Flight Update: Parents Please Read!!

This is just a quick note to let you know all is well. I’m writing this in the Mombasa airport after just arriving from a diverted flight. The Huruma team was on our way to Nairobi this evening and we were five minutes from landing when the flight ahead of us crashed. Due to the debris on the runway, we were unable to land and after circling the airport we were diverted back to Mombasa due to lack of fuel. We are now awaiting our next flight itinerary. We had planned to be in Nairobi tonight and spend the next two days up-country until the team leaves on Wednesday for the USA. The team is all doing very well and they have a great attitude about all this. We are praising God for His provision in safety. I’ll update you from Nairobi once we get up there.
Tina

last update( from me anyways)

Hi everybody!!!!
So this will be my last update letter before I get back. Today is the last full day of camp. So basically is the last day of our mission’s trip. Tomorrow we leave to go on Safari, then we head to Nairobi to leave for home. This week has been awesome. I’m glad it is over but I am sad for it to be over. There are so many different kinds of kids here, from being extremely poor to kids who travel all the time. It’s amazing seeing God work through these kids and seeing how thirsty they are to know about him. We all got to play with a chameleon, it was soooo cool. There are so many strange bugs here, today we saw a sausage bug it’s a fly that’s body looks like a sausage. There are village kids that hang with us at the camp they are extremely cute and we have all joked about taking them home as carry-on’s. I’ll talk to y’all later, please pray for our safety traveling to safari place and traveling home.
God Bless,
Nicole

Teddy Bears: Thank you TBC kids!!

Our home church, Trinity Baptist in Arizona had a VBS last month and the kids made teddy bears for us to give to the Kenyan children at the feeding centers we have been visiting. Let me just tell you right off, they were a HUGE hit! Kids: I wish you could have been here to see the faces of the children receiving your bears! As soon as we started handing the bears out, all the children would squeal and laugh and hug their new bear! And they would NOT let their bear go! When meal time came, no one wanted to set their bear down in order to wash their hands. So what we wound up doing was washing their hands for them- one hand at a time so they could transfer the bear into their other hand!!! It was adorable! So we just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THE TRINITY KIDS WHO SENT A BEAR!!!

Feeding Centers

Of the many cultural experiences the Huruma team has had here in Kenya, one of them has been to visit several feeding centers set up as a ministry branch through Crossroads Fellowship Church in conjunction with Manna Worldwide. Essentually, Crossroads finds areas where the poverty is so great that children are going without food. They build a church, kindergarten and feeding hall and then Manna helps pay for food, clothing and education for the children. Manna, similar to Compassion, gets different churches and sponsors to catch the vision and understand that children are dying unless something is done. But the great thing is that not only do these children get a meal, they get spiritually fed as well and they take what they have learned back to their families. Most of the feeding centers we have been to have had 150 to 200 children which is wonderful but there is still much work to be done. It’s heartbreaking to go to the centers and know that while you are helping 200 kids there are 4,000 more outside the compound starving. I think for me, that is the hardest part about ministry out here: you can never do enough! I just keep holding onto the knowledge that I am simply a vessel. The team is starting to understand that as well. We have been to five feeding centers across the Kenyan coast: 1) Gospel FC in an area called Shanzu where the surrounding community is very animistic. 2) Vipingo FC, the newest center built, was just a plot of land when I was here last year and now has a kindergarten, church and feeding hall thanks to a church in Florida who has sponsored 200 kids! 3) New Life FC is also in a very animistic area and the actual plot of land where the church now stands was used for human sacrifices up until a few years ago. 4) Tiwi FC, on the same compound as the youth camp we are leading, is in a predominantly Muslim area amongst the Digo tribe. 5) Pirani FC (pictured) was the last feeding center we visited. I purposely scheduled it last because the area is so incredibly poor. Kenya is a 3rd world country and poverty is all around but Pirani is so far into the bush (rural area) that the people are living in mud huts that wash away with each heavy rain and drinking from the same river their cows use. Visiting that center was hard for the team but very eye opening. It’s incredible to see people who have so little and yet are so generous and hospitable, so full of joy! Listening to these tiny kids sing songs about Jesus’ love, forgetting your sorrows and being a light really puts everything into perspective. God’s love is simple and it simply is.

Rose, Nate and Mama Kenya

Our Huruma team has been teaming up with the band at Crossroads Fellowship to lead worship on Sundays. Here is a picture of Nate and Rose as they lead the congregations in "Blessed Be Your Name." We have all enjoyed having Aunt Barb along with us this summer. Her sense of humor puts us all in stitches. Last week we were way down south in an area called Pirani walking in a village and meeting people. A baby goat was grazing nearby and before we knew it, Aunt Barb, or Mama Kenya as we now call her, scooped it up and began carrying it! It was so random that we all just laughed! I'm sure her grandkids will get a kick out of this picture!

