Heading Home

First let me start by saying I'm sorry that the blogs haven't been there this week. We have had limited access to internet. The internet at Gracia isn't working and we have had to be at Gracia by 6:30 because of safety so we haven't been able to go to an internet cafe.

The trip has been amazing, the teams have been amazing and we are so sad it is over. Today we went to City Harvest Church and worshiped with Pastor Edward. It was great. Right now people are down at the YaYa (the mall) shopping in the Masai Market. This is a fun experience for people. It is a bartering market which makes it fun. We turned a guys offer down and went in to post the blog. The guy came chasing after us into the mall. It was pretty funny.

So we leave for the airport at 6pm and will be back in Texas on Monday at 11pm. Please keep your fingers crossed that we have no travel delays. When we get home we will continue to post blogs sharing stories from our trip.

One story I have to tell is about yesterday at Simba village. They threw us a bar-b-q! This is a big deal for someone to do this for you. So we arrive and everyone at Simba is working hard on the lunch. We walked over to find that they decided to slaughter 2 goats for the feast. So they tied the goat up to a tree and proceeded to skin and cook it. It was the most beautifully disgusting thing I have ever scene. I looked over on the fire pit and saw the goat head just sitting on the fire. wow!

Good news, we have 14 new kids sponsored at Simba bringing our grand total to 58! This is unbelievable!!!

All the kids say hello and you know we have a million pictures and videos.

Can't wait to be home to eat some mexican food! Pray for our travels.

Simba Village

We finally made it to Simba Village on Sunday. It was so good to be back. When we got there all the kids came out of the church to greet us. Then we all went into the school room where they hold church for Sunday service. They asked our group to sing a song and so everyone sang "I'll Fly Away". It was a hit! After church we all went out to play with the children. Some played soccer while others just played on the play ground and ran around with the children. It was weird because there were probably around 40 kids at Simba. We thought that was odd because we almost equaled them in numbers. We asked Mary where all the kids were and she said, "they are all in boarding school because your church has done such a great job with the sponsorship program!"
This was so encouraging to hear. The kids that were there all loved us being there and we played and played until we were all so tired. After lunch we went on a tour of the farm. The farm has grown so much. They have added another 3 acres to the farm making it now 8 acres. Once the new 3 acres have crops the farm will yield $2500 US dollars a month. This is HUGE for the orphanage.

Team A headed back out to Simba today (Monday) to do work projects. They will spend the night out there and head back into town tomorrow night. Team B went with Pastor Boniface to feed the street children and we also went to visit his land where he plans to build a house for the kids to live in to get them off the street. So many stories to share when we get back. Many of you have heard us share about the baby boy Michael that was living on the street. Well in December the baby was taken away from the streets by the mom's family. We were saddened today to find that Michael was back on the street. He came running up to meet us this morning and jumped into our arms. He needed a hug.

Plenty more stories coming so keep reading. Have to go for now. Team B will be traveling out to a boarding school to visit some of the Simba children so pray for us.

We Tied!

Yesterday was an overwhelming day. We started out the day at City Harvest Church where Pastor Edward was leading a business training course for the churchs micro-finance loan program. Our business students help with the presentation. I was very impressed with our students (David, JD, Laura, Amber, Amanda, and Ryan) sharing what they have learned at the Baylor Buisness school. So parents don't fear, it seems they do pay attention in class.

After the training they had a small market set up downstairs. This market was run by their women's groups from the slums that live with AIDS. These women are shunned by they community and cannot sell their goods because word gets around that they have AIDS and people do not want to buy from them. So for them to have a market day was a big deal.

Then we jumped onto the bus and headed to Kibira, the second largest slum in the world. 1.8 million people all reside in this very small area. For so many students on our team this experience really hit them hard. Poverty on this level is something that we Americans cannot understand. There was a mix of sadness and hope that seemed to radiate out of this place. We walked for about 10 mins and it seemed like 10hours down into the slum. We went into a building that was a school. The school was apart of City Harvest Ministries. They sang for us and showed us around their place. Then they took us to the soccer field. This was another long walk through the slum. Kids were everywhere and when they would see us they would yell "how are you" "how are you". They were laughing and playing and seem so unaware of the fact that they live in a large toilet. You see the slums don't have many bathrooms. So people use plastic bags and then throw them into the sreets. The streets are made of mud and when it rains the entire place turns into a huge mess.

The soccer field was up a hill just right outside of the slum. This was such a relief to walk up the hill and feel an escape from the slum. I can see why the kids like to go there and get a breath of fresh air.

I have to go for now but I will tell you more about our soccer match later. We did tie so that was exciting! Today we head to Simba village for the first time. Everyone is excited.

Hope that you all have a wonderful day at church. We miss you all very much.

cheers, ben

ps i didnt have a chance to spell check so please understand if there are typos and misspelled words :)
pss this message was brought to you in part by Anna Hering!

Soccer Tourney Today

Today we play soccer in a match against the kids of the Kibera Slum. It should make for a good match. I mean a bunch of kids who play soccer everyday of their life against a bunch of Americans who don't even say the name of the sport correctly. Its football, not soccer! We will post the game results later. Wish us luck!

