Hello friends! Today (Thursday), our group is going to an archeological site! An Archeologist from the University is taking us about 2 hours outside of Nairobi to a site for the day. We are unrealistically hoping to find some dinosaurs that have never been found before in our 6-hour time slot. Any name ideas?

We are learning more about Kenya everyday. Kenya has 42 tribes and each tribe speaks its own language, but the national language is Swahili. People (usually) are very proud of the tribe from which they come. One Kenyan said that violence only last for a maximum of 3 months in Kenya because if 2 tribes are fighting the other 40 tribes want them to stop fighting so they can go on with their business. Of course, some tribes are much much bigger than others, but when you add them all up it creates a big voice. Kenya became independent from Britain in 1963 and is still a young country when compared with the rest of the world, but an average age when compared with all of the African countries getting their independence from colonization.

Swahili lessons are still going on formally and informally. It is a nice language because everything is spelt like it sounds. I came to the realization that Swahili is the first language I am learning which I actually get to use conversationally. Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Biblical Greek are not commonly spoken languages…at least where I hang out. However, I get to practice Swahili everyday. When I return to the states I am not sure how helpful it will be (except for quoting the Lion King), but for now it is incredibly helpful and (intriguing) to know what everyone is saying.

I have been very careful to use the word different when describing how certain things are here compared with the States. For instance, they drive on the different side of the road, not wrong. My favorite “difference” currently is their definition of cold. It is what I consider very nice weather here; however, when it drops below 75 the Kenyans bundle up. A few nights ago when I came home, it was around 70 and our gatekeeper was bundled up like an Eskimo (beanie, scarf, and heavy coat). I walked by him in my T-shirt feeling like it was a nice fall day. It would have been a good picture. This was also evident when I was with my host family last week and had sinus problems, every time I would cough they would make me put on a jacket (or another jacket) because I was “cold.” They did this until I started sweating and explained to them that this cold weather for them was actually quite nice for me.

Finally, I will end with my funny church story of the week. We went to a Lutheran church Sunday morning which was very structured and only an hour or so long which was nice. However, during communion I got a shock when I unintelligently assumed the liquid in the cup was Welch’s grape juice (like it is usually in the Presbyterian Church in the States) rather than wine. Luckily, I did heed to my body’s impulse to spew, but returned to my seat and coughed for the next several minutes. This could have just as easily occurred in the states at a Lutheran church, but something makes it more special in Africa.

Well, I hope all is well back in the States! I miss all of you and really enjoy hearing from you so thank you for your comments and e-mails. Have a great day! I’ll blog you next week sometime.
RTQ
PS I will post pictures when I have a faster connection.

Hello friends! Here are the pictures that I could not post earlier.



I post my pictures usually in a slideshow. If you are like my beloved mother and slightly technologically troubled here is how it works.

• The slide show will start automatically when you visit the blog.
  


• Once it shows all the photos it freezes on the last picture. Click on the box in the center (with a play button) to start the slide show over from the beginning.


• If you want to scroll through the pictures use the back and forward arrows at the bottom of the picture in the middle.

Hello friends! I am safe and sound in Nairobi. All of the flights went well to Nairobi. The world definitely appears smaller when you travel half way around it in 17 hours. On my flight from Chicago to London, I sat next to a man from London who works for Harley Davidson. We discussed the pound-dollar rate, accents, and words that differ between the States and the UK. I had an emergency row exit seat so life and my legs were good. Our second flight from London to Nairobi also went well. I again had an emergency row exit seat and therefore got to talk with the flight attendant. I asked her 20 questions and figured out how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit…roughly. We got off the plane and in conversation with my fellow YAVs I determined that my lack of sleep had my brain functioning at about 35%. I could literally feel my vocabulary shrinking. We got our bags and were off. It was around 10 PM when we arrived at our site coordinator’s home to have a snack. There Henry and I learned that we would not be staying with the rest of the group (because there are not enough beds) and were picked up by a taxi and taken to a Monastery. We had to ring the bell at 11:30ish and a German Nun answered the door not so pleased about being awakened. We went to bed and I slept for a few hours. I awoke at 3 AM and remained awake to hear the morning prayers at the Mosque nearby at 4 and 5 AM. I got up at 6 and watched the sunrise while reading. I then had a very nice quiet breakfast. This was a very romantic morning to begin my time in Kenya.

