Mt.kenya

This is a quick one-

But everyone made it up Mt. Kenya!!! over 17,000ft of Mountain!
We are so so proud of all the team,
and it means the boys have alot to live up to- less than 100% summitting would mean the gals win on that front... so we're piling on the pressure!

Bex made it even though she wasn't all that well, and Lauren got some altitude sickness, but she pressed on and summited nonetheless!!!

At the top it felt amazing and we could see so far as the dawn arose. It was about a 3-4 hr dawn attack walking on scree and a tiny bit of scrambling to get to the top in time. We went so quickly that in fact have about a 25 min wait for the sun to rise behind us!

The way down on the scree was fun, and for most of us involved sliding down large sections- the rational being if you are already on all fours, you cant really trip or fall over!!!!

Mt. kenya was a great experience, and you really saw gods power and nature though his creation- amen!

Hi all! Its update time! First here are a few photo links (I hope they work!!)...
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So the Last update was Turkana!!! Sorry it has been so long. The first picture here is one of Millie's showing people coming out of the bush with the pastor (and police man) to come see us, have food, talk about God and pray together and have fellowship... it was amazing. The second picture should be of our team - we actually have some impressive jumping ones but alas I cant find one uploaded yet, so this will have to do. Here we are on Mt. Elgon. The same day we went into 3 big bat caves... so the third picture is of Gemma dramatically entering the caves!! After getting back from Turkana we were working on the Ester home for the teenage moms, and that was when Hannah fell off a lader and hurt her ankle. That is why Mt. Kenya was persponed until tomorrow!!! (the end of the trip). Han is great now, but if you could pray for our whole teams health going up the mountain it would be brilliant. Becky has been in a bit of discomfort recently, so specific prayer for Becky's chest and her hike would be amazing. Everyone on the team is fit enough and able to summit on Mt. Kenya, so we would love the whole team to get there! Since the Mt. Kenya trip was moved, we had 3 weeks in Kitale. It was hectic! We had sessions.... one of the highligths was Daniel (from Youth Apart) talking on holiness... it was really moving. As well as sessions, we had school assemblies, and lots of work to do on the Ester home getting it ready- and Amen, all the painting and all is finished. We have the furniture too.... all we need to do is get it in the buildings! We are so excited for the girls to move in. The plot of the home is lovely and set back from the road. There is lots of green space for the kids to run around in, and the church and Love Mercy ministries are all on the same compound which makes it a great location. We particularly love the banana trees! Wednesdays meant visiting the Ester girls and giving biblestudies. During our time here each girl gave a study - though Becky opted for a prayer time so Nadia went twice. Nadia has a really amazing ability to pray powerfully. It is wonderful to see :) These bible studies and speaking at the local school really prepared each one of our team for our recent Uganda trip. EVERYONE spoke. Kiri- J.T.B, repentence, gospel - When you feel in Chains ( mainly Acts and Phil) - Testimony etc. Hannah- The 'sinful' woman who annointed Jesus' feet with purfume - The power of prayer/Elijah - GospelGemma and Laura- Spiritual GiftsLaura- Abigail and Nabal/ in 1 Sam - looking at Abigail's character and what we can learnLauren- a study on: 2 Cron 7:14 - "If my people will humble themselves ..."Nadia- TestimonyBecky- Encouragement - Plan for your lifeMillie- Hope - Testimony And everyone did kids ministry at some time!!! the 2 main sessions days looked at: (1) The Armour or God(2) - We are going on a JOURNEY!!!