A Big Sunday in Nairobi

The teams that were heading out into the field for Trinity Klein were staggered, with the first one leaving after a 7am breakfast.  I got the best Saturday night's sleep ever, I must have been exhausted from the huge safari and other Saturday activities plus the short night on Friday night after our travel.  I managed to sleep all but about a half an hour between 10 pm and 6:30 am.  I had breakfast with the early team and took a group picture for them with one of their phones and with one of my cameras for good measure. 

I visited with other teams and continued having some coffee while Alex had his breakfast.  Cynthia started having stomach problems on Saturday and we all agreed it would be best if she just took care of herself rather than joining us for worship.  It proved to be a good decision, since the church service from beginning to end was three hours and fifty two minutes and it was all incredible.  I saw my old friend Bishop Bakari Kea before church and when he had Alex and I introduce ourselves to the congregation, he said there was no need to introduce Dave because everybody already knew him!  He loves to give me a hard time.  Alex said a few words about himself and we were greeted warmly by the congregation.  During my remarks, I said it was good to be back home, since Kibera was the first location I was a team leader for back in 2010 and I have always been treated like family there.  As usual, the music was outstanding and included children's choirs, several women's and inter-generational choirs and everything from standard hymns to African music to praise songs that people in our 10:45 service know by heart.  And it all was absolutely excellent.  A guest preacher delivered the sermon and our friend Isaac with Nuru Lutheran Hour ministries translated into Swahili for him. 

Alex being blessed

During one phase of the worship, people were called to be prayed over by Bishop Kea, Isaac, the preacher and our evangelist friend Francis.  It was very moving, each person, including Alex, was prayed over individually for several minutes.  I'm sure when Alex looks back on this trip, this will be one of the signature moments for him.  It was very moving for me because I saw many people who have become life long friends through these mercy missions.

After church, we went to the Junction Mall and had lunch with Isaac.  Cynthia joined us and at a light meal.  After lunch, we went to the large store in the mall that is similar to a Super Walmart and bought the incidentals we would need for the clinic like paper towels, glass cleaner, hand sanitizer, water for our personal use, etc.  We got back to Rosa Mystica a little after 4 and had free time to relax until a 7 pm meeting we had to discuss the layout of the clinic and what it would take to get it up and running as efficiently as possible Monday morning. 

At the meeting, I used a layout I had drawn that we used during our last clinic at Kibera that had worked well and explained step by step the workflow that we usually followed.  Bill Goodoff from Salem was also there, having arrived from serving on a mission last week near the Tanzanian border.  He is joining our team and is a valuable addition as he is also a veteran of many clinics and can do most any job needed.  It will be like having a second leader to help out and use as a sounding board.  He will be joining me for several days of wildlife photo safaris after the clinic, something I'm really looking forward to.  He had some good input on when to send children directly to the doctors and other ways of doing business that I'm sure will pan out nicely.

Well, it's nearing bedtime and tomorrow will be a big day, the opening of a clinic is always a minor miracle in itself.  Things won't run very smoothly at first and we will be correcting problems with paperwork and traffic control for the bulk of the day after physically getting the clinic set up.  Luckily, it's been rainy lately and the first day is generally the slowest, allowing us to iron out snags as they arise before we hit our stride as the week progresses.  More to follow after the clinic tomorrow!  Please keep us in your prayers for a safe and effective mission as we care for the vision and spiritual needs of the people the God brings to us this week!

Saturday safari, etc.

