A FULL FRIDAY

Last Friday we went on a tour of some of the places in Nairobi where the Baptist have been working over the years. At our first stop, we met pastor Euticuls Wambua at Baptist Chapel (Lakisama-Lucky Summer). The church is continuing to grow so they are in the process of adding more space. Pastor Wambua is a very busy man who wears many different hats. Not only is he pastoring a church, he is director of the Kariobangi Baptist Youth Centre (Korogosho) and chairman of the Nairobi Baptist Association.

Pastor Wambua (orange shirt) and headmaster Mutemi (blue shirt), headmaster of the school at the youth center

Baptist Chapel (Lakisama-Lucky Summer)

We also went to see the Kariobangi Baptist Youth Center and Academy. The center was started years ago as a place to teach locals carpentry and sewing classes. Over the years it has expanded to include hairdressing and cooking classes. There is also now a full time school there with preschool up through level 5 classes.

The children were such a joy to be around. When the director would take us into a class, they all would stand and say, “Good morning sir”. He would say, “How are you class?” They would answer in unison, “Fine, Sir”. They would then sing us a song or two complete with hand motions, each song told about the love of God. This went on in each class we visited. One class also recited a Bible verse for us.

The Center was literally built on the site of the land field for dumping garbage for all of Nairobi. You can look through the windows and see (and smell) the present land field. We watched as people were going through the garbage and pulling out anything they thought was of any value. Here you can see a collection of trash bags divided into separate piles by their color.

This is Virginia preparing a snack for the students. It is usually bread and butter, but because today is Friday, they will receive Jam and bread.We also went to the Baptist Children’s Home. Those who stay at the children’s home are orphans who have lost their family members to AIDS. There is a school, clinic, Chapel, Technology center and demonstration farm all on the same campus with the children’s home.
Our travels through the city took us through some pretty rough areas, but everywhere we went the children would smile at us and wave and say, “How are you?”

When we returned to the office, We had a Going Away Celebration for Roy and Dena Brent. Roy and Dena have been on the mission field for over 30 years and 25 of those have been right here at the Baptist Mission of Kenya where Roy has been responsible for the travel bookings and computer networking. These are the positions we are now in since Roy is retiring. The ladies in the office and on the compound cooked up a huge feast. We had roasted goat and chicken, Sumuka wiki (Incidently, sukuma wiki means 'to push the week' which implies that sukuma wiki is a food used to stretch the meals to last for the week. It is like collard greens), rice, guacamole, mashed potatoes cooked with pumpkin leaves with corn added and chipates. Everything was delicious and then the Brents were honored and given gifts.
After the celebration we had our first Swahili tutoring session with Hellen. Hujambo, Jina Langu ni Jan. Ninatoka nchi ya America, jimba la Georgia. Habari Yako.

Hello, my name is Jan. I come from America, the state of Georgia. How are you?

Jeff had to leave before the class was over to make an airport run to pick up a group of missionaries coming into town for a conference. The traffic is so bad in Nairobi, it took him over 4 hours to make the trip to the airport, drop the missionaries off and then return home. It is only about a 20 miles trip total! He had fun with it anyway. As the missionaries loaded into the van, he announced, “I have only been in Nairobi for 5 weeks, so you might want to tighten up your seat belts”. The lady sitting in the front seat quickly jumped out and went to the back. Upon arriving at the hotel, the gentleman who ended up in the front seat commented that he had made a hole in the floor board slamming on his imaginary brake.

As if that was not enough excitement for one day, Molly added to our excitement when we got home. She cornered her first hedgehog. They are so small and very prickly. We set it out on the sidewalk and left it alone until it finally unrolled and walked away. The perfect ending to a long day.