Catching Up...

I've been a bad blogger! It's been a long while since I sat down to update my page, partly due to computer problems, partly due to busyness, and partly due to a general sense of apathy that I'm going to blame on the climbing temperatures here in Mombasa. In any case, I'm back, and here's a taste of what's been happening lately...

The sunsets off my verandah are still the best show in town. I try to take advantage of my front-row seat as often as my schedule allows!

Anjela is getting bigger all the time! She is walking like a champ now, she has four and a half teeth, and she says a lot of words. She can name all her best friends, though my name comes out sounding a little like "Diyahhhh".

She's also got a great Stevie Wonder impersonation! haha...

Last week I let Jacinta braid my hair. I'll be taking it out soon - it's too hot to carry around so much hair right now - but it's been fun! People say I look African now. I'm not so sure...

This spider moved in this week. He spun a huge web on my bedroom verandah. I know it's hard to tell in this picture, but he's roughly the size of my hand (open palm). I took my broom to his web today and moved him back out. Sorry, big guy.

Mostly, I've been spending lots of time with the worship team at church. We're getting ready for Christmas now, and I'll be helping with the Christmas play as well as the music. It's pretty fun. After years of singing in holiday concerts and acting in plays, getting involved in this production makes the Christmas season feel a little more real to me, even despite the heat.

Yearbook Yourself!

I was reading the great blog of an old college friend of mine, and she mentioned a website that turned out to be the evening's entertainment last night! It's called Yearbook Yourself. It will show you what your yearbook photo might have looked like if you graduated in 1958, or 1998, or anywhere in between! All my results were laugh-out-loud funny, but here are just a few of my favorites...

If I graduated in 1968, I would apparently have had the neck of a giraffe!

In 1978, the year I was born, I would have looked like this! It's so humid in Mombasa that my hair really does look like this most of the time these days...

Mm. 1982. A good year for hairspray.

And perhaps a personal favorite, 1964! Oh, dear...

The Thought Does Count

Ramadan began today. All my Muslim friends have started fasting during the daylight hours. One friend explained to me that the fast is meant to help the poor. Instead of using your money to buy food for yourself, you are supposed to give the money (or some food) to the poor. You share in their sufferings for a season by depriving yourself of food. I know Ramadan is significant for many reasons, and the meaning varies from person to person (much like Christmas in the West). This is how my friend explained it to me, however, and I like the idea that there exists in the world a month when the rich become poor that the poor might be rich.

I met the Omondi’s and their visitor Abby for lunch today at Leonardo’s, a paradise of homemade Italian Gelato and fresh pasta, located within dangerously close walking distance of my home. I ordered a Hawaiian pizza and only finished half, so I carried the rest home with me. I decided to give it to Hassani, the gardener in my apartment complex who is always ready to help me carry things upstairs. I told him to come get it when his work was done. I didn’t want to tempt him to eat in the middle of the day. So, about 20 minutes ago, he knocked on my door, and I opened to find him holding a small bowl with something wrapped in a green leaf and tied with twine. He said with a big smile, “I have come with your food!” So I went and got his package of pizza, and he left me with this… thing. He didn’t tell me what it was called – only that it is somehow related to a banana, and his mother used to make it for breakfast. I wish I could post smells on the internet, because I’ve never smelled anything quite like it. (I smelled it behind closed doors, of course, for smelling food in front of the person offering it is offensive here.) And the taste… well, there is definitely something banana-ish in there, and it’s a little smoky, and mostly it tastes like a dense loaf of nothing much. Even so, that small token brightened my whole day!

Say What?

I think Arabic is a pretty language to look at, but it's tough when I need to know what it says! Here in Mombasa where so many of our products are imported from the Middle East, I run into trouble sometimes. It makes me appreciate the marketing geniuses who came up with the logos for some of the world's biggest brands. Do you recognize these?

I've heard some pretty funny stories from people in countries that use different symbols for their alphabet. One friend of mine in Asia once brushed her teeth with hemorrhoid cream. Someone else I know used powdered sugar instead of flour in a tortilla recipe. It's a dangerous world out there...

(By the way, the answers are Diet Coke, Colgate, and Ritz)

I'm Not a "Lady in Waiting"...

While in Nairobi last week I stayed in the guest house of the International Bible Society. They have a Christian bookstore on their campus which is awesome for several reasons. One: it has the best price on Bibles in all of East Africa. Two: You can get Bibles in any Kenyan tribal language there is a translation for. Three: They have cool mugs. Four: I really like Judy, the girl who works behind the counter.

