Switzerland

Hello you all! I guess I should name my blog now kadigoestoswitzerland or maybe kadijustgoesarounallthetime lol. I don't know, I think it would be too much changing all the time, so I will just keep it as it is for now, eventhough I have been back from Kenya for 42 days already. Isn't that crazy!!!! Aww, I really miss our cool DTS times, they were the best! Oh well...time to move on I guess...I'll always have the memories, right ;)

So Switzerland then. Yup I'm in Switzerland now lol. It has been almost two weeks now, since I arrived and it has treated me really nicely. We had one of the warmest days Switzerland has ever had in April and I could wear my summerdresses. The nature is out of this world again: mountains, lakes, little villages, even the freaking cows with their fancy bells. It's really cool! Th family I am working with until July is really nice as well. They have been a big help in all kind of questions and kids are adorable. Little hard though as they don't speak English, the kids I mean. So the way we communicate is: I say something in English, they understand 35%, they say something in German, I understand 50% and another 15% we use our hands. Pretty fun, ey? No, for real, I have really enjoyed my time here so far. I also have lot of free time( I work 30 hours per week) to explore the beautiful country. Oh and Swiss cheese, is the best!!!! And they do have the perfect transportation( only freaking expensive), banks, cheese, chocolate and I am not going to talk about more of their watches or knives. One little perfect country between the Alpes, like what else do you need :P

Our last week in Kenya!!!

As good as it was being back at the base and see all the staff people we hadn’t seen for almost 2 months, it also was a bitter sweet feeling, knowing that the time of being together like that was about to end. Also the rooms we used to have were already handed to new DTS students so we had to change our rooms. It was really nice to see all the new students and know what will be waiting for them. They were all really young, right after high school and there were only two white girls. I didn’t actually get to know them all so well as the week we had was for preparing for the graduation and buying the last souvenirs. We did lot of things together with the girls and tried not to cry before the graduation. I was the last one to leave on Tuesday. Others had flights on Saturday and Sunday and Johanna from the States was staying until the end of March as a staff. Time went flying by fast and on Thursday Anne the German girl was leaving. It was quite sad as she was missing the graduation that was on Friday. We had little graduation party for her and after that were preparing the last food for the following day. The things that happened that night changed our all lives forever and planned things were all cut off as well as the graduation.

I’m not going to stop on that. Only thing I can say is that God has been my answer from that day on and there will always be things I will never understand.

It hurts so much to leave the people you love so dearly and you have become so close to, but I know that He has a great plan for each one of us who we did the same DTS and there was a reason why we were all together exactly on this one.

“Perhaps the reason I was separated from you for a little while was that I might have you back for good.” (Philemon 15)

Relaxing week in Mombasa

After six weeks of ministries in different places, we had our seventh week in Mombasa YWAM base. It was the week of relaxing and making summary of the whole outreach. We had a little debriefing lecture but otherwise were free to do whatever we wanted. As the ocean was right behind the base we went swimming pretty much every day. Turquoise blue ocean and white sand beach with beautiful seashells really felt like being on a vacation. Mombasa locals were very talkative and sometimes quite annoying, but our advantage was that we weren’t any random tourists.


Besides exploring the beach we also did a whole day long trip to Mombasa downtown. Needless to say how hectic and crazy it was. People never stop their cars so you literally have to run across the street to not get killed. And I have never been called white chicken before, so that was also the first time lol. Jerks!

After all it really was nice of YWAM to give us this relaxing week, we really needed it. But nothing was better than going back to our dear home base :)

“The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me.” (Acts 20:24)

3 last weeks of outreach

The three last weeks were really versatile. We were in places that weren’t so far from each other but the life was so different that it looked like another country.

Kilifi was our home for the fourth week. It was one of my favorite weeks. It was so much fun and I enjoyed everything! The church we worked with was so nice and all the members were so hospitable. Every day we had our open air preaching and skits the village people were always there and enjoying it. The kids we adorable and they loved dancing. Children’s ministry went so smoothly and door-to-door was really enjoyable as well. We were located close to the Indian Ocean and we had two days to go to the beach and relax. Except some sunburns it really was a great week.

Mombasa-Banga was a quite surprising week. The first day we stayed in Mombasa Pentecostal Church (MPC). It was the biggest church I have ever seen; it had 3 or 4 floors, hundreds of rooms and two enormous sanctuaries. Mombasa itself was like an ant farm or a little copy of Manhattan. We had a free day the first day and we went for a little tour with some local youth group members. The second day we were taken to Banga, a little village in the middle of nowhere. There were elephant sanctuaries, cactuses, snakes and almost no people. So our job was to find these few people and share the gospel with them. It was actually pretty fun except the fact that again like in Sombo the heat was crazy and at nights there was no electricity. We survived there for 3 days and then we were taken back to Mombasa. With MPC we had beach ministry on Saturday and youth service on Sunday. All in all it was an exciting week full of surprises and challenges.

