11.21.08 – 11.24.08 Conference Weekend

Jenny and I were away from Mukaa all weekend for a missionary conference in a town about 3 1/2 hours north called Limuru.  We left Friday morning around 7:30 am and returned Monday night a little before 5 pm. Armstrong just got a new car for the compound, a ‘98 Toyota Rav 4, so he was able to drive us to Nairobi on Friday.  We were supposed to leave here at 7 am, but he overslept and didn’t get here until 7:30.  We were really nervous, especially Jenny, because she had to be in Nairobi by 10 am to get her work permit (even though she’s done teaching-TIA) so she can leave the country in December.  She came with a Visa, but it expired in October, haha, and she can’t leave the country without a valid Visa or work permit. It’s usually a good 3 hour drive to Nairobi so she was a little nervous, understandably. But we made it there right at 10, thank the Lord, and she had no problem getting everything done.  Armstrong dropped us off at Mayfield, the missionary guest house, and someone from the AIM office picked her up from there and took her downtown to do everything. I stayed behind and took advantage of the internet since I had my computer with me. Everything went smoothly for her and now she can actually go home in December and I won’t be waving goodbye to her at the airport, haha!  Yay!  After that point, it was a really nice and relaxing weekend.  When she got back to Mayfield we had lunch there and then Dianna and Murray, the short-term coordinators for AIM who live in Nairobi, met us at Mayfield and we rode up to the conference with them. On the way, we stopped in Kibera slum to pick up three short-termers from South Africa. They’re all recent college grads. also and have been in Kenya just a week. We became great friends with them over the weekend. It was a brother and sister, Michael and Alexis, and her boyfriend, Johan. They were incredibly nice and cool and really funny!! We hung out with them all weekend, sat with them at meals and during sessions and had a great time! It was so cool to meet some other missionaries our age and just really connect with them. It was about an hour drive up to Jumuia Conference Center. When we got there we checked in and got our name tags. The lady at the check-in table, who we didn’t know, was really excited to see us, haha! Her name is Sandy and apparently she is our “unit leader.” AIM has recently divided its Eastern Region-Kenya and Tanzania-into five “units,” north, south, east, west and Kijabe. Kijabe gets its own unit because there are so many missionaries there. Kijabe Hospital, the biggest and best hospital in Kenya, is located there. Kijabe is known as “little America” here in Kenya because there are so many missionaries there. Most of the doctors there, even the Kenyans, train in the States so it’s like the “Duke Hospital” of Kenya. So anyway, Sandy introduced herself to us and she also invited us to a Christmas party at a hotel near Nairobi on Dec. 6 for AIM missionaries! We were so excited! We were planning on leaving Mukaa Dec.7, but that’s a Sunday and probably wouldn’t work because Armstrong has to be here for church so it worked out perfectly that the party is on the 6th. This way we can have Armstrong drive us to the party and then just ride into Nairobi with Sandy afterwards and stay at Mayfield. I am so excited about the party and relieved too that things will work out so well traveling back to Nairobi! It’s amazing how the Lord has things planned out far before we are even aware of His plans. We worry so much and try to make everything work out as best as we can, but if we trust God with our worries and planning, things will fall together far better than we ever could have planned. So we got our keys and went to drop our bags in our rooms and by then it was right at 4pm so we headed outside for tea on the lawn. It was so nice. They had two tables set up with tea, coffee and drinking chocolate (hot chocolate, of course) and some coffee cake. We got something to drink and then mingled with everyone. We met many missionaries all weekend from all over Kenya and even northern Africa. It was great!  Everyone was so nice and interested in hearing about what we were doing and where. It was a great chance to see all the different ways people are serving the Lord in missions in so many different places. That night we enjoyed a delicious buffet dinner! The food was so good at every meal! I had liver for the first time Saturday night! It didn’t taste bad, but it was just way too chewy so I couldn’t eat it, but at least I can say I’ve tasted it! After dinner Friday night we had our first session. The speaker for the weekend, Dick Stiansen, was amazing. He is a pastor from Pennsylvania and served for over 30 years in pastoral ministry in the States. He just joined the mission field in 2004 and he and his wife now live in Nairobi where he mentors and provides encouragement to other AIM missionaries. He