-- Pauls Missionary Journeys.. Whilst waiting for the Uganda trip to come abou we were still VERY busy. WE had 2 main trips. (1) Mt. Elgon trip (2) Animal farm/camping trip. The Mt. Elgon trip was great fun. It was so nice to get out of Kitale and do something very different. As soon as we got there we had a mini jungle safari.... many gals stuck heads out of roofs or sat on the window ledges. But since the elephants were out of the park that day we only saw monkeys, amazing birds and deer 'water' bucks and...................BATS!!!Now seeing the other wildlife was a bonus, as we had come primarily to investigate BAT CAVES!With headtorches, we all clambered and jumped from rock to rock (avoiding massive patches of bat poo where possible). We were in complete darkness as we went deeper and deeper into the caves. I was glad that my torch wasnt too bright and that way I wouldnt be put off by some spindly spiders. AS we got closer we would hear high pitch squeeks and a clikcing almost like static or electricity!! The caves went back so so far! It was a grat experince. If we shon our torches on the Bats you could see their eyes reflecting like cats eyes, and a suddenly flow of them would spill our of the crevices above...... Everyone conquored the caves, seeing their extent!!! At the mouths of the caves we also were able to step into a crystal like shower stream that flowed down. For some of the girls that was too much to miss!!! The caves are often frequented by Elephant aparently liking the stones for salt! We didnt find any elephant boes despite a potential sighting.... but it would have bee fun, and tehre are some there. After our explotations... a 2 or 3 hour hike ensued. The girls vastly outpaced Daniel and Mwange who were with us from Youth Apart! We all put them to shame! Overall an amazing day. The second trip was to The animal farm. Now despite boasting some intersting animals, we also had a great time camping there. We had a big 10 man tent, and after our tour of the area and boat racing on a small river (which included pirate capture and hostage taking (nadia :) ).... we had some spontanous fun. Nadia decided to climb a coconut plam tree that had fallen over a river. The further she went the more she knew she had to keep going- it was at about 45 degrees. We were amazed at her effort!!! bare foot hanging over this muddy river! Now as Laura bounced on the tree... and as Nadia got further up, it got more creaky..... Kiri (me) ran around the windy park roads to get to the other side of the river to help nadia swing off to the bank. Now just as tehy were clearing away branches.... there came a massive CRACK and the partially fallen tree fell down into the river. Nads was fine, it was just pretty epic and a shock. It was a shame as lauren had just stopped videoing at this point! Nads was rescued and it was all quite funny especially as the park attendents heard the collapse and ran to see the incident!!!! Apart from that, fire starting was a valiant effort by Han, Laura, Gems and Bex, while Kiri, Millie, Lauren, Nads and our friend Irene went fishing for lunch on a boat! Two flish were eventually caught by our Kenyan contingent.. one small beautiful fish and one GIANT CATFISH!!! Lets just say gutting and cooking the CATFISH was an episode. Everyone enjoyed the camping, and it was a great team time before UGANDA. Now Uganda, apart from Speaking had many other elements... but I will only touch on a few. We visted AIDS/HIV touched homes....interviewed people as part of church projects.... Recorded data and took pictures for a database of children in a similar way to Compassion... had to sing alot.... and received 2 chickens (which mysteriously went missing!!!). I will let the girls fill you in on everything else....I havn't even got onto cleaning the kids hospital ward at the Kitale district hospital....feeding the kids and families there.... handing out/preparing wheelchairs there.... or my African "disolvable but not really disolvable" stitches in my thumb!!! There are too many stories, and so many amazing things the lord has done! And there are new people in the Kingdom in Uganda after the trip- amen :). It is so amazing how teh lord has used us as we ahve been stepping out and we all desire to see more of it. So watch this space! But thank you all so much for your amazing love, support and help! We cant wait for the UK stop-over! Blessings Kiri, Hannah and all the Soul Edge girls, 2009.

