Made it to Nairobi!!

Jambo!

I made it to Nairobi... but not to Eldoret! We landed at 6AM yesterday morning, waited in line 2 hours for a visa, recieved ALL of our luggage (YAY!), and found a man holding a sign that said RENTON/WOOD. I felt pretty awesome. He was hecka friendly and spoke english... and I'm finding that most of the Kenyans I'm meeting are really nice and speak english... we'll see how things are different once I'm out of Nairobi. We drove an hour to the Mayfeild Guest House for our "day room" so we can rest and eat before our flight to Eldoret at 4PM. Nairobi is beautiful! Surprisingly it is cold and cloudy, and it must be getting lots of rain because it is very green and lush. There are lots of big buildings, traffic, and construction, like most big cities. I just can't believe I'm in Africa!!!!

As soon as Somerlyn and I layed down, we instantly fell asleep for 3 hours... probably the most glorious nap of my entire life. Shortly after we awoke, Michelle, the nurse from ELI that we will be working with all month arrived at our door to take us out to lunch. She is coincidentally in Nairobi for a few days taking care of business. It was great to finally meet her and talk face to face after emailing for months. Her blog is posted on the right of my page if you wanna check it out... she has some powerful stories to share! I'm really excited to live in her shoes for the next 4 weeks. The only advice she could give us was to be flexible... and we've already needed it. We drove from lunch to the airport to catch our flight to find out that it was cancelled, then rescheduled, and our names were not switched to the new flight. Long story short, we were put on a flight for the next day and they paid for a night at the Mayfield.

So here I am at the Mayfield still! They only had a single room available so I slept on a mattress on the floor, but it was really comfortable and I slept like a baby. I've been meeting a ton of missionaries from America and they are all so awesome and inspirational. Many of them are doctors and nurses so it's been fun hearing their stories. I can't believe how many families and young children are here. These people are so brave... one woman I met today from Minnesota has a 2 y/o, 3 y/o, and is pregnant!! She is living here for a year and planning to give birth here in Kenya in March... wow.

Somerlyn and I had a really amazing night last night. We had the whole night to relax, think, pray, catch up on life, and rewind from the travels. We talked about everything we are excited about and all of our fears and insecurities entering into this adventure, and I am just so grateful to share this journey with one of my closest friends. We got a little homesick and it's been 4 days of traveling and we still are not at our destination... nor had we showered, slept a night, or changed our clothes! It was a moment of weakness and brokenness, but it was beautiful to surrender everything to God and trust that He is with us. I realize that I have SO MUCH to learn, see, and experience, and I'm totally okay to be in a place of trust and faith, because I know I can't do this on my own. I'm going to face a lot of challenges in the clinic and orphanage, and I'm ready to take them on with faith alone. I'm excited about everything we are going to experience together and to come home and hold each other accountable to what we learned and how we grew.

Thanks for reading all of this rambling!! We head out to Eldoret in 6 hours (hopefully) and I won't have easy internet access there. On Wednesday we are leaving on a 4 day trip to a village called Illula that ELI runs where we are going to do kindergarten check-ups on all the kids at the orphanage there! I will post next as soon as possible...

Please pray for continued safety and that God would use us and work in us anyway He wants to... I love you all and miss you guys so much!

true life: i am blessed!

I just arrived in London and I am waiting for my 9:30 tube to Green Park and Westminster. I'm drinking an Apple Tango... delicious! Wow.. my journey has hardly begun but I can already feel God working and moving. First of all, my seat from LAX to London was bomb.com... somehow I had 2 feet of leg room (like I neeeded it) and I got to sit next to a rad young french couple returning from their vacation in California. We chatted it up and it got me stoked. I love meeting people in airports and airplanes! Now to the coolest part... 3 hours into the flight, my beautiful wonderful roomie Somerlyn brings out 2 giant envelopes- one with her name on it and one with mine. Of course, I recognized the handwriting immediately as Stacie Champine!! She has been my mentor at APU since freshman year and is a freaking amazing woman and such an encouraging friend. Apparently she put together a collection of encouraging letters from my friends to take on my trip and it was such an exciting surprise. It was so fun to hear the voices of my friends in their letters. I know I will be reading them often in kenya, along with even more notes from friends and family from home. Dang friends.... thank you thank you thank you! I feel so blessed by you all. Laura.... we have already completed half of your missions ;) You guys are the best!

Overall, my flight was painless. 10 hours went by surprisingly quickly! I didn't sleep a wink, so hopefully I'll fall asleep on my next flight. I'm taking off in 11 hours for Nairobi! I'll keep you posted. Please pray that both Somey and I get our luggage! I had some issues checking in my baggage this morning so I'm a bit worried I won't get them right away in Kenya. Love you guys!!

Leaving in 2 days!

Hey friends... this is going to be my crazy attempt at blogging. This is probably the best way to follow me while I'm gone, but I will send out emails too. I'm not very good at this so try to hang with me! I'm really really really excited about my trip and I've been packing all day. Hopefully I will have some opportunities to post weekly on this thing and include pictures! Next time you hear from me... I'll be on Pride Rock singing the song from the opening scene of the Lion King. I love you all and I'm so grateful for your love and support. See you in September!