Our group of eight then embarked on becoming accustomed to Kenya: time, food, currency, and everything else. We had a professor speak to us about the Sudan and everything that is going on there currently since it is a bordering country. Then we went to arguably the biggest slum in Africa, Kibera, and learned about an amazing program which has started in micro-financing. I could spend the entire blog post on that visit.

All eight of us have been placed with a host family with whom we are currently spending out time. We had a big dinner Friday night where we met our families and then afterward went home with them to live until Wednesday. My (host) father and mother are extremely hospitable and generous. In the culture here I am not allowed to call them by their first names, but call them mom and dad. They worked as teachers and father eventually taught at university for ten years. They decided to build a new home for their family, but realized there weren’t any schools around. So, rather than living in it they transformed it into a primary (and boarding) school called ByGrace. That was in 1994 and since then they have opened up another school which is a few miles away. They have also planted 7 churches. So, they have done quite a bit for their community! My mother and father take very good care of me and make me sleep under a mosquito net at night. They both have an amazing laugh and a great sense of humor. My sinuses have acted up so I am coughing and my nose is running like a faucet. Therefore, they made me drink this soup that was just garlic, ginger, and carrots. They sat and watched me drink all of it and laughed as I did because of the faces I made. When I was finished they all cheered for me and it did help my sinuses, so that’s my host family in a paragraph.

A few fun stories/notes:

I am eating better here than I did in the States, although, I would pay a large amount of money right now for a personal pan pizza from pizza hut.

On Saturday, mom took me to both schools and introduced me to the students. We went by each classroom, kindergaten-8, at each school. First they would giggle when I walked in because I have to duck to enter the room because the door is only 2 meters or 6 foot 4. Then they would laugh when I started talking because I sounded funny apparently. One of them said that I sounded like the TV because most of their TV shows are from the States. Needless to say, I provided some good entertainment. This next year I will be working at ByGrace school at least once a week, so I am very excited about that because I did want to do some teaching.

Sunday morning I went to church with my family. They are Pentecostal. At the first service, they asked me to introduce myself and preach. So, I introduced myself and preached. It was funny because I had like 5 different sermons in my head so I had to just choose one and run with it. (Update: I have now prepared 3 post-it note sermon outlines which I have placed in my wallet in case I am called on again to preach spontaneously, “decently and in order”) At the second service, I tried to explain my Presbyterian tradition and told them that we are lovingly called the Frozen Chosen. I said, “how much does something that is frozen move?” I stood very stiff and got a good laugh. The second service lasted for 2 and a half hours which is normal here. I told them that if we went for more than an hour people start glaring and get up and walk out. This confused them.

After the first service, the following conversation occurred:
Me: “Is there a bathroom that I can use?”
Pastor: “yes, follow me” (We get outside and he looks at me and says) “you need a bathroom?”
Me: “Yes, I need to go to the bathroom.”
Pastor: He looks at me puzzled because I have a suit on and we have a short time between services. “You would like to bathe now?”
Me: “No, oh no, I need to use the toilet.
Pastor: “Oh! Sorry.” Smiling and laughter followed.

I am slowly learning some Swahili. We start Swahili classes on Friday. It is difficult for me to understand Kenyan’s English which means that it is definitely difficult for them to understand me. I am getting used to people driving on the other side of the road. I still get into the wrong side of the car. I am getting quicker at converting kilometers to miles, Celsius to Fahrenheit, and shillings into dollars. I have yet to figure out liters into gallons. Well, I believe that is plenty for now. The group will reunite on Wednesday for orientation for the rest of September and then we will all move on to our placements. I hope you all are well.
RTQ
PS I can't post pictures right now, so I will update this Thursday or Friday with pictures.

Hello friends! Welcome to my blog about my upcoming year in Kenya as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV). I am getting on a plane today heading for Kenya! If you are not sure what I'm talking about or will be doing for the next year I will answer some of the questions I have most often received in the past 6 months.

• What are you doing? I will be serving in the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program through the Presbyterian Church (USA). This program sends young adults (19-30) to serve nationally and internationally for a year. There are five international sites: Guatemala, Peru, Northern Ireland, India, and Kenya. I am going to Kenya.
• Am I going alone? No, there are 8 of us heading over to Kenya total and there is a site coordinator who lives in Kenya permanently. So, we already have connections and will be met at the airport.
• Why now? The main reason is I will still have my final year of seminary to reflect theologically and spiritually on my experience in Kenya rather than attempting to deal with that at my first ordained position. Graduating from seminary and then doing this didn't make much sense. Furthermore, the timing just worked out best.
• What will I be doing? I'll be building relationships with people. People from another culture who have different understandings of time, relationships, food, and pretty much everything. This excites me and reminds me that I am going to be challenged constantly during the next year. My job placement is working with a non-profit organization called the Association of Evangelicals in Africa and Madagascar (AEAM).
• Where's Kenya?

