it their clothes washing and drying area. There is always mounds of dirt to move, so to break from lifting the rocks we picked up shovels and started moving the dirt to help level out that same area as well. That was a full and long hard day of work! We got to enjoy devotions that night and also three of us decided to fully adapt to Kenyan ways and what is a better way to do it than have our hair Braided?! That’s right, Hannah, Annie, and myself (Kristianna) received the long uncomfortable treatment of getting our hair braided. With patience, we sat there for about 3-4 hours to get this done! I don’t understand how they do this every few months! But as you can see these pictures show just how Kenyan we look! Haha 

Wednesday (20^th) we woke up bright and early to start our construction work again, but today we got a surprise! We only were doing a half day and that half day consisted of moving some more rocks and then the strong women that we are filled bags with sand and passed them up this hand made wood stair case that made its way all the way to the third story. They needed the sand so they could continue more construction on the third, and final story, of the school (which is scheduled to be done January 2012!).

The surprise of the day was finding out that we wouldn’t be doing any more construction till at least Sunday! Which so far we have all been rejuvenated and we’re ready to work again! But on Wednesday we got to do 2 very cool activities. First we went to Amani Ya Juu where they are “sowing peace through the eye of a needle”. It is a home to many refugee women. At Amani they teach the women a trade so they can support themselves. such trades are quilting, beading, making clothes, and many many more beautiful creations. While teaching the women these skills, the missionaries teach them about God and develop relationships with these woman whose lives were very broken before they came to know Christ at Amani. Visiting Amani was such a blessing to us. we got a tour of the whole place and got to see behind the scenes and listen to some of the women’s testimonies and what God has been doing in their life. Organizations like these are only possible with God. There are at least 3 other Amani Ya Juu’s in different countries in Africa and they are trying to develop another one in southern Sudan. God cares about His daughters and this is an organization where we got to see that first hand. P.s! Amani was started by a Biola alumni and she is in the picture that is below!

Our second adventure of the day was definitely a surprise and experience non of us have done before! We went to the Giraffe center in Nairobi! Yea I know you are thinking, “what’s the big deal? we see Giraffes at the zoo all the time!” No, these Giraffes are special Giraffes they actually come up to you and eat out of your hand and if you’re brave enough they will even “kiss” you! This experience was not like your regular zoo visit where you go to “oooh” and “ahhhh” at them from afar. This was an UP CLOSE and personal interaction with one of Gods wonderful creations. As you can see when I say up close and personal I really mean it haha.

That night we got to share devotions again with the children and every night it’s a blessing to see these kids sing praise and worship songs to God. In America we should worship God like these children do its such an amazing thing to be apart of. To see how much these kids love God is encouraging to all of us “big kids”. We keep saying how we desire the childlike faith that these children have.

Thursday we ended up doing something that a lot of us have only heard of or seen on commercials. We went to a slum that was the home to more than 3 million people. Here we saw a lot of people that were not only hurting physically but spiritually as well. It was truly an eye opening experience seeing what the majority live like in Kenya. Most are poverty stricken and live day by day wondering if they will get to feed their children, let alone get some rations for themselves. Driving into the slums you see children everywhere pointing and saying “mazungus” meaning white person or traveler. When we arrived at the church that we were going to we opened the doors and probably 30-40 kids were surrounding the van awaiting to see us and shake our hands or give us high fives. These children were precious and you could see the sadness in their eyes when trying to communicate with them. The families who could afford schooling for their children, which costs on the average 7 dollars a month, were able to speak some English, but the majority of the kids did not understand or speak English at all. Most of the Children at ByGrace came from the slums. So these relationships we have built with the children of ByGrace really grew when we were able to see where they came from. You could tell who was a believer by just the joy on their face. Even in their situation they need nothing but the love, grace, mercy of Christ Jesus. They have no earthly belongings that mean anything to them or is worth any great amount of money, but as Americans we have much more than we need, and the love they have for Christ is one that is truly sincere and their life is completely surrendered to Christ. They have nothing worth anything that keeps them from serving Christ with their whole heart, and that right there has been a lesson that our team has taken out of the opportunity to go into the slums. It says in Luke 12: 34 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Its easy for them to fall on their knees and surrender their life to Christ. He is a Father who will never leave or abandon them. our heavenly father is unlike so many of their earthly parents. So the lesson we got from the day was to store our treasures in heaven and not on earth because our heart will follow whatever is most important to us and that needs to be Christ Jesus.

