Africa part 1

Tom Watson and I left for Nairobi, Kenya from San Francisco on Monday, January 24 at 5 PM. Ten hours later we landed at Heathrow in London and were off with Gilbert (a great Scottsman, tour guide and pastor buddy from Reedley) and two other gents from Gilbert's church. The Heathrow Express Train dropped us at Paddington Station (and yes there were bears there) and jumped in one of those infamous London cabs and our cabby dropped us off at a 300 year old Pub/Restaurant for fish and chips and bangers and mash. It was quite delicious I might add. The light rain and chilly temperatures prohibited us from walking around town; however, we did take a ride on the London Eye for an awesome panoramic view of the city. We made our way back to the airport for our 9 PM flight to Nairobi.

We arrived this morning at 8:30 AM, had an uneventful experience in customs and were pleasantly greeted by our drivers for the week, Joseph and Ben. We "hired" two vans (aka Mata tutus) to haul us all around all week and after experiencing the traffic here, I'm thoroughly grateful.

We went straight to the slum area known as Huruma to visit Furaha Community Center and the school that Redeemer's Church in Reedley started with the help of four young locals. Chris, Kerry, Dan and David have done an incredible job of starting the school with a little over 20 kids 6 years ago and now the school has 550 kids from pre-k through 8^th grade. 80% of these children are orphans and nearly 60% are HIV positive. They attend school from 6:45 AM – 6:45 PM and will get their only meal of the day at the school. The teachers make $110 a month and the administrators make $190 a month; however, all are grateful for their opportunity to empower themselves.

Tom and I have experienced perhaps a worse situation when we were in Patna, India in 2007; however, the extent of disease seems to be more prevalent here. The people are incredibly friendly and hospitable. We were fed twice today, while those poor children would only receive on meal. At 2:30 PM, we traveled back through the city of Nairobi to the Fairview Hotel http://www.fairviewkenya.com/. The accommodations are very, very nice and the hotel is in the government district of the city. In fact, the Israeli Embassy is just down the street.

We both had much appreciated showers considering that we had been traveling for two days and spent the day in the slum. Gilbert had arranged a dinner meeting with the Stephen Mairori, the International Director of International Christian Ministries. It just so happens that Stephen is a 2004 graduate of the Mennonite Brethren Seminary in Fresno…small world huh? We discussed ways in which First Baptist Church of Clovis and Redeemer's Church can bring training for pastors in the Huruma slum. It seems that we have some very viable options that we will continue to explore.

Both Tom and I are exhausted physically and emotionally depleted. We are looking forward to sleeping horizontally tonight as opposed to trying to sleep sitting in an airplane seat. Tomorrow starts early for us and we will be having meetings and visiting with the residents of Huruma. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to bring hope to the "least" and "poorest of the poor." Many blessings to you all. I will post more pictures on Facebook for anyone interested.