First trip to the bush!!

We had a wonderful time visiting some of the families out in the bush that have been through the training courses and are working in their villages starting and growing churches. Here is our camp site, inside the boma of one of the families. The first day we traveled about 4 hours to their home, set up camp and enjoyed a relaxing meal around the fire. It is much warmer at this lower altitude so we were comfortable as we slept some while hearing the hyenas during the night.


Tuesday was clinic and teaching so Ron was off to pick up some of the local women to bring back for immunizations. During that trip he had his first bush flat tire and was wishing for a high lift jack out on those rough paths. From that point on he was in 4 wheel drive the rest of the week. I was helping with the shots and HIV/AIDS teaching. Being among these women and children who were chattering in a foreign language was an experience. But many of these kids would not survive without this prevention so it is a real way to show love and compassion to them.

That night I was pretty exhausted so was in bed early when I woke to hear singing and dancing around the campfire. Ron and Todd, another team member, were joined by the nearby families to have some fun. What a great way to drift off to sleep, hearing Maasai praise!



The next day was a clinic in a more rural location as you can see. We did a lot of driving and packing of people into our truck to take them to and from the health care that included treatment for eye infections which are common. Flies landing on the kids faces and little water for hand washing are the main causes. This is the day we were offered something special, nyama choma, or roasted meat and it was goat. It has a very distinct flavor, but I was able to eat it and did not have any after effects, so that was good.


That night we celebrated with some of the graduates from the training center with another roasted goat and singing. Ron and I were presented with our Maasai names but not sure how to spell them, Ron's means happy and mine means blessed. It was helpful to get to know some of the people we will be working with.


Before leaving we prayed and sang over the site of a new church building being planned. It is a honor to get to work with these people in teaching, and health care, and development issues. During the drive home we saw monkeys, giraffe, zebra, ostrich, dikdik, kudu, and many beautiful birds. Maybe we can learn how to get some good pictures of the magnificent creations here.

We have been camping but some of the new experiences included; wearing a skirt the whole time, having tea sitting on stools out in the cow yard, giving people rides that have never been in a vehicle before (and of course having them get sick), and having class outside under an acacia tree.

It seems each and every day is packed full of learning from these people but we pray that as our love for them grows they can see something in us that they can learn.

You can see more pictures from this adventure on www.flickr.com/photos/24785911@N02.