Stepping into Time

Last night was Christmas Eve, and as I did my devotions I realized
that, by an intentional design, I was in the opening chapters of Luke
just three days ago. The births of both Jesus and John the baptist
were foretold, John was born. The next night Jesus was born and the
shepherds were told by the angels of the Messiah's birth. A few
paragraphs later Jesus was twelve years old and sitting in the
temple. Following the reading plan that I've been on this whole year
in Africa meant that by last nights reading brought me to Jesus, a
full grown man, preaching and telling the story of "The Good
Samaritan." Suddenly I realized that by that point in the story Jesus
was somewhere around 30-33 years old, and I'd just jumped through all
that in three nights.

It seemed strange to me that while I had just been reading about the
birth of Jesus, by the third reading he was already older than I am
now! I took a minute to feel how long my life seems to be and
compared that to how short Jesus' life is in the Gospels. Then I
considered the concept that an eternal being would step into time and
submit to it for more years than I have been alive.

I guess it's just humbling to consider how He humbled Himself and
stepped into the confining restraint of time as well as a physical
body, and so many other limitations. He lived the life of an average
man and all that goes with it. The God of Heaven and Eternity stepped
into Earth and Time so that we might have a relationship with him, and
for no other reason.

Merry Christmas,

Jonny

The Strange Disconnect

Right now back in the US people are flooding the grocery stores looking for those forgotten, but much required items that make Thanksgiving just perfect. Turkeys are flying from the frozen section and landing in shopping carts as if they were flightless birds (wait...), a middle aged man is about to fight an old lady for the last can of cranberry sauce, and every one's asking the stocker boy, "where the heck are the bags of stuffing?" At the same time the temperature is dropping quickly, there may even be snow on the ground, and at every gathering people are talking about the same thing, "what are you doing for Thanksgiving? Are you going home? Do you think the Lions have a shot at winning the game this year?" For my family, I'm sure all the Thalers are planning to hit the bowling alley for their one trip of the year and if I were a little closer I would definitely be joining them.

So what does Thanksgiving look like in Kenya? Well I haven't seen any Turkeys anywhere, I'll bet most of the people around me have no idea what a cranberry is, and very few of them have had the opportunity to ever see snow, in fact it's much more like spring than Autumn or Winter. They may be interested in talking about an upcoming football game, but it features teams like Chelsea and Manchester United. This Thursday is just another Thursday, and if you ask them they may have some things to be thankful for, but they won't know why you're asking them.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining that I'm lonely or missing out on my favorite American Holiday (Christmas and Easter are pretty universal unless you're in an Arabic country or an unreached people group), but what I'm noticing is that there's a strange disconnect as I compare the hustle and bustle of what I know is happening with friends and family back in the US as compared to what's going on here. Over the past 8 years I've been in the US for every Thanksgiving and it always feels like the Holiday is such an event that everyone in the world must be celebrating it. In fact, I actually have an Australian friend who told me one year she was celebrating it with an American family in Australia! But here in Kenya, out side of the American Expatriate community there's nothing.

The disconnect doesn't only apply to Holidays, but to so much of life. Occasionally, I take a moment to stop and actually think of what my life was like before I arrived in Kenya on January 28 and it seems like someone else's life. It's almost like that was a movie I saw and then came into this life. So many of the characters featured in the story of my life in Michigan are little more than occasional Facebook cameos in the story of my life in Africa. I don't mean to diminish the significance of those friendships (man this is a post that could really alienate people if I'm not careful), but really other than occasionally popping in to send a message of encouragement or make me laugh they don't really have anything to do with my daily life. I'm sure in the same way I seem like a distant memory to them much of the time. And I know that when I return on January 26 this life will become that exact same thing.

Even more disconnected is the world. Right now Kericho, Kenya feels very real and tangible. I can smell cooking fires in the houses around me, I can see the green grass in the bright sunlight, and I can feel the soft dark earth in the places that never seem to get quite dried up before another rain comes. At the same time, when I picture Michigan my first impulse, even in July and August, has been to see it the way I left it in January, dreary, snow covered, and -10 degrees. If I really think it over I know that the seasons are changing, but from here even that seems a foreign concept.  Technically speaking we have two dry and two rainy seasons, but for all practical purposes the difference isn't that noticeable.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I guess I just felt this was a good opportunity to try and relay to anyone who's interested just how it feels to be so far away. I guess if you've ever spent a long period away from the place where you grew up or where you live, you have an idea what I'm talking about, and if you haven't you're probably not interested in my blog. I guess the reason we feel this disconnect is because wherever we are the world and our lives are already so beautiful and complex we can only sense so much and then to be able to comprehend that AND the other world and life we've been in previously is just WAY too much.

And that brings me to a God thought, think about your sense of strange disconnectedness and then think about the fact that God doesn't have that sense. He is all places, all times, and all knowing. So even as I sit in the Kericho "spring" in November 2009 He is with me and also you in the North American late autumn, or the Australian summer or wherever else you may be. Now consider that He was just as with you in another place you've come from that now feels very far away and strange. Guess what, He's still there right now and knows the weather both there and where you are now. If you can wrap your mind around that, go see a shrink because you're just crazy.

By the way, think of your poor cashier when you set you 15 pound turkey on the belt. He or she has been lifting thousands of these heavy icy things in the past week and is getting very tired, not to mention he/she may have to work the holiday AND will definitely be in on Black Friday as well.

Post Sudan Thoughts (Finally)

Well I'm back in Uganda, back from my ten days in Sudan. As I said in a previous post I was very excited about this trip, and I'm happy to say Sudan did not disappoint.

It seemed like Sudan was a very magical place while I was there. Most every sunset was full of beautiful color from golden yellow, to bright orange, red, and even purple. There were butterflies everywhere you walked. That "golden hour" of sunlight just before sunset... in Southern Sudan lasted from 4PM to 6:30. Pretty much everyone I met was friendly. Despite my knowledge of the past conflicts in the area, and seeing the occasional soldier or policeman carrying an AK-47, I felt perfectly safe all the time.

At the same time however, there was this constant sense that there was an uneasy peace in the area. You could always feel that the people were hurting and had been seriously affected by the war of the last 20-some years. There were also physical afflictions, in the 10 days I was there I met one man who was totally blind, and two who were deaf and mute, and while I did not see her the rest of my group noticed a woman in church who had a large hole in her face.
This mixture of magic and beauty with severe tragedy really is the only way I know how to put into words what my time in Sudan was like. Each day I would just walk with my camera and find some new beautiful image to capture. From Butterflies to flowers to cows to smiling children and stone-faced adults, it was like my camera could not fail me. While in Sudan I felt more creative energy than I’ve had in quite some time and the challenge became trying to focus it to useful video images. I did also take a lot of photographs some of which are now posted on my Facebook (INSERT LINK) if you would like to check them out.

