Home away from Home.

Life in Kenya has it's little ways of reminding you that you're not
home anymore, you're in Africa now. The Kenyan boys rattling your gate
every day asking to play Futbol. Those boys being way better than you
at futbol. The way you put 50 schillings in your pocket before going
on the town, just in the event that you got mugged you would have
something to give him. The people squatting in the street burning a
small fire for no apparent reason at all. The lunch served out of
buckets by a lady for 40 cents. The way the Kenyan workers at the
hangar will stop to talk to you for half an hour… while working. The
sitting in on a heated debate about whether beating your wife is or is
not "the African way." The way you have to get a cab to drive you a
three block distance at night. The chickens roaming the ditches. The
way it is midnight here and I can still hear a festival/political
rally (not sure which one it is) blaring in the distance. The way
Kenyans tell you not what state they come from, but from which tribe
they are from. Funny thing, it all kind of feels like home!

Things are wonderful here in Aff-lrik-aa. Almost so good that it's
strange. Kevin and I are living in a house that has been left vacant
by a missionary family that is back in the States. We have a house
helper named Rose that does our laundry and dishes and buys us
groceries. I feel weird/spoiled having her, but apparently it is
almost offensive in this culture to not have a house helper when you
are middle-class. It also gives another person a way to earn a living
in this employment struggling area. We have been so, so warmly
welcomed by all the Kenyans and the missionary families. Hardly a
night goes by without an invite to someone's house.

Karibu Asana. You are very welcome here. I hear this statement so
often! I feel so welcomed here that I often forget the color of my
skin and feel like not only an honored guest, but part of the family.
Kevin, Lindsey, and I have been invited by Mzee (Swahili meaning
something like "wise old man") to his home 2 hours West of here. Mzee
is perhaps 65 and does every piston engine overhaul at AIM-AIR. His
large family lives out West and he makes the weekly commute. To get to
work he rides his bicycle 10 kilometers into his village, then rides a
matatu (a small uncomfy bus with a driver typically driving like the
eleventh plague is close behind) 2 hours into Nairobi. He then lives
in the Kibera slum during the week, only to return to his home for the
weekend. He is also the pastor of his church in his home village. As
honored guests, Mzee has asked me to preach the sermon at his church,
with a translator and all! When I asked how long to preach, "15
minutes. 2 hours. Whatever God gives you." I'm hoping to talk about
how we have been created for community with other people, just as he
created Eve to be with Adam.

Timothy (TIMO), another one of the Kenyan engineers at the hangar has
also invited me to come visit his home in Western Kenya for a weekend.
He's 27 and has a quick smile. He's the one I had the tire changing
adventure with.

Saturday afternoon I'm hopping an AIM-AIR flight (Either in a Cessna
206 or Caravan) to Gatab, Eastern Kenya. Kevin and I are staying there
with a family until our return in the Samaritan's Purse Beechcraft
King-Air on Monday afternoon. What will we be doing there? I have no
clue. Welcome to Africa.

Carpe Diem,
-Lance