Football, Greek Pasta Salad and God

Hey everyone!
I am done with two weeks and now making my way through my third week here in Nairobi. Things are going very well! My only complaint is that I am meeting to many new and wonderful people. But that really isn’t a complaint. The hardest part about that is just the mental power it takes to meet so many new people every day, I will be glad when I will have a little more stability in my days concerning people.
Living:
It’s been a very interesting week! On Wednesday I attended a Kenyan Premier League soccer game. It was the final and the match was between two of the biggest rivals AFC Leopards and Ghor Mahia. I am pretty certain I was one of five white people in a stadium of 20,000 Kenyans. It was a awesome experience, I think this weekend I will get to see some Rugby too, so I am excited about that. I have settled into the apartment and am used to living here now. I am still learning many things but I am now sleeping through the dogs, babies and cats (I am pretty sure they have nothing else to do but make loud noise). Friday to Sunday I went over to Michael Rhodes (CDV, 2008) house and hang out with him which was great, had a lot of fun and learned a lot from him concerning being a Muzungu in a international context. Alvin has been everywhere because of all that he has to do, sometimes I am with him sometimes I am not but he still continues to blow me away with his knowledge and heart for people.
God:
God has been working on my heart this week, very heavily. He has been giving me a lot of comfort and a lot of opportunities to step outside my own wants and serve others. I have been very mentally tired this week and that does not help me to keep the learning attitude so it has been a fight. God has been really showing me that he will work through all things no matter how big or small. One example of this was when I went to the Kawangware savings group on Thursday. I don’t remember if I mentioned it in the last update but one of the ladies had just lost a brother and was left to pay for the funeral. Because of this the members collected a separate amount of money outside of savings for her and I did not have any money on me that day. Alvin told me that it was probably expected of me that I give something because I am a visitor (which I figured), but I didn’t have any money so I put some aside when I got back to the apartment. I had to leave the group before it was over to do an interview with the pastor so I had someone tell her to come see me. When she walked through the door I could tell she was confused, why would this white guy want her? I stood up and said “Ilea Matanga” (meaning this is for the funeral) and handed her the shillings. Immediately her face lit up and said “thank you” so many times. Alvin later told me that she couldn’t believe that I had did that and how happy she was. I didn’t give her much but it blessed her so much. This is what God has been resting on my heart, the Christian life even in Nairobi, Kenya is not the most righteous of American Christianity, it is the same as serving anywhere. You have to live with God on a daily basis, making decisions with him, seeing people in his forgiveness, giving like him, loving like him. It’s the same in Kenya as it is in Tennessee or Georgia, the differences come from culture and context, which is the hard part of international missions.

Community Development:
On Friday, I was able to attend a New City Fellowship Nairobi small group with Mike Rhodes. I was so blessed because I saw 4 or 5 races come together and enjoy each other’s company and fellowship in the word. There was a couple from Germany, a few families from India, Kenyans and Americans all in one house fellowshipping! It was an amazing sight and learned so much about the purpose of God’s redeeming love and unity. It really showed me the results of racial reconciliation and how much it is needed everywhere. I thought this small group was amazing until I got to the actual NCF Nairobi Sunday service. This service blew my mind, it was like the small group times 20. So many different continents and races represented there, it really was a glimpse of what heaven will look like. My favorite part was the last part of the service in which the announcer said “now is the time we are going to have a Traditional Indian dance”. About 5 seconds after he said that Indian hip-hop (think Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack) came on and a bunch of Indians came up from the congregation…needless to say eventually the whole congregation, white, black, brown, etc were all in the front of the church dancing to Indian hip-hop. What a way to worship, we may have not been directly worshiping God with hymns or sermons but we were worshiping him with our unity, something American churches have a hard time doing trans-denominationally. It was a wonderful time and I hope to back to NCF Nairobi again, maybe even make it my home church while I am here. I never thought I would go to a church and learn so much about Development and its principles.

Other Stuff:
• Keep praying for me in any ways you can think of, if you mind says “oh, I bet Dave would like prayer for this”…yeah I would! Pray for my strength, that I continue to give my all while I am here.
• Thank you so much for all the encouragement you have sent me through comments and emails. You have no idea how much of a blessing it is. I want to respond to all of you individually but I can’t! So, remember that your comments and emails are a huge blessing and I am reading each and every one of them.
• Played a soccer game with some slum kids a few days back…so much fun! I thought I would die but I kept up fairly well.
• I made Alvin and Nancy a Greek Pasta salad the other day; they had never had it before…they both ate so much of it I hardly got any. Last night Alvin was standing in the kitchen with the container in his hand eating it with his fingers saying “we are getting more pasta”.
• Kibera is huge! So huge! There is about 1 million families living in Kibera, when you’re driving on some of the roads you come across a spot where you can see the horizon which is filled with Kibera slum house holds.I haven’t had much contact with it yet because every time we try to go to the savings group that I should be working with, they have either forgotten there was a meeting or forgotten to tell everyone that there was going to be a meeting! UGH Pray that my relations with the group also grow very quickly because I am behind with my schedule because of the missed meetings.
• I am able to talk very very basically in Swahili, so keep praying that I get better! I need to keep learning it’s getting harder because I need to learn how to make words and sentences now and that’s hard for people to teach.
• Other bloggers I am not following, I want to follow you! I just can’t figure out how too…apparently I suck at this whole thing.
Talk to you next week!
Dave
P.S. WORLD CUP IN 11 DAYS!!!