I was able to manage about 4 hours of sleep between 1 am and 5:15 am, not bad for being all wound up from travel.  Our flights were great this trip, mostly smooth, friendly cabin crew, interesting people to talk to sitting with me, good food, etc.  Unfortunately, the theme of this trip from the start has been long lines in very hot rooms with cranky people.  It began in Houston and carried over to our arrival at Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi.  We arrived right on time at 8:10 pm and then proceeded to take nearly an hour to get through the visa line.  We picked up our luggage pretty quickly after that since it had already been off loaded from the conveyor belts due to how long the visa process took.  Next, we found out that they had implemented at new system for customs, scanning every bag that was leaving the place of folks that declared nothing to claim on their forms.  That line was the better part of an hour and all three of us got flagged by the x-ray machine for our suitcases with the clinic supplies in them.  A customs agent tore us apart and was trying to determine the value of our supplies so that we could pay a duty tax on them.  Even after I protested that it was all for donation, he still insisted we must pay.  I was very tired and a little grouchy, so the next thing I knew I was his office, one on one.  I knew other teams had paid as much as $400 to enter the country and I told him I might as well get on the next plane home if they couldn't let us serve the Kenyan people at our own expense.  Then, I decided since we were alone, I would play the humor card.  While he was putting figures in a spreadsheet on his computer, I told him that this was my 19th trip to Kenya and I wanted to marry a Kenyan woman so I could become a citizen.  The only problem was that all of my Kenyan friends had told me I was not strong enough for a Kenyan woman.  We both laughed until we almost cried and when he finished his figuring, the possible $400 duty had become 3,280 Kenyan shillings.  At first I thought he wanted $3000, but quickly realize that he had magically reduced the cost to about $30.  He walked me over to the currency exchange and I paid the tax on the spot and made a new friend.  I even got a receipt and may not turn it in, but frame it instead since it's such a good story.  I'm sure he was so used to upset people that I caught him off guard with my joke at my own expense.  All's well that ends well except for all the waiting.  We finally got to Rosa Mystica after 12, I got a shower and was finally in bed around 1am.

We had an early breakfast a 6 am and were on the road to the game park by 6:30.  That's when the curse of the long lines kicked in again.  Catherine, our superstar project coordinator, had already wired Friday to the park office to pre-pay for our safaris so that we could drive right in.  The money didn't appear on the other end, so we waited for over an hour while our 3 drivers stood in line to purchase our entry to the park.  Even so, we had one of the best mornings of animals and birds I've ever seen and were done by about 12.30 pm.  Stay tuned here and on my Facebook Page, pictures will begin appearing shortly after the trip.

We had lunch at the Veranda, a nice outdoor venue and then went back to Rosa Mystica for much needed naps and showers.  Our day ended with a worship service of all of the team members, Catherine's Pastor delivered a nice message, I got to do a devotion, we had a Kenyan Choir sing for us and by 6 pm or so we were done and heading for dinner.  That's about it for now, I'm hoping to sleep well tonight, but it's usually Sunday or Monday before we're really in the groove.

Blessings everybody!

Pre-safari Thoughts on a Saturday

Hi Folks!

Just a quick note at 5:30am as I get ready to head to breakfast and then off to our safari at 6:30.  Our prayers were answered and we had a safe and relatively uneventful last leg of our trip to Nairobi, until we got to the airport.  We arrive at 8:10, right on time, but then had another two and a half hours dealing with Immigration and Customs as we gained entry into Kenya and picked our bags up.  I hope to post again after our safari and before we have a 5pm worship service along with the teams from Trinity Lutheran Church in Klein, TX.

It has been rainy lately in Nairobi, so I expect the animals to be spread out and a little harder to spot, since the grass will be much taller and the wildlife won't be concentrated near water features so much as they are during drier times.  Catherine's son Mark is going to join us, along with Barrack, another birder that will join us on our after trip, and our driver for a total of 6 in our van.  I think it will work out fine as only a couple of us are avid photographers.  More to follow later!

The beginning of our first day in Kenya.  Thank you Jesus!

Blessings everybody!

Frankfurt to Nairobi

We only had about  2 hour layover in Frankfurt and we did have to clear security there. By the time we had walked nearly a mile to our next gate, according to Cynthia's fitness app, I  only had enough time to post the blog entry I wrote on the first flight, send a couple of emails and post to Facebook.  The boarding process went smoother than in Houston but we're on a much smaller plane, the Airbus A340-300.

We took off pretty much on time and will arrive in Nairobi a little after 8 pm local time. We were given a new form on the plane from the Kenyan customs authority wanting us to declare everything we are bringing into the country. I have no idea how to value our vision supplies or my cameras and laptops.  I'm sure it's just another way to tax us. I just hope it goes smoothly on our arrival.

Our lunch on the plane was a choice between a chicken or a beef dish. I chose the beef and it was good. We're all trying to stay awake on this flight so we might be able to get some sleep overnight before an early morning safari.  I'll get to be with my friend Barrack for the safari and for lunch afterwards. It will be good to catch up on each other's lives.  We always do an early morning  trip to the Nairobi National Game Park on the first Saturday for several reasons. Since some of our team members may view this mission trip as a once in a lifetime event, it's good for them to see some of the  countryside and the abundant wildlife and flowers. Second, if we can stay active and be pretty exhausted over the weekend,  we'll naturally get better sleep and will be almost acclimated to the 8 hour difference from Austin to Nairobi by the time we begin the clinic.