A specific magical example is that when we arrived in Sudan, I stepped off the plane, with no idea what was ahead. I was the only one in our group who had never been to this place before and in that way felt a little disadvantaged compared to my companions who were ready to begin working. Once I put my feet on the ground and walked around to the other side to get a bearing on my surroundings my eyes caught sight of this one particular tree. I called it the first tree I saw in Sudan, but it seemed to really hold my attention and in that moment it seemed the tree spoke to me and said, “Welcome to Sudan, you’re going to love your time here.” And in that moment I found comfort in the words of the tree.

Something that I found interesting about my time in Sudan was that I still don’t understand the sense of calling that I had felt to visit Sudan. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel that it was a very worth while experience and I’m so glad I was able to do it, but I don’t totally feel like there were any moments of sudden clarity and vision while I was there. I almost feel that the calling was just to spur on an interest and curiosity that will encourage me to continue praying. I feel I actually understand the place a little better and I will be more excited to talk to others about their experiences, but I don’t feel like I am called to return there full time.

At the same time I do recognize that I am not done yet with Sudan. That is to say, I have a few weeks of video editing still ahead of me. I shot 11 hours of tape in Sudan for the 5-7 minute video I hope to produce in the upcoming weeks. There is still a lot of processing ahead of me and I wonder how I’ll feel when it’s over…

I was very happy for the friends I made there. My personal favorite of my Sudanese friends was Joseph Mayek. Mayek works at the hospital as a translator for the Kenyan nurses and also does dental work, I think mostly pulling teeth. Fortunately I did not need Mayek’s help in medicine or teeth pulling, but in the afternoons when I would go out to the town to film and conduct interviews Mayek’s assistance as a translator was invaluable. I could not have functioned well without him. Mayek was also a great insight to learning the culture and language of the Dinka people. Not that I’m in any way an expert after my ten days, but most of what I have learned has come from Mayek. It was great to have someone who could speak very good English and was used to being around Kawaja (foreigners) who were clueless. I felt very comfortable to ask him questions about everything we saw and he was always gracious to answer and explain.

One final example of the strange beauty of Sudan is in the Tukle ruins spread out across the region. Here’s a photograph to show you what I mean. Just stare at it for a moment, take note of the shapes and lines, ask your self what the purpose or meaning could be for this strange grouping of logs. When you feel you’ve come to appreciate it for it’s beauty read below to find out what a Tukel is.

A tukel is a hut.  A traditional round Sudanese home made of mud, these logs are the foundational remains of a hut that was abandoned some time ago.

 

Overall, I feel like my trip to Sudan was a real blessing to me personally and I hope and believe it was a blessing to those I met and will be a blessing to those who view my final video.  Thank you all for your prayers they were much appreciated.

Permission to be a Tourist, Sir?

As we say in East Africa, my thoughts on Sudan are “even now on the way coming,” but in the mean time I wanted to write about something else that I’ve found exciting and refreshing and exciting. I gave myself permission to become a tourist.

For any of you who have lived very long in East Africa, or any other place where there are frequent tourists, you know the stigma. A tourist usually can’t pronounce names correctly, they can be obnoxious, they may carry a “fanny pack,” they’re sunburned, they think everything is strange and somehow exciting even though it’s actually just everyday life, and perhaps most consistently and noticeably they take pictures of everything.

Okay so I haven’t fully adopted all of those attributes of tourism, but I have given myself permission to take pictures of literally everything that strikes my interest. I started this new permission last month as I set out on my odyssey into Uganda and Sudan. I’ve started grabbing images of flowers, fields and mountains as seen while riding a bus or other vehicle across the country, the controls in the small airplanes that carried us to and from Sudan, the sky, foot prints in the sand, and of course any number of children eager to line up in front of my camera to let me capture their likeness.

I decided that I would start taking pictures like this for this specific trip because I recognized that this was my first trip to Sudan and will be my last trip to both Sudan and Uganda for quite a while. I don’t think I’ll be traveling as much in my remaining three months in Africa because I now have three large projects to finish editing before I leave and that will possibly take up the majority of my time. However, what I found when I let myself take pictures of anything and everything I saw was that I wound up with a lot of pictures I really love, and a medium which can tell the story of what my travels have been like far better than I could ever find words for. Also, especially in Sudan I found there were times where I was going from one place to another with my video camera all packed in it’s case and would happen upon something really interesting. Either because the object was quickly moving away or because we simply didn’t have the time to stop, I wouldn’t be able to get my camera out fast enough, but I could pull up my small digital camera and take a quick snap or two and I suspect that several of these will end up in the final video.

On the Sunday evening that we were in Sudan I went for a walk on the nearby airstrip. My road let me onto the airstrip in the middle and I just wanted to walk and listen to my iPod so I started by heading North and walked to the end, turned and walked to the south end and then came back to the road leading to the compound where we stayed. I wasn’t going very fast so the walk took nearly 2 hours, and along the way I shot almost 40 pictures just because I had my camera with me and had my eyes open. It was one of the most beautiful and relaxing walks I’ve taken in quite sometime.

And that’s what it comes down to really, keeping your eyes open to the world around you. That’s what I’ve decided I really love about the tourist mentality. While you may look like a fool for not blending in, keeping your eyes open to the world around you lets you see the magic that our creator has poured into all of this planet. Seriously, the next time you leave your house just picture all the things that you’d laugh at a tourist for taking a picture of, and then ask yourself what it is about that thing that would attract them. You may find your eyes open and you reach for your own camera. Also, the next time you see a fanny pack wearing tourist you should envy him or her, for seeing the magic in your mundane world.

Another great thing that’s come out of my carrying a digital camera with me at all times is my short film “Boda Boda; A True Story.” Which I shot on the digital camera one afternoon while riding across Kampala on a motorcycle taxi and edited over the course of 2 evenings and I hope to be able to put it on YouTube sometime soon. I’ll be sure to post a link when it’s up so keep your eyes open. If I had been feeling that I wanted to avoid the “tourist” stereotype I never would have gotten this footage showing the fun experience of riding a Boda through Kampala.

Thoughts before entering Sudan

Surprise! I have internet access in Arua Uganda, and time to write out a post before my 10 day sojourn in Southern Sudan. By way of keeping up with things, I've had a great first week in Uganda. The Lord was really at work and present in the pastor's training this past week. I learned a lot, and got almost 5 hours of tape as well. The two days of bus rides up here were mostly smooth. You can see pictures at my facebook page if you're interested. There was one 2 kilometer section of the road where there were speed humps every ten meters. We're talking around 200 humps in a row. It was so bizarre al you could really do was laugh. Imagine a bus full of people who all have a serious case of the hiccups and they're in sync with each other.

