Today was our last day in Maasai Mara. Please pray for our team as we begin our journey back home!

-Team

This trip has been an unforgettable and awesome experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my team as well as the many Kenyan people we have met along the way. The people here are so kind and I am grateful to have gotten to connect with them this week. We had our last day at Kiamaiko yesterday and it was so amazing. I befriended many young middle school girls who wanted to know all about me. They were so kind and welcoming. It was hard to leave them at the end of the day. Serving today at Joska was so much fun. I had the opportunity to distribute the snacks to hundreds of kids during the VBS and it was beautiful seeing their faces light up with joy and hearing them say “thank you” with a big smile. I truly believe that God used our performance of In Progress to speak to many of the students at Joska. It was a privilege to be able to serve and interact with them. I am so blessed to be able to be here.
– Briana B

Leaving for Kenya, I had no idea what to expect. For the past four years I have been hearing all about it, and all I could imagine was what I’ve been told. That Kenya will “break your heart”, that it will be the “best experience of your life”, and that the children are “more joyful than most Americans”. All of this didn’t hit me until the moment I walked into Pangoni Center (one of the schools we served at). I was literally chased by children and all they wanted to do was hug me and call me beautiful. It was almost as if I was a celebrity, as they played with my hair and took pictures with me. After a long week of serving with children, I leave feeling one way and one way only: shocked. Why would such beautiful and loving children want to treat me so kindly? Why would such selfless and caring sweet little girls want to dance with me and braid my hair? Out of all people, why me? They are the most genuine, pure, innocent, and beautiful souls I have ever encountered in my life, and I almost feel unworthy of their time. You see, many people think of Kenya as some poor country that needs our help. We naturally think that us Americans are more privileged and we need to help them. Although this is true from a materialistic aspect, it’s incredibly false spiritually. WE are the ones who need help. WE are the ones who put ourselves before others. OUR culture needs fixing. We are the selfish ones. In the past week, I have learned more from six years olds than from any American I have ever encountered. America needs to learn from the Kenyan culture. We need to apply selflessness in everything we do and focus on what matters. I was heartbroken when I said bye to the kids, but I know in my heart that I will see them again.

My prayer is that I will come back to America and reflect everything I have learned in Kenya.

-April O.

The past three days of the trip we have been at Bethany school doing VBS with the kids. It was so much fun worshiping and dancing with them and seeing their beautiful smiles. Today I got to interact with the older kids and it was such an incredible experience. I had such amazing conversations and I got to show them some music. They were teaching me dances which was so fun. It was so interesting to learn about their culture and hear about the different experiences that they have had. I also met with some sponsor kids. Their names were, Sheril and Afiz. They are some of the sweetest kids I have ever met and loved every minute that I spent with them. While the people in Kenya may be very poor materialistic-wise, they are so rich with joy and God’s love and my perspective on life has been truly changed forever.
– Becca B

So far the trip has been life changing! Walking through the slums and seeing everyone waving at you and letting you hold their loved ones is an experience that cannot be explained. Today was different yet amazing. We didn’t play with kids or walk through the slums, but for the majority of the day we sanded and painted 4 classrooms. It was a lot more work than I thought and by half of our time painting, I was already exhausted. Even though my hair was knotted with oil based paint and my hands were numb from the sanding, I was happy. What made me happy was the team singing, working together and being extremely positive in every situation. What made me happy, was the teachers helping us and teaching us how to properly paint while the kids would occasionally poke their little heads in to see the progress. What really made me happy was the thought of all of the kids sitting in those newly painted classrooms that were no longer empty white rooms. Today was an amazing day and every day we spend here is a blessing.

-Justin O.

So far Kenya has been amazing and nothing like I had ever expected. The people here are so sweet and their hearts are just so welcoming. Meeting the people here and seeing the joy they have all of the time is so fulfilling. Yesterday, I had met my sponsor child for the first time and it was an experience that I will never forget. Seeing the big smile he had when he was walking over made me feel good inside. When I had given him my gifts he was so grateful and always thanked me. I feel very blessed to be able to support this little boy and watch him grow. Today we went to paint the classrooms at the school and it was so much fun. I had made connections with some of the workers helping us and it was really cool getting to know them. The longer I stay in Kenya, the more it makes me love it more and more. It is eye opening how selfless these people are. I hope everyone can feel the extreme amount of love that I felt from God and the people in Kenya from the past two days.
-Lilly G

Today was unbelievable! It was my first experience being in the slums of Kenya and can I just say there is nothing like it. I had three prominent experiences today where I saw the love of the Kenyan people. First, I had the opportunity to do a home visit and speak with a woman about her family. She had been in the slums for 22 years and wanted us to pray for her to get a better job so she could move her family to a better place. The second experience I had was with a little boy on the road of the slum. He came up to our group and gave everyone hugs but then he kept coming back to me for hugs! I realized how much love this little boy had for people he didn’t even know. Lastly, I got to meet with a sponsor child named Juma, he is 14 so he understood a lot and talked to me about some really tough stuff but he still was happy.

-Connor N.

March 11th, the day we began to really start learning and exploring Kenya. We went to Pangani Area 1 and it was a complete experience in of itself. We got the opportunity to walk into a woman’s home and really begin to see how harsh living in the slums could be. It was beyond humbling to see the conditions that this woman and her family were living in. From the tight alley way, to the open dirt floors and tight corridors that led us to the house to the small room, no real way for air other than the door, a few blankets and one singular light bulb. It was surreal. The thing I found to be the most impressive and humbling was the resources they used. They use anything and everything they can find, with sheet metal walls, a bottle cap in the stairs and pieces of broken concrete for flooring. It really shows how much everything here is worth along with the importance of all resources. When a truck pulled up and dumped loads of “trash” that the people of the slums scavenged through to enhance their homes, it really showed that they use everything here and that was unbelievably humbling.