was so funny; one of the best public speakers I have ever heard. The theme for the weekend was “Back to the Basics” because the conference this year was much different that it has even been in the past. With the new structure of the eastern region into units it was about a third of the size it usually is and there were no big fancy Christmas decorations like usual either; it was very basic…so, naturally, his messages were built around that theme. Each message (there were 5 total) was titled “The Basic of _________.” He talked about the basisc of integrity, obedience, dependence, maturity and intimacy. He was so good at presenting everything so that it was easy to understand and know how it applies to my own life. I feel like I had a lot “ah-ha moments.” One of my favorite points he made was during his first message on the basic of maturity. He said “It’s not about knowing what you believe; it’s about living what you believe.” So basic, but so true. One of the biggest reasons for people not becoming believers in Christ is Christians. Hypocrisy runs rampant in the church and turns away so many would-be believers. Knowing what we believe is just the first step in becoming mature Christians; but until we live what we believe we will be “ruled and blown around by the waves of circumstance.” All of his messages were chock full of simple, yet vital truths such as these and he used so much scripture as the basis for his messages, pointing to so many places where the Lord teaches us these lessons either with his own lips or through his apostles. It was so refreshing to be reminded of these teachings.
Friday night I froze all night long. It was pretty miserable. The next morning Dianna asked me how I slept and I was quite honest with her about freezing all night. Well, I am so glad I told her the truth because she proceeded to inform me of the hot water bottles at the front desk. Come to find out, they have these rubber water bottles- like ones you would put on your back for back aches or use for cramps-that are full of steaming hot water. You just pick one up from the front desk and put in the bottom of our bed and it keeps your bed sooo warm all night long! Boy was I was so excited to hear about that! There is not heater in the room and it gets pretty chilly there at night so the water bottles were a lifesaver! I was sure to get one the next two nights and I slept wonderfully! Friday night I also discovered that my shower had no hot water, haha. But, it was ok. Jenn’s room was right across the hall from me so I just used her shower. Hakuna matata!
Saturday afternoon there was a “trunk sale” which means you sell stuff out of the back of your car. It was for the missionaries to buy and sell things and there were actually quite a few people with items for sale. They didn’t literally sell from their cars though. They set up tables or laid down tarps in the front parking lot of the conference center. Jenn and I bought six VHS tapes for the children at the home. We were so excited to see them because when we leave they will only have a VHS player (we play DVDs on our computer) and it’s hard to come across VHS tapes. There were lots of great children’s movies and for so cheap too, just 200 shillings (about $2.85) each, so we stocked up! We bought 5 and the lady selling them, Kim, let us throw in an extra for free so we got 6 movies for 1000 shillings or about $14.30!! I also bought some gifts for family and friends which I will not disclose!
At dinner Saturday night we sat with our S. African friends and they entertained us with some pretty unbelievable stories about their country. Apparently, South Africa is an extremely unsafe place to live. We really couldn’t believe the things they told us. It was definitely an eye-opening conversation. I really didn’t know much at all about S. Africa and now I know first-hand accounts about things that go on in that volatile and unstable country where crime and corruption is just as present as any other place in Africa.
Sunday morning we had an extended worship service and session 4 and then mid-morning there was a baby dedication service for two families. It wasn’t a baptism, but it was pretty similar. The first family had one baby boy, Ezekiel, their firstborn. The second family however had twin baby boys, Jacob and Daniel, giving them 5 children total-quite a handful! The parents dedicated the babies to the church, just like an infant baptism, except they weren’t baptized. I had never seen that kind of a dedication without the baptism, but it was really cool. I assume they will baptize later when the child chooses for him or herself to accept Christ. One of the five units was introduced at each session and the baby dedication session was our turn. Our unit leader, Sandy, (the lady who invited us to the Christmas party) read a poem she wrote that mentioned all the missionaries in our unit so when we heard our name we just stood up. It was really entertaining!
