I actually almost maxed-out my 2GB memory card in my camera. Over 400 pictures and a few videos from Africa are now on my harddrive and being sorted and edited. I’ll go ahead an put some pictures with captions here.

During our 8 hours in France (in the worst airport ever), we saw the Eifel Tower. Don’t see it? Look really closely at the middle of the picture. It’s that hazy little line in the third window.

We played way too many card games during the trip, especially in the airport in France. Also notice the bright orange MTW t-shirts we were issued. Our group was obviously entirely inconspicuous walking through the airports.

I’m not sure why, but people in Kenya put stickers all over their cars.

We stayed at a Catholic retreat center/convent. The nuns didn’t seem to mind that we were there, or that we were protestants. They even invited a couple of us to mass.

There were some really nice flowers at the convent, too.

Kibera was a shock to everyone on the team. It’s a slum of about 700,000 people. One of the things that was interesting about this picture is that you can see the slum next to a nice row of houses, with just a dirt road and a wall between.

The locals didn’t like us taking pictures (for various reasons) inside Kibera, so the only ones I have are in and around the church. Oh, and Xanga turned a bunch of the pictures sideways for some reason.

The kids really liked cameras. One of them took the above picture.

This is the street right behind the church. It’s the only one I saw that didn’t have a ditch down the middle with sewage running in it. It’s also the only one that seemed to be made of cement, rather than piles of dirt, trash, and waste.

The kids were all really great, and they all wanted pictures with the white people.

This is me and the cutest little girl ever. For some reason, whenever someone pulled a camera out, she would never smile…which is disappointing, ’cause she had such a cute smile.

I’m not sure why, but all the boys wanted to look like they were fighting in the pictures.

Lauren with some of the kids from the Bible club we were leading.

Okay, so that’s enough pictures for one post. I’ll try to post more tomorrow or Saturday — of the safari! I’m not much of a safari person, but people seem to like pictures of elephants and lions and such.

Oh, and if you wanted to see more artistic shots or versions I’ve properly edited, go here:
XristosAnesti.deviantart.com/gallery

Oh hi, guys. I’m back.

There are computers where we’re staying in Nairobi, so we have limited access to dial-up at $2/hour.

Pastor Imbumi Makuku, pastor of Kibera Reformed Presbyterian Church, just finished briefing the team about what we’ll be doing this week.

The next 4 days, we’ll be participating in a local pastors’ conference. Pastor Makuku has invited about 100 pastors and other people who serve leadership roles in the local churches, and the adults in our team are teaching 11 sessions over the four days on things like prayer, hermeneutics, marriage, and parenting. Many of the people who do ministry here have very little education, and almost no ministry training — so this conference will hopefully be a great blessing to them and the people they serve.

The youth on the team (me, Buddy, Courtney, Lauren, and Virginia) will be helping with a childrens’ Bible club after the conference every afternoon. We’ll do skits, songs, and teach Bible stories. Yesterday we told the story of Zaccheus (no time for spell check) with the missionary interns and acted it out in a skit.

People here in Kenya are very physical. The kids will latch on to your hands and arms — sometimes leading to small fights over who got to touch the white people. They also love our hair, because even the girls here have extremely short hair. They couldn’t believe my hair was real. Haha.

Well, I guess I’ve spent enough time on the computer. I might check in a little later in the week and let y’all know what’s going on. I wanted to upload a picture I took today, but somehow “USB cable” didn’t make my Africa packing list…

Hey, I’m going to Africa now. Leave a message at the beep.

[beep]

It’s true: my dear Lappy has come back unharmed and with a new charging cable. All my files are intact, and the only weird thing is that the repair people changed the time zone. It looks like I won’t be needing any duct tape fixes any time soon, though, and that makes me happy.

Heading out for Africa night after tomorrow. It’s kind of overwhelming, to the point where my emotions have decided to pretend like nothing whatsoever is going on. Thus, I’ll be in for a real shock when I actually set foot in Africa and realize I’m on a different continent that I was 24 hours before, and that I have 10 days to cope before I get shipped back across the globe.

And I thought being an MK qualified me for dealing with this kind of thing. Haha.

I should do some laundry so I can pack…

[...what a horrible way to die! What a horrible way to die! What a horrible way to start the day, what a horrible way to die!]

My dear Lappy is in desperate need of repair. There’s been a long-standing issue with the wiring in the power cable, and the problem has simply gone too far. No longer can the miracle worker (duct tape) maintain the connection between my laptop’s battery and its ever-springing life force, the great wall outlet.

Thusly, my computer is destined to make the great voyage in the cardboard box that Hewlett Packard sent me back to where it came from, to find healing and restoration. In this journey, there are many perils, but soon enough Lappy will return home with newness of battery life.

Basically, I was just gonna let everybody know that I’m sending my computer in for repairs, and might be in Africa when it comes back…so you may very well not hear from in until the end of the month. I’ll try to post as soon as possible after I get back, assuming I don’t die of rabies from trying to catch monkies between now and then. If that happens, check in with one of my sisters (WhiteChica3, WhiteChica2, or CaraghEalgaRegan) or something.

Fare thee well!

P.S. I’m told there’s a slight chance of internet access at some point while we’re in Africa, so perhaps I’ll try to do a post from there. We’ll see.