Tomorrow morning I will fly with the Mango Ministries (aka WGM South Sudan) team from Arua Uganda to Akot South Sudan. I'm not sure I can put into words the reasons why I am excited about this trip. Everything I've ever heard indicates that Sudan is not really an ideal vacation destination. There's no big tourist industry, food and water are often scarce, and there are signs posted to keep you out of fields by saying "Danger Land Mines!"

So what on earth would posses me to want to visit such a place? One, I would say that I have had friends who have spent time working in Sudan and it has changed their lives. Bearing witness to the struggles present in such a country has made them challenge their lives and priorities.

Two, I think there's something in me that wants to experience an East Africa that is more similar to the one my Great-grandparents found when the Adkins family first came to Kenya in the 1930s. I'm probably way off base with it, but i've got this idea in my head that in many ways Southern Sudan has reverted back to the state it would have been in back when the white man first came to East Africa. I've always wanted to see what the region was like back in those days, though I don't think I could survive it too long.

Three, I've been hearing about so many exciting ministries happening in Sudan over the past years that I'll be really happy and privileged to be involved in some small way.

Four, I feel like God's planted a desire in my heart to see what's happening in Southern Sudan. I don't know how else to describe it. The best example I can give is from a couple months ago when I was at Tenwek and got to hear the Mango Ministries team speaking to the medical staff at the hospital. There was a stirring and excitement in my heart that I could find no words for other than a desire to see Southern Sudan.

I'm so thankful to God for blessing me with this privilege and opportunity, and I can't wait to see what happens. I will appreciate your prayers during our ten day trip. I'm sure I'll have many things to say when I return to Uganda. Until then...

God Bless,

Jonny

For lack of a better blog...

I promised a post this weekend and here it is at the last minute. I've been trying so hard to think of something really interesting to write, but nothing's come to mind. So basically here's just a little wassup on my life.

About a week and a half ago I was asked if I could go to Northern Uganda to film a video for Billy and Joanna Coppedge while they conduct a training seminar with several pastors from the area. From the seminar we are all planned to go to Sudan where Billy and some others will lead another seminar while I will go around and shoot a video for Mango Ministries, the name of WGM's growing work in Sudan.

There are a couple reasons this should be interesting to you, my readers.

First, some of you may know Billy and Joanna who were at Asbury while I was there and are generally all around awesome people.

Second, this will quite probably mean a drastic reduction in the number of posts I'll be making on the blog as I will probably not have a free of access to this World Wide Web.

Third, while I'm very excited about both these video projects, I have to confess that I am a bit nervous as well. I've never shot 2 projects at the same time on my own before. While I'm trying to prepare as well as I can it still is a daunting task from this end. I will greatly appreciate your prayers as I travel around and try to shoot these projects.

I'll be leaving Kericho on Sunday the 11th of October. Sorry this doesn't have a lot of insight or anything, but I did write more in depth on the subject in my prayer letter which I plan to have going out before I leave Kericho. Look for it...

apologies

I'm sorry for no post this weekend, I got busy with other things. I will have something to put up this coming weekend so look for it.

Also, in leu of a blog post I have written a new prayer letter and I hope to be sending that out soon. If you're interested in receiving it, and are not on my mailing list already, feel free to post a reply here or send me an email with your email or physical address. (Please only physical addresses in the USA.) You can email me at adkins01@gmail.com

See you this weekend.

Jonny

Reflections on Friendship

I've been thinking a lot about friendships this week. I took some time away from the office to meet up with some friends from high school. We've been staying in Nairobi, mostly just hanging out and catching up on each other's lives.

As we've discussed what we've each experienced over the past 8 years I must confess there's been a tinge of guilt that's come to me. Each of us have been through times when we needed a friend to lean on and there seemed to be none around. Hearing such stories I was reminded of the kinds of heartfelt friendship promises I made around our graduation. Promises like, "Just let me know what you need and I'm there."

Looking back on the years since high school I now realize that with the exception of a few phone calls, several emails, and prayer, I've never really been able to keep those promises. I've never heard that a friend was sick or hurt and been on the first plane across the country or around the world.

For a few moments I really felt I'd let my friends down, but then God reminded me that I'm human. (It's a good thing to keep in mind) As humans it is in our nature to let others down. Being human is not an excuse to disappoint others, but it's something we all do because of our nature and our limitations.

I took little comfort in knowing I wasn't the only one to let others down.

Next God reminded me of the most significant point. I am, and all other people are, human and we will all fail our friends, but He is NOT and He won't. Now, as I listened to my friend's stories, I heard that when they felt lonely God was there with them! In scripture He promises that "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you," (Hebrews 13:5 NIV). Thank God HE is true to HIS word when WE are not true to OURS. I realize now that I cannot be the perfect friend to anyone, but I also rejoice that I do have a perfect friend.

Looking back a couple weeks

In the first week of September my co-worker John and I were privileged to join the AGC missions department for a trip to one of their fields. We went to the Silango church in Marigat district. This area of Kenya has been among those stricken by drought throughout this year. The missions department was going there to distribute food to the people living in the area. John and I went along to see the distribution and film for a short video on famine relief.

The area was so barren it had a strange beauty to it, they had bushes not much taller than myself which must have grown up in a time when there was rain and they were now waiting for the rains to return, but there was no grass, the ground was all just dust and rocks. Though the sun was bright and hot, you didn't feel sweaty. My theory on this phenomenon is that the air was so dry it would soak up and absorb your sweat as soon as it was available. One of the men who greeted us told me that the only good thing about this place was that building materials are readily available. At first I didn't know what he meant, but when I looked at their houses they are formed out of sticks, rocks, and mud, and that's about all there is in the landscape.

One of the most striking events of the day was when David Mutai, the mission’s director, was giving food to the first couple people. They started with some of the oldest women in the community and when David had measured out 5 large cans of maize (corn) for the very first woman he shook her hand and said thank you. This old woman very enthusiastically shook his hand and said "Asante kwa Mungu! (Thanks be to God!)" Then she surprised everyone by giving David a hug and I was told later that in that moment she told him that if it had not been for the last gift of food that was sent by AGC missions through the church here in Kericho (Immanuel AGC) back in March, she would be dead today. She was so thankful for the past donation and this one she could not contain herself, and it really touched David to see some direct fruit of his labor.

