Well its Wednesday - Joytown Day 7

It was a rather calm/sleepy day of data collection at Joytown. There was a mellow cloud that seemed to hang around the team. But the day must have taken a toll on us because by the end of it, four of us were jumping into the school swimming pool to cool off.

Devotionals this morning with the BK staff were really cool this morning as it was lead by two of our very own team members! We sang hymns (in both English and Swahili) and then heard from Anna and Matt as they read from 1 Corinthians 12:4-26 and shared about the struggle with jealousy and pride in relating to others. They emphasized the point that each person has been picked by God as a specific part of the greater functioning body of Christ. We should each stop worrying about comparing our actions to others or trying to do everything on our own. Rather, we should instead focus on doing what we CAN do, and make sure to do it well. This was a cool point for me because I often get caught up in the futility that can be found in humanitarian medical work as far as "fixing" a problem. No matter how hard I work, there will always be someone hurting or sick or dying in the world. Even though it may feel like I am only removing tiny drops from a huge ocean, they are still drops that are being removed.

We have a visitor on the team from the Motivation division in Africa (this is the company that produces one of the chairs we are currently studying). She plans to hand out with the team at Joytown tomorrow and watch how we do what we do. Hopefully she easily understands our methods and can get something beneficial from our preliminary data as well as give us any hits or comments about how we could improve our study.

Tomorrow will also be an interesting day because it is mobile clinic day at Joytown. This means that a clinic of doctors will be setting up camp on campus and people from the community will come receive consults and free medical care. We are praying that this won't interfere with our data collection or with the availability of subjects/space.

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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

Crazy Saturday morning, wonderful Saturday day

I woke up this morning to meowing, barking, and the house trying to implode. Okay, okay so the meowing was the ringtone of Danielle's Kenyan phone, the barking was actually a dog (Emma), and the imploding house was really just a compo of Emma (dog) slamming herself against the laundry room door and two Kenyan women knocking forcefully on the locked back door, determined to sell us stuff…. at 8:30am on a Saturday morning. Funsies. My just-woke-up-to-chaos brain was only more confused when I answered Danielle's phone to find another lady rambling loudly at me in Swahili. I answered in confused English, she replied in confused, rapid Swahili. Great. The morning finally settled out as I read some emails from our host family about the house (such as what to do with barking dog, how to unlock doors, what time Aidah the house-sitter would come by) and woke up enough to process things. At this point, Aidah the house-sitter appeared at the door (which I now knew how to unlock!

Ecuador!

The posts may have stopped for a while but the beat of a traveling heart continues! This past December, a t the beginning of winter break, I traveled to Ecuador with my father, my head pastor, and another pastor from my home church: International Full Gospel Fellowship (IFGF) of Austin, TX. My time in Ecuador was very beautiful very fast! Three different cities in three days plus a day on either side of travel time. I never realized how diverse the country of Ecuador is! Imagine beach, jungle, and mountain climates scattered with villages, towns and cities that are filled with over 21 different ethnic groups. The capital, Quito, has a population of around 2 million people. W e enjoyed some wonderful food on our trip, which included fire roasted tilapia wrapped in banana tree leaves, armadillo meat, and roasted palm tree weevil larvae. The purpose of this journey was not, unfortunately, to eat but to conduct training sessions for leaders of se

Redhead Steps Around the World

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