Cows, Snakes and Keith Urban

Lauren mentioned in her post yesterday that we were preparing to lead discussions in church today, well, in typical Kenyan fashion, that didn't happen. We went to the "more Vibrant" 10am service today, where most of the youth of Nairobi Pentecostal Church attend. After that service, which featured an AWESOME visiting choir, we headed to the Youth Pastors office. When we walked into the room, Toto, the teen pastor informed us of his plan for the day "Okay, so today we're going to do a discussion format. We're going to be talking about sexual purity."

It just goes to show how we need to be flexible, Daniel and I were planning on talking to the 18+ group about being created in God's image, and Lauren, Ben and Courtney had been planning on talking to the high schoolers about being a follower of God, not a fan (from Kyle Idleman's "Not a Fan" initiative at Southeast). Anyways, I'm glad that "flexibility" has been drilled into our heads. We're a collection of semi-perfectionists who like things to go our way, and I think God is showing each of us each day that it's not about us and what we think is right. We actually laughed when Toto told us what we would be doing for the service. Courtney didn't actually get to join us at church, she was feeling a bit under the weather, but she's perked up since this morning! Keep each of us in your prayers as multiple foreign germs are trying to work their way into our germ-o-phobic American bodies.

But church went well, the youth are pretty quiet, and it takes some prying to get them to speak. I'm not sure if it was because we were newcomers or if it was the fact that we were talking about sexual purity with 13-17 year olds. It was a little awkward for all of us, but in the end I think that God facilitated good fellowship between our team and the NPC teens!

We did have a few interesting encounters on our walk home from church today (it's about a 45-50min walk from our guest house):
1. We were walking on the "sidewalk" (packed down dirt used as a footpath), and a heard of cows was in our way. The skinny brown, white and black cows had horns, and some even had rings through their noses. Their keepers held long sticks to "heard" them. The cows were very close to us, it was kind of strange.

2. There was a snake on the side of the walking path. I, being somewhat fearful of snakes (I wasn't really aware of this fear until now), gave out a shout that may or may not have attracted the attention of Kenyan bystanders. I was concerned, because it looked like Ben was about to step on the snake. But apparently, my concern was unecessary, because the snake was dead. It was laying all coiled up, with it's white belly reflecting in the sun. But, my brain only saw "snake" and it didn't take the time to analyze to see if the snake was actually a threat or not. I only embarrassed everyone a little bit, no big deal.

Tomorrow some of us are celebrating June 1st, Madaraka Day (when Kenya attained Internal self rule). We're taking a trip downtown to see the parade, we'll post tomorrow with details!

And to add to he list of prayer requests:
Keep the Mi2 Poland guys in your prayers, sounds like they had an awesome Men's retreat weekend (check out their blog, www.mi2poland09.blogspot.com), and on a personal note, my dear boyfriend, Daniel Cooper is preparing to head to San Francisco for the summer (check out his blog, www.GodismyJudge.wordpress.com)- keep him in your prayers as God prepares his heart to reach out to the challenged youth of San Fransisco!



May the Lord be with you all!
Holly

Ps Daniel helped some kids build a fort today, hence the picture above! And the ice cream tastes like frozen whipped cream, it's delicious, just different.