So through the church there was another team that was going to run a sports camp/vbs for the children in the afternoon. In the morning the leaders trained 40 different pastors on how to use sports evangelism to reach men, women and children for Christ. While that team was doing that, we decided to go and interact with the children around the area. And what better way to do that than pull out a football (well soccer ball to us Americans haha)? When you bring out any kind of ball you have kids swarm you! And we have issues in America getting the children to get off the couch stop playing video games and go outside to play some real games. Its so fun to experience the joy a soccer ball can bring to these kids. So we traveled just a little ways up the road to a very small space where we got to play. This area is the only area they got to play (due to such a dense population with limited space) and it was maybe the size of a average backyard. That didn’t matter to them once we brought the ball out they all ran to their field, this field was not nicely mowed or had pretty flowers growing around the perimeter. It was on a slant with little streams of running water (which was mostly sewage) and many rocks and holes to sprain your ankle on if you were not careful. Definitely not our average field in America. These kids played with no fear and didn’t care if the ball ran threw the streams of who knows what it consisted of. The dust was horrible, it got into your lungs and could barely breath. These conditions of living was something we all were not even remotely use to. But still one soccer ball can bring a whole group of hundreds of kids together. And so that’s what we did, we played with the kids and the little ones lined the perimeter and watched carefully. While other of the girls on our team who opted not to play got to spend some quality time with these children. After about an hour or two it was time to head back to ByGrace. The other team stayed behind to do the “formal” sports camp on a much bigger field farther down the road. We all went back to process what we just saw and also love on the children back at ByGRace and help with “Bible Bee” and VBS. Bible Bee is like a spelling bee but with bible verses instead. We gave all the children a list of 25 memory verses to memorize and next Friday(29^th) was going to be the big competition. The kids love a good friendly competitionJ. So it was so much fun getting to play games with them and incorporate helping them learn their bible verses. So that was a very eventful and meaningful day for us all.

Friday we stayed back to help with VBS and Bible Bee while the sports ministry team went back into the slums. So Friday was a very relaxing/ fun day to hang out and play with the kids and then at 3pm the VBS started. All of us ran different stations during VBS, and we all agreed that the kids

LOVED IT and we also had so much fun with them. Seeing them smile is such a blessing. Amanda lead the devotions that night and she did such a great job!

Saturday was probably by far one of my favorite days, not a happy favorite, but a memorable favorite if that makes sense haha. We went back into the slums. This time we got to do home visits to very sick people. Some living with HIV and some full blown AIDS and others with just pain and sickness that could easily be taken care of in the states. One home that my group and I went into was half the size of most of our average bedrooms. It had one bunk bed with no mattresses just a yellow foam cushion for comfort. At this home lived a family of 6. A mother and father, two boys, and two girls. Last year the parents passed away from AIDS and left the children orphans. The neighbor took these children in, now she has 6 children to care for. The oldest was the daughter of maybe 13 years old and she ran away and has not been seen since, the two middle children were the boys and they were just sad in spirit BUT healthy praise God! And the youngest was a precious little girl of 2½ years old she was living with HIV. This little girl had the biggest smile and had no idea how sick she was nor what she could possibly face in the future. She didn’t understand why she had to take medicine. That thought alone was so sad to think about. I got the pleasure to pray for this family and the little girls health and that is something I will never forget. We visted another home that was very sad as well and then we went to the “bad” side of the slums which I didn’t realize it could get much worse… but it did. The two homes we visited there were mothers that were bed ridden. The last home we went to was a mother (25-30 yrs old tops) of two, one about 6 yrs old and one about three. Both very ill. The 3 year old had fluid in her brain that made her brain abnormally large and they put a permanent stint to drain the fluid so she would not die. The mother has full blow AIDs and is very very weak and skinny. The feeling of the Holy Spirit was definitely in that room. The mom was still hopeful and blessed by us coming. Every house we visited were Christians. We were able to bring them some food and laundry soap and a few different items like that. They were all very grateful. Some of the other girls were on a different team (Brina, Hannah, Natalie, and Jaime) and they got to experience bringing two people to Christ! They were blessed by that, and how exciting two more are going to be in heaven with us! Wahoo! After that unforgettable experience we headed back to the church where we had a quick/late lunch and then headed to the big field where the sports ministry was going on. This was so fun to be apart of! There were a few hundred kids and we played some games that incorporated bible stories and the children had so much fun! At the end we probably had about 30 kids give their life to Christ, it was awesome! Then our long travels back to ByGrace began. We had traffic and a few stops here and there but 3 hours later we made itJ We got back and it was time for devotions and Hannah shared her testimony and after Jamie spoke.