Turkana post

We all returned safely from Turkana, monday week so that was good. This update comes from Lauren's account of Turkana which she has graciously let us all share today :) So enjoy and God bless, Kiri and Hannah and all the Soul edge Gals 2009 "We had an amazing time, it was so good to experience everything.... My perception of average journey lengths has changed some what since being in Kenya! It was about 17 hours on the way up, and about 14 ish on the way back, but you just deal with it, and it’s good because when I get back home four hours is gonna seem like a doddle! And we were told that it was going to be really really bad, and may take up to 21ish hours, and so 17 didn’t really seem that bad.
Lots of interesting toilet experiences this week, uhhh, such a horrible smell! That was something I’m not sure if I could ever get used to. You have a little cubicle with a small round hole in the floor, and a big pit beneath, full of everybody’s waste, and then maybe rats or maggots. I don’t know how often they get emptied, but it was scank! I think my lung capacity increased from trying to hold my breath for as long as possible!
Turkana was stretching physically, it was really hot, and with the toilets and not having cold water to cool you off, it was a bit uncomfortable at times, I found out more about about my limits in terms of what I could cope with. It made me admire the people who live there so much, especially the people we lived with, Wilson and Alice. I think if you grow up living somewhere hard then you are used to it, but if you move there having lived somewhere else that was nicer then it’s even harder, because you find yourself comparing what you used to have to what you’ve got now. Wilson and Alice also work for Youth Apart, the main organization that we have been working for in Kitale. They live in a really tiny house, and don’t have hardly anything by way of possessions, (although that is so much more then other people in Turkana have, 92% live below the poverty line) but they still shared what they had soooooooooo much, with us, and with people in their church, Wilson is a pastor, and the neighbours, and everyone! It reminded me of that bit in Acts (Acts 2:42-47, the Believers Form a Community) when the disciples are just starting up churches and they live really communally. And it did make me more grateful of things that I hadn’t even realized I took for granted, like cold water.
But it was so worth that stuff, to be there. We got to sleep outside every night under the stars, partly because there was no room inside and partly because it was so incredibly warm, even at night. Wowie, good stars! The Turkana tribe are one of the last nomadic tribes in east Africa, so most people don’t actually stay in one place for very long, but there are a few towns, like the one that we were staying in. One day we went out and did a food drop off in the bush which was an incredible experience. We drove out to a water pump that had been built last year, tooted the horn a few times, and then waited for people to come. Which they did after a while. It was a group of women and children who came, the men all stay out in the hills with their goats, so the women do most of the day to day stuff. We got to hear about what the women do, which was interesting, because even though they might get married off for however many goats at the age of 14, and their husbands might have more then one wife, they are still the main breadwinners. Such strong women. They make charcoal, and then will walk through the night to get to town so that they can sell it in town during the day. The bag of charcoal would weigh about 25kg, and they normally carry them on their heads. If they sold the whole bag they might make about 150 shillings, which is roughly £1.50, and to buy a small bag of lentils, which is a basic food, it would be about 120 shillings (£1.20), and when I say a small bag I mean about the size of a normal bag of sugar, so to me it seems a bit of a miracle that they survive at all. It was great to be able to bless them with food, which is obviously so needed. We took lentils, flour, salt and cooking fat. They said thank you that God had remembered them. It is good to be able to be a good example of what Christians are meant to be, to the Turkana people. One of the girls in our group, Gemma was given a marriage proposal while we were doing the food drop off, apparently she was worth 50 goats, 7 camels and 4 donkeys! But we held on to her, it was still early in the week at that point, so I think we were hoping to get a better deal! We got an insight into a bit more of what the corruption looks like in Kenya too. We were meant to do the food drop off the day before we actually went, but we were just loading the food onto the top of the land rover, when a police man came and said that we weren’t allowed to go out into the bush without an armoured truck to come with us, as it was unsafe for a group of all girls with just Wilson. So we had to then go to the police station and there was a bit of a shouting spree, and then we got to go home. So then the next day when we eventually left, we got to take two armed guards with us, which made it even more squishy in the land rover, but at least it was less expensive then a whole armoured vehicle. We didn’t really need the guards, I think it was a way for the police to make a bit of money, but it was nice that they cared about us. A worse example was when we were traveling up to Turkana on the bus, and the police just randomly do road blocks, and if you want to go through you have to pay them, it’s not that they are checking your drivers license or anything, although there are checks like that, but some are just to make money.
