Our Final Week in Siyiapei

Our final week was one filled with many amazing moments, where we would try to simply take in every thought, scent, sight, and sound, in hopes of not forgetting a detail. We had the opportunity to visit for the last time the homes of our close friends Orpha, Fred, Pastor Jimmy (Pasi), Nelson and his family, Pastor Kinayo and his wife and grandchildren, Derek, and Limet. Their stories and the well wishes they bestowed on us often inspired and brought us to tears. The clinic along with the AIC church we have been involved with, invited members of the community and church to a giant feast and thanks ceremony for us. They slaughtered a goat, made some delicous side dishes and a cabbage mixture flavored with the intestines and stomach of our goat. They gave us some bottled sodas, before saying words of encouragement, giving testimonies, singing Maasai and Swahili hyms with us, and praying over us.

Earlier in the week we spent the day at the Narok District Hospital, in the center of the nearest town to Siyiapei. We arrived early in the morning in time to join the students and interns for rounds with the attending physician. We got to see and hear so many of the patients cases and treatment, learning so much! It was a great taste of what medicine is like in a larger hospital in Kenya. Afterward, we spent our afternoon in maternity where we witnessed our first birth in Kenya! It was incredible. On our way back into town to catch a matatu home, we were met by four Maasai women we had never met, who ran up to us with giant smiles and circling arms for hugs, asking us where we were coming from, our names, and telling us who they were. They held our hands and enlocked elbows with us, walking with us until we had to part ways, giving us hugs and kisses goodbye, so filled with joy we thought they would pop. Their laughter was contagious and we felt so blessed by them!

We visited the AIC Childrens Home one morning this week where we were greeted by 21 curious faces, some of which were farmiliar from seeing them at the clinic or in the community. They each introduced themselves, said a different Bible verse, and then all sang and danced Maasai and Swahili songs for us! We sang and danced two for them and then encouraged them in Jesus and prayed together before taking some funny pictures and hugging and waving goodbye. We fell in love with them instantly and wished we had the chance to come again.

After spending our last day with our two best friends Fred and Orpha in town and having them over to our house for chai, we cleaned up our house and packed all of our things together in preparation for the morning. We had planned a short visit to the Maasai Mara before heading back to Nariobi, so early Sunday morning we said our final goodbyes, and met our Saphari driver outside! The Maasai Mara was all that we could have hoped for, mesmerizing us and reflecting the fingerprint of God in every sense. We saw a male Lion, girraffe, gazelle, and wildebeaste even before entering the park, and along the way learned the 6 reasons a Saphari van will stop: 1) Bumps 2)To use binoculars to look for animals 3)when animals occupy the road 4)to greet other Saphari vans (typically filled with chinese people bearing huge lensed cameras) 5) when one of us has to use the bathroom (aka big thorny bush) and 6)when we have to retrieve a piece of the van that falls off on the side of the road. But really, we all agreed that this was one of the best experiences of a lifetime and were so excited and thankful to have been given that opportunity! We stayed the night in an amazing tented camp and after a morning drive at the Mara, left for Nairobi.

Our Short-term coordinator PJ and his wife Emily welcomed us into thier home in Nairobi where we will be staying the next two nights for debrief. We will be flying out Wednesday evening, heading back to the AIM home office before all saying goodbye and going our separate ways to each of our families. We miss them a lot!

It has been amazing to see all that God has done in and through each of us during our trip this summer. We have learned so many things and made relationships that we will forever hold on to. God has been faithful in every aspect, often blowing our socks off in the wonder of who He is and how He is working among His people all across the nations. We want to thank from the bottom of our hearts those who have been praying and supporting us every step of the way. There were so many times where we could honestly feel the prayers of Gods people working on our behalf. What an honor to be a part of Gods hands with you, following His example as we go therefore and do likewise.

Week Six!

What an exciting week we’ve had! On Thursday we had the opportunity to go to Nairobi! Fred had to go for the day to pick up some things for his lab tech certification so it worked out for us to tag along with him. We were super excited to be able to spend time with PJ and Emily, the AIM short-term coordinators for the Eastern Region of Africa. We left Siyiapei bright and early so we were able to enjoy the sunrise over the beautiful Kenyan landscape on our ride there. When we arrived to the city we stopped at a cute little café called “The Mug” for a second breakfast and some yummy coffee. PJ brought us to the AIM office for chai time/prayer meeting after that. Being greeted by the group of smiling faces and having the opportunity to worship the Lord with them brought us a little taste of home. We got a lot of souvenir shopping done at the Maasai market, which takes a lot longer than your average shopping trip due to the extensive amount of bartering that must occur. This day was such a blessing to us because it was a little boost of energy to help us finish strong as we approach the end of our stay here.

Instead of working in the clinic on Friday, our team went for an immunization outreach to a Maasai village nearby. We traveled by car over many bumps, rocks, and ditches (it’s amazing what these taxi drivers can do) and arrived at a small school to set up our temporary clinic. The head school teacher informed us that word did not get out into the community ahead of time to let them know we would be there so she sent out a few students to run home to spread the news. While we were waiting for patients, we had the chance to speak with this head school teacher about the countless challenges that this school and this community face. She told us that the biggest challenge that her students face is hunger. Even the school sometimes does not have food to feed their students for lunch. The second greatest challenge they have is elephants. Elephants are very dangerous animals in the wild. They kill their crops and can hurt, sometimes even kill people as well. It was hard for us to hear her stories and to know how to respond to what she was telling us. Our response, and we ask that your response as well, will be to pray for the people of the Erusiai village. After our conversation with her, patients started trickling in. We ended up immunizing about 30 children!

