to kenya we go... (yes, kenya)

As many of you know, I (Kyle) am not particularly fond of Kenya. I have not had the best experiences in there, to say the least. And I have probably pledged (more than once) that I will never set foot in Kenya again. Too many potholes, too much corruption, too much pollution, too much sickness, too many helicopter-sized mosquitoes, blah, blah, blah. I'll never go to Kenya ever again.

Well, we talked to Pastor Willie today. And, he asked if we would go with him to Kenya in late July for a couple of weeks. Our answer, quite predictably, was:

“Of course we’ll go!!!”

So, even though we haven’t even left yet, our expectations are already being blown away. We were thinking that we’d be freezing in wintry Johannesburg and instead we’ll be sweating on the equator dodging malaria and yellow fever for awhile. There is work to be done. We will go. Send us.

The mission in Kenya is simple. There are a couple of orphanages there that require visits from time to time. We’ll make sure everything is running smoothly, we will take time out to love the children, and then we’ll remind them that they have not been forgotten. We’ll sit with tribal chiefs and they’ll feed us strange meats and ask us for favors and we’ll ask them if we can house more orphans and around and around we’ll go. And, in between, we will laugh and cry - maybe we will get out a hammer and build more space for more orphans. We’ll hug and feed some precious children who need to be reminded that even there, in the mountains of Kenya with no parents or family to speak of, they are loved.

Kenya. Whew. What a crazy place...Baboon crossings on the highways and shanty-towns with millions of poor, infected residents and wallowing rhinos and everything else you think of when you think "Africa". We don’t know exactly how we’ll get there. We sure don’t know how that $2000 is going to find it’s way into our budget. But we do know that even though this is not what we had planned, it is exactly what we signed up for.

There is work to be done. Johannesburg, South Africa. Middle of nowhere, Kenya. Wherever. We will go. Send us.