The gift of maize that we took to these people in Silango came through various donors. The maize did not magically appear in David's office but people in other AGC churches and even some in the US who are connected to WGM provided funds to buy 50 bags of Maize and bring it out to this very rural community and those gifts are saving lives. Remember that next time there's a food drive at your church.

A philosophy of Christian Films;

From the time I began feeling that I wanted to make Christian films I have believed that I ddin’t want to create films where the action and plot stop suddenly so one character can actually lead another to Christ and they end up sitting on the steps quoting scripture verses. I just feel that so often those scenes are very heavy handed and a complete interruption of the story. I’ve never felt like my conviction on this matter was a complete disregard for putting Christ in my “Christian Films” but at the same time I’ve always felt a little torn about how you can make a film that teaches a moral message or encourages the viewer to give their life to Christ and yet not have the “scripture and prayer” scene. About a week ago I felt the Lord telling me it can be done.

Recently I had the great privelage and opportunity of seeing some old friends, Billy and Joanna Coppege, who today work as missionaries with WGM in Northern Uganda and are key players in the strategy to enter Sudan. It was quite a surprise to see them at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya, but I was very happy to spend a few minutes with them while we were each “randomly” at Tenwek at the same time. I was there to get some extra footage for the video I’ve been working on lately, and they were there with a group of people sharing their burden for Sudan with members of the Tenwek Medical staff.

Much of Billy’s work in Uganda and Sudan involves “storying” or the telling of stories to groups as just a fascinating story and then separately telling how that story can be applied to every day life or a dramatic change in the spiritual life in order to bring the listener closer to Christ. The day that I saw Billy and Jo at Tenwek he told the story of the paralytic who was brought to Jesus and lowered through the ceiling. Though I had heard the story many times before, I found myself riveted during Billy’s telling and excited to see what he had to say about it. Those who know Billy will recognize that he has a very magnetic personality which helps draw you in no matter what he says, but there was more to it. Billy simply let the power of the story carry itself out and did not interrupt to explain it. As this particular story-telling was a demonstration for the medical staff he was pretending to be a doctor in Sudan using the story to witness to a patient, played by Joanna, and so he continued by explaining his purpose for the story, to show her that Jesus has the power to forgive sins.

Billy then addressed all in attendance and explained how he uses storying in ministry. Considering myself a story teller, with video as my medium, I was really excited to hear Billy ask the crowd if they agreed that stories are one of the best ways to teach people things and have them all agree with him. The thing that stuck out to me most though was when Billy said that he believes that the Bible has the BEST stories and again everyone agreed. I thought on that fact for just a moment, because to me it was obvious that the Bible has the best stories from a Christian stance, as in the stories in the Bible point to Christ, but it had been a long time since I’d really considered the power of the stories in the Bible as pieces of great story-telling and drama.

After the meeting I didn’t have a lot of time to think about how Billy had used the story as I ran off to do some more shooting and then editing on my video. However, a few days later I was back in Kericho and getting ready for bed. I do my devotions each night before I go to sleep and on this particular evening I was reading another very familiar story in scripture. In Genesis, Abraham, following God’s instructions, nearly sacrifices his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering to God. At the last minute God intervenes and provides a wild ram for the sacrifice. As I read the story that night I thought of how that story is a metaphore for the grace God provided for all of us in His Son Jesus. We were all doomed to pay the greatest price for our sins but the God sent His Son to take our place as the one lain on the altar.

Suddenly I realized something that came to me as quite a surprise, no where in the story is it mentioned that several hundred years later Jesus would be for us all like that ram for isaac. In fact, it leads one to question why the story was even kept in the Hebraic tradition long enough for Christians to come along and realize the great value of the story. My guess is that the Hebrews saw in this story the kind of devotion to God which they, and we, should strive to emulate and they decided that it was an important story for that reason, and I agree. But even that message is only communicated in the reader seing and understanding the great sacrifice Abraham was willing to make for his God. Then I thought quickly of other stories in both the Old and New Testaments where various heros of the faith are truly celebrated, to my recollection none of them stop to say anything along the lines of, "If you've read this and want to become a Christian here's what you do." Even Jesus when asked directly what one must do to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven doesn't respond with "Okay come over here and we'll say this prayer together." He advises the person who asked to change the aspects of his character which are not in-line with God's character.

So now I feel more encouraged and inspired to try to craft and tell unique and compelling stories which can be used to encourage others to live a Godly life, but don't require hitting the audience over the head with it. It's encouraging to know that I can concentrate on what I actually think my characters would do in their circumstances and not worry about stopping the action to teach a sunday school lesson.

The Longest Walk

Thursday night, August 20th I premiereed the Tenwek video at Tenwek, and it was very warmly recieved. Having a large weight lifted off my shoulders on friday and being at y childhood home I decided it was a good time to take a walk. I knew right where to head, the waterfall at Tenwek is one of my favorite places in the world. I took a nice leasurely walk down, down down the road and came upon the tranquil familiar sight of the water cascading over the falls and pummeling the pools below. I took a deep breath and began to relish the sound of the falling water, when i happened to look down stream and see a teenage boy standing akwardly behind a large rock, covering himself and looking at me as though trying to figure out what I was doing. Realizing he was taking a bath over there, I decided it would be rather less comfortable for both of us if I stuck around even if I decided not to look his direction.

As I headed back up the hill, a little disappointed in my venture to the falls I noticed a path just off from the road that led on up the hill. Feeling my disappointment replaced with a sense of adventure I set off on this rough steep path, not really sure if it would take me out to the road or not, but I knew I wouldn't get lost so it was merely a matter of trying and if I failed I could just turn back. It was clear the path was not used frequently and it was very overgrown, but it was quite fun trying to pick my way through the bushes and see where I would come out. That is, it was fun until I got a few feet off the path and planted my foot squarely into the gewiest, thickest, mud I've ever encountered. At this point it is worth telling you that I was wearing sandals. One of my favorite pair of shoes, they are "tiva" style sandals featuring the South African flag repeated on the straps. I've had these sandals since my parents made their first trip to SA in about 1996/7. Now, those shoes did spend several years in storage in that time, but still, they have carried my feet for many many miles.

With my feet caked in mud, I pressed on squishing grimey goowie mud out from between my feet and the sandal and also from in between my toes, and only a minute later I was back on the road to my next destination, the bridge across the dam. Each step of my journey saw my feet squishing and sliding around on my sandal, and as I turned and headed down the steep hill toward the dam I took one step that was extra steep and my foot slid right out of my shoe. After a brief awkward dance I regained my balance and tried to secure my foot back in the sandal. That's when I realized my foot had actually broken the sandal. Apparently in the slip and near fall my foot had pushed right through the strap and dislodged it from the sole of the shoe, I removed the upper strap and decided there was nothing that could be done except to continue without that shoe. So I continued on my way down the hill and stood at the dam for a few moments enjoying the peaceful sound of the falls and laughing to myself about how this had been one of my most eventful journeys to the river ever.