Another day we went to a ‘school’ to give out some food and play with the kids. I don’t know if you guys recall, but last January, in 2008 there was a lot of violence in Kenya after the national elections, because people thought it had been rigged. So that violence created loads of displaced people, particularly from an area called Mount Elgon which is not that far from Kitale, where we are staying. So lots of these refuges have ended up in Turkana, and we were at the school for one small camp of refugees. We sat with the kids while they ate their lentils, out of dirty bowls or cups with dirty hands. Then we sang some songs and acted out David and Goliath. They were really sweet kids. It’s sad, because I’m sure they are really keen to learn, but they just have nothing, like really nothing. A few of them had notebooks, and we gave then a blackboard so at least now the teacher has something to write on. But they all just sit in a group on the floor and I guess do things like practice counting together, and learning songs and stuff. But it’s good though, because they get at least one square meal a day through going to school.
Another day we went to the actual UN refugee camp in Turkana, which is huuuuuuuuge! I think there are around 200,000 people there, from eight different nationalities, Kenyan, Congolese, Rwandan, Burundian, Sudanese, Somali, Ethiopian… can’t remember last one. Each nationality has it’s own section within the camp, we were in the Ethiopian part, so it’s like a mini Ethiopia, I guess kind of like how you have China town in London! But to give you an idea of how big the camp is, there was a school in the camp that was 15km away from the bit of the camp that we were in, and it’s only 9km to cycle down the cycle track from Barnstaple to Bideford! It was really interesting to experience what it was like in the camp, even though we were only there for a few hours. The people in the camp get a better deal then the Turkana people who live in the area, in some ways, as they get fed, a house and basic schooling for free in the camp, but then obviously there’s the fact that they are refuges, and living outside of their normal surroundings. When we were on the bus on the way back home from Turkana there was a group of Ethiopians who were from the refugee camp, and they were being moved to Australia. They didn’t know which airport they were flying into or anything. That must be scary, to be moved to a country which you probably don’t even know where it is, and when you don’t speak that much English either. And it must be hard for the UN as well to keep track of everyone, we reckoned that moving them from Turkana to Australia would prob take about three days, and there’s so many different stages to the journey where people could get lost if they are in completely new surroundings. And it must be hard for the UN to make sure that that doesn’t happen, that people don’t get lost and for them to keep caring about people as individuals, rather then just thinking of the target number of people they have to move each year, and then just bumping up the statistics if a few people do get lost in transition.
This week we have been doing more normal stuff, like going to visit the teenage mums, the Esther girls, in their slum, and doing a Bible study. Although only one of them was there this week which was a shame. And we have been working more on the Esther home, where they will be moving into hopefully really soon. It’s almost all painted now, so I think this week we will be able to start buying furniture. We were at a wedding today (Saturday), it was the lady Naomi who runs the baby rescue orphanage who was getting married. She is English, but her husband Bill is Kenyan, and it was kind of a Kenyan wedding, which meant it started two hours later the planned! But there was lots of dancing and a real atmosphere of celebration which was really cool. It was held in the grounds of the orphanage, they have a really big garden. We were there mostly to help out, and look after the kids so that the ladies who run the orphanage pretty much 24/7 could have a break and enjoy the ceremony. It was funny though, we got there about 9:30, the wedding was meant to start at 12, and we thought we would just be looking after the kids, maybe doing Naomi’s hair and helping a bit with the cooking, but I ended up making four bouquets of flowers, there’s a first time for everything (!) and Hannah ended up cooking one of the big pots of lentils, but it was all good fun. Again Archie you would have been in baby heaven with all the little ones! And on the subject of babies, Marlies, whose husband is called Daniel, the couple who head up Youth apart, have just had their second baby, on the 17th of Feb. She is so tiny! Her name is Leona Vada, I think they said Leona means stronger then a lion, and Vada, that’s her middle name, means warrior in Arabic, not as a connection with Darth Vada in Star Wars!
We were meant to be going to climb Mt Kenya this coming week, but when we were doing painting at the Esther home, Hannah’s ladder broke, and she fell on her ankle. I got to go to hospital with her and it wasn’t broken, just sprained, but obviously climbing a mountain with a big fat kankle (is that how you spell it?!) isn’t fun, so we have changed that trip to right at the end. So now we are here in Kitale for two weeks, then go to Uganda for about a week, then home for a day or two, then off to Mt Kenya, and then I think we go straight to Nairobi and off home. Time has seriously flown by!" This SATURDAY we are all climbing Mt elgon!!! EXCITING STUFF!Blessings to all!x