Great Friday!

It is 8:15 Friday night in Kenya, which is noon in Texas! Today we spent time with Pastor Edward. Group A went to the slums and Group B went to the country side with Peter(the church driver)to his farm. Everyone had an amazing experience. We will debrief the day at 9 and then I will type more stories so that you all will know more than Kenya is amazing. haha.

Sorry again for the delay in blogging. We promise to share more stories soon. Thanks for praying for us!

Alive and Well

We have arrived in Kenya and are all doing wonderful! I am so sorry for the delay in getting to post. We have had no access to the internet. We will start posting daily from here on out. Everyone on the team is healthy and having an amaing time. We just arrived back from Safari where we saw lions, cheetahs, and tons of elephants and giraffes. We are currently at City Harvert Church with Pastor Edward. He sends his love back to UBC. We will be with him tommorow as well and then head to Simba on sunday. Again, so sorry for the delay in the posting but start checking more often.

cheers, ben

Trip Schedule

We have so many people going this year that we are actually going to have 2 teams. Adam and Amanda Horton are leading Team A (A for Adam and Amanda) and my wife Jamie Dudley and I will be leading Team B (B for Ben and Jamie? ha). We wanted to post our itinerary so that you will know how we plan to spend our time while in Kenya. We also thought it might be a good idea to list the names of each person on the teams.

Team A:
Adam & Amanda Horton, Alissa McCants, Amber West, Alex Reed, Chad Williams, Ovi Rodriquez, Andy Hanning, Ryan Pryor, Jennifer Lee, Brittney Keifer, Alyssa Pond, Kim Helms, Sarah Christy, Laura Leskoven, and Nicole Reuter.

Sunday, May 13th Travel Day
Monday, May 14th Travel Day – Day in London
Tuesday, May 15th Kenya!! - Travel to Safari
Wednesday, May 16th Safari
Thursday, May 17th Travel back to Nairobi
Friday, May 18th City Harvest w/Edward
Saturday, May 19th City Harvest w/ Edward
Sunday, May 20th Simba Village
Monday, May 21st Simba Village – overnight??
Tuesday, May 22nd Simba Village
Wednesday, May 23rd Hiking, Kazuri & Shopping
Thursday, May 24th Boarding School
Friday, May 25th Boniface
Saturday, May 26th Simba Village
Sunday, May 27th Church at City Harvest – Travel
Monday, May 28th Travel Day – arrive in Dallas

Team B:
Ben & Jamie Dudley, Hannah Starkey, Kelly Donahue, Stephen Wagner, Jennifer Jenkins, JD Harris, Quinton Hersheiser, David Dillard, Lauren Eggers, Kaley Eggers, Laura Carmack, Sandy Renyolds, Mark Waldrop, Anna Hering, and Kelly Ross.

Sunday, May 13th Travel Day
Monday, May 14th Travel Day – Day in London
Tuesday, May 15th Kenya!! - Travel to Safari
Wednesday, May 16th Safari
Thursday, May 17th Travel back to Nairobi
Friday, May 18th City Harvest w/Edward
Saturday, May 19th City Harvest w/ Edward
Sunday, May 20th Simba Village
Monday, May 21st Boniface
Tuesday, May 22nd Boarding School
Wednesday, May 23rd Hiking, Kazuri & Shopping
Thursday, May 24th Simba – overnight?
Friday, May 25th Simba
Saturday, May 26th Simba Village
Sunday, May 27th Church at City Harvest – Travel
Monday, May 28th Travel Day – arrive in Dallas

Flight Schedule

We leave on Sunday and we will be spending a good deal of time on airplanes. Here is our flight schedule.

Going To Kenya:
May 13 DFW / Chicago UA 278 Depart: 12:51 PM
Arrive: 3:10 PM
May 13 Chicago /
London Heathrow UA 958
(May 14) Depart: 4:08 PM
Arrive: 5:55 AM
May 14 London Heathrow / Nairobi KQ 101
(May 15) Depart: 8:00 PM
Arrive: 6:30 AM

Coming Back Home:
May 27 Nairobi / London Heathrow KQ 102
(May 28) Depart: 11:50 PM
Arrive: 6:45 AM
May 28 London Heathrow / Chicago UA 959
Depart: 3:40 PM
Arrive: 6:17 PM
May 28 Chicago / DFW UA 725 Depart: 8:25 PM
Arrive: 10:48 PM

One Week!

We leave in less than one week. 32 of us will board the airline on Sunday along with 64 other Baylor students and faculity headed for Nairobi Kenya. We are very excited to go visit our friends at Simba Village Orphanage and City Harvest Church. We want to ask all of you to pray for us this week as we finish making plans, packing and getting ready to leave. We will post on this blogsite as much as possible throughout the trip. Most likely there will be a daily post starting Saturday May 19th. Sometimes it is just impossible to get to a computer but we will do our best to keep everyone updated on how the trip is going.