I posted on Strong Odors last week about our tilapia dinner and how many women are so destitute that they prostitute themselves just for fish to sell at the market.

So our cruise (if you can call it that—it was debatable whether or not the boat would start) on Lake Victoria was incredibly surreal.

It was surreal anyways… I love to be on the water… but to be there at dawn on my first real morning in Africa was obviously an incredibly contemplative moment for me. (I did have to drown out some of the “morning people” of our group who still didn’t know about my pre-coffee werewolf state… but that’s just part of being on a team, right?)

But beyond the state of self-consciousness that comes with realizing I’m waking up to an African morning on a lake so similar to my own was looking into the eyes of the fisherman.

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Boda-boda driver in Kisumu, Kenya

Very few people, especially in Kisumu travel in cars. Most the cars or trucks I saw on the roads were work vehicles.

Of course that doesn’t mean the streets were empty!

In fact in a city of 400,000 people you can imagine the streets are buzzing all the time… People get around in all different ways.

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Choose to Wait students in Kenya

I have to admit I was a little cynical about the Choose to Wait program Christ’s Hope has developed. We had a 1-day mini training just to familiarize the team with the curriculum before leaving the states and honestly a lot of it didn’t seem to quite make sense to me.

Then I saw it in action in the east African culture where the course was created.

Ok… this makes a lot more sense now.

Some of the ways things were worded or laid out or presented that didn’t quite compute to my western ears made perfect sense when I observed African teachers delivering the content to African students.

Since no one on our team was a certified instructor for the program, we were basically at the sessions to observe and support. It was really cool to see the teachers do their thing and the students were always really engaged.

I thought it was especially great that they start teaching the curriculum (in age-appropriate terms) even to the young children. Having honest healthy conversations about sex with kids is something desperately absent from the American church (American culture in general, but especially in the church). It was really inspiring to see these teachers talking about sex with kids in a healthy way.

I actually had in interesting experience with Choose to Wait.

While we were in Tanzania, Christ’s Hope was invited to visit a local high school. We weren’t exactly sure how to plan for the day, as it was the ministry’s first visit to the school. The CH Tanzania Director, Assed was hoping this would be the start of an ongoing relationship with the school so that they might be able to start teaching Choose to Wait classes or maybe start an “AIDS club” in the school. (We had to exhort him to not call it a “sex club.”)

So after an evening of robust planning we arrived at the school and threw all our plans out the window.

Fabulous & passionate teacher Lilian

We ended up splitting our team into pairs, with each just visiting one classroom to share a bit about who we are and where we came from and maybe take a few questions.

So I stood with my 50-or-so students and shared my name and where I was from and a little bit about what Christ’s Hope is doing in their communities. I then shared just a little bit of the one Choose to Wait lesson that I’d been observing over the past week.

You have value.

It’s maybe my favorite of all the Choose to Wait foundations. To tell kids in a society where they seem to hold little value that they have great value in God’s eyes… simply because God created him in his own image.

And that they can never lose their value… even though life will stomp on you and tear you up and beat you down…

even though you’ll be exploited and violated and treated as worthless…

you can never lose your value.

So once I had gotten through what to me seemed like an awkward bit of speaking-via-interpreter, I decided to open the floor to questions. I imagined the students would want to know about American food or culture or music… maybe they’d want to know what snow is like or how many children I have or what teenagers are like in the U.S.

But all they said was “tell us more about Choose to Wait.”

I thought that was pretty cool.

After 2 days of travel we finally landed in Kisumu, Kenya and hit the ground running.

Within minutes of arriving I was on a van with some other international volunteers cruising around town to visit some other ministries in the area. This was my first visit to the jail that houses lost-in-the-system kids (more on that in coming days) and I also really enjoyed meeting the folks at Agape, a Christian children’s home that’s not connected with Christ’s Hope but is doing good work. I could see the trueness of heart in the eyes of the directors there.

My first few days were busy to say the least. We’d all have breakfast together around 7:30am and then be out in various ministries until dinner. In the evenings we’d break down the days activities and plan for tomorrow’s events.

The first few days I spent a lot of time with kids. Some of the time I was just observing the Choose to Wait teachers do their thing and other times we took the lead for “VBS” programs. We call it VBS but it’s not done during school vacation… we actually visit the schools (mostly preschools) and teach a Bible lesson, sing some songs and play games.