After we get our luggage and clear customs, Catherine has arranged for a van to take us to Rosa Mystica,  the  convent we will call home while we are in Kenya. My first order of business will be a hot shower,  you can get pretty grungy when you travel for 24 hours or more!  Next I'll try to let folks know we arrived safe and sound.  Finally, I'll attempt to get some good sleep. On my first few missions, it was Monday or Tuesday night before I got a good night's rest.  These days, Saturday night or Sunday are possible. Never on that first Friday night though. You're still wound up from the rigors of travel, it's a short night and you are anticipating the morning photo safari. But you still have to try, even if it's just laying there, which is still way better than an airplane seat slightly leaned back.  That's it for now. We're about three and a half hours from touchdown.  The next post will probably be short and sweet just saying all is well.  We've been blessed with relatively easy travel so far with only the expected minor inconveniences. Thank you Lord for travel mercies!

Travel from Houston to Frankfort

My day started around 5:30 am and I finished last minute packing and finished up some business like scheduling my sales tax payment for my computer and photography businesses.  As I was taking some items out to my truck, who should I see but Pastor Kevin waiting for me.  Alex arrived shortly thereafter and Kevin prayed over us.  It was a special sendoff from my Pastor, friend and the leader of our global mission efforts. Thank you Jesus for putting him in our lives!

I drove Alex and our supplies and baggage to the Houston airport, where we met Cynthia. She has a friend that lives near the airport who is keeping her car for her. She's going to drive Alex back to Austin after our mission, since I will be staying a few extra days for wildlife photography with my friend Bill from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball. That will work out well since Alex's car is at my house and she lives about a half mile from my place.  Once I had dropped my truck at long term parking, Cynthia took a team selfie and we got through security fairly quickly.  Our flight to Frankfurt was supposed to depart at 3:55 pm,  but the plane wasn't even boarded by then.  It was very warm in the terminal as the team and 800 new friends waited in a snaking line reminiscent of the most popular rides at Disney World! We took off about an hour late and we still never heard what the cause of the delay was. Once airborne, the pilot assured us that he could make up most of the lost time. I hope so, we only have about a 2 hour layover in Germany before our flight to Nairobi. At least the next flight is also on Lufthansa. I'm not clear on whether we will have another security check or not.

Our plane is the biggest one I've ever been on, an Airbus A380-800 that holds 800 souls, 500 downstairs and 300 upstairs. It was supposed to have power and USB in every seat, but not where we are. That's OK because after dinner, it is best to sleep the rest of this leg of our journey to make getting acclimated to  Nairobi time, which is 8 hours ahead of us, easier.  They do have wifi for $20 for this flight or $34 for the next 24 hours, but it is slow and limited to 500 MB per flight. I'm writing this on my phone and will try to post to the blog from Frankfurt. I might get the wifi on the next flight, but with all the sleeping on this one,  it just wasn't worth it.

Dinner was a choice between chicken teriyaki and pasta. I opted for the chicken and it was quite good.  It came with a salad,  rice and a chocolate fudge brownie. Once fed, I took.some Ibuprofen PM to help with sleeping and I managed to get 4 or 5 hours of on again off again shuteye.  We did hit about 20 minutes of pretty strong turbulence, possibly as we headed out over the Atlantic ocean. I was in the bathroom when they forced everyone back to their seats. I hope that was the most excitement for me this trip!

It's time for some breakfast and then about an hour to go until Frankfurt.  Breakfast was also very good. Scrambled eggs with steamed mushrooms and tomatoes, a fruit cup and a biscuit with strawberry jam. British Air could learn a few things about food from Lufthansa!

If I can post this during our layover, it will be around 9 am in Germany and about 2 am back in Austin for you night owls! Thank you Lord for keeping us safe thus far!

Time to saddle up for Kenya again!

