Teleios Ministry: April 2015

Friday, April 17, 2015

Last Day

Our last day was a great day, we traveled from Nyeri to Bernard and Robert’s home area. We visited three OVC homes in the Thigathi area. We had lunch with Bernard’s mom and visited with her. Then, we headed for the airport with stops along the way to pick up coffee, gifts, and say goodbye.

The first house that we visited was home to Maureen and Michael. The mother is a widow with six children. She is in the process of moving because the house see lives in is not on her former husband’s property. But the brother (who property it is on) and their church, are helping to build them a new home on her husband’s property. In many ways this is very gracious and caring of the brother.

Maureen and her brother are doing very good in school. They have been helped by the OVC ministry with rabbits and educational support. When we arrived on the property, Michael was coming up from the spring with a container of water. We decided to go down to the spring and while there to bring up more water. The spring serves surrounding houses.

The spring was a good distance straight down. There is no way to capture the steepness of the water path in pictures. Everyone was pretty exhausted with we got back to the top.

The house was made of mud bricks, wood poles, and tin roof. The floor was dirt. The roof was tin. Tom closed our time there with a prayer for the family

The second OVC family was Anna (mother), Mercy (senior in high school) and Emma (8 grade). Both of them will be taking exams this year. Mercy’s score determines if and where she can go to college. Emma’s score determines, if and where she can to to High School. Both girls are working hard to have as high a score as possible.

The last house was a Grandmother’s house who is raising her son’s two children. The son and his wife died. The Grandmother is raising the children. She was short in stature but a strong and beautiful in spirit woman. She laughed freely. When Bernard tried to tell her we could not have tea, she ignored and made the tea. Grandmother led us in prayer before the tea. She has also been helped by the goat project. Her house was a little different than the other two. Her’s had a pink color to it. The walls were made of a specific type of sand, cow dung, and local clay.

Our last stop was Bernard’s mom’s place for lunch. Being with her is always a blessing. She was an infectious laugh and she is great cook. We ate spinach, mukimo, her famous chicken, and mixed salad. Shirley and Carol helped out with serving the meal. Mary and Mom seemed to have a good time laughing about several things. Since they spoke in Kikyuyu, we were not always sure what or who they were laughing about. In the picture, you see Mom with Tom’s Ipad looking at family pictures. Beranrd was explaining everything to her. What a great picture!

We made it back in the Nairobi suburbs. After a few purchases, we headed for the airport. The past seven days have been a series of unbelievable moments of beauty, awesomeness of God’s creation, the challenges of human need, the transforming power of Jesus Christ, the amazing way that God brings people together to accomplish His purpose, and the opportunity to join Him in transforming all of life. What a blessing the past seven days have been and what an encouragement to with hope and confidence into the future.

Game Drives in Kenya

On our two game drives, we saw so many animals. What was unbelievable was that we saw lions on four different times. The first lions were resting on the savannah. Then, when we left them and drove on, we saw two lionesses chasing a warthog. Unfortunately, they were moving so fast and ran over a hill. We lost them after seeing the initial chase. We drove to another part of the game reserve and right beside the road were six lions including a young male lions. This was a real treat. We watched them “wrestle” and fight with each other. Use a tree as a scratching post, roll around, and stretch. Then, they decided to head off. They walked right down the road. They went to a car parked on the road and stopped and watched the people in the car and sized up the car. Eventually, they walked off. The next morning, we drove for about an hour and we went to a more remote part of the park. There a big, male lion (just getting a main) walked across the plain. We watched the gazelle follow him and run by him. He seemed to be sizing up Zebras for a while—but, then he headed in another direction. We watched and followed him for ten minutes. At one point it seemed like he got irritated at us. He stopped and took a few steps toward us and then turned and walked off. It was getting about time to head back to Sweetwaters for breakfast, so, Duncan was hurrying to make it back. As we came around a corner, out of the brush came a hugh, full main male lion. Unfortunately, none of us were prepared for a picture. He walked right across the road in front of us.

We even saw a rhino charge at a car. The car moved just before the rhino rammed it.

Tom said, “All I want to see is Mt. Kenya.” It had been covered in clouds for two days. On Wednesday morning for sunrise, there was Mt. Kenya from end to end—not hardly a cloud in the sky. We watched it all morning as we did our early morning game drive and when we returned to Sweetwaters.

Our last picture at the game reserve was standing together on the equator. This was another of many special moments.

Monday Revisited

I want to go back to our trip on Monday and show you some sights along the way from Ruaka to Nyeri. Also, Nyeri is a miniature of the life in Kenya. You have already seen the slums but now you will see a growing city that is developing into a more modern city. Nyeri reflects the contrast in the life and economy of Kenya (East Africa).