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So my fears that my keeping this blog while in Africa have been fully realized. Today is my 8th day in Kenya and the first time to touch base… sorry…

I have been spending time blogging, but primarily via the Christ’s Hope blog, so please take a few minutes to check that out to see updates from me and the rest of our team.

Before leaving for Africa I’d been advised by many to be prepared for “culture shock.” I knew everything would be different from home… not the least of which would be experiencing life as a racial minority for the first time.

However, since I’ve been here for a week, the thing that has suprised me the most is not the differences between our worlds, but the similarities.

When we’re driving down the street I see vehicles and storefronts and street signs and it’s only if I stop to think that I notice there are no cars, but rather cows and goats and motorbikes and bicycles are the taxis and the stores are sometimes shacks.

And when I look into the eyes of my African friends I don’t see someone who speaks another language (or as is more common 2 or 3 other languages) or someone who lives in a mud-wall shack or is coping with HIV.

I just see a person.

I can’t really explain it… but I often forget that I’m not home and that anything is different at all.

Probably the biggest difference is that this culture is so much more “Christian” than ours. Believe it or not.

We leave for Tanzania today, we may not have electricity once we get there, but if we do I’ll try to post more regularly to catch all you readers up on some of the experiences I’ve had over the past week.

My head’s been spinning so much this week just ruminating on each moment, the food, the odors and the culture that it’s been difficult to try to focus my thoughts into a single post… but hopefully I can do so soon because I have so much to share.

Taking off for Africa on Saturday!

I have a few books I’m in the middle of right now… any reading suggestions?

illustration by Troy DeShano

It has been really wonderful to experience God’s blessing through the generosity of friends and family. Thanks to many people who believe in this mission, my full financial support came flooding in over the course of just a couple weeks.

Amazing!

I’ve talked to several people who planned to contribute but didn’t get the chance. I’d like to offer you this opportunity to do something really exciting and fun for Africa. Our group plans to stuff our suitcases with as many items as possible to leave in Africa & benefit the local offices in their ministries. We’ve already collected some soccer balls, children’s books, t-shirts, jump drives and more to bring along for the folks there.

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Today is a guest post from another trip team member who also happens to be my sister. I’ve always had some pretty substantial walls around the innermost regions of my heart… even with my immediate family. So the idea of sharing this trip with Tiffany is a bit scary to me. However, she’s got such a huge heart that I can’t help but be excited for the impact she’s going to have—especially on the children we meet in Africa. I know that because of the profound trials she’s endured over the past few years that she will be used by God on this trip in a special way that the rest of us never could:

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When I committed to go with the team to Africa a couple months ago, my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to raise the full amount to cover my ministry expenses. I knew that friends and family would come around to support me in this really important work, but $3500 seemed like an impossible amount to me.

I know it may not sound like that much to some, but to me it might as well have been a million.

I have to admit that I practically cried on more than one occasion when a check would arrive in the mail, made out to Christ’s Hope from someone I would have least expected.

The generosity of each of those who contributed moved me in a really permanent way.

I’m not just saying that. For real.

So to those of you who were able to give, I want to say thanks. I promise I’ll do my best to make sure it is a good investment.

To those of you who hoped to give, but didn’t get to yet… stay tuned. I’ll be sharing some other ways you can get involved in the next few days.

Thank you notes will be coming after the trip. That way I can share with each of you a little bit about how your gift made a real difference to one person.

God is good.

Even though English is the primary language spoken in the areas I’ll be visiting next month, it’s been fun learning a few words & phrases in Swahili.

Swahili is the national language of both Kenya and Tanzania and is spoken throughout eastern Africa. I’ve always loved learning languages and I wish I had more time to work on learning this one.

Here’s a fun primer for you:

Vowel sounds are pronounced as such:

• ‘a’ is pronounced as in ‘car’
• ‘e’ is pronounced as in ‘bet’
• ‘i’ is pronounced as in ‘tweet’
• ‘o’ is pronounced as in ‘door’
• ‘u’ is pronounced as in ‘scoop’

So now you can know your Swahili numbers 1-10:

• One = Moja
• Two = Mbili
• Three = Tatu
• Four = Nne
• Five = Tano
• Six = Sita
• Seven = Saba
• Eight = Nane
• Nine = Tisa
• Ten = Kumi