My roomie, Brit outside of our hut.

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It’s 9:25pm Kenya time (2:25pm RDU time) – we just finished our nightly debrief and I’m sitting by the bonfire decompressing from the day. The weather here is awesome – it’s like 65 degrees and there’s a slight breeze – such a nice change from the 100+ degree weather back home.

This is me this morning outside of our hut with our view in the background. This is not too bad to wake up to every day:

Today was, in a word, amazing.

During breakfast this morning, there was a TV on in the corner with a church service on. It cracked me up because it was basically an African Newhope church! I pointed out the comparisons to the team and we all had a great laugh. The stage looked the same, there was an African Pastor Fuller leading worship and dancing around, an African Celebration Choir on each side of the stage in beautiful matching dresses and suits, and even an African Jon on drums behind the little plexiglas case. Then African Pastor Benji came out and brought the word. It was awesome – I don’t know where that church is in Africa, but I want to go.

After breakfast and devotion we loaded the bus and headed to the village of Kiria for church.

I should comment that as we drive to the village, we always pass a TON of kids alongside the road that run alongside the bus waving yelling, “Hello Mzungus! Mzungus!!” Mzungus means white people, and needless to say, we are rare, so they get excited to see us drive by.

We got to the village and we were split up into our five groups again just like we were for home visits. My group, Dave, Sarah, and me went to the AIC Church which was the church of Nafthiri (gramps!), Mary, Lucy, Sampson, and Margaret.

When we got to the church Nafthiri (gramps!) was waiting there for us. Here’s a picture of us outside of the church:

There were a lot of kids at this church – close to 30. One of the first girls I met was named Lydia. When I said hi to her and asked her name, Sampson said she is deaf and mute so she can’t understand me. I used to teach a deaf student when I taught high school, so I know some sign language – not a lot, but some basics. So I signed to Lydia, “Hi Lydia, my name is Molly, nice to meet you.” As soon as I did that her face lit up and she smiled at me and signed back, “Thank you.” It was awesome.

The whole congregation welcomed us in with open arms. It’s amazing to see them all dressed up and decked out. Many, if not all, of them only wear these clothes on Sundays. Many of the kids have only one pair of pants and one pair of shoes or one dress and they only wear it on Sundays. The elders in the church all wear fancy dresses and suits to show leadership, but they have had these suits or dresses their entire adult lives. But you can tell how proud they are of what they have.

The women playing drums for worship:

There was SO much singing, dancing, and worship. The service was 3 hours long and almost 2 hours alone was worship. The children sang and danced – they sang together, and then the older kids, then the boys, then the girls, then the adult women, then 2 girls did a solo, and so on. Everyone was so incredibly engaged and passionate about the worship – it was so fun to watch. They even sang “Blessed Be Your Name” in English and “Jesus Paid it All” in Swahili. Oh, and the kids sang this song that went like this:

Jesus love is very very wonderful
Jesus love is very very wonderful
Jesus love is very very wonderful
Sooooo wonderful love.

Adorable. Don’t worry, I have video I will post later.

The kids just flocked to us (picture below – Lydia is the one in the Obama hat).

The whole service they played with my hair, looked at my bible, and they kept petting my arm and pulling on my arm hair. They’re fascinated by it – haha!

After singing, we were all introduced as guest and Dave from our team did the preaching. Not only was it his first time preaching in that church, but also his first time preaching ever. He was great and the congregation was really inspired and grateful. It is so awesome to spend time with these people who worship in a completely different way and who are so different from us, yet we all worship and love the same God. That’s so refreshing and comforting.

During the service, this one girl who I noticed in the choir, sat on my lap. Her name is Njeri (jeh-re-ee – roll the r). This girl has completely stolen my heart. I don’t know what it is about her, but we just clicked. She doesn’t speak much and she’s probably no older than 3, but she’s so beautiful.

