By His Stripes

For some reason I haven’t been able to wear my contacts since I’ve been here. The right one irritates my eye. It seems to be some sort of allergic reaction or something.

Well, on Sunday I tried to wear them again and wore them too long. On Monday I woke up with a very irritated eye. I tried to go outside and work but the sunlight was just too much for it. It progressively got worse through the day and by the afternoon I was in horrible discomfort. A bump had formed on the inside of my eyelid and it was swollen halfway shut. It felt like there was something in my but was unable to find anything. All I could do was cry out to the Lord a this point. By the time I felt I couldn’t take it anymore it seemed to get a little better but I was still in a lot of discomfort so I decided to try and go to sleep early.

Almost every night I pray with Noah and Anisia before bed. Noah prayed for my eye to be healed. Almost instantly my eye was about 95% better. It was wonderful to experience relief after the day I had. God rocks.

Today it’s at about 99% and I’m expecting complete healing.

Living, Working, Learning

We’ve had a crew here for two weeks now digging and mixing mud. Today they started forming bricks. We’re going to bake them right here on site. The metal roof system should also be arriving any minute. I just hope the truck can make it to the back of the property without sinking in the mud. It’s been raining like crazy until the last couple of days.

We had to fire our architect because he wasn’t doing his job. We hired another architect yesterday and he seems to be on top of things. He’s much more experienced and he’s helping to “Africanize” our plans. We plan on meeting up with him this afternoon.

Well I just got a call that the truck is just up the road so I will have to resume this later…

…Ok it’s later.

We have our steel, we have our plans and we have two fundi (the guys helping us erect the buildings) that will be staying with us for the next couple of weeks. This house is getting pretty packed full of people.

So my main job here to help with this building project. Problem is I really feel like I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Sometimes I really don’t know what the heck I’m doing here. I’m learning a lot, but I still feel completely under equipped. Please keep me in your prayers. I’ve spent a lot of time crying out to the Lord for guidance lately. He always comes through, just not always when I want.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I don’t do much manual labor anymore which is what I’ll be doing.

I give up...

on this stupid internet today. The main reason I came to town today was to use the internet and it's completely packed with people so the connection is horrible. I sure do complain about the internet a lot. It's wonderful when it's working well but very frustrating when it's not.

OK, so just getting to town today took about two hours. The cops were doing checks on the road just up from the house so the matatus weren't packing people in like they normally would. When we did finally have a person offer to give us a ride the cops saw us get in his car so they decided to pull him over and harass him just because he picked us up. So Noah and I got out of the car to search for other means of transportation. We ended up getting a ride on a couple of piki piki (motorbike) down a muddy back road to avoid the cops.

All that and now I can't even really get anywhere with this slow connection. I only hope this is able to post. Other than than everything is great. Thank's for your prayers and encouraging words. I'm so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.

I'll try to get to the cafe early on Friday and beat the crowd.

New pics

Gotta make this fast since my battery is about to die. Been on the net for two hours now try to get a bunch of stuff accomplished and due to the poor connection today I was only able to finish half of what I wanted to do. O well, another day. I've just sent out my first update email. Had some errors on some addresses so I'll see if I mistyped some things. If you would like to receive emails from me or if you're expecting an email an haven't received one let me know. Email me at jijeremy at gmail dot com. OK gotta go!

Yay!

I got my phone hooked up with a new sim for the Safari Com network a few days ago. I've been try to get connected to the net through my phone now for a couple days and I now up and running. The connection isn't too fast but I can access from the comfort of home, or anywhere I have service. It seems to be somewhat affordable too. 12.6 KES/mb which is about 20 cents/mb.

Well, its taken a few days to adjust but I'm doing well. I'm eating very well and have all the chai (tea with milk fresh from the cow) I can drink. Although many people speak English here it is still difficult to communicate at times because of the thick accent and cultural differences. I've picked up a few new words in Swahili but I have a way to go. The weather has been beautiful. It's been raining in the evenings but sunny and 80ish during the day.

That's it for now. Tune in at a later date for more of my adventure!

In Bungoma

I was just thinking, "Man, the internet has been a lot faster than it was when I was here last," when a handful of people walk into the internet cafe and muscle in on my bandwidth. O well, it's still not too bad.

Just had my first ride in a matatu. For those of you that don't know, a matatu is a minivan taxi that packs people in like sardines. It's cheap, but not very comfortable. The lord told me to ask him for a car while I was still in the states a week ago. "God, I'd like that car now."

Everything has been great so far. Noah and his family have been wonderful. They've welcomed me like family. Life here is going to take some getting used to, but I'll adjust quickly.

I'm planing on getting a phone while in town today and pick up a few other little things. So I'll try to give you a call tonight (or morning for you) mom.

Bye!

YMCA

Back at the YMCA hostel in Nairobi. Feels like I was just here. Well, I guess it was only a few months ago. I do miss having Jason and Nathan around. It can get a little lonely traveling alone. I can't wait to get out of Nairobi. I've never been fond of any big cities, and this one is no exception.

Well I just popped in to make this quick post cuz I can. I may end up in a cyber cafe before I know it so it may not be too long before my next post. Don't expect me to write on this thing all the time though because the novelty will probably wear off soon.

So far everything's going great. I can feel the favor of the Lord. I'm getting up around 4am so I give myself plenty of time to make my flight in the morning. I'm getting kinda sleepy so I'm going to head off to my room.

Nite