A New Year for Christ
We are on Texas soil!
Finally back in the US!! We are in Dallas and are about to get off the plane and go through customs. We are all looking forward to moving around a little after over 15 hours in an airplane. We also cannot wait to see what food we can find for lunch. Thank you again for your prayers. See you in Amarillo later today! [more]
Headed home
The Rest of the Kenya team are on their way home. We are currently in Dubai and it is almost midnight here. We fly out at 2:45 am and will arrive in Dallas Tuesday morning. Everyone is feeling well we are all trying to stay awake to get back on schedule. We are looking forward to being back in Amarillo. [more]
Almost Home
Half of us are almost home!
The team that did not go to the safari is in Dallas and will arrive back in Amarillo in a few short hours. Everyone is doing well and is ready to relax at home and get some rest. [more]
Lake Victoria
On Friday, the last day of the whole team being together, we were able to have a great lunch on Lake Victoria before going on a boat ride on the lake. We actually had lunch outside with hippos swimming in the water only a few hundred yards away. While at lunch we were all able to catch a little Olympics together. Enjoy these pictures. [more]
Thankfulness
Our last day has come and all were filled with mixed emotions. Exhaustion had begun to set in, but as we made our last journey to the village we found our second wind. Upon arriving there were hundreds of people from the community waiting for us outside the gate as we pulled into the Buckner school. We knew that there were more people waiting than we could see, but we did our very best to be as efficient as possible so as to maximize the number of patients treated. [more]
The Olympics come to Africa
Ever play baseball in Africa ?. Now the children at the Hope Buckner Community School can say they have! We taught the children to play baseball in recreation time today. They did surprisingly well! Our translators are also good players! [more]
Our New Location
We ate breakfast at 7am this morning (about 11pm at home. Yikes!!) and drove about an hour to the Buckner school where we would be working this week. There were already a few people waiting for the doctors to see them and it was only the first day! When we went to see the kids for the first time at the school they were very shy and tentative to come up to us, but when we got out the bubbles they warmed up to us almost immediately. The craft the kids made today was whales out of paper plates and they decorated them to go along with the story of Jonah and the whale. Free time with the kids involved jumping rope, playing tag, chasing and tickling the kids, blowing more bubbles, playing futbol, and just talking as much as possible to the kids and making them feel loved. Being around these kids for the first time was exciting but also very intimidating because the language barrier is so much stronger than other languages. Knowing bits and pieces of a conversation in Spanish is easy because we are around it so much in Texas and can sort of carry on a conversation, but having hardly listened to a word in Swahili makes talking with the kids difficult. Luckily, the school teaches English to the kids so no matter what your telling them you can see that they understand you, to an extent. Building relationships with the kids is important to show that God does love them and that's out mission, to show these kids that when life gets rough there is always going to be our Lord who loves them dearly no matter what. [more]
Final Day
Another great day. It was tough to leave the children but God did amazing things through us. We are all feeling good but sad to leave. It is such a blessing to bring hope to a village that had little to none. It is such an eye opening experience to be in rural Africa. Tomorrow we leave for the Capitol and spend one more night together before half of the team heads back to Amarillo. I hope to update more info and pictures tomorrow night (Africa time). [more]