Sunday we woke up and we got to lead the whole church service. Let me remind you Kenyans do not know what time means nor do they keep track of it haha so a Kenyan church service is a long one! We started at 930am and got done around 1pm. It was a great time. The children are so good at sitting still and listening haha! But we all shared our testimonies and a little passage that we felt God was wanting us to share with them. We also lead worship which luckily we have some good singers and talented piano/guitar players (Annie and Amanda) so worship went well and like always its fun worshiping with the kids because they LOVE to worship God! Sundays are our day of rest here so we kind of get to just play and hang out with the kids which is what we did. We took them to the field down the street and played many games with them. Such a fun time!!

Some prayer requests:

That this children home continues to be blessed

That the sick will regain strength and health

Some of the girls on our team have been getting sore throats and congested- so continue to pray for our health as well

Our hearts and minds will never forget the things we have experienced and the people we have come to build relationships with and meet.

That God continues to build our team in unity

That we will hear Gods voice in whatever/or wherever he is leading us…. and act on it

That our faith continues to be strengthened

That these children continue to live for God in every aspect of their life!

That they never forget the hope they have in Chirst. 

We're Here!!!!!

WE ARE SAFE AND SOUND IN KENYA!!!!

Hello Supporters, Friends, and Family! We miss you all so much already! It's Hannah Witt, one of the team leaders. :) I'm writing to you all from a little "cyber cafe" down the street from By Grace Children's Home. I'm so sorry it has taken almost a week for us to update the blog...it's kinda difficult to leave where we are staying because we are SO BUSY! 

We landed around 8:30pm at the Nairobi airport Thursday but we didn't get to By Grace till around midnight, and they had a wonderful dinner planned for us which included the BEST chapati of my life (not as good as the chapati Amanda and I made for mission's conference though.....KIDDING!) 

A little bit of updates for you all. Get ready for this.......we are doing ALL construction work! Haha! We are taking TONS and LOADS of pictures to show all of you guys because you won't even believe the amount of work we are doing! There is a green house that we have been working on where they are hoping to plant tomatoes by Wednesday in. All being said, the first couple of days we hauled Manure into the green house which took literally all day long. Some of the kids at the Home helped us haul the manure after they were done with school which was so much fun! We had around 16 potato sacks which we would fill with manure and carry over our backs, and we had 2 wheelbarrows to help as well. 

Brina, Annie, and Kristianna hard at work in the Green house

Brina and Hannah hauling manure!

This is Esther. She is one of the kids who lives at By Grace. She's too cute!

This is the almost finished green house we have been working on

Sorry the pictures are kinda out of order. The computer wouldn't let me switch it! Anyways, we are having so much fun everyone. The kids are so much fun to hang out with. When they are out of school, we get to play with them until we meet for dinner which is great!

This is Vestus. He's hilarious! 

Vestus and Hannah

Vestus and Kristianna

Amanda, Hannah, and Brina with some of the kids

Oh, rewind to the work load again, today we had to haul these bricks which weighed around 50 pounds. No joke! We hauled all of these! (they are solid too by the way)

Annie hauling the bricks

I'm so sorry if this is all so jumbled together, but at least you all get to see where we are and what we are doing over here in Kenya. God is using our team in HUGE ways here at By Grace. We all packed a ton of skirts to wear, when actually we are wearing the ONLY pair of pants we brought with us. HAHA! We are doing something totally different then what we had planned and thought we would be doing. But, we are happy and serving with joyful hearts. The Lord is stretching our team in many ways which is incredible to see and experience. It is such a joy to be helping out the Mbogos with their specific needs (now we know though why Stephen wanted guys on our team!) Haha! Some specific prayer requests: strength that only the Lord can provide us. We have a feeling we will be doing construction work until we return home so please be praying for strength and supernatural rest when we sleep at night. Please be praying for our team that we would continue to grow closer. We are bonding SO much so far and it has been amazing! Pray that we would continue to serve with joyful hearts and to always remember that the reason why we came was to serve the Mbogos. Please pray that we would be ok with any type of work that comes our way! Pray that we would continue to bond with the children. They are so sweet, and kindhearted. We love them all so much and so enjoy spending time with them. 