Njeri is the girl on the left on my lap:

After church let out, the women made Dave, Sarah, and me lunch and served us in the side room. I felt so blessed and so honored that these women went out of their way to cook US, the visitors who are there to serve them, lunch. We had potatoes with peas and carrots and a shredded cabbage salad. The potatoes were amaaaaaaazing. The salad made me nervous because it hadn’t been cooked and they even said it had been washed and was “Very fresh!” We have to be very careful that we don’t eat anything that’s been possibly contaminated by the water – we even brush our teeth and wash our faces with bottled water. I tried to avoid eating the cabbage but they insisted so I had a few bites and just prayed that God would understand and bless the food so that I don’t get sick from it. It’s nighttime now and let’s just say, I don’t feel too too hot, but I’m hanging in there, it could be worse, and I’m hoping that whatever this little “thang” is, is temporary and gone in the AM. But to be honest, it was worth it. Their gratefulness on their faces for serving us was so important to me. Oh, and they made us Chai tea. So. Good. Seriously.

After church and lunch, we went to our actual lunch and walked down the side of this mountain through a cow pasture (and cow pies the size of me) to sit and have lunch. The view was beautiful and it was a good chance for us as a team to decompress for a bit and check out the scenery.

Then came the fun.

We went to the schoolyard with the soccer balls and face paint, and bubbles and got to play with the kids. These kids have so much energy and super lungs. I should point put that we are at like a bazillion feet above sea level (I don’t know the actual # – but I do know that it is HIGH) – so you get out of breath going to the bathroom. Everything wipes you out. But man, these kids can run forever.

We played the bug game where basically you just put your fingers to your head like antennae and go buzz and chase them and the kids laugh and scream and run from you. It’s hilarious. We painted faces which was a blast – Wes and James can’t draw (their words, not mine) so they just kept writing words like “Jambo” or putting check marks on faces. It was so funny.

Here’s Wes painting the face of Delicia (I know I’m not spelling her name right):

As I played with them, I just had so much fun watching these kids just laugh and run and not have a care in the world. This is their zone – their happy place.

I did, however, wonder where my girl Njeri was. Then I saw who I thought was her sister so I asked her where Njeri was… She pointed and said “Over there!” I turned and there she was standing alone looking around – so I yelled her name and she turned around. The minute she saw me, her face lit up and her little legs ran towards me as fast as she could and she grabbed on to my leg and hugged me. It was the best feeling ever. So I picked her up and carried her on my shoulders. I painted her face and taught her the bug game. Njeri, Delicia, Lydia, and Purity were the girls that just sort of clung to me and it was so great getting to spend time with them and see them laugh.

Me with the girls (they loved being able to see themselves in the iPhone camera):

These kids are just so honest and pure.

(Here’s a link to a video I was able to upload to facebook with some of the kids)

Then we had to leave and head back to the Panorama. I was able to get this photo of Njeri (in the red sweater) and Delicia (behind her) before I left and I told them I’d be back tomorrow and that we will play more:

As the bus pulled away, the kids ran behind it chasing after us waving goodbye and there was my little Njeri running with the big kids. So precious and totally gut wrenching. That girl has my heart for reals.

Later after dinner, we gathered around the fire for debrief which I led and we all shared our experiences from the day. It is becoming more and more evident to me that God has brought each of us here for a particular reason and each reason is different – yet equally important. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow and the rest of the week brings – we just getting started.

There were three native Kenyans sitting around the fire just listening to us share and talk about our day, and before I closed us in prayer, they each apologized for eaves dropping but said a very heartfelt thank you to us for being there. They said growing up in Kenya, they know firsthand how important making a small difference in the life of a child is and they thank God for people like us. It meant so much for us to hear that – but the fact is, Kenya is making an impact on us. Honestly.

Well, tomorrow is our first day of work work in the village. I’m getting my muscles ready because we are going to be breaking up a WHOLE lot of very large rocks to use for flooring in the school. I’m ready!

It’s getting late here so I’m going to head to bed soon – partially with hopes that I don’t have any more of these weird falling sensation spells as I fall asleep. That seems to be a side effect of the malarone. Not scary, just weird, and then I have to try to fall back asleep.

Anyway. Again, another long post, just in the hopes of never forgetting a single detail.

