Tuesday Nov 3 11:15pm (Nairobi time)

Jambo (hello)… had a great meeting tonight to kick-off our time together.  We met all the other folks that are on this African journey together; the others are all parts of groups going off to other parts of Africa after our first few days in Nairobi together (don’t worry PB, I walked across the room just fine!).  One of the highlights from tonight included an extended chat I had with a gentlmen named Dow from a church in Charlotte, North Carolina – I got to chat with him quite a bit about the things their community is involved with, what has worked, and what has not worked.  Dow has been to projects in Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, and now here in Kenya; what a wonderful resource and wealth of knowledge (interestingly they just had Shaine Claiborne speak at their church on a Sunday night).  We also heard briefly from some of the World Vision staff who are with us on the trip; we’ll here more from them in the next couple of days.  Included in this group are Paul Mooma who is the Senior Advisor for East African Commitment and Germa Begeshaw who is the National Director for Kenya.  The other big highlight for all of us was an extended discussion after the meeting with Steve Haas who is a Vice President of World Vision U.S. and sort of overseeing the entire trip.  We chatted for quite a while about a number of topics including World Vision’s new microfinancing program, which sounds very encouraging.  As we were talking about getting the young adults & youth in our area charged up about this injustice and releasing them to do cool things to advance this cause, Mr. Haas mentioned the work of a gentleman named Chip Hoover who transformed Wheaton Academy into a group of young world changers.  He mentioned we get connected with him and learn about how he led that school & young adults into transformational, world-changing activity.

Our dinner tonight included some great tomato soup (something I normally despise) as well as a selection of different meats (lamb, beef, and fish) – I tried & enjoyed them all. There was also something that is made up of maize flour, but I forget the name (I had it on my digital voice recorder, but don’t want to wake up Mr. Radeke – who is being smart and getting his beauty sleep).  We also had rice with some spicy sauce on top.  And again, I hammered the mango juice.

As we chatted with Steve Haas, he mentioned how the pace of this first full day is intentionally slow, allowing all of us to ease into adjusting to the time change and releasing some of the work stuff we might still be hanging on to.  Tomorrow we are looking forward to an early breakfast with the morning dedicated to some HIV/AIDS orientation.  The afternoon will include lunch and an opportunity to experience the Giraffe Park and the Karen Blixen Museum (apparently where “Out of Africa” was filmed).  We’ll then have dinner at Nyoma Choma Restaurant which specializes in all sorts of wild game.  Should be a great, information filled 5-6 hour session followed by a chance to experience more of African culture & beauty.