Sunday, April 4, 2010

My trip to Kenya!!

Hey friends and family,

I just back from my trip to Kenya!! Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers. Everything went super smoothly considering that it is Africa. Of course we had many adventures, but everyone stayed safe and healthy. Let me just give you a rundown of our trip and share some highlights.

We spent our layover in Amsterdam. We had eight hours so we went into the city and met up with a couple who has a ministry to prostitutes. Fritz goes out almost every day just to build relationships and show these girls that they are loved. We had made paper flowers to give to them with encouraging words on them. We went out in small groups with Fritz and got to meet some women and pray for them. It’s an amazing example of loving someone right where they are at. We also just got to pray for and encourage the people involved in this ministry.

About fify hours after leaving Redding, we arrived in Bungoma, Kenya!! We spent the next several days speaking at churches, praying for people in the hospital, loving on a group of street kids, and teaching pastors and children how to hear from God and heal the sick. In the hospital, we saw a paralyzed man get feeling back into his legs, pain subside, and a blind lady start to see images.

For the next half of our trip, we headed to Northern Kenya where the Turkana tribe lives. These people look like they are right out of a National Geographic magazine. You can see what they look like in my pictures. This is a desert area but it had had quite a bit of rain. This is good and bad. Good for the people and the cooler temperatures but it made getting around quite challenging. A bridge had been washed away and we had to cross the river. We made it across with a few Africans pushing our vehicle through the river.

For the next three days, we went to refugee camps and Turkana villages to hand out food and pray for people. We also got to teach them about healing. We connected with a local missionary who has already reached many of these villages and camps. It was amazing to hear them worship in their own tribal language. You could tell they really loved Jesus. In one of the villages we went to, the witch doctor had recently given his life to Jesus.

Because of the rain, we got stuck out in the African bush one day. We had to push our vehicle out of the mud several times and finally ended up getting rescued by another vehicle. We drove into town covered in mud. We were quite the spectacle!!

We also went to the hospital one day. We decided to change the somber atmosphere by doing the Macarena!! Some of the patients jumped in and wanted to learn. The women who had looked sad when we walked in were laughing and dancing right along with us. It was so fun!!

On our way back, we had to cross the river once again and this time it was too high to drive across. We spent a couple of hours waiting but no time was wasted. We ended up gathering a crowd of people together and praying for anyone who needed to be healed. A teammate and I prayed for a boy who couldn’t see very well. Nothing happened at first. I asked him if he believed Jesus could heal him and he said no. I shared the story of the blind lady in Bungoma that was healed and then I asked him again if he believed Jesus could do the same thing for him. He said yes. We prayed again. I had a group of kids lay their hands on him and pray, “Come, Jesus come.” When he opened his eyes, he could see!! His frown changed into a big grin. He could see the rainbow in the sky that he couldn’t see minutes before. It was awesome!!

Our leader finally decided that we needed to all walk across the river. The guys carried our luggage over their heads and we all walked across the river. Fortunately, the current wasn’t that strong so it wasn’t too difficult. We all made it safely across and made it on time to fly back to Nairobi.

As I think back to the trip, some of my favorite moments were just getting to love on the kids. Especially the street kids who were in such need of just being loved on. Loving on one kid at a time was so precious to me!! On this trip, I feel like I got a glimpse of what it was like to live back in Jesus’ time. We fed the poor, we healed the sick, and we loved on the orphans. I can’t think of anything better!!

Thank you again for all of you who supported me to go on this trip. I’m so grateful for getting the opportunity to go.

Love,

Sunneye