This trip was one that I will never forget, for many reasons. The best part of it was seeing how much the people there truly loved each other. Every single person there was willing to give so much of themselve to others.

One day, we were in the city (Nakuru) to get bottled water. We were sitting in the bus waiting for whoever had gone in to bring the water back, and a boy about my age came up to the window asking for food. I gave him a bag of mixed nuts that I had. We asked him where he lived, and he pointed to the store.

"You live in the store? we asked.

"No, between," he said. He lived in the alley between two buildings. After our brief conversation, he walked across the street. A little later, I turn around and watch him share the nuts with 4 other boys who were hungry. When I'm at school and I get a little hungry, I don't share my food. He did not know when he might get another chance to eat, and he was willing to share. It reminded me of in Luke 12, when Jesus says, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes."

The day after the conference was over, we went to the center. Most of the kids had ridden away on buses the previous day, and only the boys who lived at the center were there. I spent the majority of the day playing cards with some of the boys.

I taught them a game where each player successively places a card face up in the middle quickly, and whenever two cards of the same value appear, the first person to slap the deck keeps it. Whoever is the last to have cards wins. They loved the game, but it never seemed to end. Each time one of them ran out of cards, another boy would take his deck, split it in two, and give half the boy without.

Another remarkable element of this trip was the way the Kenyans worshiped. They spent hours on end in a room together, swaying, clapping and dancing, singing songs to God. Everyone sang, and everyone moved. It was amazing to watch how much they enjoyed to dance for the Lord. Most of us on the team were asked how we danced in our church, and had trouble understanding when we explained that we stand still during worship.

During this trip, I hopefully shared with them about the love of Christ. I hoped I helped teach them how to have a personal, informal relationship with God. I don't know if I succeeded in teaching them any of this, but I know that they have taught me a lot about loving people the way God loves me, and truly living for others.

The Mama Helen's Story

Over the past month I heard of several people asking about my Kenya blog. This made me very glad that people were interested in what are doing over there. At the same time, it made me feel a little embarrassed because I had nothing posted that was deserving of what I witnessed and took part of in Kenya. I hope this can give you a rough sketch of what I saw on the trip.

At Mama Helen's Rehabilitation, there are over forty boys who have lived there no more than three years. Before that, they lived on the streets. Each of them has their own story, but there is a theme to their pasts that are similar. Most of them had one or both parents. Most of them had siblings and a house. All of them had these things taken from them.

Some of the boys lived in homes plagued by violence, disease, and addiction. Others lost their homes to aids. Whether by choice or for lack of alternative, all of the boys made their way to the streets.

On the streets, these boys faced trials and struggles. Most of them found that while they could not afford adequate food, they could afford furniture glue. They found if they dangled this glue from their lip, they could inhale the fumes and they would no longer feel their hunger. They became numbed and almost zombie-like.

A man, Pastor Jackson, saw these children and knew he had to reach them. He invited them to come to his church, and they came. He would take their glue bottles and throw them away. He offered them food and the word of God. He told them about a God who loved them more than they could imagine and wanted to know them personally.

Pastor Jackson continued to serve the boys in this way for some time. Eventually, he heard God tell him to take some further steps in serving the boys.

Pastor Jackson found Port City Community Church on the internet and emailed Mike Ashcraft, the pastor. Mike, suspecting an internet scam, deleted a number of Pastor Jackson's earlier emails. But Pastor Jackson felt that it was God's will for Port City to help him minister to the street children in Nakuru, so he kept emailing until he got a reply.

After two years of corresponding, Pastor Jackson flew to America and began the partnership that God has used to redeem the boys at Mama Helen's.