Sadly, there is one thing I regret about the place. Apart from the great Bibles, there isn’t much in that shop (easily the biggest Christian bookstore in Kenya) that isn’t fluff. Now, there may be some diamonds hiding among the… shall we say cubic zirconium?... but I’m always disappointed to find the patently shallow array of Christian self-help books and romance novels (I think we like to call it Spiritual Growth and Christian Fiction).

I have little patience for the literary (and musical) mediocrity of the evangelical world, but there is one thing I find particularly intolerable. Have you ever walked down the Women’s aisle in a Christian bookstore? Let me share with you most of the titles I found on the shelf at IBS.

Date… or Soul Mate? (How to know if someone is worth pursuing in two dates or less)
Becoming the Woman of His Dreams (Seven Qualities Every Man Longs For)
More than a Match (How to Turn the Dating Game into Lasting Love)
Dating With Passion (More than Rules, More than a Courtship, More than a Formula)
Sassy, Single, and Satisfied (Secrets to Loving the Life you’re Living)
Women Making a Difference in Marriage
Preparing for Marriage
A Wife After God’s Own Heart
A Mom After God’s Own Heart

There were a few other books about motherhood and marriage (including His Needs, Her Needs, and a potentially amusing offshoot called Mommy’s Needs, Daddy’s Needs, where I can only assume the author tries to convince young children that their parents have needs too, by golly, and you should give them a little more space). Then there is one devotional book for busy moms. Sadly, I’ve just inventoried the entire section for you.

Have you ever heard a single woman say, “I don’t feel like my life is worth anything until I get married and have kids.” What did you say to that woman? What would you say?

What is the Women’s section in the Christian bookstore saying?

What is the Church saying?

Let’s pretend for a moment that I’m a new Christian, and I’d like to know what the Church believes about singleness. If the bookstore is anything to go by, the job of a single woman is to make herself as attractive as she can and do whatever necessary to attract a man, then get married and have children as soon as possible. Then she will spend the rest of her life trying to make that marriage and those kids “work for her”.

Please hear me, I’m not trying to say that the Church should stop helping young women prepare for marriage and motherhood. I know many young women whose hearts’ desire is to be a wife and mom, and I believe that is a worthy calling. But I believe the Church has erred by bending to the world in this area, and it has placed an unhealthy focus on finding “true love”, which isn’t really true at all, and has called women away from the truths of the Bible. The Bible says if you can stay single, you should, for as long as you are single, you are able to devote yourself wholly to God and the things that concern Him. (That’s in 1 Corinthians 7.)

Well, this is a big topic, and I’m going to write more about it in the coming weeks and months. I hope you’ll feel free to comment on what I write, and even share your experiences if you like. I’m sure it would enrich my own study.

No Need for Miracle Gro!

I always tell people I have a missionary nose. Either I don’t smell very well, or I just don’t notice (the latter option is more consistent with my character J). My friend Cristina has a very sensitive nose, which is unfortunate, because she lives in Bolivia, where I’ve experienced some of the worst odors I’ve smelled to date. I’m really glad Cristina wasn’t in my house this week when I got back from Nakuru. There was a little science experiment growing in my kitchen in a pot. Two weeks ago, when I was here last, I made some oatmeal for breakfast, then put the cover on it and promptly forgot all about it (see what I mean about my character?). Now, this isn’t the first time a dirty dish has escaped my notice for a couple weeks. But this is the first time it’s happened in an un-air conditioned apartment on the equator. Whatever grew in that pot produced an odor even I couldn’t miss! I had to wrap a bandana around my face to keep from gagging while I cleaned it out.

While traveling with our visitors from Denton, we remarked a lot how small potted plants in the US grow to almost Jurassic proportions here. For instance, Americans have little potted poinsettias on our tables at Christmas time. Here they grow into 20-foot tall trees! Lantana, those sweet little ground covering flowers that sit just a couple inches off the ground in so many Texas lawns grow into giant bushes in Nairobi. Below are a few pictures of the mammoth flora we saw. Most of the time, it’s a good thing that things grow bigger and faster here. Unless you’re talking about that pot in my kitchen. But I won’t show you a picture of that.

A poinsettia tree!

Gayle said she has one of these, but it's tiny!

Schneicky, that's big!

