First Week at Jared's Orphanage

I like Kenya. The weather is pleasant, the scenery reminds me of Arizona, there isn't too much malaria, we've already seen a variety of wildlife, and I've met some new friends. We weren't planning on lingering here for quite this long, but I'm glad things have worked out this way.

We've been here a week and a half, spending about half ourtime in Nairobi getting supplies for Sudan and running errands, and the rest at Jared's orphanage project. The orphanage is five hours west of Nairobi, on the eastern edge of the Masai Mara game preserve, near the Tanzanian border.We drove out to the project on Friday and saw two giraffes on the way! Did I mention how neat it is to be here in Kenya? :)

The Masai Development Project Orphanage

Jared's Mansion

On Sabbath we sang and hiked and rested. If I had known what we would be doing for work that week, I think I would have rested some more. I also listened to two excellent sermons by Eugene Prewitt on revival and country living. I guess we've got the country living part down, hours away from civilization in the African bush :) Sunday, after a pancake flipping contest (which Luke won handily with a neat double flip), we started work with a bang, digging the first of several ditches. Monday we scraped cement off window bars and I helped supply the masons with stones and concrete to finish the interior walls in the dormitory. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent with a pick and shovel, clearing out somemore ditches for a leach field. With all that digging, we had no problems falling asleep at night!

Luke

Joel

Wednesday evening we drove through the bush down to the Tanzanian border and saw lots of wildebeest, antelopes, dikdiks, and some zebras! Thursday we headed back to Nairobi for more errand running. We met up with some Peace Corps volunteers Thursday night for supper at an Ethiopian restaurant! I enjoyed using some of my rusty Amharic to order our food :) Friday we picked up Eric Johnston at the airport and ran some more errands. Eric is here as an SM from Southern and will be working at the orphanage and with Jared's uncle for nine months.

One of Luke's errands

On Sabbath we went to church at Maxwell Academy on the campus of the East Central Africa Division. It's interesting how similar the academy here is to academies in the States--and all the connections we had in common with the expats there. Pastor Crutcher and his wife from GCC, a family from Union Springs Academy, and some SMs from Union. Amazing how meeting friends of friends makes for such entertaining conversation :) After lunch in the cafeteria we went hiking in the Rift Valley. The geology in the Rift Valley is fascinating. It's basically a huge crack in the earth where two tectonic plates are pulling apart. Because there's so much less pressure on the crack, magma pushes up through the crust more easily. Hence all the volcanic activity along the Rift, and the presence of the mountains for us to climb. (Don't worry Mom, the ones we were on were long extinct :) Bob and Joy Butler graciously invited us to their home for supper and we spent the evening visiting with them.

The plan is to head back out to finish up a few more things at the orphanage, put in the windows, finish the leach field, and a other odds and ends, before coming back to Nairobi, purchase the last few needed supplies and leave for Sudan a week from today. We'll see how that works out!

It's good to hear from everybody back home. We're excited to see how God has worked things out for us so far. Thank you for your prayers!

Excelsior