In my ever growing brilliance, I decided to do the following during my last week before Kenya: wrap up my 12 weeks of hospital chaplaincy (CPE), exactly one week after CPE is finished, take Presbyterian Ordination exams (ords are the bar exam for Presbyterian ministers) 3 Friday and Saturday; plus 1 more which I receive the paper topic at noon Saturday and have until Thursday to complete, but I am leaving Tuesday morning at 6 AM for orientation for my Kenya trip. After I told my mom this grand scheme, she said "that's not the brightest idea." I hadn't really thought of it that way until she put it so kindly, moms... Any who, while doing all of this I also had to officially move out of my apartment which brings me to my entertaining story of the day.

I have been working on my time management skills since college because they were "lacking" then, but I have gotten much better in seminary. Therefore, I had been moving out of my apartment in increments. Each day I would move some bo-jazz and then on Thursday I would check out of my apartment right before ords. Seemed simple enough. So, I saved moving my waterbed for the last day, Thursday (yesterday) because I like to sleep. Yes, my immediately family all have waterbeds, representing. I called around Austin Wednesday and found a Home Depot that had a waterbed pump. Everything was in place which is a sign disaster would ensue.

I awoke at the wee hour of 9 AM and ran over to the Home Depot to rent the waterbed pump. I returned home and headed downstairs to find a water hose, it was muddy. I ran back up to the third floor and plugged everything in and turned on the pump and nothing happened. The pump was making the "pump noises," but would NOT take the form of a verb and pump. I noticed the hose had a hole in it so I decided to go back down and find another muddy hose. Rinse, lather, repeat. Same problem. I ran downstairs and found the bestest hose in all the land, muddy of course and returned once again to no avail. At this point, I determined that even though the pump is making noise, it is not pumping. It took me 3 hoses... So I ran back to Home Depot and told them their pump's broken. They told me it was not. I asked them to test it and they then returned to tell me it's broken, to which I replied "I know." They called the "north" home depot and asked if they had a pump, they said they did so I was off on another quest at now 12:30 PM. I arrived at Home Depot #2 and asked for the waterbed pump. They told me that they didn't have a waterbed pump. I told them, well they called here about 20 minutes ago and you said you had one then. A younger gentleman walked out of the back office scratching his head and looked at me and said, "yeah that was me. Sorry I misunderstood them. We don't have a waterbed pump." This was when I had to count to 3. Then an older employee who had been listening to the conversation came over and asked, "how high is your waterbed?" I held my hand 3 ft off the ground. He said "no, what floor are you on?" I'm on the third. The old man said, "Well, all you have to do then is put one end of the hose in your bed and the other out the window and then go downstairs and suck on the hose." I replied with a half-hearted, "alright." I returned home slightly frustrated and fatigued by trying to figure out my current quandary in life. After entertaining some brilliant ideas of changing the time-space continuum, I succumbed to sticking one end of the hose in the bed and the other out the window, I ran downstairs, lied on the ground and starting sucking and 20 seconds later I was choking on glorious water. It was the happiest I have ever been while choking! The waterbed was completely drained in 20 minutes, thank you old man.

Back to studying for ords.
RTQ

I was blessed this past week by the timing of my required psychological evaluation for ordination because it took me home for my brother's 20th birthday and for one last hoo-raw in OklaHOMEa before I leave for Kenya. It was also frustrating because it was a quick trip so I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone I wanted, but I got to spend time with my family and a few Broken Arrow friends.

Throughout college and in seminary, I have come to realization that I am an oddity (and not in the way you're thinking) because my family has lived in the same house for 25 years. Since I am 24, that house is the only home I've ever known as...home. Therefore, when I say I'm going home it has a different meaning for me than most people. I am going to the house where I can explain every patched hole in the wall with a rousing story, locate every light switch blindfolded, and yell a family members name and get a response. Not to mention, the parentals pay for everything! Therefore, I love home!

