A Look into our African Lives

This past weekend we celebrated our two month anniversary of entering Kenya. Wow! we feel like locals... kind of :) one thing for sure is we have been here long enough to settle into a nice routine. i know many of you have wondered what exactly we do here so i thought this blog could fill everyone in on what a day/week looks like for us.

Monday through friday we travel to Karen for work at the salvation army territorial headquarters for kenya east. matt and i work in the youth deptment there. we each have our own desk, right next to each other! most of our time is spent developing and preparing lessons for upcoming youth seminars (or retreats). but we also correct and imput corps cadet lessons (a discipleship training curriculum), grade assignments from training school (the local salvation army seminary school), and find ways to support the field youth officers. just last week we also proposed a new program for young adults (ages 18-28). our boss seemed to like the idea and we hope to kick off the first meeting may 9th. we are super excited to see how it goes!

while desk work isnt always the most fun, we love the relationships we have formed by coming to work every day. a 45 min carpooled trip gives us a chance to get to know one another better. we share stories of growing up, listen/sing to popular music, laugh at the craziness of the traffic, and sometimes just sleep. Roadside corn is often a special treat on the way home! its so tasty (although one time i did witness the corn fall in the dirt, and then be picked up and place on the grill for buying.... i guess dirt dont hurt right?)

weekends are usually just a good time to relax. Matt and i go running every saturday to a local restaurant and share probably the best breakfast ever! we do our shopping then and pick up a few pirated movies from the video store. on most sundays we attend the corps (church) on our compound, which is one of the few that is translated :) other sundays we get to travel and visit other salvation army sites. the services are always full of dancing, singing, and the holy spirit. it an experience you would not forget. We are enjoying the free time while we can because in april we begin the seminars, and those take the whole weekend.

one of the best highlights of the week is our visits to the kabete childrens home. every thursday night matt and i go to the far side of the compound and for an hour we sing songs, play games, and share a mini bible truth. there are about 60 kids from age 4 to 16. its so much fun. we introduced them to "simon says" and they thought it was hilarious. they also love "steal the bacon" although towards the end no one follows the rules- yet nobody seems to mind. its pretty much our favorite time of the week!

April begins a crazy busy month, which we are super stoked about. it will be our first real test of putting our work into practice. so keep us in your prayers and look forward to lots of blogged events :) for now ill leave you with some swahili and a few african norms.

swahili

habari (ha-bar-ee) : how are you?

kwaheri (kwa-hayr-ee): good bye

mzungu (m-zoon-goo): white man

tuombe (t00-ohm-bay): lets pray

norms (that sound familiar but arent)

*seeing cows (in the middle of the sreet)

*getting pull over (so you can bring the policeman to his next stop)

*purchasing a coffee table (on the side of the road)

*surfing the internet (while there is no water in your house)

*standing for the national anthem (before seeing a movie in the theater)