As I sit in my living room writing this, my mind drifts off to past mission trips to Kenya.  There are so many friends, so many stories over the years that it is kind of mind boggling as I gear up for my 19th journey to this wonderful country.  I could never have imagined back in 2009 when I made my first trip to Nairobi, that our project would have touched over 300,000 people by now with both vision care, and more importantly, with the saving message of the Gospel.  Each of these individuals has been prayed over personally.  Only the Lord knows how each of those prayers was answered, but I believe that they all were in their own way and in God's own perfect timing.  Many times, not as we imagined at all, but always in His better way.

Here are some photos from our being sent as missionaries last Sunday morning.

Explaining this mission to our congregation

Pastor Kevin adds more to the story

Being blessed to be a blessing

We will be serving at the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in the large slum of Kibera, in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.  I have conducted our vision clinics there several times before and the benefits of our mission philosophy for this project, "Short term missions with long term commitment" will certainly be obvious as we are greeted by life long friends and as we make friends with new volunteers from the church.  We rotate locations around Nairobi and have been concentrating on a couple of new church plants for the last couple of years.  I will be going back to my roots, since Kibera is the first location that I was a Team Leader for in the Spring of 2010.  I have been blessed mightily each time I have been back.  The church has a thriving parochial school and a vibrant congregation.  I can't wait to worship there next Sunday.  The Holy Spirit is present full blast in the music and in the order of service.

We leave for Nairobi on Thursday May 30th and will arrive at Jomo Kenyatta airport at around 8 pm local time Friday night.  We will be flying Lufthansa out of Houston with a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany.  This time all of our flights will be modern planes with power and USB connections in every seat, making for a little less stressful travel when you don't have to worry about your laptop, tablet or smartphone dying on you.  This has become more important over the years, as our travel tickets and visas are now capable of being displayed at security checkpoints on our portable devices wherever we go.

The downside of all of this technology is that the world has become so much smaller that we have grown used to being connected at all times.  Particularly our young people.  Some of the other teams in our project have practically had to take phones away because their people had their heads buried in their screens during cross country travel as incredible scenery and wildlife were in plain view.  I'd hate to miss what might be a once in a lifetime experience that way!  These are much different times than when I first came to Nairobi in 2009 and we were only able to contact our loved ones via a burner phone that the team shared for about 25 cents a minute.  We might call home every second or third day and I would do my best to get a blog post out every day with iffy Internet connections.  Now there is fairly decent wifi everywhere and we can use Skype, Facetime or Whatsapp to do a video call to any phone in the world for free.  Wow!

That's about it for now, I'm still doing last minute things before the trip.  I'll try to post at least daily from the mission field and there may be a few pictures.  Sometime bandwidth just doesn't make uploading high quality pictures feasible, but there will be a photo album available within a couple of weeks after the trip.  I am staying over for an extra 4 days for photo safaris with my friend Bill Goodoff from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball and, if past history is any guide, I will probably have 5,000 or more photos to sort through from that!  So many pictures, so little time!  Blessings everybody!  Please keep us in your prayers for a safe and effective mission.

Night of Hope - December 11, 2018

Redeemer Austin has been blessed so that we can be a blessing.  In October, our ministry staff was busy planning all of the Christmas events that take place on our campus every year and they were very hopeful that our Christmas concerts could take place in our new Commons auditorium, which was still under construction at that point.  In the midst of focusing on all of these details, someone asked what was being planned to show the love of Christ to our neighborhood in addition to all of our traditional activities.  The answer was nothing.  And it convicted everyone involved.

We have a wonderful relationship with Wooten Elementary School next door to our property.  We have been teaching ESL classes there for years and are mentoring 4th and 5th graders through programs called Academy4 and Leaders5.  Each child has one on one mentoring and activities each month on a Friday afternoon.  So, it was natural that we would approach the principal and his staff to see if there was any way we could bless the school children this Christmas.  The answer was a quick yes.  We are in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood and over 90% of the students qualify for breakfast and lunch programs, meaning that most families would have a difficult time with Christmas presents this year.  He asked for our help in that regard.  We were just as quick in saying yes, we have a very big God and He will make it happen somehow.  As more thought was given to addressing this need, we realized that most of the children we hoped to help had siblings and that we would need to take care of them also.