If you would like to read more of the story of Mama Helen's click here

Here is the plotline of our trip:
12/28:
Arrived around 3 in Nairobi, Kenya's capital. The plane rides were long, particularly from Dubai to NY, but I watched Batman, The Office, 30 Rock, and Get Smart, so it wasn't that bad. We took two vans and a big Land Rover from the airport to the restaurant in Nakuru where we will be eating dinner throughout the week. It took about 3 and a half hours. The ride was beautiful. We stopped at a ridge where we could look down into the Great African Rift Valley, which goes all the way across the continent veritically (Like an inversed Ande's Mountains). It was beautiful. Once we got to the restaurant, the food was surprisingly very good. We had tomato soup, fish from Lake Victoria, and potatoes and rice, the main staples of our diet throughout the trip. After dinner, we headed to the Marin Guest resorts. Our rooms had flushing toilets! The water was freezing cold, unfortunately. I went to bed pretty soon after getting there; the planes had exhausted me.
12/29:
Wake up, have breakfast at the hotel (Toast with really good jelly, an omlete, and really good fruit juice. Better than what I normally eat!). A member of the team leads devotions (The Swahili word for the day is Karibu, meaning welcome). We find out that we actually do have hot water, you just have to flip a switch outside the shower. That was great news! We head down to the center (Mama Helens, where the boys who our church sponsor live) and meet the boys for the first time.
Many people on the trip had been there before, and many sponsored boys (meaning they pay for their food, clothes, and school fees). They jumped right in and were having fun with the kids. The rest of us were standing off a little unsure of what to do. We tried talking to the kids. Eventually, after some awkward introductions, we got to know some of the kids. Two of them took me down to show me the rabbit cages.
Around 2 in the afternoon (I think; they don't keep track of time as much as we do. Everything they do is less formal and more relaxed) We went into the meeting room. There were about 300 plastic chairs facing a stage with a drum set, four mikes, and a computer that one of the boys used to dj. They had borrowed all of the equiptment from Bishop Mina's church. Bishop Mina, or Pastor Jackson, is the pastor from our sister church, the Victorius Community Church. He had the vision to start the orphanage and has been leading throughout the time.
For the next few hours, we sang worship. We danced, swayed, clapped our hands. It was much more energetic and joyful than any worship I've ever been to here. A few times throughout some boys got on the stage and danced. They were all so good. By the time we left for dinner, most of the kids had arrived for the conference.
12/30: First day of conference! After a devotion on the word Twende (Let's go), we headed down the dirt road to the center again. When we arrived, they were already in worship, and the Bishop was talking to them. He was preaching from Romans 12:1-2. This scripture was referenced throughout the week, as the theme of the camp was Be Ye Transformed.
After Pastor Jackson had finished, Brett Edy, our high school youth pastor, hit the stage. I was very nervous for him. Sammie, a local youth pastor in the Bishop's church, translated for him. He talked about the Belt of Truth. Then we had small groups.
My small group consisted of 10 students, ages 14-17, and Ken, my co-leader. Ken is a member of Pastor Jackson's church. He did a great job facilitating conversation when we had long silencs. All the kids were very quiet the first small group, and I did a lot of the talking. After small group, we went down to the fields for compitition. We tried to organize relays, but it didn't work out very well. We ended up just all sitting in a circle and having two people run around the outside at a time. Next we had lunch, which was a pile of rice, two potatoes, and a small piece of meat. Then, we had a second session, on the breastplate of righteousness, which Mark Foland, our middle school youth pastor gave. Mark was less comfortable talking with a translator than Brett, but he did a great job setting up the idea and prompted some good conversation in small group. The kids were asking questions and were genuinely interested in what we were talking about. Sometimes the conversation would change into Swahili for a little, but Ken always told me what they were saying. After small group, we walked down to the field to play soccer and volley ball. It was great hanging out with the kids. They get into the games a lot, but they're not super competitive. Playing volley ball, they cheered so much when they won a point, but as soon as the game was over, no one rubbed it in the other teams' faces. When the ball landed near the line, they didn't fight over whether it was in or out. They just went with what the person closest to the ball said and kept playing. It was much more fun than any of the other times I've played.
12/31-1/1:
The next two days were similar to the first as far as order of events. What we did at the field varied, but we played soccer at least once a day. We had two big kites out one day. Another time, we used pieces of fabric to spell out the word transformed on the ground. One kid was blind folded while the rest of the team told him what to do. We were split into three teams, red, yellow, and blue (red being the best, of course), and each team was timed to see who was the fastest. One afternoon, instead of going to the field, we had a dance compitition. It was more like an exposition because we didn't choose a winner or anything. It was amazing to see how much the kids loved dancing and cheering for eachother. It lasted a couple of hours. There were kids doing back flips and all kinds of stuff. My friend Nick was amazingly good. In the video I'm going to post that Andy filmed you'll see him a good bit.
On the morning of the third day, the first day of 2009, Brett talked about the Helmet of Salvation. This talk was "the cross talk", where he talked about what Jesus has done for us and how we need to personally ask to recieve His forgiveness. After, Sammie did a sort of alter call, and 23 kids walked up to the stage! Brett prayed with them. It was awesome to see.

I'll finish up telling about the trip in a future post. Thank you for taking such an interest in what we did! It's very encouraging to know that there is a community that is aware and cares about what our church is doing in Kenya.

To see Andy's Video from the trip CLICK HERE

Swamped

I know some people have checked here and been disappointed that there's nothing post-trip up. I've been very busy with make-up work, jet lag, swim meet, and now I have finals starting on Thursday. I promise I'll give you something more substantial later, but for now let me say the trip was a huge success. We had over 250 kids show up. Kenya was beautiful. I have made some great friends, some on team and some Kenyan. It was an amazing opportunity to see God move and to be a facilitator of some of that movement.

Here are some Facebook photoalbums from the trip. Unfortunately, you have to be logged into facebook to see them. They're taken by Dave Sapp, a member of the team:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57172&id=501743936
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57173&id=501743936
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57174&id=501743936
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57176&id=501743936
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57178&id=501743936

I know that wasn't much, especially if you don't have facebook. Hopefully it was enough to whet your appetite. I promise there's more to come.

10 hours til takeoff (Alton)

It was an interesting Christmas, to say the least. It was a much more hectic holiday than usual with opening presents, having Christmas dinner, and packing into the wee hours of the morning. For me, this break from school hasn't offered much free time, although it has brought a lot of excitement and fun. I have no doubt it will continue to do so over the next two weeks.