I debated weather or not i should just drop both my shoes from the bridge and watch them float away over the dam and off the falls. I felt this would be a very poetic end to their journey, but my new found "green-conscience" wouldn't let me throw a bunch of nylon and rubber into a river. I tried to see if my poetic side could outweigh the green side when suddenly my visual arts side piped up and said "well if you're gonna do it you should at least take some pictures of them going over the falls and such, and you forgot your camera." That decided things for the time being, there was no way I could pollute the river in the name of poetry and not have something to show for it. So I had to carry one shoe and wear the other back up the hill, and if I felt like it later, return to pitch my shoes in the river.

WIth my mind made up I set out back up the hill taking what was probably the slightly longer route, but the one that had more sidewalk. Thankfully the mud on my feet dried up by this time so I could concentrate all my walking focus on not stepping on sharp rocks. The rest of the way up the hill was mostly uneventful, but I was greatly looking forward to getting back to my room for a nice shower to clean my feet off.

Upon reaching the room I headed straight to the shower and cranked on the hot water. Stepping in I found the water exceedingly hot! I turned the cold tap and waited, nothing happened. I turned the hot down a bit, still no cooler. I decided to turn the hot all the way down and see just how much cold i had coming. When the hot was off there was no water! I turned up the cold, but nothing came. I spun the handle till I thought it was about to come off, not a drop. I turned everything back off and tried the sink, no cold. The water had been cut off temporarily. I think i only had hot because of what was sitting in the water heater. I was disappointed in not being able to take a full on shower, but knew I would survive, the big problem now became, how to clean the mud off my feet without burning them. After a moment the solution came to me to wet my wash cloth with water from the sink's hot tap, and wipe my feet off. It was a little less satisfying, but got the job done so I could go through the rest of the day without feeling like a jerk for tracking mud everywhere.

So that's my story, I guess if were a preacher I could come up with a sermon from it or something, but I feel like it's just an interesting story of a days walk and that's good enough. What I can say is that I praise God that He gave me a joyful spirit that could laugh at each unique beat on this path.

Project Update 8/10

So there's been a request that I update people on my projects from time to time.

Well the BIG news of today is that I finished inserting interview clips and "scratch narration" today. These are the elements that are basically carrying the story so it's a huge step toward completing the video. There's still a lot to be done, but at least I now have a complete story that runs all the way from 1935 to today.

The next steps include getting proper recordings of my narration, adding b-roll footage and old photos, music, color correction and audio mixing. I have just over a week.

Re-redirected

Apparently this blog is still evolving. Over the past month or so I have been posting an update each week just spilling out what I've been doing for the past week. This started as an exciting new challenge, but wuickly became one of my most loathsome weekend chores. The problem was the sheer massive amount of information. I started cutting corners writing things like, "I went to work every day this week." And still the post was incredibly long and would sometimes be written over 2 or 3 days. Soon I felt I was neither presenting interesting information or having any fun doing it.

Therefore I've decided to change things again. My plan now is to come up with one thing each week that is interesting and write on that. I want to keep the weekly commitment because otherwise I will return to the days when I would post once a month at best. But my posts will probably be shorter and hopefully more interesting to both write and read.

Below you will find the first of these posts. I won't guarantee that all forthcoming posts will have such a spiritual bend, some I hope will be funny and some just interesting thoughts, but who knows, like I said this blog is still evolving.

Poor Planning Skills or Trust in God?

While I've been here in Africa one of the major areas of personal development that I've been working on has been planning. Somehow this is a skill that's I've never been great with. I was always one of those kids that would write an essay on the fly and then go back and do the outline. writing and preparations is undoubtedly my weakest area of the video production process. And I can never figure out what I'll want to eat in time to plan a shopping list so I just buy whatever looks good at the store.

I've seen this struggle recently in the specific area of transportation. Just today I realized at the last minute that I had not communicated to people when I was going to need a ride from Tenwek to Kericho and almost missed my opportunity. This past Tuesday as I was trying to make my way from Kericho to Tenwek, the ride I had arranged was coming later than I would have liked so I found another ride instead. Back at the end of June I spent a few days in Nairobi taking care of business and having some fun as well. I came to Nairobi not knowing how I was going to get to Kericho, but figured out pretty quickly what day I wanted to go. The day before I was to leave Nairobi I found a ride to take me back and everything worked perfectly. There are more as I keep going back, but you get the picture.

With all these incidents there's a common thread, each time I began to stress about getting to my destination and chastised myself for not planning things better or communicating more clearly. And yet each time everything worked out perfectly as if God had timed it all to happen just that way. On the way from Tenwek today i sat and reflected on this for a few minutes. I realized that there are some lessons that need to be learned the hard way, If I'm going to really see why it's important to arrange transport ahead of time I need to get stranded someplace. The problem is God keeps working it out so that I get where I need to be. Now don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that He is taking care of the details especially as my time on this trip is so limited, but I wonder how I will learn my lesson.

I feel like God is taking care of the details because I am trying to serve him in this ministry, but I also feel that I shouldn't just sit back and let Him work out the details, I need to try to improve my own sense of responsibility and develop my plans more. I guess what I'm saying is I can't look at God taking care of the details and say "okay so I won't make any plans, from here on God will work it out." Jeremiah 29:11 says "I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That wonderful promise encourages us that even when OUR plans fall through, or don't really get made to begin with, God is in control. However, if we look at the verse following, God says "Then you will call upon me and pray to me... You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (vs. 12-13) These verses show us that He still expects action on our part. It's not enough to believe and trust Him to work out the details, we need to actively seek Him and I would add that in that we need to actively try to plan for the tasks that are before us, even if they never seem to come out like the plan.

How to learn tis lesson is something I still don't know, but I believe I just need to keep trying my best to make plans and arrangements, and continue trusting God to work out the details if I fail, or things change.

A Week Away

As reported last week, I've pretty much finished the outline for the Tenwek Video and this past week has actually been all about shooting.

Monday was a preparation day, I worked on interview questions and got some old lights down from storage in the "studio space" which is more of a garage these days. I set up the lights and checked to see what worked and what didn't. I also went through a few more old photos and such. In the evening John and I went to town to pick up some batteries. It was a long day and I still had to pack my things at the house.