Nyango was our sixth and also our last week of outreach with ministries. That was the week I would describe as the most African that can be. We stayed in a little bush-bush village in Maasai land. The people living there were Maasais who didn’t speak any English and barely even spoke Swahili. Luckily two of our school guys were Maasais who then translated to us everything for the whole week. It was also very hot and humid there and we did mostly door-to-doors during the days. One night we had open air kind of preaching and two days we worked with the kids at school. On the weekend we had lectures at the church about traditions, clean water, circumcision, AIDS etc. There were lot of things that amazed me that week. The fact that no one really wears any clothes, the only cover they have is a kanga. Two traditions that really made me sick were marking their children’s faces like animals and marrying a 15 year old girl with a 60 year old. To see how they survive with a little food and water was also sad. The only drinking water they had was white dirty water in a little pond. As much as I liked the people and being there, I couldn’t have been happier going back to Mombasa.

“Always stay connected to people and seek out things that bring you joy.” (B. Johnson)

Outreach- 3 first weeks

It was finally time to go and practice the things we had learned in 3 months. Our outreach included 7 weeks of travelling along the east coast of Kenya. With that time we worked with 7 different churches driving to our new locations every Monday and staying there for a week. Sometimes we visited several different villages in the same area. The things we had to do varied from places and some weeks were good and some not so good. Over all I really enjoyed the outreach and am really thankful for God giving me the opportunity to experience something like that.

There would be so much to write for each week, but as I am doing it now with not lot of time I decided to do a quick summary for each week and just add some cool pictures.

Sombo was our first destination. Located near to the border of Somalia it had a great influence of Islam and 95% of population was Muslims. The place we stayed was a mission base founded by Americans about 10 years ago. Our job there was to help the local missionaries to build a fence around the school garden to keep away the warthogs and goats. We couldn’t preached the gospel because of their faith, but could talk about Jesus at school which was the only (Christian) school in the village. The kids were friendly and we had a good time. The place itself was desert. It was literally 100 degrees outside during the day. The only time to be outside was before 6am and after 5pm, otherwise you just melted. Sand and thorns on every corner and some crocodiles in the nearby river Tana were the things that will describe Sombo the best.

Mikameni was our home for the second week. About 6 hours away from Sombo and really different from the nature. Part of a little village surrounded with many different villages with fertile soil and green plants all over. It had the most mango trees I have ever seen and we had at least 2 juicy mangos ever day. We worked with John Kisamwa and the churches from different villages. That week we did lot of door-to-door, open air and some children’s ministry. It was great time, the people loved us and we loved the people. Our living conditions were also amazing. We had bunk beds, sitting toilets and electricity until 9.30pm.

Kakuyuni was the third week of our outreach. It was the week I liked the least with so many reasons. First of all the place we slept was a really old house. It was full of rats, mosquitos and walls that were falling down. There was a lausy toilet and no shower. We had to shower outside behind the house when it was dark. Luckily it was warm outside. The pastor of the church came to see us only once or twice and was never there. His fill-in was rude and demanding and we really worked out butts off that week. We did door-to-door twice a day, in the morning and after lunch. Then from 4pm we had open-air until 6 or 7, children’s ministry every day and on Friday night we had overnight at the church. We skipped it after 1am as we couldn’t keep our eyes open. Luckily we got half day off on Saturday and went to Malindi for a little retreat. After that it was almost Monday and time to go to our new location.

These were the three first weeks of our outreach, one better than the other lol.


“ For where two or three come together in my name there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Christmas in Kakamega

Can’t believe it is time to get ready for Christmas. A week of making choices of where do go, what to do and either staying at the base or not. Somehow I made up my mind, well pretty much influenced by my roommates to be quite honest but yeah, I’m going to Kakamega!!! It’s a place in northern part of Kenya where my roommate Hellen is from. The biggest population there is called luhyas (another Kenyan tribe) and even Charles is from there. What a small world, ey?


So the week of Christmas was shortened and our last school say was on Wednesday. For some miscommunication we got our bus tickets to Kakamega for Thursday so we decided to leave to Nairobi, where the bus left from, for the night. We arrived to Nairobi on Wednesday evening and were staying at a pastor’s house. Was that pastor wealthy or what?! The first time in Kenya we saw a real shower, toilet, fridge and surprise, surprise- a TOASTER!!! Can’t believe it needed only these little simple things to make us Westerners happy for the night.