Any who, I got to surprise my little brother for his birthday and go out with the family to Olive Garder, (or as Patrick calls it "the OG") his favorite restaurant. The next day my two best friends from Broken Arrow came over, Brad and Josh (and Josh's wife, Laura), and we took over the world by means of a 1999 computer game. Then Gina, Brad's wife, joined us and we all went out to dinner. It is amazing that at 24 the three of us are still able to get together every now and again. I don't think we realize how amazingly blessed we are by each other.


Sunday, I was liturgist and was asked to tell the congregation what I was doing/attempting to do currently...it took a while...and reminded me that I have a lot to do. Then that night my family was invited over to the Carter's house for a very relaxing, delicious dinner of catching up and conversation with Richard, Mary, Brian, Cynthia, Austen, Taylor, Mike, Alice, and my family. I was reminded of how I love my home church and home people.

Monday, Brad and I beat Super Mario Brothers 3 in an hour and a half. It used to take us four days to do that when we were in the third grade. Therefore, we felt amazing. It was also Brad and Gina's 2-year anniversary so I assisted in distracting Brad from preparing the dinner he was making for her.

Tuesday, I was evaluated psychologically for 5 hours.

Then I went over to Josh's new house and later his parents took us out to the best BBQ in Broken Arrow, Wild Bills. Amazing people and BBQ, my favorite combo plate. Then I went over to visit Crystal, another best friend from high school, who I hadn't seen or talked to in a long time. It was great to catch up with her and see her new house. Apparently, we're getting old...and houses.

Each night my family would get into our new spa for 20 minutes and talk. Quite ingenious, one cannot take electronics like TVs/PCs into water...yet. Therefore, we had to sit down as a family and talk. Excuse #37 to buy a spa. The next morning my family drove me to the airport at 6 AM and my trip home was over. Time is getting quicker...it must be working out.
RTQ

I had a fantastic weekend! Those are always nice. It began with the Chi Tau Chi retreat which is the Christian Fraternity I was in during college. It was fantastic to see old friends and begin new relationships as well. We played basketball, rock band, guitar, and just spent time hanging out together. At college-ish functions like this I always miss college and am reminded of why I am glad I am not in college anymore simultaneously; needless to say, a weird feeling.

Saturday, I drove up to Dallas for a college friend’s wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and I really enjoyed the entire night. I was especially caught by a line during the vows because of my current hospital chaplaincy job, “in sickness and in health.” This line has a whole new meaning to me after this summer and seeing all of the people in the hospital with their spouse right there beside them or in the not so happy cases their spouse is no where to be seen. Either way, when I heard these words being said all of my patients flashed before my eyes and there was water on my face for some peculiar reason. I am finding going to wedding after wedding to be rewarding in the fact that I focus on a different part of the vows each time and will hopefully fully understand the magnitude of what I am saying one day when I get married. It reminds me of how youth directors will make their youth write out the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed in modern English so that they have a better understanding of what they are saying each week. That is what attending more wedding ceremonies than I can count has have taught me.

The reception was very nice as well. The bride, Carrie, was very busy (expected), but she took the time to tell me 3 times, “I am so happy you are here.” I didn’t expect to get to speak with her at all, but she took the time to come up to me 3 times and tell me that. I like her a lot. If she ever starts a fan club, I call President.

I then went to stay the night with a family I lived with for a summer in college while I was working as a youth director in their church. It started out poorly because I had to wake them up at midnight because the e-mail I sent them about me coming didn’t go through. Any who, the next morning we went to church and it was a very nice service. I always love going to new and different Presbyterian churches, but haven’t had the opportunity the past 2 years because I have been at work every Sunday morning. I am happy that the Giffords have found a good new church home. It was great to see them again and be reminded of all of their personality traits. It is funny how you forget the subtleties of people and then when you are around them again they come flooding back and you remember how much you have missed them and I guess in the not so fortunate cases why you haven’t missed them too much. Any who, it was a lovely visit.

On the way home I stopped and had an early dinner with two of my best friends from college, Rachel and Sam, and Sam’s fiancée Katie. It was really nice to be back together with the college group again and reminisce of our 4 years together. I wish we could do that weekly.

This weekend was an awesome pick me up and energizer. The Giffords and Rachel have been overly generous to me recently (as they always are) and it has just been such an inspiring gesture to know how much people care about me and will always be there for me. It makes it much easier to go back to the hospital on Monday and attempt to be as gracious as I can to each patient I see. Word. Well, that’s more than enough for now. Good day!

RTQ