Tuesday morning we were to leave at 9 AM once John was finished with his radio program. Due partly to my own lateness we didn't get going until about 9:30 and with a few stops on the way we rolled into Tenwek at about 11 AM. We got to work as soon as we were there trying to follow up on making appointments to conduct interviews. Most of our subjects were not available that afternoon so we decided to take a field trip. We went to the home of Rev. Ezekiel Kerich, the former hospital administrator, and were warmly welcomed to his home. We had been unable to contact Ezekiel ahead of time, so it was very nice of him to receive us and agree to be interviewed. I also learned at that time that his wife Anna had been one of the original African nurses who were hired and trained on the job to help the first missionary nurses, and she also agreed to be interviewed. John and I stayed there for some time and had tea with the Kerich's before returning to Tenwek.

Wednesday morning we were supposed to meet with Geoffrey Langat, the hospital's CEO, at 8:30. I was very proud of us being on time and fully equipped. Unfortunately, Geoffrey was in Nairobi and wouldn't get back until around 11:30. This was not really his fault he had been called at the last minute for a meeting, but it required quite a lot of shifting of our schedule. We did manage to re-arrange another interview that was scheduled for later in the day and then also got a hold of a residency student who came as soon as he was available.

Lunch time was a good chance to meet several of the visiting staff which is both fun and annoying. The fun part is in socializing and seeing what has brought various people to Tenwek, the annoying part is having to explain to each of them individually what I'm doing here and where I'm from (that's a good 10 minutes itself) and all the other questions that need to be answered. I guess it's only fair because I ask them the same questions, but it's a pain to go through it 3 or 4 times during lunch.

In the afternoon we did 3 more interviews. We started with Barbara Pinkley at the School of Nursing, then in the CEO's office we did one with Jonathan Bii, the director of Community Health and Development, and finally with the CEO, Geoffrey, himself.

In the evening I went to see the Roberts family, career missionary eye doc and family, who said they had some old photos of the lab work at Tenwek. I got over there at about 6:00 and they had already finished dinner, but Jenny asked if I wanted to eat there, so I got some beans and rice and remembered just how much I love this staple Kenyan meal. I mean really it sounds so plain but tastes so good!

Getting back on track, Dr. Ben Roberts invited me to join him and several men, both visiting staff and Kenyan interns, for a Bible Study at 8 PM. So i hung out and played with the kids a bit and then joined the fellowship. There was something really relaxing and unique in that BS (Kenyan abbreviation for Bible Study and NOT something else). It was one of the few times I've ever been in a BS where everyone shared and we had a really great discussion about 1 Samuel 24 which is one of the most interesting passages in the Old Testament. For those who can't think of it off hand, it's the passage where while chasing David in the wilderness King Saul goes into a cave to "relieve himself" and of course the cave turns out to be the one David is hiding in. Based on that brief description it doesn't seem like there are too many practical life applications but we found several from the whole text.

Thursday we started by interviewing John's brother Rev. Frederick Makibior, who was the first Kipsigis missionary to another tribe and worked alongside a group of WGM missionaries among the Maasai people. After finishing that interview we returned to the CEO's office to try and catch the Bishop of AGC before a hospital board meeting. We were still setting up when he arrived, but he graciously allowed us to talk to him for a few minutes before going into the meeting.

The plan was then that we would wait for the meeting to let out and interview Rev. Nathaniel Korir, who has served on the board since like 1964 or something. If I'd known how long the board meeting would take I would have planned to use that time to shoot something else, but John and I just waited patiently. We did have two interns come by to do short interviews telling about working at Tenwek, but otherwise we waited. The board meeting let out at around 2 PM and then they all ate lunch. Once finished with lunch we were still unable to interview Nathaniel because the entire board was heading to the visiting staff quarters (aka guest house) to dedicate the new wing. So John and I were requested to attend and film that event, we left our lights set up in the CEO's office and ran our cameras and tripods down the hill to shoot the small dedication service, then dashed back up the hill to finally get our interview with Rev. Nathaniel. This was possibly one of my favorite interviews once we got it, but it was a long time in coming.

After Rev. Nathaniel's interview John left to return to Kericho for a celebration of his son's college graduation so I was left to lug our equipment on my own to the next location. I went to meet the head chaplain, Rev. David Kilel, in his office. The office turned out to be too small for a regular 3 point light set up or even just 2 lights. I wound up with just one light casting long dramatic shadows, but it looks rather nice. David has served as head chaplain since around 1975 so his interview was also very enlightening.

The last stop of the day was at Dr. Russ White's office not for an interview that day, but set up the lights for one at 7:30 AM on Friday. Sadly for me, his office is right next to the CEO's office which was back across the hospital grounds and up on the second floor. So there I went lugging all my equipment back up the hill and finally the stairs. (Yes, you're supposed to be pitying me now.) Fortunately, I got into his office just before he was called away for 3 surgeries. Left alone in the Medical Superintendent's office I listened to the rest of the James Taylor Live Album he had playing through his iPod and imagined him sitting at his desk and how i would light the scene. Right as I was finalizing my lighting scheme and checking it in the camera all my lights went out. As power outages are far from uncommon in Kenya I didn't really mind at first, but then I realized that the power was on and then only items in the room with no power were on the 110 volt circuit (Kenya standard is 220 like Britain, but with a lot of items coming from the US many places are wired for both). I realized that I must have overloaded the circuit breaker and the big problem now was that I had to figure out how to re-set it when all technicians were off for the day. Thank God, a lady came in to work in one of the other offices and she was able to call the technician who was on-call. A few minutes later he was there and able to fix my problem without any trouble. Knowing the Russ would be in and out of the office during the night I used scotch tape to mark the places where my lights and tripod belonged so I could set them off to the side a bit.

Friday morning I was up bright and early to be to Russ' office at 7:30. When I arrived he was there just finishing straightening his desk. I reset my lights, plugged in the microphone and we were on our way. Things went great through the first question, then just as Russ finished his answer the lights went out again. Russ knew where the circuit breaker was and so jumped to go flip it back. When he came back he switched off everything he had plugged into the 110 so my lights wouldn't overload it again. We took on the second question and once again just as Russ finished his answer the lights went out. While Russ was out flipping the breaker again I decided I could sacrifice one light for the sake of moving smoothly through the rest of the interview. I think we got 2 more questions answered when the lights again went out. I was stressing. However, this time it turned out to actually be the electricity going out for a moment. With Russ back in his chair we resumed and had no more power failures, although we did have 2 people come by and interrupt us, but finally we made it through the interview.