 

 

 

Saturday was very leisurely. In the afternoon Fred and the youth pastor from the church we attend took us fishing! They made us our own fishing rods out of sticks, string, a little hook, and a piece of rubber for a buoy. We caught a couple “mad fish” and some frogs along the way. We screamed every time we pulled them out of the water. The mad fish became our dinner that night and were very tasty!  

 

On Sunday we had the great privilege of going to Maasai land, where Fred’s family is from. After we arrived and met some of his family, the men led us to their herd of goats so they could choose one to…slaughter for us! When they chose a good one, they led us into “the bush” to watch this important event occur. Usually goats are only slaughtered on special occasions so we felt honored that they wanted to do this for us. While we were watching the procedure it reminded all of us of dissecting animals in our anatomy and physiology classes J THEN Fred asked us very nicely if we would like to test the goat’s blood. We hesitantly agreed so we each took a little sip…what an experience! Following the slaughter we proceeded back to the little mud house for chai. The women of the family graced us with exquisite hand-made Maasai necklaces that we even got to keep as a reminder of this special day! We ate a LOT of food including: an appetizer of chicken then roasted goat, chapatti, rice, peas, boiled potatoes, and beef. Wow.

Today was a good, relaxing day at the clinic. It’s nice to be “back home” as the past few days were very busy. We ask that you pray that our team would finish strong during these last two weeks in Siyiapei.

Love to you all!

Alyssa

Week Five!

Jambo Marafiki (Translation: Hello friends)

We have officially completed our (Janie, Janessa, and Alyssa’s) 5^th week and Ashley’s 3^rd week! We have had a great week, filled with building relationships and quality time with people. One old hymn that I used to sing growing up has come to my mind throughout this week: Count Your Blessings. The line that keeps invading my thoughts goes like this, “Count your blessings; name them one by one. Count your blessings; see what God has done.” I told the other girls about this and so we decided to tell you about our week by obeying this hymn and “counting our blessings.”

Blessing One: July 4^th Burgers: We decided that we would celebrate America’s Independence Day big time here in Kenya. We invited the clinic staff over for a wonderful lunch of burgers (our first time eating beef since being in Kenya!), fries, and lemonade! We threw some guacamole in there as well, because, I’ll be real honest, we four missionary girls can make some killer guac. We sang the National Anthem for our dear Kenyan friends, which they loved. Fred even tried to learn the first few stanzas in honor of this American Holiday. It was such a cool experience to share part of our culture with them!

Blessing Two: Jiko: There are a few things that can elicit girly screams of terror from our four mouths: spiders, snakes and lizards (we saw our first African snake this week at the clinic), lack of coffee or chocolate, and RUNNING OUT OF GAS FOR OUR GAS POWERED STOVE. The final item on the list occurred on Friday night, right in the middle of cooking a lovely meal of potatoes, green beans, and fish. The thought of having to instead eat yet another peanut butter sandwich was enough to drive us bonkers, so Janessa and I ran over to Derek’s house (our next door neighbor). Thankfully, he had an extra Jiko (essentially a campfire in a pot) which he let us borrow. We got to have the real African cooking experience, along with being able to eat our coveted meal of fish and chips.

Blessing Three: New friends and S’mores: We have been able to get to know James and Tara, two Americans that are here for a while working with a non-profit and the Kenyan Red Cross. It has been great to hear their stories, as well as discuss health care here in Kenya. They also brought us one of the best gifts anyone could have ever given us: marshmallows! We were able to construct a makeshift s’more using Kenyan things we had lying around the house. If anyone there in the motherland wants the recipe, it includes: tea biscuits (NOT the round, easily breaking ones, but the rectangular, thick ones that have the word NICE on the top), 8 chocolate chips (the number is important here, as we have to be a bit stingy with the number that we use, in order to last us the rest of the trip), and a marshmallow (we have a mixed bag of regular and strawberry flavored; regular is my personal favorite). This tiny joy of roasting marshmallows over our little borrowed jiko was enough to bring squeals of laughter, and definitely deserves to be put on the blessing list. It’s the small things that count, right?!

Blessing Four: Frederick and African Hair: Our dear friend and lab technician at the clinic, Fred, took us into town on Saturday for our first experience with a Kenyan hair salon. We entered Pinkie’s Hairstyles at 10 AM and left with braided heads at 2 PM. What a fun experience! While I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the pain, I loved being with these beautiful Kenyan women and joking about the differences between sturdy African hair and “wazungu nuele” (translation: white people hair). I count it such a blessing to be given this opportunity to totally be immersed in their extraordinary culture, even down to the hair on my head!

Blessing Five: Kenyan Adventures: I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for these fantastic three girls that I get to live with this summer! I often times wish that I had a secret video camera taped to my shirt so that I could capture every moment. There is an incredible amount of laughter that goes on here. This week we discovered the joy of making a tent using sheets and a mosquito net, lugging a thermos of hot chai and a HUGE bowl of popcorn upstairs, and reading to each other. We got to have adventures outside of our little Shalom house as well this week. We visited Orpha’s shamba (garden) and played in the stalks of corn. On Saturday, after getting our hair done, we went with Fred to a nearby boarding school where his younger brother lives. While Fred met with a teacher to check up on his brother’s performance, we played games with the kids. It is these moments of laughter and joy that make me realize that it will be incredibly hard to leave this place in three weeks.

Well, dearest friends and family, we love you all so much and are praying for you daily. We miss all of you immensely and can’t wait to see you all very soon! Thank you once again for your prayers and emails of encouragement. They are so very much appreciated!

Love to all,

Janie and the Siyiapei Girls

PS: Special shout-out to all the family birthdays this week: Hunter, Mama Rhodes, and Aaron! Happy Birthday!