Greetings from Kenya,
By the Lord’s grace, we successfully made it to Kijabe! Last Wednesday we piled into the car, caravanned to the airport with our families, and overwhelmed a few airline check-in workers.
Thanks so much for giving us a great send-off.
We had short layovers at each airport, no flight delays, and no lost luggage- all answers to prayers. The children even slept some on the planes. When we made it through customs in Nairobi at 10pm local time, World Medical Mission had two drivers load all of our stuff and take us to a nearby hotel for the night. We saw two zebra on the side of the road within minutes of leaving the airport. It was a great feeling to crash in the hotel beds for the night. Even though it was 3pm our time, everyone immediately fell asleep and slept right until we got picked up the next morning.
We made it to the gate in Louisville, only 24 hours to go! Getting some sleep however he could. He woke up. This plane has movies! Feels good to stand up.
Collecting bags in Nairobi, it’s a miracle they all made it. Finally, a real bed. Some tired kids during the shopping trip (it was 2am their time).
Nairobi is a large, fairly modern city with a large expat community. We went by the fancy western style grocery store to stock up on food and home goods before driving up to Kijabe. The store had more than we were anticipating, so that was a nice surprise. We also got Safaricom SIM cards. We are keeping WhatsApp linked to our old phone numbers, so you can still reach us there. After shopping, we drove for a hour northwest to Kijabe- our new home. Another World Medical Mission missionary met us with the keys to our house. He and others had been working tirelessly for weeks to get the place ready for us. They also set up a meal train for the first few nights to help welcome us. We are so grateful for the kindness shown by everyone here.
This past week we have been meeting the families around Kijabe, scoping out the market, unpacking, setting up internet, phones, utilities, hiring house workers, and eating a second dinner at 2am. Slowly the kids are adjusting to the time change, their new beds, and the altitude. I went in to Nairobi again to buy more food, and things for the house like lamps, towel rods, duct tape, and mosquito-zapping tennis rackets.
We are so grateful to finally be here! Language training starts this week and we are excited to start learning. The kids love exploring around the house and we have taken several walks around the station getting the lay of the land (and trying to acclimate to the altitude.) Everyone has been so friendly and helpful, we feel so blessed to be a part of this community.
Prayer requests:
1. That our minds would be open to learning Swahili and we wouldn’t just try to translate everything into Spanish.
2. That the children would continue to adjust to the time change, new food, and new surroundings.
3. Bryce has sent in his application for a work permit and he won’t be able to do anything at the hospital until that is approved. Prayers that it will come in a timely manner so he can start work when we finish our language training time (about 3 months from now).
4. That we would all receive a healthy dose of patience and humility. There is so much to learn here and it seems like it is taking us much longer to do even the simple things.
Kenya Hear 