Moved and Connected

After a month of moving, hosting visitors, and traveling, I have signed away the inheritance of any future children I may have in a contract with the most reliable (for that, read least incompetent) internet service provider in Ukunda. I no longer pay more for internet service than I pay to rent my flat. Sadly, that's only true because my rent increased! But, this is Africa, and I'm just happy to be online again!

I have so much to share from the last month! In the next few days I hope to post some things I've been saving. Be sure to check back!

Life in the Waiting Room...

Just hangin' out.

I haven't posted anything in a while. That's because life has been pretty plodding lately. It seems that I'm living in a waiting room.

I've packed and moved most of the things that will fit in my car. Now I'm waiting for the end of the month to hire a truck to carry my furniture to my new flat and finish my move.

I'm waiting for the carpenter to finish constructing my new dining room table. Sure, it was supposed to be ready almost two months ago, but that's okay, because everytime I talk to him, he assures me it will be ready tomorrow. Funny thing about tomorrow (as a wise young redhead once sang) - it's always a day away.

I'm waiting for my best friend to arrive. Rachael is coming to spend three weeks with me. Wednesday night seems so far away!

All this waiting is a little unsettling. But who likes to be settled, anyway?

You never know where your stuff will end up...

Did your mom ever tell you that you should clean your plate, "because there are starving kids in Africa"? If you were a sassy kid like me, you might have wondered, to yourself or out loud, how you would ever get your food to Africa, because you'd gladly give it away.

Well, sometimes your stuff might actually make its way to Africa. There is a store in town called Soko Ndogo, or "small market". It has the look of a garage sale, and that's basically what it is. Things end up there that don't sell in the Goodwill's and Salvation Army's of the US. It's obvious that it all comes direct from America, because it's stuff you can't find anywhere else here in Mombasa. I've found many useful things there, such as ice cube trays and cast iron skillets. I've also found some pretty random stuff, like the Mickey Mouse Talking Telephone that I had when I was a kid, Bernstein Bear books (I'm saving them to read with kids who come to visit), and a fly swatter in the shape of Indiana. But every once in a while, I find something truly bizarre. Something that hits so close to home that I forget I'm in Africa for a moment. This week, I found a Minnesota State Lottery travel mug! It's got a loon on it and everything! Can you imagine the incredible journey that mug must have taken to get here? How many hands it must have passed through? And now it's back in the hands of a Minnesotan, though half a world away!

If you ever wondered where your freebie plastic cups go when you donate them to Goodwill... you know, the ones from the Municipal Fire Safety Campain, or the Coffeyville Colts 7th Annual Dance-a-thon, or the Summerpalooza concert you went to back in 1992 - the answer is... they end up here. In Mombasa, Kenya, on the coast of the Indian Ocean. Who would have guessed?

My new favorite mug!

The Backwards Bridal Shower!

The people on the Serve:Kenya team have some really wonderful friends! This week Allison received not one, not two, but three large boxes from her friends back home in North Carolina. It was a baby shower in a box! Okay, technically it was a baby shower in three boxes.

The men were all away in Nairobi this week, so Allison and I, along with our newest arrival Jessi, decided to have a baby shower! Allison's friends actually sent muffin mix and plates so we could do it up right. The theme of our evening was the "backwards baby shower," because everything was backwards. Most showers are thrown before the baby is born; this one happened afterward! Most shower guests bring gifts; we didn't have any! So we wore our clothes backwards and had a fun time laughing and opening up all the boxes. Seeing all the gifts laid out on the floor was truly an amazing sight!

Mama for a weekend...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take care of my "niece", baby Anjela, while Dennis and Allison went away to celebrate their anniversary. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work!

Before the Omondi's left, we celebrated the 4th of July with the turtles and giraffes at Haller Park...

We also fed the giraffes. They have looooong tongues! (I guess that's why they need all that neck!)

Dennis and Allison left, and Anjela and I celebrated the 4th of July again on the 5th by going to the beach to meet some friends. Here is Anjela playing with her favorite toy: my car keys...

The next day was Sunday, and we went to church to hear Uncle Ben preach at Word of Life. Ben did a great job. Sadly, Anjela slept through the whole thing!

Back at home again, we just hung out. We got out the camera and worked on our acting skills a little. I like to call this next little photo montage, "The Many Faces of Anjela".

Okay, Anjela, let's get started. First, smell your feet and pretend they are stinky.

Now show me suspense...

Hm. We have to work on that one. Okay, now do sad.

That's a good one! Now give me your best Dana Carvey Church Lady impression. "Well isn't that special."

