Thursday - June 27 2019

It’s early – 4:24 AM when the rooster started crowing.  Someone needs to buy him a wristwatch!  (Do roosters have wrists?).  It was a restful night.  I went to bed after I finished my “Enron” book.  They all go to jail, shocked that the American people couldn’t see how great their company was and how wise they were!  Anyway, I rested quite well from about 9 PM till 4:24. 

I took a shower using the feature my room has that is rare here – a water heater.  Bishop was so proud of that water heater!  Guess what – it didn’t work.  The water was as cold as could be.  I waited and waited.  Finally, I gave up and took a fast cold one. 

I also toured the facilities where our team will be sleeping.  I’m so excited for them – this is Africa at its best!  While the rooms are lovely and the beds are soft and fitted with nice bed coverings, this isn’t the Hilton.  There’s no air / heat other than the windows.  There’s no fine cookware.  No televisions.  No concierge.  Very little wifi.  Just us with each other.  And I couldn’t be more excited to see what God does with this. 

It’s 5:14 AM now.  I can hear the voices of the girls from their dormitory singing praise songs.  It’s beautiful!  The boys are the other way from where I am.  I don’t hear anything from them.  J

Speaking of praise songs, when we were driving yesterday, the radio was on to Kenyan Christian radio.  A Kari Jobe song came on, but it wasn’t Kari singing it.  I recognized it as her song by the tune but it was in Swahili.  I smiled as a listened thinking about her coming to our church in August and sharing that story with her. 

Today is my “play day” one might say.  I get to be a tourist today.  And on Saturday morning as well – then, Bishop wants to take me to the Elephant orphanage down the road from the school.  As for today, Bishop and I are going to a wild life preserve near Naivasha.  I’m not really sure what to expect since I’ve never been on an African safari before – at least not in Africa (the one at DisneyWorld I mean).  I can say with confidence Bishop is excited!  Apparently, this is something he doesn’t do either.  Just driving around, we’ve seen wild zebras, several sets of baboons (begging for food by the roadside if you can believe that), long-tailed monkeys and some African hornbill birds flying overhead (When I saw it, I shouted “LOOK!”  Bishop was panicked until he realized it was just a bird.  He laughed at me but I didn’t care.  I’d never seen one actually flying – only in zoos!).  But no large game other than the zebras.  Today will be different.    

Tomorrow, we will get back to work.  We will begin a two-day section on the doctrine of God with the Bible college students.  We will do part 1 tomorrow and part 2 on Monday.  We have advanced our schedule because I got here earlier than planned.  I am eager to begin our study with them. 

It’s night time now and we’re back home from the park.  We drove three hours northwest to Hells Gate National Park and Preserve near Naivasha.  The drive was shockingly beautiful.  Riding along the edge of the Rift Valley rim, we saw the entire valley floor below us.  Off in the distance, we could see Mt Longonot marking part of the Massai tribal area.  It didn’t take long to recognize we were in a far different place than I had ever been.  From the traffic (horrific) to the driving skills (even worse) to the roads (one road we were on was an insult to bad roads – this road was bad even by Kenyan standards), it was clear this was not Texas.

Soon enough, we arrived at the park, paid our fees and went in the drive.  While all of us have probably seen the animals we saw, it’s a completely different experience to see them in their natural habitat.  Our zoos at home spend thousands of dollars to make these animals look like they did right here.  We saw a herd of zebras – several hundred at least.  To the point where Bishop and I were like “Oh it’s nothing – just another zebra!”  We saw a herd of antelope.  Apparently, we spooked them when we drove up (we saw only three other vehicles in a 2000 acre park).  They ran and jumped across the road in front of us.  Hundreds of them.  I tried to remember to take pictures but it was so incredible to see them like this I could not help but sit with my mouth open.  We saw LOTS of warthogs and tried to communicate with them.  Pygmy deer (known as dik-diks), hundreds of baboons, 3 giraffes, Thompson gazelles and a gazelle / deer animal I had never seen before.  I’ll do my best to post pictures of our ride, but our internet is weak so it may have to wait till I get home to Texas. 

We stopped for lunch at the Geothermal Spa at the top of the park.  Mt Longonot is a volcano.  They did their best to use their resources well as the steam from the volcano is channeled and used for electrical generation.  An entrepreneur figured out a way to purify the water so he built a humongous swimming pool where he charges admission.  It was worth the drive up to see that. 

We drove home the way we came – 3 hours back.  The traffic seemed worse going home.  The street lights and road markings are poor compared to ours at home.  I couldn’t see a doggone thing.  I was glad Bishop was driving.