After finishing Russ' interview I attended and filmed the dedication of the new Tenwek Hospital sign. For any who are freaking out like I was about them tearing down the familiar yellow sign bearing the slogan "We Treat, Jesus Heals," the good news is that this new sign does not replace the old one but sits along the road just before the old familiar one.

Coming out of the sign dedication I only had one interview left that I knew I NEEDED to get and that was all set up to happen in the evening so I found I had some extra time to shoot some general hospital footage. I set out therefore and just looked for interesting angles to shoot the buildings or grabbed some shots of people. This took me up to lunch time where I joined some of the other visitors for spaghetti.

In the afternoon I met with a friend of our families who now works at the hospital. We sat and talked for about 2 hours before I took off in pursuit of a little more footage and then returned to my room to prepare for the final interview. This last interview was with our field director, Jim Vanderhoof. It was one of the simplest and shortest interviews I had because really i just needed to have him read a few comments from my outline so I could throw in something other than narration at the beginning of the video. We did just a few takes on each of the 3 short paragraphs and then I packed the stuff up.

With Jim's interview down and the sun setting it was time to relax a little. I again was invited to join the Robert's family and other guests for dinner. It was pizza night in celebration of Isaac Robert's birthday. It was a very relaxing evening which was exactly what I needed, a small breather before a long Saturday...

On Saturday morning I caught a ride with Vanderhoofs back to Kericho. We had to leave at 8 AM in order to be here for the Bible College's graduation service. Being a photographer I was volunteered to film the event. The ceremony had a large guest list and many of those guests had to make speeches. I couldn't help but be reminded that this is a major differnce between US culture and African, In the States we would have ONE guest speaker and a class representative. Here there's a speaker for the day, class reps from both the 3 and 4 year courses, a few board members, The chief guest (the former president in this case) and about 3 other politicians. Most shocking to me is that several of the politicians speeches were merely, "congratulations to the graduates and let me tell you all about my political agenda." They had nothing to do with the event we were there for. I guess I'm not fully used to everything in Africa.

The graduation service went from about 11 AM (it was supposed to start at 10) until about 4 PM. I stood through most of it and taped about 2 hours worth. When I finally got back to my house in the evening it felt VERY GOOD to sit and watch a movie.

Okay, so on to the week ahead or half through at this point. I've finished logging the footage I shot last week (that is writing down what each shot is and where it is on the tape) and spent all day today working on interview logs where I write down what each person says in their interviews. This is a very tedious process amplified by the fact that I'm a slow typist and easily distracted by the millions of other things going on in our office. However, I'm proud to say that today, Tuesday, I made it through 1 and 1/2 tapes out of the total 5 interview tapes. Once i finish this process I'll be on to capturing footage and assembling the story with interview clips and narration. At this point I'm feeling like i will probably end up doing the narration myself which makes me a little nervous. It's not that I'm intimidated by microphones, but I don't think I have a very dynamic presence and so I fear that the final product may suffer. There's still some time before we'd be recording the narration so I hope to come up with a plan B or figure out how to put some excitement into my reading.

Well that's the report for now, God Bless.

Done writting!...?

The truth is I'm always rewriting my videos right up until I deliver them to the client, BUT this week I've finally arrived at the point where I feel like I've gathered enough information and organized it into something of a cohesive outline and so next week we're off to Tenwek to start SHOOTING!!! I really love shooting, the power of going to places and seeing what it's like and preserving that very moment in time. It's so empowering. There's also the joy of meeting people and learning all kinds of things about them, there's really nothing like shooting a video/film.

So I guess we're starting with the end this week. Nothing like a good non-linear blog post, but let's jump back now and see what's been up this past week.

It was actually monday evening where I received a few emails that helped me fill in the last gap in my timeline. As I added those last few details I realized that I could basically finish my outline on Tuesday and then I would be ready to make up a list of interview questions and people to talk to. So Tuesday I sent an email to Tenwek's CEO to see if filming would work out for next week. In the mean time John and I made up our plans for traveling to Tenwek and what we'll each be doing in the meantime. John is at a crusade this weekend and then will be at the graduation ceremony for a Pastors School in Kaboson, about 2+ hours on the other side of Tenwek. I in the meantime have been working to compile a list of intervews and have been sending a few emails to find out when people are available.

Through out the rest of the week John and I have also been continuing to work on scanning more slides, negatives, and photos.

My evenings have also been rather interesting, last Friday our field directors, the Vanderhoofs, brought me an up-grade for my video editing soft ware. I had ordered this about a month ago so I was very happy to finally receive it. As excited as I was to get the software I was a little uneasy about installing something new right before editing a major project like this Tenwek video. With the software I also got a training DVD to help me learn to use it better. I was very excited to see that the DVD had a chapter highlighting the advantages of the new program over the old one and at the same time showed me that the interfaces are generally the same. So in the past couple days I've been carefully proceeding with the necessary steps to replace the software on my computer. I think it's almost all ready to go so on Saturday I should be able to start working through the training DVD!

As I've typed it out this last week looks pretty short and yet full of exciting developments, I guess that's about how it felt too. And now, since I put the end at the beginning, I don't know how to end so I'll just stop.

God Bless,

Jonny

A Quick Review of The Purifiers

It's been about a week now since the night where I was just worn out from work and couldn't get on the internet and so I turned to the pirated DVD I recently purchased in Kericho. I was looking for something relatively short that did not require a lot of dedicated attention, so in looking at the 5 films on the disc I settled on The Purifiers. If you've been reading along with my blog lately you already know where this review is going.

"The Purifiers" is a kung-fu movie set in Sydney, Australia. In fact, it's a kung-fu movie with an Asian population of basically one. The plot is rather simple, the Purifiers and several other Karate-gangs have divided the city into territories that belong to each group and the others do not cross them. The Purifiers are a Karate-gang of of vigilantes going around fighting thugs and then leaving them for the police to pick up. We soon learn that the other gangs are not so saint hearted and do the more typical gang thing of running drugs, exploiting people for money, causing general fear and dismay. When one of these rival gangs calls a meeting of all the groups the Purifiers put in their appearance but they turn down the offer to unite with all the other gangs and take over the whole city, controlling all drugs and money from the top down. As you've probably guessed this doesn't sit well with the other gangs who set out to hunt down the purifiers and either change their minds or eliminate them. What follows is a series of intense dialogue exchanges followed by a vignettes of good old butt kicking. As our heros fight their way through each gang to the top baddie to settle the score.

I give the movie a 50% grade for delivering on what it's trying to do. Some of the fights do deliver the fun action that the filmmakers are looking for, some come close but have just one or two moments that fail, and some fights look like they were running out of ideas and money so they just threw in a piece of trash. Hence, the most memorable fight is the one that happens in pitch dark where the two villains have glowing sticks, as soon as the fight started I was pulled out of the film and told myself exactly how the hero would triumph. The next day this was almost all I could remember of the movie.