How about worry and concern?

And for the grand finale... the face you do best: Happy!!!

Independence Day

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. I spent a little time this evening reading the Declaration of Independence. I feel a sense of responsibility about the holidays I celebrate. It's so easy to lose the significance of these special days, I guess because they come back around every year, along with taxes and teeth cleanings. But I don't think it's fair to allow ourselves a day of celebration if we don't take an interest in what we're celebrating - it's like we're throwing a birthday party without inviting the birthday girl. I wonder how many people today think Christmas is about a fat guy with a beard and Easter is about a bunny who lays eggs. What does it all mean?

On July 4th, 1776 (232 years ago), a group of men got together and drafted the Declaration of Independence. The colonies of America would no longer recognize the authority of the British government in their affairs. The beginning of the document is very familiar: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Then the document goes on to spell out the grievances of the people of America against the British crown. The basic idea is that a people should not be ruled by a governing body which is in no way accountable to them. If no one in Britain had the best interests of the American people at heart, then the American people should not be forced to submit to their rule.

As a Christian who believes that the Bible is the final moral authority, that doesn't sit well with me 100%. I love America - it is my home - but I can't help but wonder if our preoccupation with the idea of freedom, which is obvious even in our earliest document as a nation, is somehow harmful to us. In truth, we are all slaves to something. This is a deep and complicated thought, and it's late, but it's something I'll be thinking about tomorrow as I celebrate Independence Day.

The Fathers of our nation believed that "all men are created equal." Well, all except "the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." Yep - that's in there too.

I don't want to rain on the parade. Literally. Going to the 4th of July parade at my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jimmy's house every year is one of my favorite memories of childhood. Tomorrow I'm going to Haller Park with my team, a place where you can pet 150 year-old giant tortoises and feed giraffes from your hand, and I'm going to celebrate the birthday of a great nation, which I am fortunate to call my home. But I'm learning that even our successes are mingled with impure motives and sinful attitudes. My "American-ness" should never rank above my Christianity. I do pray that God will bless America. And may He bless every other nation on earth as well!

Happy 4th of July!

It's an Obamanation!

We followed this matatu (the most common form of public transportation here in Kenya) on our way back from church yesterday! The side said "Vote4Obama". I wonder if they know they can't vote?

Mtwapa Conference

I haven't taken a shower since Friday. Why not, you ask? Because here in Mombasa, we have to buy water from a guy with plastic jugs and a cart, and I haven't had time to even walk downstairs to find the guy and ask him to come!

The second women's conference was this weekend, and it went very well. The ladies exceeded our expectations in many ways. First, in sheer numbers! There were about 75 women in attendance. Second, in punctuality. Kenyans are not very good at keeping time, but these ladies were there before we were! Third, in perseverance. Some women came from 60 kilometers away to attend the conference, and other women who lived nearby opened their homes to them. We heard from a few women that their non-Christian husbands don't approve of them going to conferences, so some of them snuck out to be there! (I can't endorse the behavior, but I still admire the determination...) And the ladies were all there every day!

Teaching was fun, but I'm glad it's over, and I'm in much need of some rest. This week will be mainly a time for rest and recuperation. A lot of things have taken a backseat to these conferences this month, so I will try to return to my normal habits and disciplines. First on my list: get some water and take a shower!

Some of the women who attended the Mtwapa conference!

Safari!

Here are some pictures from the safari I went on recently with the team and our summer short-term visitors!

Great tree!

He looks ferocious, but he's just yawning.

Mama Lion

and lion cubs

Water Buffalo

An ostrich couple out for a stroll

This is a termite hill. Seriously.

Baboons hang out in clans close to lodges. They like people food.

This elephant almost charged us!

gotta love a giraffe!

I wonder what he's thinking about...

This little kitty heard Anjela crying and thought she might make a tasty dinner.

Ujamaa Conference

Hi! I know it's been a long time since I last wrote. Last week I was on safari with some of our guests from America, and this week I've been teaching a women's conference in a village called Ujamaa. Thirty pastor's wives and church leaders came to the conference from over ten different churches, and we had a great time together! This is the first time I've done anything like this, and it was fun, challenging, and exhausting! Below are a few pictures of the women's conference. I'll add pictures of the safari soon!

The women on the last day of the conference (today!)

Teaching about the Beauty of a Godly Woman with my translator Evalyn

The ladies listened attentively

Several of the women brought their small children with them

On the last day we all had lunch together - Allison and some yummy pilau!