Around Kitale and river trip

UPDATE ON SE GIRLS 1st WK FEB 09 Hi all! So we have had a long stretch here in Kitale, but it now feels so much like home for most of us in the team! Walking back to the compound seems so natural- that is after shouting "haraka" (however you are ment to spell "faster" in swahili), to race our boda boda drivers up the Millimani hill. We are also now very used to shouts of "how are you"??? coming from multiple directions simultaneously, since it seems to come from every small child who immediately (of course) recognises our pale skin! So we have introduced sugar cane to the girls... some like it and others dont.... we are all enjoying the african food... but Chipati's are now seeming stodgier the more we eat them.... Experimentation to switch up meal time fun now includes ..... Chipatis with sugar.... Chipatis and peanut butter..... Chipatis, peanut butter and Jam and so on in increasing intensity. We have had alot of guest speakers this week and its been great. Marlise from Youth Apart, as well as Pauline who co-leads the ministry, have been imparting great teaching to the gals and have given us all alot to think and pray about. Amid the teaching and quiet times, we have been on the go!!! Last time we told you about our impending river trip!!! A two hour drive into the mountains unveiled a beautiful yet muddy looking spunky river (if a river can be called spunky- aka realtively harmless but with some fiesty fast bits!!). All the girls tried using tyre inners as tubes to sit in down some of the river.... which was great fun. The more adventurous took to jumping off interesting places... and much longer faster routes..... all were fully satisfying their individual desires for adventure that day!!! The coolest thing is seeing speckles of real gold on the water bed - Millie " I swam in GOLD" :D. Ministry wise, we ran a 'kids program ' at THE VOICE..... crowd control was a slight issue... but all seemed to enjoy our enactment of Jesus and the little children as well as David and Goliath- (in the latter Nadia took staring role, with Laura and Becky adding many dramatic elements to come up with a "very fierce" Goliath!!!!!!!!!). The simple messages we had got over to the crowd... or seemed to.... and the prayer was also a highlight. The Voice was an event led by many churches in Kitale coming together to celebrate but also to pray for Gods intervention in Kenya and Kitale specifically. It had a real carnival feel with Dancing Masaii's as the girls favourites.... Gemma was getting instructed by the Masaiis and they seemed to think she was doing a good job :P The Esther home is really moving along- it is happening.... though slowly.... we are trying to paint accomodation tomorrow morning! The girls who visit the ester home were there today, as well as last week. Millie did an amazing talk for the Ester home girls last week on Identity focusing on 3 specific aspects... which she then gave to a group of 30 or so school girls this week to great effect. Today Lauren delivered her talk on Warriors in Christ..... it was a really well recieved, and put together talk- all your girls are amazing!!! The Baby rescue center team - Laura, Gemma and Becky were changing it up this week- The am comprised of running part of a school assembly - the kids loved the OBJECT lession Han and the girls all performed.... much laughing and fun for all involved. Later on, they went to start prepping the Esther home site. We have also been inspired by some amazing women working in Kitale. One that stands out for myself (Kiri) is a lady called Ruth. We went to see her re: waterborn diseases and to get a walk around one of the slum areas to see where help was needed. She is such a servant to her community. As a retired nurse (and she must be about 75) her and a friend have opened up slum located clinics, and with minimal resources (very minimal) they sacraficially offer health care to these communities. We joined her in her rounds and visits one afternoon--- before we were asked to do an impromtu teaching session!!!- Nadia spoke about the book of Ruth and we tied it into other teaching... everyone seemed really encouraged and they were so pleased we had seen them- We were their first ever visiters to their clinics and so it was worth it just to encourage and pray wiht them - but it was also great to open our eyes to some of the challenges people living there face. This next week (Mon-SUN) we are in Turkana.... VERY VERY HOT! Prayer please for the team amid harsher living conditions, for our minsitry there.... and effectiveness, and even for the generator to work--- we really want to show the Jesus film to the people living there- its such an amazing experience and tool, so being able to do that would be a blessing to all involved! One again we thank you all so much for your continued support of our team. >>As an FYI if anyone is having a hard time getting in contact with us on the phone in the house.... this is because one day it stopped giving a dial tone. We are getting people to figure out what is wrong.. hopefully it will be up and working again soon! Love and blessings to all, Kiri, Hannah and all the Soul Edge girls team 2009!!!!