An update that we have and a HUGE prayer request: they are so close to finishing a water well so they do not have to have water sent to them. Stephen said he needs around 5,000 more dollars so please begin to prayerfully consider about donating so they can have fresh and clean water. 

Well, I think that's it for now. We love and miss you all so, so much! We get to go on a 2 day Safari a week from today so we are super excited! 

God is good you guys.

Until then,

Hannah 

P.S. I milked a cow Mom!!!! =D

P.P.S. Sorry a lot of the pictures are me. They are my pictures. HAHAHAHA!  

  

8 days and counting!

Only 8 short days until we leave for Kenya! Crazy how quickly time passes....It has been over a month since school ended and we last met as a team but there have been small reunions here and there. One of those was at Bellflower Brethren Church where a few of our team members were prayed for and sent out by the church and its elders.  Other than that we have all been kept busy with summer activities and jobs- praise the Lord for internet which has given us opportunity to stay connected! :)
Please, please be keeping us in your prayers as we begin to pack and prepare for our trip! Not only are there many logistics to deal with but we need covering spiritually and physically as well.
Please pray for:
-Our hearts and minds- that we are mentally and spiritually prepared to serve whomever and however God so desires of us, including the Mbogo's and By Grace Children's Home where we will spend most of our time
-Our health- not only that we stay healthy but also that pre-existing issues don't act up
-Against spiritual attacks that some of our team members have been and might be dealing with- including fears, nightmares, etc....
-That our all our travel time- driving, flights and connections, going through customs/immigration, etc. all go well with no problems
-That our hearts and minds will be in the right place- in other words that we won't make this trip about us and how much we can learn and grow, but rather about how best we can serve the Lord by ministering not only to  Stephen and Rosemary Mbogo and the children and staff at By Grace Children's Home, but whomever we come across on our trip to Kenya- including the people we encounter during our traveling time :)
Please also keep the Mbogo's, their staff, and the children of By Grace Children's Home continually in your prayers!
Pray for their finances- They need money for many things including a new area of their building, the many needs of the children (some of which are HIV positive), supporting their staff and hiring new staff, etc.
Also please be sure to check out their website if you haven't already: http://www.bygracetrust.org

Thank you again to all who have supported us- whether that's in prayer, finances, or just being there for us! We cannot thank you enough for partnering with us on this journey!!  How blessed we are to have each one of you in our lives and we cannot wait to share with you all of our amazing stories (and probably some funny ones too)!

Jamie :)

Sending and Receiving

Phew! We finally finished what has been a rather challenging semester for all of the Kenya girls. Now it is summer and we have time to reflect on the great experiences as a team that the last few weeks of our time together at Biola brought us.

            The first great, inspiring thing we were able to do as a team in theses last few weeks was to attend church with Steven and Rosemary, the founders of By Grace Children’s Home. Their church is comprised of people from Kenya living in the States, and the atmosphere retains much of Kenyan culture. We arrived at church and Rosemary reminded us that church started on “Kenyan Time,” which meant that there was no strict time when people should arrive, but that people trickled in to fill the building throughout worship time. This is a big contrast with what we are used to as Americans, who focus on getting places at a certain time as a sign of politeness. We shared a joyful, inspiring, time of worship in the congregation and were blessed by a great message from the preacher, encouraging all to be courageous for Christ. We were also blessed with prayer from the congregation for our trip. Finally, we were able to experience the warmth and kindness of time spent with Kenyans, as we served and met the congregation after the church service.

            Another beautiful time we experienced together during the close of the semester was the Summer Missions Send Off Chapel at Biola. Not only were we able to pray for our fellow missionaries going out this summer, but we were also blessed with prayer for our trip. Each team came to the front of the room to be surrounded with love and prayed for with laying on of many hands. We were able to both send off our brothers and sisters and we were able to receive commissioning and encouragement ourselves.

            A third strengthening experience we had as individuals and as a team was at the Student Missionary Union Commissioning. We worshipped and experienced communion with fellow missionaries; we prayed and were prayed for. This time was especially meaningful because it was our final send-off from Biola. Through the experience of commissioning and prayer at the SMU Commissioning time, I became more aware of the strength, confidence, and preparation required for a mission trip such as the one we are going on. We are so grateful for your prayers, and we ask that you will continue to ask God to strengthen us and prepare us for our time in Kenya.

