In which I take a shower, have a death wish, and make my 888th attempt to plan to see Heidi. ;-)

Here’s some stuff that yesterday’s blog post was getting really long, so I moved it to today. :-D

Last week I was invited to a Bible Study for the worship team…felt slightly awkward, not being on the worship team, but it was such a great experience just being in that setting….of course everyone was quite welcoming and they even tried to use Swahili as little as possible so I could understand, though they sometimes have to slip into it because it’s easier for them to get a point across in their native language…no blame there. But even though I didn’t really know any of them but 1 person, and not even that well, just being in a room with a small group of young people messing around and making jokes and eventually talking about the Bible was something I hadn’t done in a long time and it was reminiscent of Chi Alpha so it was a good time. J

Sunday afternoon after church I went home with the Basses (the American missionaries who are in charge of the clinics) because there was this “prayer and praise” gathering Sun. night at the area..or regional…director’s house. So it was a potluck and I ate lots of American food and hung out with basically all the AG missionaries in Nairobi, we had worship, prayer, and a devotional/teaching and it was nice to be in that environment…it’s like I understood everyone and how their minds worked! And we heard about this hospital in Somaliland(small unrecognized area of Somalia that’s trying to secede and be its own country because it doesn’t want to take part in all the tribal warfare going on) that was built by some really rich Somalis who were for some reason in America…and its brand new and gorgeous and well-equipped with stuff except it’s empty because they have nobody to staff it. And the director was BEGGING the AG missionary there to send people to train their staff, teachers, anyone who speaks English..knowing they were missionaries (this is a Muslim stronghold, where you get killed for converting to Christianity or being a Christian who evangelizes, and it’s so unstable you need an armed guard escort everywhere) but they were still begging him to send people. It’s basically unreached, there are no churches anywhere and very, very few Christians.

I was telling Mommy Jayne about that and her first words were “Danielle, I don’t want you to go there!” so I promised her not this trip, maybe next time though. :-P

So I spent that night at the Bass house and took a hot shower in the morning. And used a toilet. Blessings.

I keep this journal that I write in every morning…just an account of everything I do so when I forget it (and forgetting only takes me about 2 days) I can read it and remember everything…and yesterday 2 people came over and told me how nice my handwriting was. IF any of you have ever seen my handwriting you know what a MESS it is….and since I’m not even trying to make this jornal legible to anyone but myself, you can just imagine how sloppy it is. If it was my math homework, and I was in 4^th grade, Daddy would have erased and made me rewrite the whole thing 400 times by now. :-P

The other day I had a funny conversation with my host and her sister-in-law about the different ways we eat the same foods in the US and Kenya…we had a lot of laughs, as they were shocked at some of the things we do…

Sandwiches are lunch (here, breakfast…though it’s either butter, butter and jam, or one piece of meat and the whole thing’s toasted…not the giant piles of ham cheese turkey, mayonnaise, etc. that we eat), Hamburgers are lunch/dinner (here, “snack”), tea made mostly with water and a little milk!?, People drink cold milk straight!? People use cold milk in cereal!? You don’t eat hotdogs for breakfast? You don’t cook your meat all the way through!? And on and on. It was quite funny not that we did things differently, but how surprised everyone was to hear exactly what strange things we did in the US with our food. :-P

So I know ALL of you are as concerned about this as I am, so I’m going to share:

I’m gonna see HEIDI!

This is our…I lost count…attempt to make plans to get together while here. But we have a plan that’s the most finalized any plan we’ve had so far as been, and basically about as final as plans get in Africa, so the plan iiiiis: I’m going to Sombo (middle-of-nowhere-in-the-desert-no-electiricty-or-running-water-and-oh-did-I-mention-it-takes-5-minutes-to-get-sunburned?) from Feb 18^th until March 7^th-ish, then I’m coming back to Nairobi and shortly after I get back here HEIDI’S GONNA BE HERE with Dr. Val!! And then we’re going to take the train to Mombasa and chilax there for a couple days and then come back to Nairobi, where Heidi will go back to Uganda to fly home to all of you people, and I’ll get in a car and drive back to Mombasa for a missions conference. :-D How cool is THAT!? :-D