There was a craft sale going all weekend too. A couple of the missionaries were selling items that were made by various women’s and children’s groups that rescues displaced people and provides them with work. They were selling all kinds of beautiful jewelry, scarves, bags, etc. so I bought some gifts from there too! Sunday night was “Night of fun,” haha! It was a random talent/open mic. night and anyone who wanted to participate could put together a skit, play an instrument, sing, etc. One man has been playing the French horn for 58 years and he put together a cute little skit with his wife. At the beginning he made a [shameless] plug for the Nairobi Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas concert. Who knew Nairobi had a symphony orchestra! But, they do and he plays in it. Their performances are Dec. 6 and 7 which works perfectly for Jenn and me! We are definitely going to try to go to one of their shows when we are in Nairobi that week. Jenn has played the trumpet for years and she sings so she is very musical so we are really excited!! After fun night we enjoyed some coffee and home-made cookies at the coffee bar before heading to bed.
Monday morning we had breakfast and wrapped everything up before heading back into Nairobi min-morning. At breakfast we took communion seated around the tables. It made for a very different communion experience, but the speaker explained that that is actually much more reflective of the New Testament communion experience than taking communion seated in pews in church. The first literal church wasn’t constructed until many years after Christ’s death so people met in each other’s homes where they worshipped and took communion reclined around the table. That is, in fact, how the very first Holy Communion-which we know as the “last supper”-took place. After communion, we finished breakfast and went around to say our goodbyes to all the people we met and had really connected with, especially our South African friends. We rode back to Nairobi with a different couple from the Nairobi office because Dianna and Murray didn’t have room in their ca*r, but they were wonderful too, of course. Jenny and I needed to go to an ATM and I needed a post office so we got to stop at this “ritzy” shopping center in Nairobi called “Village Market.” Brian explained to us that this where all the rich families come to do their shopping and I was genuinely impressed. There was a movie theater, bowling alley, water-park and many beautiful shops and clothing stores. I felt like I was in Europe; it was so neat! There were guards everywhere, everyone was dressed nice, there was a waterfall in front, it was beautiful! There was a white girl using the ATM right before us so we definitely didn’t feel out of place at all. I’m sure there are many white people there all the time and there were a lot of middle-eastern people too, but all dressed very western. It was so cool to see that kind of place here. So we got everything done we needed to and then Brian and Patty dropped us off back at Mayfield. Jenny and I got a taxi from there to take us to the city center (downtown) to the matatu stage. Dianna had given us the phone number of Joseph, a taxi driver she uses a lot and trusts, who picked us from Mayfield. We weren’t standing on the side of the road in Nairobi flagging down a taxi like in NYC, haha! That would definitely not be safe and things don’t work like here anyway. We got downtown and he found a matatu for us that was going down to Mukaa so he pulled right up beside it and we climbed in and were on our way. We didn’t have to wait for than 5 minutes before leaving, I was so impressed!
I will admit that both Jenny and I were not thrilled at first about going to the conference. Our time here is running out so quickly and we want to spend as much time as possible with the children while we can. However, it turned out to be a really great experience and I am so thankful that we went. I got to meet many full-term missionaries who have been in the field for 10, 20, 30+ years. It truly makes my 3 months seem like just a drop in the bucket…and it is just that. Talking to the missionaries and hearing their stories really put things in perspective for me. It was a weekend of beautiful weather, relaxation, delicious food and amazing fellowship with people who have given their whole lives to serving Christ away from their families and the comforts of the first-world. It really made me think about where God is leading me after this short missionary experience. I have begun to pray lately that God would prepare my heart as I go back home to the states so I am not sucked back into the desires and “need” for all the luxuries of our frivolous lives. I am looking forward to going home, but I don’t want to lose the perspective I have gained here and forget the things the Lord has brought me halfway around the world to teach me. I have also begun to ask God to show me where this short-term trip fits into the rest of His plan for my life. Was this trip a way for God to grow me in my faith and make me a more obedient disciple to reach out to people back at home? Or was this trip God’s way of opening my eyes to the need of long-term missionaries and His call for me to return? I don’t know. I will continue to pray for discernment for His purpose of this experience and even more, obedience to whatever path He lays before me. I can “find” signs that point in whichever direction I prefer and justify it to myself; but in the end, I am not accountable to myself; I am accountable to our Lord. Please pray with me for these things; that I would seek His will AND obey.