Journies in Kenya

The life of modern conveniences has passed. Gone are the days of fast food, Starbucks, automatic transmissions and constant access to the internet! If you have not traveled outside of the U.S., you do not know how incredible you have it. I have enough news to post on here everyday, and I’m sure all of you are sitting at home just waiting with anticipation whenever you log on to hear all the latest, hottest news from Africa. J Well, even if you’re not, I will do my best to tell you about the highlights that have happened since the last time I posted. We spent last week visiting our future home of Kitale, Kenya, which is absolutely beautiful! All four of us are looking forward to settling in to life in Kitale. It is 6200 feet above sea level, at the base of Mt. Elgon. The climate is much cooler than the “normal” African climate. We wore jackets every night by dinner time. Some of the highlights were: meeting the staff at the Kitale Church of Christ Children’s Home, staying at the Kitale Club (a nice resort-type hotel), and looking for houses. Out of the three compounds we looked at, one was a perfect fit. It has two houses, one w/2 bedrooms and one w/5 bedrooms. It is newer and much nicer (at least at first impression) than anything any of us would probably be able to afford back in the States, but the rent is affordable and we especially like the fact that there are 2 houses on one compound. This arrangement would work perfectly for us economically as well as security wise, so please pray that we are able to rent this place! There is one couple ahead of us who might take it, but they might not as well. We will find out later this week. Whether or not this option works, please pray that the Lord will provide a housing situation perfect for us. We also met a team of 6 people from College Heights Christian Church in Joplin, MO. They are in Kitale for 2 weeks making many repairs to the Children’s Home, for which we are very grateful. Please pray that they make it home safely this week. We also finally saw our “new” car, an ’84 Daihatsu 4x4, which we purchased from some now retired missionaries in Kisumu, Kenya. It is very loud, but it runs! We’re trying to find a good name for her; suggestions are welcome! J Other than all of this, our time was also filled by helping George & Dianna Franklin of SEE Ministries (www.seeministries.org) conduct eye glass clinics. Carrie & I also had several chances to get to know each other better while we hung out in our hotel room in the afternoons after work. As a team, however, we struggled a bit. We still feel as if we are vacationing as we haven’t begun our work, which has caused some tension, mainly between the boys and us girls. We met together and prayed which helped, but please pray for us that we will continue to come together as one, and that Satan wouldn’t use little annoyances to tear us apart. Over all, we had a very successful trip to Kitale. This week we have started our training at TASO, but I will leave that for another posting. Thanks so much for your love, support & prayers—know that your prayers for protection and blessing are being answered abundantly, so don’t stop! We don’t want to loose the momentum. All my love—alita

Worship at the Mbale Church of Christ.

Shawn & Linda Tyler's house in Mbale, and our home for the next month.

Greetings from Africa!

Now that I am feeling better, I thought I should put up a post here before ya’ll thought I had disappeared for good! On top of jet lag, I have had a head cold and my malaria pills have been making me very dizzy since we arrived here on Wednesday morning (Tuesday night for most of you. The time difference here is 9 hours.) The last 5 days have gone well, in spite of my circumstances listed above. This country is beautiful, confusing & dirty—all at the same time! But there are familiarities weaved throughout life here too. I’ll break it down for you: Beautiful: The children, the trees, flowers & bushes, the mountains and hills. Confusing: ordering food at a restaurant, driving (even more scary than confusing!), the money (1800 schillings = $1). Dirty: ME! (*smile*), actually just about everything is dirty almost all the time. You don’t realize how clean the U.S. is until you’re not there anymore. Familiar: cell phones, electricity, running water and indoor toilets (YEAH!).
The missionaries we are staying with here in Mbale are from Texas; there is actually a whole team of them. So our Africa experience so far has been infiltrated with a bunch of “ya’ll” and good ol’ southern hospitality, which makes culture shock that much more interesting.
I wish I had more stories to tell, but we really haven’t been doing much yet. We’ve just been busy re-adjusting our sleeping habits and slowly venturing out into the world around us. This week we are crossing the border into Kenya, where we will visit our future home, Kitale. While we’re there we will be helping with See Ministries, another group here right now that conducts eye clinics and hands out free eye glasses in communities here in Eastern Uganda and Western Kenya for 1 month each year. We will also be working with a short term group from the states who will be in Kitale doing repair work at the children’s home that we are going to work with, and we are going to try to find a house to live in! We plan on moving to Kitale November 1st, after our training at TASO. That’s a lot earlier than I expected, but that’s how things go on the mission field! Well, that’s all for now. Hope you enjoy the pictures—and I’m sure I will have some great stories for you after our adventure in Kitale this week. Until then, God bless you! (they say that a lot here as a salutation)