2010 Trip - 30th August

Today was a fairly layback and easy day. We began with a meeting with a person that is a potential local represenative for our organisation Kenya Help. We had lunch with one of Pete's old friends.
After lunch we visited the Kenya National Monument and then the Kenya National Park. It reminded us of our safari last year. We saw some zebras, buffalo, eland, gazelle, antelope, ostrich and giraffes. Rob and Pete have been sharing the driving since we arrived in Kenya. Rob loves the challenge of Nairobi traffic.

2010 Trip - 29th August

Today was a visit to LifeSpring Chapel and to see the playground that we built last year. It is looking well used!
Apparrently hundreds of children enjoy using it every week. We also saw lots of friends who were happy to to us again. We were then able to take Ben (sponsored by Kenya Help) to lunch where he had his very first pizza. He said the meat was too soft! Then the afternoon was spent with our host family from last year. It was so good to see them all.

2010 Trip - 28th August

Well, today was the last day of the seminar and because of the long "short" talks, a long session regarding marriage and the new Kenyan constitution, we didn't get to do what we had planned. Oh well.
We had a great "sex" talk by a Kenyan bishop that made us laugh so much. And we were worried about talking on marital intimacy. Ha!
We had an amazing afternoon. Together with 2 bishops, we married 5 couples and prayed over every other couple present, about 75 couples all up. It was a humbling and at the same time an exciting experience.
It has been wonderful to see changes in marriages and attitudes towards marriages. Even though we have been with them for only 3 days we have seen some dramatic changes. We have been so blessed by the people. We have felt like celebrities (see the banner photo from yesterday) and everyone constantly wants to shake our hands and have photos taken with us. We have learnt so much! It has been beyond our expectations.
It was announced at the closing of the seminar that this will be an annual event and we have been officially invited to return each year.

2010 Trip - 27th August

Well, what a blessing today was!
Each morning has started late with few people but by the end of the day the place is full and jumping. We weren't sure on day one if they were on the same page as us about wanting their marriages to be different. We were so encouraged during today when both men and women were sharing and encouraging each other to be different to their culture (in East Africa the man is the authoritative boss) and be more biblical in their love for their partners. They spoke about wanting to be different but also acknowledged that change will be difficult. Today we saw and heard many breakthroughs!
These are pastors and church leaders and many are planning to return to their churches and challenge the men and women in their congregations about their relationships. We give the honour and glory to God for how he has broken down barriers and is working in the lives of these couples.

2010 Trip - 26th August

Well, what a challenge we faced today!
When we arrived at Dagoretti Corner it was 9am (which is when the seminar was planned to start) but no one was there. We had forgotten about "Kenyan timing"! We probably started about 10:30am but numbers were less than we had been told and many had come without their spouses. Agh!!! What do we do now? Most things planned needed to be done as couples. After all this is a Marriage Enrichment Seminar.
The program for the 3 days was different to what we expected so we had to change things "on the fly" and even cut some things because of time constraints.
By the end of the day there were about 50 people. Tomorrow there will be many more people as it is a holiday. Spouses that were absent today will be able to come and there will also be extra new couples.
Today, we also read in the program that Rob is conducting a wedding on Saturday!!!

2010 Trip - 25th August

We arrived safe and sound in Nairobi.
Our flights weren't too bad and we decide to get a room at Johannesburg airport hotel to try to get some hours sleep. We think we only got 1-2 hours. When we arrived in Nairobi Pete & Keama were there to meet us. We picked up our rental car from Europcar (Toyota Corolla) which is very nice. Then we followed Pete part of the way but had to continue by ourselves to our accommodation without any problems. We arrived at Kijiji about 9pm and Lynette showed us to our room. Lynette remembered us from our last stay at Kijiji in January 2009.
We had a good night's sleep but awoke at 5am.

2010 Trip - ready to go!

Linda and I leave Australia on Tuesday on our long awaited 2010 trip.

We will spend the first 2 weeks in Kenya. The first week we are running a Marriage Enrichment Conference for over 50 pastor couples from Kenya and Uganda. We will also catch up with many of our friends in Kenya and we have some work to do for Kenya Help. Please pray for us as we visit Kenya again and that God would use us to minister to these pastor couples.

After Kenya, we head off to Hungary to see where Linda's father grew up and also catch up with some family. Then we're cruising from Budapest to Amsterdam.

We will post updates here when we are able - internet access permitting.