The end of our time in Kenya

Well, we're on our last day in Kenya. Here's a recap of some of our activities:

We went WAY out into the Kenyan countryside to stay overnight at Heavenly Treasures. It's amazing that our bus made it on some of the dirt roads - and I can't help but imagine how bad things get when it starts to rain!

Most of my time at Heavenly Treasures was spent working on putting up a fence around their 3 fish ponds and their demonstration gardens. They grow tilapia in 3 fish ponds - at full capacity, they can grow 6000 fish. The are also showing the community how to grow a certain kind of fast growing shrub that goats like to eat - so rather than tying the goat up on the side of the road, they could devote part of their land to growing this shrub and provide for their goats. Our first afternoon we spent digging post holes for a new section of barbed wire fence.

Many of our youth learned the wonderful skill of how to swing a hammer and use an iron bar to dig a 2 foot deep square hole :)

The second day, we put up many rolls of chain link around the perimeter of the area - to keep the goats inside the fenced area, and to keep people coming to the water kiosk from the fish pond area. This water kiosk is served from a single bore hole from Heavenly Treasures (similar to the one that's being drilled at the Comido school), holds 20,000 liters of water in its tank, and provides clean water to the roughly 10,000 residents in a 15 km. radius. Right now, many people are still able to draw water from the streams and creek - but later in August and September, when they dry up, this may be the only water available for them.

Working on the fence along the main road

Making the turn back towards the water kiosk

All told, we helped put up about 120 meters (375') of chain link before we had to leave on Friday afternoon.

Saturday, Mike, Garrett and I went to Nairobi National Park while the others went back to the Nest Half-Way House. We managed to see many animals during our short time - including a male lion, along with gazelles, zebras, giraffes, baboons, monkeys, birds...

Sunday, we joined Mike and his family at their church, Karura Community Chapel, and then went to see the progress on the well at the Comido school.

They've finished drilling the bore hole - I believe they went down 220-240 meters - and now they're placing the casing down the bore hole. According to Pastor James, the casing work should be done by the end of the day today. There's still work to be done on the pump house, placing the tanks on the structure - but it's really encouraging to see the progress being made. Please continue to pray that Kenya Power & Light will take care of placing a transformer at the school so that this well can be a real blessing to the entire community.

As this trip comes to an end, I'd like to thank you for supporting us - we've seen first-hand how God continues to work miracles here in Kenya - and through your support, you too are a partner in how God works. We have many more stories than can be told in this blog - look forward to hearing from us personally in the coming weeks. Thanks too to the Hyodo's for graciously opening up their home and making us feel welcome in Kenya. And most importantly, thanks be to the Lord for continuing to work through his people here in Kenya to bless people, transform their lives, and give real hope.