Plans came together very rapidly.  We enlisted nearly 300 volunteers from the church and the surrounding neighborhood and all were background checked, since we would be dealing with children and wanted to treat them with the same level of security as we do our school children at Redeemer and as the Austin Independent School District also expects.  We also decided to make the program one in which the participating families would opt in, removing any possible objections some might have to a blurring of the lines between church and state.  Another choice was made to use the public park adjacent to the school and make it a huge outdoor event, which meant we would need to get all of the necessary permits and meet all of the requirements that this would entail.  One key component of our plan was to shop for the gifts that each family requested rather than a one size fits all approach.  This required large teams of volunteer shoppers to complete this task.  The best part of our approach was that we were going to let the parents be the heroes on Christmas morning.  During the festivities at the park, we would arrange for one of the parents to sneak off and pick up the gifts for their family so they could get them to the trunks of their cars unbeknownst to the children.  None of the children would be any wiser.

Many miracles happened over the next two months.  We figured about 1,000 heavy duty garbage bags would be required for the gifts.  When the big box store found out what they were for, they donated 1200 of them.   When a professional event planner heard what we were doing, she volunteered to oversee the whole project, using her talents and many connections with the city and the vendors we would need for everything from a hot cocoa booth to inflatable games to large tents to lighting to you name it.  Wrapping paper was donated and so were hundreds of teddy bears.  T-shirts for every member of each family appeared from Thrivent Financial, which also helped with matching grants for our donations.  It was just amazing to see the way people's hearts were moved when they realized what we were doing.

Even after all the preparations had been made, it took two days to get things ready for show time.  On Monday, a 6 foot fence was put in place around the perimeter of the park so that only participants and volunteers would be admitted.  We hired a security firm to help with keeping an eye on things overnight after much of the lighting, tents and electrical had been installed.  I was one of three photographers that volunteered to not only document the event, but also the setup, with the idea that we could show our donors what went into conducting an event this large and to show them that their trust in us was well placed.  In the process of getting my pictures, I was able to explain to vendor after vendor what the big picture of the event was.  Many times, their eyes would get big when they heard that this was all being done in a Secret Santa sort of way and they realized that this would strengthen each family we touched.  It also had a big impact on all of the volunteers involved as they discovered a lesson I had learned during my mission work in Africa.  It's called God's economy.  When you get out of the boat to help somebody in His name, He wants to bless BOTH the giver and the receiver abundantly.  It never fails.  Those who never get out of their comfort zone to serve others seem to think that somehow it is going to cost them something.  Just the opposite occurs, the blessings to all involved are beyond putting a value on.

At the end of the day on Monday, as the sun set, I was hanging around to see how much light we would have for the Night of Hope event Tuesday night.  I wanted to know if we would need flash units or if the large number of LED lights would be enough.  Unfortunately, the power never did get turned on and I let the other photographers know that we had to be prepared for either way.

Tuesday morning, volunteers began to arrive to begin setting up tables, small Christmas trees, etc. in the park and in our church parking lot across the street.  We had four large PODS, like movers use, full of the gifts, ready to go.  Each would be lit up with a different color in the evening.  A family member would come to retrieve their gifts with a ticket that might say Purple-85-3, which meant their gifts were in the purple POD, they were family number 85 and they had 3 children that there were bags for.  The attention to detail and planning that this all took was phenomenal and it all worked out very well.

Around  5 o'clock, the volunteers began to come to check in and get wrist bands showing that they had been vetted.  They then each went to their assigned areas to finish any last minutes details.  Besides inflatable games, there was a Nativity scene where people could hear the story of Christmas, a large tent with entertainment focusing on the Christmas story, we had professional face painters for the children (and some adults!) and Santa made an appearance and each child got to have their picture taken with him by a pro photographer.  Each child will have their photo mailed to them.  Cool!

The whole evening was a blessing.  We had not only gotten volunteers from Redeemer, but also from the neighborhood.  My friend Lupe, the owner of Casa Chapala Mexican Cantina supplied great food for the volunteers and a Mariachi band for some local cultural flavor.  We had many translators there as well, to help where needed and quite a few teachers and staff from Wooten were on hand as well.  A local TV station even came to report on Night of Hope.  I'm expecting that our ties to our local community will continue to be strengthened as a result of this event.  In my mind, I see a pebble being thrown into a still pond and the ripples emanating out for along time.  Thank you, Jesus!

To see pictures of the event, here are a couple of links to online albums.

Night of Hope pictures by Dave DeVore

Here are a collection of photos from all three photographers at Redeemer's Facebook page:

Redeemer Austin Night of Hope photos