JournalEnd0202

I am in the form 4 class room right now typing this because our electricity is still out. Oh you asked about the email, I thought I told you, we can send email through this address through our cell phone. So we can do it from our front porch. It is pretty cool! We have three laptops in the house! It is pretty high tech especially for here. ...We sat in on an English literature class today, but we are going to be teaching grammar and then bible and I am going to help this one teacher with a couple of math lessons pretty soon. Today we bought meat from the market for the first time, it was good though! We made chapatti which is kinda like a tortilla, and then the beef and we had tomatoes and bell pepper and bananas and little plums, it was really good.The other day we made guacamole! It was so good. We eat lunch with the teachers which is beans and rice and we have chai at 10:15 and mandazis which are kinda like sopapillas. The food has really been pretty good. We met this other family the other day who used to work with ywam, they are living in eldoret and they are really nice. We went out to eat with them after we just met them! They said we should have thanksgiving with them because a bunch of missionaries in the area all eat it together and it is really good. They said they would be glad to have us over anytime we show up! ... I feel like we already have so many connections and that God is blessing us with these people.

Sunday, Feb. 1, 2004 -- Excerpts from Mark's e-mail to his parents

well we are on the way to the school, if you want to try the phone tonight it might work. ...i am having trouble with the website uploads so i might try attaching them or i will just send home a cd of pictures every once in a while. ...we are having spaggetti tonight! it was great to hang out with the other families this weekend. we got some new ideas for cooking! tomorrow is our day off, but we are going to be making a list of school projects we might want to persue, such as cleaning the dorms and other on campus beautification stuff.

Saturday, Jan. 31, 2004 -- Excerpts from Mark's e-mail to his parents

Well i heard the best place to recieve calls is not on top of Mount Elgon! Both of our phones are just about out of batteries and the one we have the charger for doesn't get good reception. i am sorry the communication is so bad. anyways we are doing fine with the malaria medicine. you take 4 pills immediately then 4 more in 8 hours, etc. today we have felt great. we even went on a hike to this cave and it was awesome! we are leaving tomorrow and we hope to be able to send more pictures soon.

Friday, Jan. 30, 2004 -- Excerpts from Mark's e-mail to his parents

...we went to a clinic today to basically play with the kids before they went in to be seen. it was great. most of the children were disabled or mentally handicap and there is a huge lack of care for those type of people here and so this ministry is a blessing to the community here. oh and me and nathan got malaria. but don't be scared we went to the doctor as soon as we felt bad and we got medicine. we have been taking preventative and so it is much less severe than it could have been. we began taking the preventative as soon as we got here and the doctor said that that was a good idea and to stay on it even as we take the curative. i felt pretty bad tuesday night and then we went to the doctor wednesday morning and we got the medicine. ...(Thursday) felt nearly back to normal. just a little weak. the symptoms are that you get the chills and then you get really hot and you have a fever. i really don't want you to worry because i am almost completely over it and the doctor is great. the lab work and the pharmacy stuff is all done in the same building. dr. afua the doctor oneal introduced us to is the doctor oneal used for like 10 years. oh and it only cost 1500 shilling which is about $20 for the visit the lab work and the medicine. i will write more tomorrow because we are going to the internet cafe in the morning before we go to mount elgon for the missionary retreat.

Friday, Jan. 30, 2004 -- Note from Denton

Hello Everyone!
Sorry it has taken us a while to update this thing, but it is definitely worth the wait. As we have promised in our letters, there should be many amazing pictures on the site now of the past few weeks. The game park in Nakuru was beautiful, and the Rhinos there were a lot bigger than the ones we have in Arkansas or Texas. We are still settling in, but it takes a long time because we never stay at the house for a full day- we're always out and about either getting more supplies or going to meetings. Sometimes we get to do some downright cool things though, like camping or, better yet, helping both mentally and physically handicapped children like we did yesterday. It was kind of sad, but it felt good to be used by God as instruments to bring peace to the families and children that have so many extra challenges to overcome.
Nathan and Mark, in case you haven't heard, are recovering from Malaria. They had it rough for a little while, but they are back to their normal selves by now. We've been enjoying our own cooking for a few days now, and it isn't half bad. Ben has already become an extraordinary chef at cooking the local cuisine. I think we are all eating a lot healthier and a lot less than we used to. The children around town and the students are getting comfortable with us and some good relationships are starting to form, praise God for all the progress we've made! Consequently, we are becoming a popular option for transportation. Swahili still baffles us, but we're slowly conquering it, or at least enough to get by. We are still trying to figure out the right prices to pay for things in the market, as it seems Wazungu pay more for things due to our lack of understanding. We have some really fun times to ourselves, be it riding over roads not fit even for those super fake SUV commercials or chilling in our house watching Finding Nemo for a few minutes until the generator breaks again. We asked if the generator broke often or the electricity failed much, and our anser was, "No, not often. About once a month." Just an example of the differences here.
Well, that's about enough for now. We'll start teaching soon, so pray for our success in that. And we are still planning some awesome youth rallies- God is already preparing the hearts that will hear his message. Thank you all for the prayers, letters, and emails- the more the merrier! We love to get them. God Bless,
~Mark, Ben, Nathan, Chris, and Denton

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004 -- Note from Mark

...we just are leaving the nakuru game park so we have so many great pictures for you. it was amazing! we saw so many animals. there were giraffes, rhinos, gazelles, cape buffalo, zebra and lots of others. anyway we are going to go to eldoret tomorrow and i will send the pictures and some journal entries from the other guys. ...oh we have been spending a lot more time with the students lately too. we are really starting to be able to communicate alot better. a grouup from nairobi came through this sunday to the school and did a program on aids. it really helped to open the students up to talking about some of the struggles they have. they really don't talk openly about sex in this culture and i think the male students are feeling more comforatable talking about it at least with us.
we are going to start monday febuary second at the school. except monday is our day off so we will really start on tuesday. God has been so evident in preparing the way for us here and we have faith that He will continue to work in us here. thank you for your prayers and support. more soon.
in Christ
mark