25 Random Things from Kitale

Today we start a 3-day day camp for Kenyan street kids at the Oasis of Hope center in Kitale. The number of children that live on the street is staggering, this will be by far one of the biggest highlights of the trip.

As everyone gets ready to head out and start this amazing day, I thought it might be fun to post some random stuff about our trip. Enjoy!

• Almost every meal so far has included carrots
• The local "ketchup" is called Peptang and can be bought at some Ralphs in So Cal
• Everyone is allowed to shower every other day
• You have to use bottled water to brush your teeth
• French fries are served with almost every meal
• We've seen lots of monkeys
• Kenyan church does a lot more dancing then we do
• Robby, Cody and Maddy arrived safely yesterday - they got to meet Richard Simmons on one of their flights.
• Mosquito nets cover almost every bed on the compound
• We played ping pong on the dining room table last night
• Everyone is asked to drink 4 big bottles of water each day
• The slugs here are HUGE
• We've been reading excerpts of Doug Fields' 1986 book Creative Dating and laughing out loud.
• Africa wakes up early - each day the sounds of wildlife greet us before we get out of bed
• Allison Hibbard's face keeps showing up all over the place
• Students were reminded to capture moments with their cameras/Flip videos, but to focus on people not pictures. They're doing a great job with that!
• Nothing tastes better than a ice cold bottled Coke after a long day.
• Being this close to the equator, you get sunburned pretty easily. Most people have learned this by listening to instructions, others are learning from experience.
• The internet is slow ... but we have it!
• We're hoping to visit the Kitale Club and go swimming tonight
• Some of the trees/terrain are straight out of the Lion King - and "a cunama tatta" actually means "no worries" in Swahili
• The pecking order of the animal kingdom - Lion-hiena-vulture-Phil Chenery.
• The group is divided up into 4 vans that drive us around from place to place. Each trip is an adventure, the roads are wild here!
• Saddleback is helping local churches with medical trips, clean water programs and so much more. God is doing a big work here.
• The electricity went off for brief periods about 5 times yerterday
• The official language is English, but many/most speak swahili as well
• The black mamba is one of the most deadliest snakes in the world. Haven't seen any yet!
• Sunscreen and bug spray are a kids' best friend.

No idea if that is actually 25 or not, but it is time to head out for the day!

Josh Griffin