Archive for July, 2004
By Wes (July 29, 2004 @ 1:24 pm)
The first few days here have been…..wow, how do I really want to end that sentence? There are so many feelings / impressions / emotions – I’m not sure if I could even condense it all into one word. But, here are some that reflect our present state: Tired!, amazed at God’s beautiful creations (people, as well as the bevy of plant life here!), Blessed, welcomed, “green”, dizzy (literally at times due to elevation!), challenged – yes, already, provided for (by our Great Father), part of something bigger, encouraged, excited, a little daunted by the upcoming school year, Tired! We have been learning so much, just by riding through the city, or looking around us, and asking questions, and trying to digest the answers, and talking to others, that it feels the learning will never end. Do kids feel this way? Or do they just naturally deal with change better? Our boys are doing great – they have regular bath times already, due to the red dust that gets everywhere (wow can their feet stink!), but they have already investigated all the local playgrounds, and libraries. We’ve set them up for videos, so they do have a break once a day to eat and drink something (thanks God for cheap produce here!!!), and then they’re off playing again.
Let me recount some highlights of the first few days of our African Adventure:
Monday, July 26th – we awoke to our first sunny day in Kenya! And then went back to bed…our host family (the Mercers), who had met us at the airport, had said they would drop by at 9:30 and take us to get our first check cashed (to get some Kenyan shillings), so we could buy some groceries. They came, I groggily answered the door, they took the hint, and came back to invite us to their house for lunch at 12:30. We then went to the local mall (honestly), and cashed our check and got some groceries at the Nakumatt (local chain grocery store). One word for buying groceries in a place where no brand names and/or foods are the same from where you came from: overwhelming. So, we bought survival necessities, and headed back home. Ate some sandwiches, and went to bed. Tried to sleep through the night – unsuccessful. Were up and down and all around with the boys.
Tuesday, July 27th – I woke up around 10 with Ezra (Jean and Zay slept until 2pm – they were tired!), and we played around and explored a bit. Played soccer with “The Rosslyn Men” -apparently this is a long standing tradition, where men get together to run and sweat, and let out some aggression in a friendly way. I think my lungs were going to burst – elevation time, come on! But it was fun, and I was invited back to do it again on Saturday. Great. Unpacked the rest of our stuff, and basically had a quiet night, altho again, Jean was awake until 4:30, and I didn’t do much better. Our days and nights were mixed up bigtime.
Wednesday, July 28th – Woke up in the morning – apparently sleeping through the day really wrecks the whole sleeping at night thing. Walked around the campus (did I say it was nice here? it’s winter, and the leaves are falling, but really, the weather lately has been outstanding. People here do say it is unusually warm, but they are still wearing jeans and jackets, and it is 20 degrees. hmmm). After lunch, went to ISK (International School of Kenya – our school’s competition) for a swim in their private pool as guests of our host family. It was beautiful – a big pool with accompanying kid’s pool, surrounded by big trees and hedges…we closed out the place, and all had a great time in the sun (this Africa thing is rough!:).
After more sandwiches, we trundled up the hill to a dessert fellowship here at the school, where we did the meet and greet thing. It was good, but I don’t remember half of their names. But, there was rhubarb pie, so how bad could it be? Got home, the boys crashed, and we watched Lord of the Rings in an attempt to really get tired so sleep would be ours. Orcs are not soothing in any way, and we did not manage to get a full night’s sleep – better luck next time!
Thursday, July 29th – Wes’ first official day of work – the first day of New Staff Orientation. I woke up late, and ran to the first meeting at 9:30, which consisted of newbies such as myself telling their stories of how they came to be here. Very interesting and good, although the chair was very hard. All newbies were then invited to free lunch (Rosslyn paid – nice), at Java House. Great food, huge portions, lots of fun. All then stopped by Village Market, to register as Rosslyners at the Forex Bureau (foreign exchange bureau), where we will be cashing our KSh cheques. Then, Jean stayed there with our host and got some more groceries. We went back home, hung out, and here we are – hoping to be sleepy enough and our brains peaceful enough to be able to crash all night.
