Back at Base and Graduated!!

We arrived back at the base from outreach on Monday and officially graduated from DTS this afternoon. Five months went by so fast and have been the single most life-changing months of my life thus far. After living in close quarters for the past five months it will be hard to say goodbye, but we are all excited about the future. It's hard to sum up 6 weeks of outreach right here but we will do our best.

Our first stop was Kitale where we did "outreach prep" where we practiced skits and planned our ministries. Then we all piled into a lorey and drove seven hours to a village in West Pokot where we spent one week together with a YWAM DTS team from Romania.

In Pokot we slept under the stars "showered" and squatted in the bush bush with the pokot people starring at our whiteness. Most of the people we met had never seen a white person before. Some people we met had never even heard the word "God" and had no concept of him. We were fortunate to meet a man who spoke limited swahili, we ministered to him and so the rest of the week he translated for our team. When we were talking with people there were times when one of the Romanians were sharing, so the message was translated from Romanian to English, English to Swahili and finally Swahili to Pokot. There is a bore hole that was donated by missionaries years ago that now provides water for about 20,000 Pokot people. Their tribe has been at war with the Turcanas for years and years and so the people basically have nothing. Most people literally have no belongings besides one or two congas (wrap skirts) that they are wearing. Some people simply don't have a single belonging, including clothes. Our ministry was sometimes just helping people carry water or pump the bore hole for them. It is extremely hot and dry throughout the region, and we had very limited water because we had to purify it before drinking but we had just enough. While we were there we were able to see and participate in a traditional coming of age ceremony, it was incredible! Besides the challenges, God enabled us to encourage the people and lots of them got saved throughout the week.

After that week, we broke into two separate teams and sue's team went to Chesta (another village in West Pokot) and stayed there for one week doing school ministry and door to door outreach. When we arrived in Chesta we had nowhere to stay and no one was there to meet us. So we went to the market because we didn't know where else to go, at the market we met a christian from the local church who offered us to stay at his house with his family! We stayed with them the entire week and we were so blessed by there hospitality. We had electricity and water all week and it was such a blessing! Door to door ministry was awesome and so many people got saved.

From Chesta we drove to Kitale where we stayed at an orphanage that is home to 23 kids rescues off of the streets. We did more hands on ministry this week than preaching and teaching. We helped water the garden, washed the children's bedding and rooms. We spent one day with the kids playing games and sharing with them about Jesus. We were blessed with a room in the orphanage and our team leader, mama zippy is an awesome cook! Franchesca was sick with Malaria but she quickly recovered. We also went to a few house fellowships and were able to encourage the local church.

Then we went to a town called Kakamega where we stayed at a Bishop's house. We were extremely busy with door to door ministry from eight in the morning until six or seven at night. This week I wasn't able to participate in ministry for a few days because I was sick with Typhoid but was able to get antibiotics and now I am completely fine :) Door to door was effective, we were able to encourage the local church and lead others to Christ for the first time.

From kakamega we traveled thirty hours on a bus to Watamu on the coast. Our two teams came together for one last week of ministry there. We rented a home from a muslim family and all stayed there together for the week. It was HOT and HUMID all week long! But we were able to swim in the ocean and cool off! This week was interesting because all of the Mombasa area is predominately muslim. We did lots of door to door and believe that we planted a seed there. It was a huge learning expierence for all of us to minister to muslims. We also held revival meeting every night which were very powerful. Overall the week was great, aside from a few people getting sick. We were again able to encourage the local church and people got saved.  

From Mombasa we returned back to the base and have had one last week of classes with a pastor named Bob from England and his son who did his DTS here at Athi River too. We had our graduation ceremony this afternoon and DTS is over.

Corinne and I are starting a whole new adventure on the 28th we leave for Mombasa town!