My Kenya journal vol. I

This is an excerpt from my journal while I was in Kenya this summer.... this is the first of many volumes.

Day 2 June, 3 2005


Today was our first day in Kenya we arrived last night about 9:00 local time. It is weird to arrive in a place at night you really don’t get the full effect of the place unless you are landing in a place like Las Vegas. Night to me makes the places different. So when we got in the airport I don’t really think it hit me that we were in Kenya. I don’t know if it has hit me yet or when it will. So once we cleared customs, which was the easiest entry I have ever done we grab our bags and we were greeted buy Nicki and Amy Jo who are the base RA for AIM. They have been in country for about 10 months now. Once we loaded our almost 3500 lbs of luggage in to at small Mazda pick up with a frame rack in the bed we off in our Matus (Swahili for van) We were off to Kibera our home for the first couple of nights of our trip. Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa.
So the ride to Kibera was kind of erie. I road in the front with Francis a Kenyan from the church that we will be working with. I had 13 of the team members with me and I tell you could hear a pin drop. I mean I was excited about being here but I could tell there was some culture shock setting in or maybe just vivid realization that we are really in Kenya. Who know what the next two months will have in store for us.
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So today was our first day in Kibera. Waking up the morning was kind of weird, at first I didn’t know where I was, and then I remembered. But I was kind of excited to see this place in the day light. The guys and I are staying in our own house. It is actually a nice set up. You walk in and there is a court yard and then two rooms with three beds in each room. And then another separate living room a small Kitchen a shower room, with running water (didn’t expect that) and then a toilet with a western (doesn’t flush very well).
So we walked across the street to the girls house. And let me tell you it was strange. For one of the first times in my life I felt out of place.
After breakfast we had cultural training with Amy Jo and Nicki I think most of us were still in shock. And then we met Pastor Timothy our host pastor here.
I love this man already. He has so much energy and he is fire for the Lord. He gave us a welcome speech that really turned into a sermon. It was amazing! He told us his testimony of how he was saved by an American Missionary. I had images running in my head of the people that we will be coming into contact with and the lives that we will be changing while we are here. Pastor Timothy took us on a tour of the slums. To tell you the truth I was not prepared for what we experienced today. You cant even imagine this place. I mean the roads if you can call them that are just dirt roads that are rutted out beyond be drivable, but they do drive on them. There is trash everywhere, there are pieces of plastic bags everywhere, water, waste and who know what else.
As we walked in the slum one of the girls in on our team told me that she thought this place might be what hell was like. If this is hell is like there are a lot of people here that are going to hell here. But on the other hand there are a l lot of people that need to be saved. When we are here in another I pray that we will have so many amazing opportunities to minister to people here.
We have already met a couple of cool guys that are use to Americans. They hung out with the AIM group that was here before us.
We talked to Francis last night. This guy is so smart; I swear that he is going to be the president of Kenya some day.