Hope that catches you up on details. In terms of feelings, well, let’s just put it this way. We are not about to get into our car and drive around willy nilly for the sake of it. Too scary, too overwhelming. Our motto right now – one step at a time. Slowly.
I think we’ll watch “the Great Gatsby” now…(we borrowed these movies from the R library – cool), maybe that’ll put us to sleep.
Good night and God Bless from Kenya
By Wes (July 28, 2004 @ 10:09 am)
Hello from Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi!
Yes, we survived the trip, and arrived here in beautiful Kenya late Sunday night (8:45 Nairobi Time – which is 8 hours ahead of Wpg time). Wow, what a long haul! 24 hours + of travel, and trying to sleep, and trying not to be sick on the plane. We were extremely blessed though, as many here have recounted their travel horror stories of 15 hour layovers, and extreme turbulence in the air. Here’s the blow by blow: we arrived at Wpg airport 2 hours before our flight, and checked in our luggage all the way to Kenya. Jean packed our bags amazingly well, and so used our 70 lb/bag limit excellently. Happily, we rejoiced in Nairobi as all of our bags came off the plane the same time we did! (others we were with were not so lucky).
But, I’m getting ahead of myself again…in Winnipeg, we realized our flight was delayed about 1/2 hour, so we played and talked and waited. Then, we went through customs, and waited. There, we met up with some fellow Rosslyners, who like us were on their way to teach – we shared all our flights with them. It felt great just to know we weren’t the only ones making this trek, and that there was someone we could talk to about how things were going at the moment. After about another 45 minute wait, we boarded our first flight of the journey, to Toronto. It took us a little over 3 hours to get there, with little to report. The boys were great, but happy to be able to run around a little when we got off the plane. Our layover there was 2.5 hours, and so we were just tooling around a little, looking at the large airport (compared to Wpg, that is), when we came across our music pastor from Riverwood Church Jon Courtney and his wife Kelly! In the city that is Toronto airport, it was more than a coincidence to find these people, who were on their way back from Ireland, and waiting to catch their flight back to Wpg! It was good to just chat it up with some people that brought back some thoughts of home, when we were so focussed on making sure we got to the right spot at the right time. Well, we had been told on the plane by the pilot that if we were going on to London, that we would need to find gate 522. So, knowing TO airport is huge, we decided to find that gate as soon as possible. So, after saying goodbye to Jon and Kelly, we dashed off to find the shuttle that would take us to this new gate, which was in another terminal. We knew we’d need to go to another terminal, as it said on our itinerary that we would be leaving from terminal 3. We got to gate 522, and Jean said she wanted to make sure we were in the right spot, so she checked with the people there, and they said – “you are at the wrong gate in the wrong terminal – these are Air Canada flights only – unfortunately our flights from TO on were on British Airways!!! So, we got back on the shuttle, went back to terminal 1, caught a bus to terminal 3 (which seemed to be in another part of the city!), and found our gate there. Whew! The boys I’m sure thought,” these people have no clue where they are going”. So anyways, there we waited, played some lego with the boys, and just relaxed a bit.
