One other highlight and then I’m almost finished - Lillian’s husband Ezekiel is a Pastor and also teaches at the local high school - when attending their church on the first Sunday - he was teaching on the Family and one could see and hear he has a passion for the family and making positive changes in that regards for Mbita and Kenya. As a result of all the time Lillian and I had together, it became obvious that we were ‘kindred spirits’ and hearts knit for healthy families. As I explained about my prayer request regarding my time with Lillian and our relationship together it became obvious that God was answering that prayer beyond our wildest imagination - she said “you must speak to Ezekiel, I will arrange for that” and she did. Toward the end of our second week, the three of us met in their home and I was able to explain about how the ’small groups’ work for parenting and would also allow Ezekiel to disciple future leaders for the church. They now have the GK workbook, all the On Becoming books and by next week Lillian will have GKGW CD’s. They are unable to use our DVD’s but do have an MP3 player - so we are going to see what needs to be done to put the info in that format. Their home does not have regular electricity but they do have a generator that is ‘fired up’ when there is something they want to watch on the player. Fortunately, they deem GKGW something of value to watch. Please pray for Lillian & Ezekiel - as they are respected in their community and can see some wonderful things coming out of the little village of Mbita that could impact Kenya positively for the family. Lillian already was grasping the concepts and understands the idea of the ‘principle’ and ‘vehicle’ to deliver the principle. The plan would be for them to study the material and then present it to their small group. Not sure if they would show the information or not - might depend if they want it to become an English lesson as well. Fortunately they understand both U.S. English as well as the ‘Queens’ English, - yes there are some differences.
June 30th our second Saturday - was Field Day for the students - forgot to mention 3 members of our Team did PE and sports with the students. One of our Team, Mari, has been a girls basketball coach for years so it was neat to watch her work with the upper end girls teaching them to ‘catch & release’, ‘follow- through’ ‘dribble’ etc. I actually learned a few things myself. This was the most difficult day as it was when we had to say ‘good bye’ to everyone - many tears where shed both by students, teachers and our Team members. We spent many hours each day with these lovely children and adults and after nearly two weeks and knowing the likelihood is that most of us will not return…the fun memories of the day was a fitting end.
July 1st - Sunday morning at 6 a.m. our Team gathered to load up in two Vans [fortunately we unloaded all we brought over so many of the suitcases were able to fit inside one another and we consolidated down to only 18!] We now began our trek back to Nairobi via Nukuru where we stayed in the National Park - the site does provide some good info as well as their links - except I disagree with the early part and the ‘millions of years ago’ deal. But once you get to the last 5,000 years………
Our journey took us through many towns - experienced one minor ‘breakdown’ with one of our vehicles - which provided us a chance to get out and stand on solid and still ground. Did I mention the “African Massage” - oh we got a real good one on this trip and also made us extremely grateful that we were able to fly from Nairobi closer to Mbita at the beginning of our two weeks, another answer to prayer! We arrived in Nukuru in time for a late lunch which provided us our first taste after 12 days of, well talking like a spoiled westerner, a nice variety of food including ‘chocolate’! We quickly checked into our rooms and at 4:30 p.m. went on our first safari -
Kids’ there are monkey’s everywhere - all types. Since it was evening though we didn’t get to see any of the ‘big animals’ they were either already settling in for the night or hiding waiting for the rest to settle before they went ‘out for dinner’ - think you get my drift. Remember we’re talking wild life!
Had a wonderful dinner and off to bed. Here we did have electricity and brewed Kenyan coffee. The next morning Monday - July 2nd was another early rising as we needed to be packed, breakfasted and ready for our morning safari by 7:30 a.m. and we were not going to miss breakfast! Fresh fruits, breads, omelets and well they called it pancakes but actually they were more like round ‘French toast’ [that is bread dipped in egg and cooked on a grill - not sure if my friends in other parts of the world reading this are familiar with French Toast. Don't ask me how it received its name - kind of like English Muffins - those are not ‘English’- anyway breakfast was scrumptious and we were ready for our Safari by 7:30ish.
