Saturday, Lupe's Birthday in Nairobi

Saturday May 14th, Lupe’s Birthday in Nairobi
Our day began with a 5am breakfast for those of us going to a wild game park on the city limits of Nairobi. There were less than 5 hours of sleep possible, but in fact we all got anywhere from zero sleep to maybe 2 hours of on and off sleep at the most. This early hour was necessary to give us the most chance of seeing nocturnal animals as they began heading off to bed themselves. It also helps to shock us into a time zone that is 8 hours ahead of our own CST so that we will be more effective when we start work Monday at the clinic. The entrance fee was a nice surprise as it was only $40 in U.S. money. Those of us who had gone during any previous November trip remembered it being $60. We all road in the big bus that we had taken from the airport the night before and it was pretty full, with about 25 of us opting for the game park. Others were able to leave at more respectable hours to see the Karen Blitzen House and Museum and a factory where beads and beaded products are made. Our first hour and a half of the safari was just OK, during which we saw plenty of giraffes up close and personal, elands, water buffalo, water bucks, ostriches and severals species of birds, including crested cranes. We felt like it had been a good, but not great morning so far. All that changed. Leslie and another member of the group spotted a lioness in a distant tree that the rest of us completely missed. We had our driver, Boniface, back up about 50 yards for a better view and then those of us with a range of fancy cameras proceeded to work our zooms pretty hard, since we were at least a couple of hundred yards away from her. I wound up with a very nice shot of her lounging in a nook about halfway up the tree. Not long after that, we ran across quite a few velvet monkeys near the road and enticed them in closer to us by throwing them a banana and some nuts and dried fruit. They put on quite a show for us and we were a little concerned they might jump into a bus window in order to get some more goodies. We rounded out the end of the trip with some great pictures of baboons hamming it up right near the exit of the park. Our next stop was the Veranda restaurant, where we sat outside and enjoyed a beautiful birthday lunch with everyone singing Happy Birthday and God’s Blessings to You in four part Lutheran harmony for our friend Lupe. We got back to the Norwegian compound about 2:30 and I got a much needed 20 minute nap, after which I went over to the LCMS World Missions office and began work on 2 computer that need some maintenance. This was also the first chance to let our loved ones know via email that we arrived safely and I was able to post our first report about our travel. I walked the several hundred yards back to the Scripture House for worship, which was led by Shauen Trump, our LCMS missionary here. He had a wonderful, inspiring message that explained the unusual Moroccan derivation of his first name also was very encouraging about how the Lord protects those he calls, based on Psalm 121. I’ll never pray that Psalm the say way again. We relaxed for a while, I bought a shirt from the local ladies and then we had dinner around 7pm. We fellowshipped with our fellow missionaries on our last evening as a large group, some of us did some refresher training on their assigned clinic stations and Howard and I ended the evening by attending a leaders meeting to go over final details for the week. It was led by Gus Jacob, Paul Althoff and Kevin Pieper of Salem Lutheran Church and I found it very uplifting. What great mentors they have been to all of the churches that have been blessed to share in their mission ministry. Lupe was in bed when I got back to the room because he had arranged a very special treat. He was going to work with our cooks starting at 4am to make breakfast tacos for the early teams that would be having breakfast at 6:30am before their travels to the outlying clinics. It is impossible to stop him from using his special gifts for hospitality. Of course, we would never try, but this does explain why we gain weight on every trip he is involved with!