The first few weeks in Kitale

Dear Family and Friends of the SE gals teamWe do hope you all are well :) We are having a great time here in Kitale over the last week and a half! It feels like we have been here for so so long! So we have been doing sessions each day ... today we had Communication Part 1 and prayer and intercession Part 2. In addition everyone has been busy with readings, team bonding, serving,and pressing into the lord.... one of the best additions of the house is converting one of the bedrooms into a prayer room, everyone has been making real use of that space. The lord has really been moving already- Our talk on intercession by Marlise from Youth Apart really touched Gemma as the Lord was sharing some of his heart with her. It was a blessing for all of the group. Millie additionally was really really excited as the Lord has begun showing her visions,that have been confimed in real life- we are currently discerning where the Lord wants us to work or pray into in this regard... prayer for this would be great. More details will potentially follow. Everyone in the Team has been incredible. Hannah and I (Kiri) have been overwhelmed by everyones attitude (really amazing) and we are really encouraged by the team. We were asked to talk at the MOI university here in Kitale tonight. Laura is leading the main part of the talk,with Lauren and me (Kiri) introducing. Gemma and Becky are doing testimonies within the talk and the whole team is there to pray during and after. The girls have really been stepping out in leadership . Nadia led a bible study with Millie and Lauren leading prayer and questions for some young vunerable Kenyan moms as part of Youth Apart's Esther home project. Youth apart and we,need prayer to find a suitable compound of these girls... when this happens we will get alot of time to get the house ready and head up working with these girls. Gemma, Laura, Hannah and Becky have also been spending good chunks of time serving over at the baby rescue center (initially set up with hope for the nations) here in Milimani in Kitale. It is only a 10 minute walk from our compound. Bathing, feeding and putting down to rest the little ones seems to quite a tiring exercise!!! The stories of some of these children are very intense. Prayer for them and their futures would be much appreciated. So,we better head off so as to get ready for speaking tonight.We thank you all for your amazing love, support and prayers, Kiri and Hannah,with love from all the Soul Edge girls team 2009 Blessings! p.s. Tomorrow we leave home at 6 am for a River TRIP!!!! more details will follow!!

The arrival

Greetings allWell, we are now in Kitale...It's about 25 + and we're enjoying it. Wegot into Nairobi on th 9th and thn traveled out to Kitale on the11th. It was our first real Kenyan travel experience with the EasyCoach, not bad, actually had 2 bathrooms stops when only anticipatingone, but we're bracing ourselves for the Elderit Express to Turkana(Feb) which has reputedly gotten worse.We've been getting to know the town abit and the Youth Apart ppl. Sofar everyone has been amazing, but must say a group of white girlsdefnately stands out, so it's good for tracking each other down.Mzungu is becoming a word close to my heart.

Hannah Erb