Into the Heart of Kenya: The Great Rift Valley

So I didn't go to church today.

I didn't go to a building where I sang worship and listened to a message for a couple hours.

But I worshiped God today.

As I floated accross Lake Naivasha among stoic hippos and dramatically patterned birds. As I stood in awe among a field of wildebeest, impala, giraffes, and zebras. As I peered into a den of baby pythons. As I stared around at the rolling green hills and proud mountains, rich with acacia trees stretching their arms across the bright blue sky. As I bounced along a dusty, pot-hole-riddled road winding through the ridges, towns, and small rivers of the valley. As I sat on a house porch eating pancakes and surrounded by laughter and friends. As I joined in the student-led worship of a Kenyan boarding high school (RVA), voices from all over the world lifted together in a moment of praise.

I worshiped by enjoying God's creation. I worshiped in my conversations and relationships with people and friends. I worshiped by taking a moment to realize how CRAZY blessed I am and to soak in my life... thinking on the weirdness of things like the fact that I almost didn't go to school at LeTourneau, I almost missed the door that led me to the heart of Kenya and to the love of its landscape and its people.

Tomorrow I take a step even farther into my future as we go to shadow a pediatric neurosurgeon (only one of the top in the world…) in his morning rounds at Kijabe Hospital and then observe surgery.

So I didn't go to church today, but Oh, I went to church today. :)

All I'm saying, is that this place is gonna be pretty hard to leave.

View from Mt. Longonot - photo creds to Ms. Rispin

Comments

Oh the Americans are here. Make spaghetti.

Tuesday and Wednesday passed quickly and easily as we now all adjusted to Kenya time (Goodbye jet lag!) and were back to our Joytown research routine. We knew what had to get done and the time we had to do it in. SACDEP welcomed us back with a Tuesday meal including "American food" aka spaghetti noodles. Just noodles. Haha Thanks, Kenya. We continued our wheelchair research at Joytown Primary School and got to return to the Secondary School (Kenyan High School equivalent) for a second survey time with the students. I realized through this survey that although we are very different, Kenyans and Americans, much is the same. High school students are high school students. They are teenagers. Some with attitudes, most with dreams, and all of them with lives that are just as real and crazy to understand as my own. *Philosophical vent over* Once our survey work was finished, Danielle decided to jump in and join a group of Secondary girls rehearsing songs for an upcoming talen...

Hello again Kenya

After 24 hours of travel to the other side of the world and two days of research work I've finally gathered enough jet-lagged energy (and strong enough wifi) to write this. On Monday, I escaped the thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding of Texas on a trans-atlantic flight to London. The team included Professor Rispin, Prof Sasaki and Danielle. 8 hours later, we arrived with time to crawl through layers of Heathrow security and wander, sleepy eyed through the airport to our next gate. By 11am we were on our final 8 hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya. My plane buddies included a Kenyan track runner who's said he's filled up three passports traveling and racing in countries around in the world (completely paid for by sponsors, by the way). And he hasn't even finished college. Why am I in school again? Kidding... sigh... Med school... My second plane buddy was a newly graduated Kenyan-born pharmacist living in Houston. He reminded me how much doctors are needed, especially in ...

Another One of Those Kenyan Days - Joytown Day 9

Both last night and this morning the four data-collecting students (Matt, Anna, Nicole, and I) had a team pow-wow about our progress and plan for the day, one of the last days of data collection. We arranged all our subjects, times and wheelchairs to be used and sent each other off with a smile. Today went pretty much nothing like our plan. We had forgot about Murphy's strong residence in Africa. ;) After a bizarre chain of our subjects being either sick, gone on school trips, or just plain unable to continue I found myself walking down the road with Ms. Rispin to our Joytown secondary school (high school) neighbors in search of extra people to help fulfill our study. However, regardless of plans, today went amazingly! I really enjoyed spending time with the high school-ers who have some pretty awesome dreams for the future and similar interests. I talked with one pair of girls about music and the different instruments they would like to play if their school had...

Redhead Steps Around the World

Search This Blog