Apr 9 - So far this year has really been amazing and I think the whole year will change me to some extent. However sad I will be when it comes time to leave, I will be ready to go back to school and finish up. After graduation I have no idea whether I will go to grad school, start working in the US or go to the mission field anywhere else. I still do have at least a couple years to decide though.
Apr 14 - Yes, it really does rain every day in the rainy season and not just a little. Not too cool for our clothes on the line and for the muddy roads. It is neat to collect the water from the roof though.
Apr 18 - We just got back from our youth rally at Epke and it's probably the most memorable yet. We were supposed to leave Friday morning, but the guy who was supposed to lead us there did not come until Saturday morning. Anyway, after about an hour of driving on a dirt road, we finally got to the escarpment and started riding down. From the start we could see that it was not the brightest idea but Joseph kept on telling us that the place was just near. By that I guess he meant less than an hour, but then everybody says that here. Anyway, the "road" was a very narrow trail made up of grass, rocks and dirt and you could tell that no car had been down the trail in a long time. We finally got to the school where the rally was held and it was such a cool place. It was basically on a cliff with a great view of the Great Rift Valley. The rally went so well; Chris, Ben and I spoke and then we had a break. We played Frisbee and all kinds of other games with the kids. Then Chris and I performed some card tricks and the Africans get so amazed. It's really funny. Thanks so much for sending the book on card tricks. The rallies always go so much better when the church has a leader organizing it. Anyway, as we were having our break we could see clouds come in, and then we saw that it was pouring rain in the valley. Knowing that our Trooper would have a hard time getting back up the trail in normal conditions, we knew that we had to leave before it started pouring and the road got muddy. We thanked the people so much and excused ourselves for leaving early, then started high tailing it. About half way up, the rain started pouring down and the Trooper started to get stuck. What's tricky is that this path is basically on the side of the cliff with no guard rails, so if you start sliding there's a chance the car could fall down the cliff. After many attempts at pushing and basically doing all we could, we made it to the top in about a couple hours (which should have taken about a half hour). Right after we made it to the top, the car died. We figured out the battery was dead, so we pushed the car and push started it, but it died again. So anyway, here we are in the middle of nowhere at night not knowing what's wrong and trying to find help. Tons of village people would just come to see us sit on our car in the dark. After realizing that we would not find any help that night, we pushed our car to the next house, and asked if we could park our car there and pitched our tent in their yard to sleep. They were very nice about it, and 7 hours after leaving the rally (45 minutes away) we were able to sleep. Today we figured out that a cable was short circuiting, the battery was dead and there was no engine coolant left. We were so exhausted and we're so glad to be home now.