Team Kenya Goes Camping

On a beautiful Friday morning, the girls from Team Kenya loaded up their three cars with excitement, camping supples and yummy snacks (but of course none with gluten, nuts, or animal by-products) and left Biola to begin the trek up to Santa Barbara.  The drive was beautiful, and all of the girls loved to see the ocean pass by.  After a few stops and a very beautiful drive that resulted from taking a wrong turn up a mountainside (with some BREATHTAKING views) the happy team pulled into their campsite tucked in the hills of Santa Barbara.

Unpacking and setting up camp began.  One of the tents was partially missing so the girls had not choice but for all eight of them to share one tent, though many of the girls were happy about this blessing in disguise :).  Dinner was made and a fire was built and the girls sat around and talked as they ate their porridge . . . I mean pasta.  As it got dark, the girls bonded over games, testimonies and banana boats (yumminess on steroids: banana that are cut open, stuffed with marshmallows and chocolate and then wrapped in foil and cooked until heavenly).  As the eyes got heavy and the fire died down, the tired girls piled into the tent for bed.

The next day, the fun continued.  The girls ate breakfast and shared more testimonies.  Each girl got to hear about how God had worked in her teammates lives and saw how truly amazing and wonderful they all are.  After testimonies, the team went on a hike that included swimming in the river and sitting on the rocks and talking till they were all sunburnt.  After the hike came lunch and then the girls packed up to head back to Biola.  The girls were tired, but it had been a great trip and they were all very thankful for the wonderful support and honesty of the team and couldn't wait to spend three weeks in Kenya with each other.

The End.

CHECK THIS!

Want to learn more about the ministry that we are going to Kenya to support? Check this link www.bygracetrust.org - It is By Grace Childrens Home's new website started for the Mbogo family by our sister team from Grace EV Free. Please take the time to look through the site and watch the video explaining the ministry!

And let's be thinking...how can we raise enough money to help ByGrace with their financial needs? Please share your ideas with us!

An update as things are getting underway...

Where has the time gone? SO much has happened since our last post.

For starters, I will begin by introducing our wonderful team of 8 girls who are so stoked to serve the Lord this summer in Kenya - Jamie, Annie, Natalie, Brina, Kristianna, Sami, Hannah & I.  Hannah and I could not be any more blessed to serve with these girls. Over the last few weeks we have gotten to know their hearts and to hear their stories, and we are continually encouraged that the Lord has hand picked every single one of us to form a unique team, special for His purposes. The theme of the past few weeks has been team unity, and bonding together as sisters in Christ so that we are best equipped to serve while we are in Kenya. We are currently striving to model what is expressed in Ephesians 4 & attempting to join together as 8 individuals with different backgrounds, personalities, gifts, and strengths so that we have 1 purpose, which is to bring Glory to our Father. There is already so much love within our team, and I can't wait to see how it's cultivated within the next few weeks.

Our first picture together!

Han hard at work on the griddle

Hannah's last post left us off with Missions Conference which was awesome. In between sessions, our team had a table at the Missions Marketplace, where we were able to raise awareness for our trip and pass out prayer cards to our fellow students, while offering them Chapati (a Kenyan food staple) for "donation". Also, our T-Shirts came in (check them out in the above pic) which was exciting because we were able to sell a few, and get our first fundraising efforts off with a bang!! Thank you Cathy and Molly for all your help with those shirts - they turned out great despite Hannah and my total lack of knowledge and artistic talent in that particular area! You guys were such a blessing to us.

Finished Chapati!

Since Missions Conference, our team has been busy planning and preparing for our trip. To help with that preparation, SMU organized a training weekend for all of the short term missions teams. The weekend was characterized by team building activities, informational meetings to help us with ministry while in country, and challenges to help us get an idea of what we might experience while on our trip. While the training was tiring and slightly frustrating at times, we grew a lot as a team and learned a TON, so we are very thankful that we got to participate in it.

That's pretty much all for now. Currently, we are working on buying our plane tickets, and SPOILER ALERT: Our support letters are being put in the mail this week, so be watching for them! Until then, please continue to pray for us as a team and for By Grace Children's Home.

Be watching for more updates!
Amanda