I do not know if there will be an opportunity for me to write here while in Kenya, but if I can get online I'll be sure to give yall some information, stories, and specific prayer requests. I'll be keeping a journal so I'll try and recreate some semblance of daily blog entries when I get back. And, of course, I'll try and get pictures and such on here.

I am very excited about this trip, although it still hasn't really sunk in yet. Pastor Jackson, a local Kenyan pastor who has played a key role in everything Port City's done over there including founding the orphanage and organizing this retreat, said he's had 350 kids sign up for the conference. That is a lot more than we were expected, and I'm pretty sure they are still accepting kids. While this may create some logistical complications, it is truly a blessing to have an opportunity to reach so many kids.

I need to get some sleep, but I didn't want to leave for this trip without giving this information and, more importantly, giving a few things that you can pray for. Please pray that:
-The kids who God wants to speak to through this camp will get there.
-Brett, Mark, Dave and I will allow God to speak through us while talking in main session, and that everyone on the team will facilitate life-changing conversation in small groups.
-Safe travels for us and those going to the conference as students.
-Kenyans can put their trust in Jesus and not things of this world, including Barack Obama. As remarkable a man as he is, we know that he cannot fix all of America's problems, much less Kenya's. Pray that they will find a greater Hope than any man could ever offer, a hope for freedom and new life.

Should have posted this a while ago. This is the team going:















Here's a youtube video of some of the boys at the orphanage from an earlier trip by people in our church. It's so cool to think in 2 days I'm probably going to meet these kids, plus hundreds more! I wish I was as musically talented as they are.


Well, bout time I get some sleep. Tomorrow night New York City, next night Kenya. Hope to write here again soon. Feel free to email me any comments/questions.

God bless!
Alton

Update (Alton)

I recently sent out a new batch of support letters asking for prayer. It contains some of the same text as the first one but also has a lot of new information that was not available when I sent the first letter. For those of you who did not receive this letter, here's a copy of it:

Dear Recipient,
I have been given the opportunity this Christmas break to travel with a team from Port City Church to the Mama Helen’s Rehabilitation Center, an orphanage for boys, in Nakuru, Kenya. We will be in Nakuru from December 28 to January 6, and during that time we will hold a four day youth conference for the forty boys at the orphanage and up to 200 students from local churches.
The team has met several times over the past month and a half to prepare ourselves spiritually and culturally and to plan. We are planning to use a passage from Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. The six large group sessions will each be based on one of the six pieces of armor (belt of truth, helmet of salvation) from the passage. Within this context we will emphasize that God loves them, wants to have a personal relationship with them, and sacrificed Jesus to make this possible. This message will be conveyed primarily through the large group sessions and small group time. My role on this trip will include leading a small group, organizing and participating in games and skits, and speaking in front of the large group. I will be giving the talk on the shoes of peace.
I am very excited about sharing God’s love with the children I will encounter on this trip, and I want my friends and family to share in this excitement. So, I have created a blog at tokenya.blogspot.com with Darby Simmons, another highschooler going on the trip, where we will share our thoughts and experiences before, during, and after the trip. My hope for this blog is that those who give money and prayer to this mission can see the results and share in the joy that comes from loving others as God has loved us.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I encourage you to lift this mission up in your prayers and check out the blog. If you would like any more information about the trip or have any questions, please call or email me.

Sincerely yours,

Alton Russell

In other news, I've gotten all my shots and prescriptions. I had to get Hepititus A, Tetenus, Yellow Fever, and Malaria shots.

Pray that the team can get the trip paid for, be prepared physically and spiritually, and are safe during their holiday travels. Pray for those in Kenya who are preparing for this conference at the same time that we are, and pray that God will make a way for the students in Kenya who He wants to be at this conference to get there.

Thanks!
Alton

Update (Alton)

It's been way too long since we've posted anything here, and it's certainly not because nothing's happened. I pray like me you are all enjoying the finer aspects of this season, such as fires and apple cider and s'mores.

We've had two meetings since Darby's post, and both of them were about spiritual preparation. We talked about what missions are (going to share God's love and make disciples), why we do missions (as a form of worship to God), forms of spiritual discipline (I need to work on journaling!), and other related subject matter. It seems for everything they tell us they give us two bible verses to back it up, which is very encouraging because it reinforces that we are going out to do God's will.

At the end of the second meeting, we talked about how we will structure the time, as in what we'll have the kids doing when. We also went over some ideas for the talks. It looks like we'll be discussing the Armor of God, which comes from Ephesians 6. The plan is to talk about the different tools and resources the students can utilize to really start to have a relationship with God and to live the life He has in plan for them. Please pray that as we develop the material for the talks, we will end up with material that will really speak to the children and help them grow closer to God. My prayer is that after hearing these talks, students won't just know how to be really moral people but will be transformed by God's mercy and have the tools necessary to live their lives for Him.