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)