All for now and much love,
Molly

I took the picture in the village we stopped in to buy our gumboots. The kids loved making faces.

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It’s 6:25pm Kenya time on Saturday and we just checked in to the Panorama Hotel where we are staying for the remainder of our time here in Kenya. The hut where we are staying is small. Very small. But we have mosquito nets for our beds and an actual toilet. You have absolutely no idea how valuable an actual toilet is right now. More on that later. Dinner is at 7, so I thought now might be a good time to dump my brain of everything in it from today.

So today: woke up (late – silly alarms), had breakfast, devotion with the team, and then loaded the bus and we hit the road to Kiria. The city of Nairobi is huge – I would ask what city we were in like every 20 min or so I felt like and they’d still say Nairobi. The people are beautiful, but the city is dirty. There’s trash everywhere and since they don’t have landfills, they burn everything… And so the air smells like smoke.

We passed by Kibera, which is the largest slum in Kenya (and I believe it is also the largest slum in Africa, but I won’t swear to that). There are 3 million people living there. 3 million. And let’s just say, it’s not a large area. I know there’s an organization at UNC called Carolina for Kibera that raises awareness and money for the community.

Once we got off the highway about 45 minutes into the drive, it was a lot of dirt roads. And bumpy ones. Oh my. Really bumpy. But the landscape here is beautiful. Mountainous and lots of flora (yeah, I just used the word flora).

We passed through a few different villages and then stopped to use the restroom at a little market and Great Rift Valley overlook. It’s 8,000 feet above the valley and unbelievably beautiful. It was tough because we weren’t allowed to buy anything from the market, but the moment we got off the bus we were swarmed with sweet girls selling us their handmade goods.

Then it was time to use the “bathrooms”.

Okay, now I was a girl scout, I enjoy the outdoors, bugs (outside my home) don’t really bother me, etc. But I don’t think I was properly prepared for the pit latrines. They’re little wooden shacks covering a hole in the ground. That’s it. Nothing to hold on to, no TP, and about an inch of muck, whoknowswhat, and a whole lot of flies and mosquitos. It was definitely a team building experience between Brit, Amy, and myself.

We left and headed further north to Kiria. We stopped one more time in a little town about 20 minutes away and bought gum boots. This was our first real interaction with the kids and the people. The kids are so amazing. So happy and they wave and smile. Many without shoes on just run around playing without a care in the world. All they want you to do is take pictures of them and show them. Many of them would point and ask which one they were because they’d never seen themselves. Then they’d laugh and laugh at their photo and run away.

Got the gum boots, and headed another 20 minutes or so to Kiria. The drive from Nairobi to Kiria took about 4 hours with two stops.

As we pulled up the final leg of the mountain, the image I saw will forever be with me. Waiting for us at the end of the road was about 100+ kids and their families from the Kiria primary school dancing and singing to us. They are the most joyful, grateful, and (you’ll hear me use this word a lot) beautiful people.

As we stepped off the bus, many of my teammates who came last year hugged kids and elders they remembered and all of a sudden I look down and there’s at least 6-7 kids like latched on to me – holding my hands, tugging my shirt, and saying “Jambo! What is your name?” Adorable. (On a side note my name is hard for them to pronounce so they all think my name is Mary and/or Maury – awesome – I love it).

We walked the group to the primary school and received our formal welcome from the elders and children. I was so emotional and overwhelmed looking at all of them that I just started to cry. I leaned over to a teammate who was on the trip last year and asked if it was too early to cry… She said no way. It’s never too early.

The kids left and we walked around the schoolyard for a bit before heading out for home visits. My group was me, Sarah, and Dave and we met up with Nithiri (NIH-tear-ee – I am probably spelling his name way wrong) and Sampson. Nithiri is 82 and has lived in Kiria his whole life. He liked Sarah and me so much that he dubbed us his grandchildren and in turn, we dubbed him gramps. Sampson is 30 and spoke English the best so he helped to translate and tell us what was going on. We toured Nithiri’s family farm and talked about the crops they grow, the animals they keep, and they asked questions about our home. Their best crop is potatoes, so I told him about French Fries.

