Nairobi

Whew! It has been a while, and once again, I apologize. We were in Nairobi for a week and I only had one chance to check my email… and I’ve been meaning to get this blog updated, but I’ve been busy catching up from being out of town for so long. So anyway… Nairobi was awesome! Carrie, Kelly & I had never been before, so we were excited to go to the big city and see what life was like there. We had heard so much about it from our missionary friends here in Kitale. All the rumors were true. Nairobi is like going home to the U.S. Shopping centers, movie theaters, coffee houses, water parks, highways, stop lights and high rise buildings abound in Kenya’s largest and capitol city. These are things you take for granted on an everyday basis. These are the things we had long forgotten about.

Greg & I took the bus, “Easy Coach” from Kitale to Nairobi and Carrie & Kelly drove the truck in case we found any good deals on furniture or appliances we need. My first experience on the 3rd world bus system was not so bad. We did switch buses twice due to break downs, and drove through a big storm with fog so thick you couldn’t see anything at 80 kph passing other busses and semi trucks, but we made it to Nairobi on time, by golly!

For the first 5 days of our trip, we stayed with Larry & Judy Niemeyer, missionaries who have been in Nairobi for over 20 years and in Africa for 30 years! We had a great time getting to know them and their ministry. Their example of faithfulness was an important message for us rookies to learn. Every morning after breakfast we started the day with a devotion and prayer time together. They warmly opened their home to us with Judy’s great cooking, friendly conversation, and a place to rest, watch movies & play games. They also took us to Nairobi’s famous restaurant, The Carnivore, where we feasted on grilled meats like crocodile, ostrich, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, and lamb. Mmmmmm!

One of the main reasons we needed to go to Nairobi was to get our work permits finalized. We sent all of our documents to Nairobi with a representative from the Kenya Church of Christ in November to begin the process. Upon our arrival at the immigration office, we were told we couldn’t check on anything without a receipt for the documents that had been submitted. After tracking down the guy with the receipts, we found out that he had just submitted the final letter from the Kenya Church of Christ needed to accompany our documents the day before we arrived in Nairobi. We learned that our work permits were several more weeks away from being completed, and we were a bit frustrated with this discovery! But, TIA, as we say… This Is Africa!

We had been told that there were several places in the big city to shop where we could find imported American & European foods, so we scouted out the city for these shopping mecca’s and struck gold several times. Our most favorite place we found to hang out though, was this place called the Nairobi Java House. You may have heard of this wonderful place. It's even better than what you’ve heard. This place would give Starbucks a run for its money here in Africa! The Java House has several locations throughout Nairobi, and serves coffee & espresso drinks, tea, along with pastries and a full Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner menu. The coffee & food provided comfort reminiscent of home. We also found a business that specializes in purchasing furniture from missionaries and other foreigners leaving the country and resells them. Fortunately, they had just purchased a washer and dryer from a couple and were selling them for the best price (and actually in our budget!) we had seen yet. With the rainy season coming, we at least wanted to find a dryer, but when we found the pair for such a great deal we decided to purchase both.

The last couple days we spent in Nairobi, we moved across town to stay with Jaime & Ginger Swift and their three girls: Hannah, Autumn, & Gabby. Jaime is the Managing Director for the Nairobi office of Good News Productions International, a ministry that produces Christian media materials all over the world. The Swifts have been in Kenya for about 10 years, but have just recently moved to Nairobi within the last year. We had so much fun with them, and wished we could have stayed with their family longer. They live just down the street from the UN and the US Embassy, which was good, because we needed to take our passports into the embassy to have more pages added already! So we were able to do that while we were at their house. We also got to spend time at GNPI with Jaime and a Kenyan Christian hip-hop group who call themselves Cubanotics. These guys are on the cutting edge of ministry in Kenya, reaching out to the youth in their own country through their convicting and message filled lyrics. It was fun getting to know their hearts for God & for their people.

As much fun as Nairobi is, I must admit it was nice to come “home” to Kitale. The bus ride back was MUCH more smooth… we could actually see the road the whole way and we only used one bus! We found everything at our house and at the Children’s Home just as we had left it, which made coming home even better. I’ll write more soon about how things have been going since we’ve been home & the exciting things that God is up to! Thanks for reading…

Love,
Alita