The next morning we were all excited to leave for our Christmas break. The only not exciting thing was the 8 hour bus drive to get there. At the bus station things didn’t go so smoothly. Except feeling uncomfortably as everybody was staring at us, I also managed to lose my bus ticket only 5 min. before the departure. So there we were, four white girls with a Kenyan, looking for the ticket from trashcans, behind the chairs and pretty much all over the room. Well, I must inform you that we didn’t find it and the only thing I had left to do was to go to the bus and see how the bus driver would answer. It looked something like that:

“Hello!”


“Hi, ticket please.”


“I don’t have my ticket…but I have my ID (with a cute smile)


“Where’s your ticket?”


“I lost it!”


“You lost it?” (little laughter) “Go and take a seat, mzungu” (still smiling)

So yeah, piece of cake lol. I just love how friendly Kenyans can be, totally different attitude. In Estonia I should have bought a new ticket and get mocked by the bus driver.

Once we were in Kakamega time went flying by. I don’t want to stop on each and every day but will mention some of the things we did. We ate some chapattis and chicken for the Christmas, visited Hellen’s friends and family, went to her church, went to downtown Kakamega where I bought a cool Kenyan outfit and got a huge burn on my leg from a stupid biki biki (motorbike) and chilled with her boyfriend for a day. It was really nice place and quite green, reminded me little bit of Nyeri. Before we knew it was already Sunday and time to go back to the base. We decided to leave in the evening, so that we would be in Nairobi by 4am. What sounded as a good plan didn’t end up being so great after all.

We arrived to Nairobi at 4am and decided to leave from the bus straight away to find a matatu at night and be back at the base before morning. Not a good idea for 5 girls walking around downtown Nairobi at night, right? Well yeah…but we didn’t think about it then. So we left the bus and started our way to another bus station to get a matatu. It’s a little bus taxi thingy that is cheaper than a taxi. On the way there we were walking along a dark road when we realized that a guy we had seen when we stepped off the bus was still following us. At the same time a matatu driver passing by stopped and said something to Hellen. She told us that the driver was warning us about the guy who was following us, to be careful and turn back before the dark corner because he thinks that he might rob us. At that point we were already scared and without thinking, turned around and started walking back. Exactly at that point the guy who was following, jumped from somewhere behind me between us and crabbed Hellen’s bag. She started screaming, then Dynel, me and soon all of us. I think we were pretty loud and Hellen was kind of fighting back, so he ran away. He didn’t get anything as Hellen’s bag was safely around her neck but he sure scared us all enough to go back and find a saver way.

We got back to the base in one piece around 6am, just before breakfast. We told the story what had happened to us to our class and to the leaders of the base and got for the reply some good old “What were you thinking off!?!?..” and “Do you even know what could have happened?” It’s actually pretty crazy to think what kinds of silly things people go through before they learn a lesson. I just keep thinking that God is with me and nothing bad can ever happen. I don’t want it to be the last thing I think though.

“Show the wonder of your great love...Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings.” (Psalm 17:7-8)

Nyeri

The last weekend was one of the saddest and happiest at the same time. On Friday was the funeral of Rose’s mother. Half of our team went to her home village to support her. It was so hard to see her broken hearted as she has become so dear to my heart. I had been only in one funeral before that but it was definitely very different from the one in Estonia. The whole village was there, even the people who didn’t know her personally. I thought it was really nice tradition and I could really feel the love around.

I stayed there with Rose and Rahel (her roommate from Switzerland) until Sunday. I was so happy that she welcomed me to stay there with her. I really admired her strength these two days. How she was able to show around her village and take me to see her family and friends with happiness. I loved seeing her smiling and laughing and thanked God for giving me the opportunity to be there for her.

Nyeri itself was B-A-UTIFUL! It felt like being in the dzungel. Everything was so green and big. There were lots of banana, coffee, papaya and avocado trees. I loved it! You could basically pick up a banana from a tree and eat it, how cool is that. Their sugarcane was also very sweet and really long, obviously everything grew there way better than in our base in Ukambani (Kamba land lol). Some of the coolest things that I saw the first time in my life were chameleons. There were quite many of them and they all changed colors like crazy. Couldn’t help myself holding one of these bad boys for some time :)

Oh and I also saw the biggest freaking turkey in my life! Who knew that turkeys look so ugly lol. It was really nice of Rose’s uncle to show around his chamba and besides the turkey I also saw some bearded goats, village kids and a nice neighbor gave us some avocados straight from his tree. What a nice people Kikuyus are :) I think I forgot mentioning that most of the people living in Nyeri are called Kikuyu. One of the 42 tribes of Kenya. So far my favorite :) I even tried carrying a bag they way they do it, on my back tied with kanga around my forehead. So much fun!

Unbelievable how many places there are in the world that I had no idea of. I can only be thankful to God for letting me experience these places and see new faces. Asante sana, Baba wangu!

“Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship.” (S. Johnson)