We then went to visit the home of Lucy and Margaret and Lucy’s daughter Mary was there, too. Lucy is 67 and is in very poor health. It appears that she had a stroke (the signs were evident, but they didn’t say) and overall, she just wasn’t doing well. So Nithiri, Sampson, and one of the pastors that was there asked us to give Lucy some words of encouragement and pray for her.

It was one of the most powerful moments I’ve witnessed. Two completely different cultures bonding together over the love, prayer, and hope of this woman. Watching the tears fall from Mary’s eyes as we sat there fellowshipping broke me. It may sound cliche and trite, but this was definitely a defining moment for me. These people who have nothing more really than a small roof over their heads, clothes on their back, and the love of each other – yet, they couldn’t be happier.

They are truly inspiring. We should all be so grateful of everything that we are so blessed to have. Yet the most superficial day-to-day stuff can consume us and make us forget how lucky we really are.

Lucy, Margaret, and Mary – three amazing women who I will truly never forget.

We left home visits and headed to our hotel which is about an hour and fifteen to an hour and a half away. Oh, and we stopped again to go to the bathroom. The number of flies and Mosquitos is indescribable. I am going to be totally frank and honest when I say that the bathroom situation is going to be the biggest challenge for me. Working, serving the people, traveling, etc etc etc I can do. But getting used to squatting over a hole in the ground surrounded by bugs is going to be tough to get used to.

Well, that brings us to present time. Eating dinner, laughing, and sharing experiences from day with my amazing team. Oh! And I’m have a Coca-cola Light (like Diet Coke) in a glass bottle! They have them here for 100 shillings (equals like $.80 cents).

On a side note, I’d just like to say that I’m honored to be a part of this team. There are some really amazing people with huge hearts here and it’s a pleasure to serve alongside them. I hope that I can learn from those who came last year, I hope that I can learn from those who didn’t and who have other gifts to share, and I hope I can learn a little more about myself along the way.

I’m not going to apologize for my long-windedness like I usually do. I want to make sure I don’t forget anything.

And if you made it this far and you’re still reading this, I’ll buy you dinner.

Just kidding.

But seriously.

I will. If you honestly made it this far, the least I can do I feed you.

All for now and much love,

Molly / Mary / Maury

(finished writing at 7:37pm – my golly I write a lot)

Disclaimer: all of these journal entries are taking place via the wordpress app on my iPad. So, please excuse typos and weird spellings of stuff. Yada Yada Yada.

I also am necessarily able to have an actual Internet connection as I write, so many of these are not written in real time.

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Preparing for this trip has definitely been a difficult and educational experience. It’s also personally challenging. The fundraising is stressful, packing is tough, and the shots. Oh, the shots. If you know me, you know I am no fan of needles. Well, I think I had to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 shots. Then there’s the pills for typhoid fever and malaria. (I just started taking the malarial pills two days ago and I’ve been told the side effects are awful. So far the only side effects I’ve felt are dizziness and my stomach hurts a little bit. I’ve heard you’re supposed to get really vivid strange dreams. Well, I have vivid strange dreams anyway, so I don’t know if I see a difference there).

Through this whole process I have relied so heavily on the support of my family, friends, church family, teammates, my amazing boyfriend (who now happens to be my FIANCE!), and of course, God.

I’ve found myself praying a lot more lately. And doing it in a lot more honest way. What do I mean by honest? Well, praying is such a personal thing for people. That actual time that you spend one-on-one with God can be very intimidating for people. Am I saying the right things? Am I praying correctly? What should I pray for? Did I cover all of my prayer bases? I used to think I was a “terrible prayer” – until one day about 6 months ago, I started literally laughing out loud when I realized that’s what I thought. God doesn’t care how you pray, what you say, or what big words you use… God just wants to hear from you. YOU. The real you. Not the you that only uses churchy-jargon in prayer. It seems disingenuous. So I thought that if I really wanted to develop a relationship and use God in my life, that’d I’d have to start being Molly. So, I started praying like I would confide in a best friend or family member. Just honestly speaking about what I’m grateful for, what worries me, and what I hope for. So far it’s been really good and I’ve felt such a difference in how I deal with life.

