OUT of the CITY finally!! Part I

Last weekend we finally got out of the CITY!!  Even though Nairobi is beautiful, it's still a city, and this country girl likes the open spaces and the big skies.  It was good for my soul to be away from the walls and the gates and the barbed wire.  But we didn't get away from the traffic!  Still lots of traffic everywhere we went!  And we came upon two very bad accidents, thankfully after they had already happened.  So sad for those who died and those who were terribly injured.  We continually pray for safety on the roads.

We were heading west to visit two church branches -- Kisumu (which is on Lake Victoria) and Busia (which is 2 hrs drive from Kisumu and is on the border of Kenya and Uganda).  Because all the branches are under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of our Mission, LeRon, as mission financial secretary, needed to audit the books.

In this post, I'll put pictures of our 8-hour drive last Friday to Kisumu (which is only 210 miles from Nairobi.)  We took Peter and his wife Pauline and their 1-year old with us to help with the drive and to find the chapels.  We set our GPS so that another time we can find it by ourselves.  And it's good that Peter was with us because we never would have found the chapels.

At last . . . no walls or gates or guards!

Nice to see the small farms with crops flourishing.

Our first view of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya.  The Valley actually starts in Lebanon and goes through Israel and Jordan and down to the Red Sea, then into Congo and Uganda, Kenya and Malawi.  It's 6000 km long.  We've seen the Rift Valley in Israel -- the Hula Valley is absolutely gorgeous.  Then the Rift goes down to the Dead Sea (we've floated there!) and into Wadi Arabah in Jordan.  (Heather wants to camp in Wadi Rum someday).  Kisumu, where we are going, is on Lake Victoria, which is also part of the Great Rift Valley.

Market day is every day.

I love to farm at home.  Not sure I would love it here.  These man are planting by hand, i.e., they drop the seeds into the soil one by one by hand!

Most people have gardens.  It doesn't look like too many people are starving.

We drove an hour out of our way so we could find the Naivasha chapel.  LeRon has to do an audit there in a couple of weeks.  It's only a couple hours away from Nairobi.  But we needed Peter to show us where it is.  Addresses are mostly non-existent here.  Wards and branches are being asked to pinpoint members on a google map since there are no addresses.  Here's the sign to the church. 

You can't really see the steepness of this road to the chapel but it is VERY steep and rough.  Most members don't have cars so they just walk up this road (after a long matatu or tuk-tuk ride to get there).

The Church rents this entire building for the Naivasha Branch.

I took this picture to remind myself that Naivasha is known for its many fields of flowers and greenhouses full of flowers.  They ship flowers to Europe.

Lots of colorful vegetable stands along the road.  They display them in such a lovely way.  Maybe we need to color up our Taber corn stands at home!  I was a little worried though with all the potatoes sitting outside in the sun all day.  Potatoes get that green toxin stuff when they are exposed to sunlight.  Not good.

These trees say "Africa" to me.  Flat topped trees and dark green tall cacti.

Shall we stay in this 5 Star Hotel?

Donkeys, donkeys everywhere.  They are not wild; they are all owned by someone.  They are definitely beasts of burden here.  More pictures in the next post!  (I'm trying to keep each post short).