Then, we boarded our flight to London, which was about 6.5 hours, basically from what we knew as around 7pm to 2am. It was alright – the TV’s on the seats were great for the boys, and we watched a movie too. It was relatively hard to sleep, but the boys managed ok. As for Jean and myself, well, it wasn’t as easy. I’m not sure how much we really go, but it couldn’t have amounted to more than 2 hours between us. So, we got to London, and promptly found the correct gate (no terminal changes! Hooray!). There, more waiting (about 2.5 hours), and so by 4:30 am or so our time, we were on another plane, on our way to Kenya finally! This one seemed to take forever, but punctuated by bathroom breaks and trips to see out the window (the Sahara is a really large desert!), and cartoons for the boys, we managed to survive, and arrive in Nairobi airport at around 8:45pm African time (12:45pm Wpg time). And now, we were a little nervous. Would our luggage be here? Would we get through customs ok? Would our visa be enough? Well, we needn’t have worried, because God leveled the mountains for us. When we got to the customs area, there were a ton of people waiting to get through. But, we were waived into a line for Kenyan citizens (which of course we weren’t) which was short, and when we got to the counter, gave them our passports. They were stamped, and we were waved through without a second look. We got down to the luggage area, and after a little wait, all of it came through. We were met by some Rosslyn people, who helped us get ourselves and our bags into a bus, and rode about 35 minutes across town to our new home. The trip should take about an hour, but because it was so late, there was no traffic. We got into our new house, where beds were made and waiting for us. We took some time to wander around, and check out our new digs. Just before we passed out, I noticed that there were some police lights flashing outside, and then had a moment of panic! I opened the door, and there were three Kenyan men with motorcycle helmets, uniforms, chest protectors and fish bats! Apparently I had flipped what I had believed to be a light switch (it just said “press”!!), which was really an alarm for “securicor” and so had invited these brave men to our home at 12:45 am Sunday night! After apologizing profusely, they politely said no problem and left. I was ready for bed. So, we hit the hay, and slept like the dead. We had made it to Kenya, and God had been good!
By Wes (July 15, 2004 @ 2:44 pm)
The countdown is on!! We are T minus 9 days now, and things are going well. We’ve had a great, relaxing, and fun-filled week and a half here in Saskatchewan visiting Jean’s folks and family out here. (The best part – I caught the biggest fish of my life: a 16lb, 39 inch Jackfish!!). Lots of great memories (Yes, five of diamonds is alive and well!), and the boys have been having a blast with the cousins. Screaming, running, and wrestling with grandpa and the uncles. What could be better!
As we approach d-day (departure day!), I’m starting to think about all that we need to do between now and then – the details just keep coming. But, that day will come, and whatever is done is done, and the rest, we’ll leave in God’s capable hands. We’re leaving SK on Sunday the 18th, and then the rush begins in earnest. Monday will be business day, connecting with people and doing banking duties. Hopefully, after that day, we can spend the rest of the week focussing on seeing family and friends (and golfing of course!), as well as packing our bags for Saturday. To give you an idea of what our travel day will be like, here’s a brief itinerary: We leave Wpg at 1pm or so Sat. and fly to Toronto. There we will have a few hours layover, and then fly off to London’s Heathrow Airport. We will arrive there sometime early Sunday am, and have another layover (5 hours?). Then, the last leg of the journey, a ten hour flight from London to Nairobi, our new home for the next three years! Our arrival time is scheduled for 8:45 pm on Sunday night African time, which is 12:45pm Wpg time – twenty four hours of pure travel bliss !!! I think we’ll be ready for bed, good thing we arrive in time for a good night’s sleep.
From there, it’s high intensity learning curve time. We’ll have a couple of days to ourselves to explore and sleep, and then we start new staff orientation on Wednesday evening, with a dessert night, followed by a couple days of school orientation and IT training (for both Jean and myself). Orientation continues for all staff the week after, and then classes begin middle of August!! Wow, don’t think too far ahead, it only gets busier from here on in!
Quick list of prayer requests you can lift up for us:
1. finishing well – that we can finish up business and spend quality time with family before we go
2. calm and excited hearts – that we would continue to grow in our enthusiasm as we gather momentum
3. safety and health in travel – the boys!, Wes’ back, Jean’s sleeps
4. all customs stuff would go smoothly
5. work visa will be ready for us as we arrive
6. money matters work out re: bank accounts, etc
7. luggage would follow us all the way to Nairobi
8. we would rely on God more and more each day, and realize His true strength.
9 we would embrace the adventurous spirit of God, as our ultimate Leader on this journey.
Thank you for your prayers as we travel on Saturday the 24th, and set up our home on the days that follow. Check the blog again near the end of July, I’ll be posting some pics of our new digs as soon as I can get everything working over there. Keep in touch, and let’s email soon.
For Jean and the boys,
Wes