Well, I say all of that to set up the fact that I’ve used all of that support and that prayer to prepare for today. The long long day that is today.

Our first flight left RDU at 6:15pm and it was 8 hours of being cramped, sitting next to a guy who smelled of a mixture of cheese and farts. He also kept watching crazy sci-fi movies on his PSP. And every little bit I’d glance over and some alien or something was getting their head sliced in half.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep.

We got to London / Heathrow at 6:55am local time (so like 2am RDU time). We had to go through security again and I got patted down. That was awkward, for all parties involved.

But by that point we were all so sleepy and loopy, everything was funny. I had a good solid 5 min laugh over a comment about David Hasselhoff. Ah, good times.

Then, during our layover we desperately looked for plus to charge things that start with i. I found one behind a terminal counter that wasn’t being used. So I stood behind it and charged, and despite the fact that I was holding my pink pillow, charging a pink-cased iPad, and had awful plane head and bloodshot eyes, people still kept coming up to me at an empty terminal counter asking for directions and seat changes. After the 10the request or so, I started saying random things in my British accent. Funny for me, they looked at me strange and walked away.

On a side note: I’d like to say that Boingo wireless is a ripoff. I was going to splurge the $8 for the 30 days of wireless… Went through the whole process, and then boom, you need to download the Boingo app from the app store to connect. Well you can’t connect to the app store if you’re not connected to the internet. What a sham. I will be challenging that $8.

Anywho.

Finally we boarded our Kenya Airways flight at 10:00am London time (5am RDU time) and holy moly there are a lot of people on this flight. Like seriously. This plane is massive. The sheer mechanics / physics of a machine this large with this many people is able to fly so fast and be in the air is amazing to me. (Don’t let the present tense of that confuse you, because I’m typing from this flight currently, but this probably won’t be published until I am not on this flight. You know).

Anyway, this fight is cramped, I am in one of those middle section aisle seats where it is basically impossible to sleep without waking up with some incredibly horrid cramp in your leg, neck, etc. I think I’ve slept a total of an hour. I’m tired. Really tired. We are scheduled to land in Nairobi at 9:45pm local time (2:45pm RDU time).

Oh, I should mentioned that the curry chicken, black beans, and rice dinner on this flight was surprisingly delicious. The dry and tough “brownie” was not.

It’s times like this when you’ve been traveling for almost 24 hours, you’re tired, hungry, etc… That patience and perspective are so desperately needed. Here’s hoping I can keep both of those things in the forefront of my mind.

All for now and much love.

Molly

1am Kenya time addition: getting out of the airport took forever. We landed at 9:15 pm local time (2:15pm RDU) and it took upwards of 2-3 hours to go through customs and get our Visas. Brutal.

We met out 410 Bridge leader David Muchai who the Newhope group had last year. He is awesome. Got to our hotel “The Strand” and we were greeted with bottled water and delicious passion fruit drinks. Mmmmm. So good. The hotel is more like a hostel, but we will only be here for the night. We get up really early tomorrow to head 3 hours north to the community.

Okay, all for now for real this time.

Disclaimer: all of these journal entries are taking place via the wordpress app on my iPad. So, please excuse typos and weird spellings of stuff. Yada Yada Yada.

I also am necessarily able to have an actual Internet connection as I write, so many of these are not written in real time.

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So, I’m not usually the best at journaling.

When I was a kid, I used to pick up a pretty journal at a bookstore or something like that – I’d take it home and have this very solid week of writing in it daily, and then, like clockwork, I’d stop writing in it. No particular reason, I just couldn’t keep it up. Then I’d see a new journal, think it was pretty, and the cycle would start all over again.

Well, later in life, blogging came about, and that became an easier place for me to jot down my thoughts while also holding myself more accountable to keeping up with it. And just like the old days of journaling, I go through cycles.

Anyhow. Recapping my journaling history isn’t why I’m writing this.

