Hello all!
Thank you for all of your comments, we'll pass them on to the youth (Sue, Christine just checked her email). This will be our last post before we arrive in Toronto. The flight number for London to Toronto is British Airways flight 0097 and it will be departing Monday at 5:30pm (GST) and arriving at 8:40pm (EST) at Terminal 3 at Pearson Airport - please pick up your children / loved ones from the airport and check the flight on the net for any delays at: http://www.ba.com/
Now for an update! We did very little of the construction work in our last day (Friday) as we had reached the highly technical roofing process and Andrew had so much to show us in the area. We visited a child-headed household due to HIV/AIDS and visited a grandmother who had lost all of her children and was caring for about 10 (it is bad luck to count your children here for fear of losing one so no one gives you an actual number) and her co-wife who was also an aging grandmother caring for roughly 6 kids. Sadly, the grandmothers thought that their adult children had died due to a curse on their land and they were still unaware of how HIV/AIDS had impacted them. Later that day we had a closing ceremonies with the teachers, students and members of the congregation. It was hoped that the new classroom was a representation of a new relationship between our two congregations!
On Saturday, we have to thank David for his idea to fly from Kisumu to Nairobi. None of us were looking forward to 12+ hours on a bus bumping down the terrible Kenyan roads and the flight took about 40 minutes!! It gave us an extra day on our itinerary, which we promptly spent with the Huruma youth team whom we have all grown very fond of. They gave another street performance in Eastlands community using traditional dance, acrobatics and an HIV/AIDS awareness-raising puppet show. Afterwards, we took the team out for dinner and it was truly a joyous and bitter-sweet occasion. We had all gotten to know each other so well over the last two weeks and the two youth groups had bonded very tightly - it was the longest goodbye I have ever witnessed, with lots of pictures and the exchange of gifts (t-shirts and Kenyan crafts) and email addresses - what an amazing youth group!
Sunday (today), we hit the morning service at St Andrew's again and the sermon was done by a preacher from North Carolina. There were a surprising number of youth missions from the USA so we were blessed with a guest minister that reminded us of sermons from the South. Afterwards, Andrew arranged a visit with the Director of the National Office for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS, we had plenty of time to discuss what his office is doing and he answered all of our questions and provided us with lots of stats on the prevalence of HIV and issues such as polygamy and women's rights came to the forefront of our discussion - we learned a lot, thanks Andrew for arranging it! From there, we went to the Obara's for lunch and met the entire Obara family. The children are delightful, just like their parents, and they cooked us a very delicious meal and we shared stories and exchanged gifts and thanked Andrew and Leonora for their hospitality over the last two weeks. How blessed we were to have two great hosts in the Obaras and NCCK. Next we visited an animal centre were the youth were able to feed giraffes!! Finally, we had dinner and thanked James from NCCK for all of his hard work - he is a kind and generous soul whom we would like to have the honour of hosting in Canada one day!
Happy 30th Birthday to my wife, Stephanie!! Love to you and Colin, I'll see you soon!
We'll see you all on Monday (we have a long day ahead of us travelling with the sun), but we'll be home tomorrow - see you then!!
Thank you for all of your comments, we'll pass them on to the youth (Sue, Christine just checked her email). This will be our last post before we arrive in Toronto. The flight number for London to Toronto is British Airways flight 0097 and it will be departing Monday at 5:30pm (GST) and arriving at 8:40pm (EST) at Terminal 3 at Pearson Airport - please pick up your children / loved ones from the airport and check the flight on the net for any delays at: http://www.ba.com/
Now for an update! We did very little of the construction work in our last day (Friday) as we had reached the highly technical roofing process and Andrew had so much to show us in the area. We visited a child-headed household due to HIV/AIDS and visited a grandmother who had lost all of her children and was caring for about 10 (it is bad luck to count your children here for fear of losing one so no one gives you an actual number) and her co-wife who was also an aging grandmother caring for roughly 6 kids. Sadly, the grandmothers thought that their adult children had died due to a curse on their land and they were still unaware of how HIV/AIDS had impacted them. Later that day we had a closing ceremonies with the teachers, students and members of the congregation. It was hoped that the new classroom was a representation of a new relationship between our two congregations!
On Saturday, we have to thank David for his idea to fly from Kisumu to Nairobi. None of us were looking forward to 12+ hours on a bus bumping down the terrible Kenyan roads and the flight took about 40 minutes!! It gave us an extra day on our itinerary, which we promptly spent with the Huruma youth team whom we have all grown very fond of. They gave another street performance in Eastlands community using traditional dance, acrobatics and an HIV/AIDS awareness-raising puppet show. Afterwards, we took the team out for dinner and it was truly a joyous and bitter-sweet occasion. We had all gotten to know each other so well over the last two weeks and the two youth groups had bonded very tightly - it was the longest goodbye I have ever witnessed, with lots of pictures and the exchange of gifts (t-shirts and Kenyan crafts) and email addresses - what an amazing youth group!
Sunday (today), we hit the morning service at St Andrew's again and the sermon was done by a preacher from North Carolina. There were a surprising number of youth missions from the USA so we were blessed with a guest minister that reminded us of sermons from the South. Afterwards, Andrew arranged a visit with the Director of the National Office for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS, we had plenty of time to discuss what his office is doing and he answered all of our questions and provided us with lots of stats on the prevalence of HIV and issues such as polygamy and women's rights came to the forefront of our discussion - we learned a lot, thanks Andrew for arranging it! From there, we went to the Obara's for lunch and met the entire Obara family. The children are delightful, just like their parents, and they cooked us a very delicious meal and we shared stories and exchanged gifts and thanked Andrew and Leonora for their hospitality over the last two weeks. How blessed we were to have two great hosts in the Obaras and NCCK. Next we visited an animal centre were the youth were able to feed giraffes!! Finally, we had dinner and thanked James from NCCK for all of his hard work - he is a kind and generous soul whom we would like to have the honour of hosting in Canada one day!
Happy 30th Birthday to my wife, Stephanie!! Love to you and Colin, I'll see you soon!
We'll see you all on Monday (we have a long day ahead of us travelling with the sun), but we'll be home tomorrow - see you then!!
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