Brittnie

Brittnie with one of the little ones at Tiwi Feeding Center.

Peter, Amanda, Alyssa

Peter at Vipingo Feeding Center, Amanda at New Life Feeding Center, and Alyssa also at Vipingo sharing her "style".

Pictures taken at Vipingo Feeding Center

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!!!

Greetings from Tiwi Youth Camp!!

I can't believe I actually have internet signal out here!! We are currently WAYYYY out in the middle of nowhere at the youth camp we have been preparing for. It is day two and so far I am please to annouce all leaders are running strong... Saturday might be a different story! We have 126 people on campus and the Huruma team has joined up with leaders from Crossroads Fellowship to facilitate and run the camp this week. Please be praying for the team as they learn to lead in a different culture and language. And pray for the kids at camp that the Lord would work in their hearts this week. I'll try to continue posting pictures- Rose wasn't kidding about the internet being slow here.... but have no fear, between her and I we've got about 5,000 pictures of your kids to bring back with us!!

The Provision of the Lord

To read more details about the last week, read Angela's post below, but I just wanted to praise God publically. We have seen His provision in many ways, but a few stick out. A couple weeks ago, we were on our way to church (some of us were playing and singing before church) and our bus stopped working. We decided to pray while our driver was looking at the bus. All that was said was "Lord Jesus..." and the bus started up again....before we had even really prayed anything specific. Then we were out one day painting one of the feeding centers. We were close to being done and had worked hard all day. Dark clouds began to come our way and Tina said it most definitely was going to rain. We decided to pray and simply asked God to move... and He did. Almost immediately, we literally saw the clouds begin to move another direction. Then today, our bus broke down quite a way from where we were going. We prayed again and simply asked God to provide. About 20 minutes later, an empty matatu (van) pulled up and we were able to get where we needed to be. For the time of day, it was very unusual to see an empty matatu, let alone that we were in the middle of close to no where and its not like there's a public transportation schedule. God is providing for us right before our eyes. Praise Him with us and when you go to pray, know that God is big enough to move mountains... and deliver matatus. :)
- Rose

Most Interesting Day Yet

I am officially writing this after our most “exciting” day so far this trip. After a 3 hour drive to the last feeding center we will visit, we arrived to find a lack of children. The teacher had canceled today of school because they hadn’t gotten the message we would be there. But we got the opportunity to wander around the surrounding villages. This feeding center was by far the poorest of them all. They had two smaller sized buildings, one made of mud and rock. The villages were full of children clothed in clothes literally falling apart and families with so many kids and not enough to feed them. The more I see of these places the more and more I completely admire the pastors who are working in these places. Well, onto the day…on the way home our bus broke down. After twenty minutes a matatu (van they use as public transportation) pulls up. We cram 20, yes 20, people into a van with a limit of 14 for a two hour ride. We then took the ferry back across and met our new driver with a van. The Lord was good to us JYesterday (Wednesday) the girls had an adventure getting our hair done – be ready for a surprise when I get home (or look forward to pictures…haha) And that evening we had dinner with the missionary pastor and Bruce O’Neil, the director of Manna international (they group that helps set up feeding centers). It was a really great evening of hearing how God works. Tuesday we went to another feeding center called Tiwi. It was absolutely incredible. The Pastor started it with him teaching 5 kids in preschool and has blossomed into 8 grades up to our 6th grade equivalent with 230 kids! The facility is really great, and in fact it is where we will be having our youth camp. I had the opportunity to meet several 15 and 16 year olds who will be at camp and I am pretty excited to be able to minister to them and get to know them even more. Monday was a day full of culture. We went to an Akamba (a tribe that has set up this system for wood carving and selling their goods) we also went to an area of stores (tin shacks) for soapstone. Bartering with the shop owners got to be really fun. Sunday half the group went to Duruma (bush land) for church where several of them killed chickens for dinner and were even given a live chicken as a parting gift. We went to church and heard the director of Manna International speak. We also got free time in the afternoon that was much needed. Thank the Lord I am feeling better, and thanks for all your prayers for that. You can keep several things in your prayers – tomorrow we head to an AIDS orphanage and that will be really hard, so just pray that we are sensitive to the needs and affected in a positive way. Also, for camp, it starts on Monday, so this may be my last post. Just pray that the kids are open and that we say the right things.
- Angela