I’m currently sitting on a plane on my way to my first mission trip. I’m going with a group of 16 amazing people from my church, newhope church in Durham, NC, to a small village called Kiria, in the mountainous region of Kenya.

This is something I’ve always wanted to do, but the opportunity just wasn’t ever there. Many time, the big objection (outside) to a trip like this is that people here in the US need our help too. And I completely agree. I love volunteering and helping out in my own community and in my own backyard. But the fact of the matter is, there are people, cultures, and communities outside of our own that need our help too and have a whole lot less resources than we do.

I feel that to be a truly educated person it is so important for us to experience those things outside of our comfort zone and outside of our personal life bubble of the first world.

(Now the journal that 410 Bridge (the organization we are coordinating with on this trip) gave us has some journaling questions that I’m going to use to fuel these entries).

So why am I going? I’m going because I want to serve. Truly. Jesus was the ultimate selfless servant and when you spend your days stressing over overloaded email inboxes, deadlines, bill paying, and the general life drama, it can make it very difficult to get out of that selfish mindset and serve others.

Lately I’ve really tried to be really conscious of how I spend my time. I tend to overwork myself, a lot. And I get caught up in my goings-on and suddenly I look back and I haven’t developed as many meaningful relationships as I would like, or I feel drained rather than fulfilled. So, I try to spend more time with those I love. I’ve made a more conscious effort to tell those whom I have lost touch with that I still love them and think about them often. I try to spend more time listening rather than talking. And I try to serve as much as I can. Getting involved with a small group and the Worship Arts Ministry at newhope has been one of the best decisions I have made in a long time. I feel so refreshed and reenergized after what can sometimes be a very long day of serving. And the friendships and relationships I’m developing are wonderful.

At the end of the day, I just want to help people other than myself, in any way possible.

Now, with any leap of faith comes apprehensions. Going to a third world country so far from home, there are so many unknowns. Will we be received well? Will we be welcomed? Will we develop relationships? Will we serve the people of Kiria in the way they deserve? What will conditions be like? And yeah, no joke, the bathroom situation. The notion of pit latrines isn’t something that exactly excites me. Etc… Etc… The fear of the unknown can be the worst.

So, I’m going to end my current rambling with a thought and a prayer.

I pray for safe travel. We’ve got a layover in London, another 8+ hour flight, and hours of driving ahead of us.
I pray for patience. With a large group, varying personalities, and unexpected challenges, you know that things can get stressful.
I pray for good health. Heck, I had to get so many shots and I’m taking so precautions, but the truth is, you never know what could come about. But needless to say, getting sick on a trip like this would not be fun.
I pray for my teammates. I pray they impact lives and that in turn, their lives are impacted. They’re amazing people and I have no doubt this will happen.
I pray that God breaks our hearts and we allow Him to work through us. Without Him, none of this is possible.

Okay, end of rambling for real this time. Thanks for indulging me.

I love you all.

All for now and much love.

-Molly

My dear friends and family,

I just wanted to do a little post to let you all know that I am all packed up and I am about to head to the airport for my mission trip to Kenya! Ahh! I can’t believe this day is already here.

I want to Thank all of you SO much for your encouragement, your support, your prayers, and everything in between. It really does mean the world to me.

We fly out today (Thursday, July 28th) at 6:15pm from Raleigh-Durham International Airport and we head to London / Heathrow. We then have a three or so hour layover and then head from Heathrow to Nairobi. We will arrive in Nairobi sometime around dinner time EST time tomorrow (Friday, July 28th). Kenya is 7 hours ahead of EST, so you do the math. We return late in the day on Saturday, August 6th (pending our flights are on time and whatnot).

Here’s how you can keep up with us throughout the trip:

I will PERSONALLY be blogging (if I can get internet access) right here on my website: http://www.themollybuckley.com
You can follow our TEAM blog here: http://hmi-nc.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to the team members and their individual prayer requests: http://hmi-nc.blogspot.com/2011/07/2011-kenya-travel-team-members-and.html

Thank you all again so much for being so amazing. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.

All for now.

<3Molly