This was the day we saw just about everything except the lions - if you've ever watched National Geographic or Nature Channel and the lake where there are more Flamingo's than you could ever count - well this was that! There were so many Flamingo’s they sounded like, well the whirr of a propeller or helicopter and there was the color Pink all along the shore line. Then there were the Waterbucks, the Giraffe family, Daddy, Mummy and baby. Antelope; Rhino; Zebra's, dik-diks, spotted a leopard [no pun intended] Impalas; gazelles; no elephants, guess they are not in this park and of course still lots of baboons and monkeys. If you visit Kenya.com you can see some neat pictures at this site of the park.

Can’t remember if it was before or after we reached Nukuru but passed by miles and miles and hillside after hillside of Tea Plantations!

KERICHO - this is tea country! Kenya is the world’s third largest producer of tea after India and Sri Lanka and Kericho is in the heart of Kenya’s tea plantations. There are rolling hills carpeted in neat, bright green tea bushes as far as you can see. The climate here is perfect for tea with rain falling almost every afternoon. Kericho - named after Ole Kericho, a Maasai chief who was killed in battle by the Gusii in the 18th century -
Okay, I’m almost done - we left Nukuru around noon and started our last leg of the journey to Nairobi and had our last “African Massage” until we were just about to Nairobi before the roads improved. As you can see Nairobi looks like many other large cities - once we arrived there about 2ish - spent the next couple of hours ’shopping’ - well we were tourists you
know and still had all those women looking for deals.
Although some decided a nice Chicago Pizza sounded like a better idea. Anyway - we split up for a bit - the adventuresome[which did not include me] went to the Duka’s - which is a series of small shops and lots of bargaining - I actually went to the local supermarket - fun place to see what is available and also make a reasonable purchase of Kenya coffee. We regrouped around 5:30 p.m. to go to our final destination prior to the airport and that was a restaurant called ‘Carnivore‘. Actually, to me it was Africa’s version of a Churrascaria [Brazilian Barbeque] - if you care check out the link
The best part of the evening was the fact that a couple who was in one of our very first classes in California, Doug & Kathy Ghrist, were able to join us for dinner. Doug’s grew up in Kenya where his parents were missionaries and he, Kathy and their 3 children came to Nairobi via AIM Missions about 9 years ago. When we met them in the mid 1980’s they had one 18 mo. old son - we’ve kept in touch these many years and hoped to be able to connect at some point while in Nairobi. As it turned out, the gentleman who provided us the drivers and vans for our return trip from Mbita to Nairobi [David] knows Doug & Kathy very well. Small world! It was wonderful to reconnect with them in person and for some of our Team who sat close enough to be a part of our conversations. Although our time was short it was sweet.
Well, our flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam was scheduled to leave at 10:15 p.m. and we wanted to be at the airport around 8 p.m. - which would have been no problem except who could have expected a traffic jam that late in the evening? Anyway we made it and all boarded the first leg of our journey home.
Tuesday July 3rd - we arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30 a.m. and had a 6 hr. lay-over - well, we couldn’t be so close to downtown Amsterdam and not take the train in to walk around! Think there were 5 of us that went in - The last time I was there was Sept. 1963 - yes, a long time ago and with Auntie Anne - it was a graduation trip! Some of it still looked as I had remembered it.
Our flight from Amsterdam took off on time and we arrived in Detroit, think it was around 2 p.m. still the 3rd of July - we had an even longer lay-over there - but were so exhausted, so after getting a ‘hamburger’ - several of us actually took a nap [on the floor] At 11:15 p.m. Tuesday July 3rd we touched down at Charleston International Airport where we were greeted by happy family and friends! My dear husband was there waiting, it was so good to see him. Don’t think we’ve ever been apart quite this long. Home safe and in time to celebrate the 4th of July.