As my pirated DVD includes absolutely no trustworthy legal information (except the ironic FBI warning tagged on the beginning of the disc) I have no idea when this movie was made, and I only knew one of the actors, Dominic Monaghan. For the many of you who don't recognize "Dom" by his name you may remember him from a small series of films known as "The Lord Of The Rings" where he plays the hobbit Merry. He was also on the TV series "Lost" for several years, but I think he's been killed off by this point.

Overall I'm going to reprise what I said in an earlier blog post, there's a very good reason no one reading this has ever heard of the Purifiers. If it comes free along with a movie that's actually really good, as this one did, then it's not a terrible way to kill a few hours if you're really bored. Another option is to let your 10 year old kids watch it as it's almost on a production level of a good Power Rangers episode.

A Quick Review of Elektra

I think I'm going to start writing short reviews of "new" (as in new to me) movies I've seen...

Some of you may remember Elektra from it's dazzling previews a few years ago, there were all these great shots of the girl from Alias in a rather revealing bright red outfit fighting a host of somehow strange looking enemies. As it died in the box office I doubt many of you actually saw it.

This film is exactly what the previews looked like, Jennifer Garner (the Alias girl) stars as Elektra, reprising her supporting role from Daredevil which had been released just a few years prior. Elektra works as an assassin for hire who is so good she whispers in your ear before she kills you. The problem comes when she is given an assignment to kill a young girl whom she has just befriended, a rare pleasure for an assassin. Now Elektra, the girl, and her father are on the run from a horde of demons who look like people but blow up into a cloud of smoke when they die. If this plot line sounds cool to you then congratulations, you are very in-touch with your inner 13 -year-old boy. That's who this movie was made for and it delivers on the very core level of a pretty girl kicking butt on the baddies. We're never given any real motive for the demons and why they want this girl, or what value she has. We're never told how we actually know that the demons are bad (other than being called demons) and Elektra's blind former trainer and his friends are the good guys. But we join Elektra as she runs from one surreal fight to another.

Don't get me wrong, I did have fun with this movie, my 13-year-old-self got to come to the forefront for a few hours, but you have to go into it expecting what you'll get. Otherwise you'll just be left baffled.

Multiple lifetimes flashing before my eyes...

That's kind of how this week feels, multiple lifetimes have been flashing before my eyes. At work this week I've been getting about as much use as possible out of our new scanner. I can run up to 5 slides at a time through the scanner and they take about 20 minutes to get scanned. So by the time I rename the scanned slides and put them away, then get the next 5 sitting "on-deck" I have 15 minutes to keep on with the rest of my work. So in those 15 minute spurts I've been organizing the information I've gathered, and compiling my facts onto a coherent outline. I am proud to say that this writing is nearly done. I now have a story that flows all the way from 1935 to 1997 and some helpful facts that are beginning to fill in this last remaining 12 years. Let me take this opportunity to say a BIG THANK YOU to all the very busy people who have been responding to my nagging emails trying to figure out what's happened these last 20 years. I doubt any of them have time to read my humble blog, but there's a thank you note out in cyberspace anyway.

So that's basically what my work days have looked like all week; scanning slides, reading emails, looking facts back up in my reference books, writing the outline, writing emails with more questions... etc. etc, so on and so forth. Therefore I'll skip each day's report.

Knocking work out I feel like I don't have a lot else to say, the internet has been working about 50% of the time lately so I try to take full advantage when it's on and fill my time with other stuff when it's not. I'm told the company is working to hook us up to a fiber-optic line which will be great when it's done, but their projected finish date is some time around august! I guess until then we just have to put up with the internet coming and going as it pleases while they un-hook things and plug them in somewhere else.

Monday night I had a real treat, Ken and Carolyn Wade (fellow WGM missionaries based in Kericho, but usually ministering somewhere else) had me over for dinner. Fried Chicken and Mashed Potatos, and Chocolate Cake for desert! I think I kind of pigged out a bit. As a bit of payment for the treat I worked to help Ken figure out some trouble they've been having with Facebook and uploading photos. Let's just say I got the sweet end of that deal.

Tuesday night I got out my pirated DVD and watched a plotless fighting movie. It was fun for what it was, but there's a definite reason that you've probably never heard of The Purifiers before.

The other evenings of this week have mostly been filled with a bit of web-surfing and working a little bit on the video research. Nothing real exciting.

Today has been fun but quite tiring. I started with Laundry which with an interuption of at least 30 minutes took me about 3 hours. I was very happy when i quit! Then I walked to town using the new shorter route i learned last week on my way back from church. I'd say it cuts 10-15 minutes off the walk. I knew today was going to be a big shopping day so I used the back-pack that my friend Mark left behind after visiting along with my cousins. The advantage there is I could carry a water bottle in the side pocket and I kept my hands free after getting my fruit and veggies for the day. I still wound up carrying 2 bags home in my hands, but that's better than 3 or 4.

The Wades had helped me on Monday also by finding another meat store in town, or rather a small grocery store that has 2 meat freezers that take up the majority of the floor space. So I picked up some lunch meat and a chicken there. But the true surprise find of the day was green apples at the market for 25 shillings.

I didn't get home from the market until 3:30 PM and was quite tired of walking so it was a joy to just make a quick sandwich and sit down with some of the guys to start watching Lord of the Rings. We're going to finish the second half later tonight.

Well I guess this post is going to be about as short as this week seems to have been.

God Bless,

Jonny

What a week

This past week was a bit of a doozie. Of course, it started with some difficulty with the internet which resulted in me not getting last weeks post up until Tuesday. But there was a lot more going on at the beginning of the week than just that. Some of you may know that my mom had been in the hospital for a few days and was finally able to get out on Sunday. Really everything was fine, I knew she was only there for some tests, but being here with no internet access, I was really feeling cut off from home and knowing what was up. I did hear Sunday night that she was out of the hospital, but hadn't heard much else in several days.

Monday I spent in the office mostly on my own. The power was out most of the day so I couldn't continue with the videos I had been watching when I left on Friday. Instead I started through several folders of slides. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the slide folders I had stacked up had lists in the beginning stating what the images were. These were a huge help especially since we don't have a light table for viewing the slides and instead I would have to hold each page at a somewhat awkward angle to use the light from the window. (I guess this would have been my technique any way since the power was out.) By the end of the day my neck was getting tired of the up-and-downs required for this process.

John had been away at a crusade over the weekend and came back late in the afternoon. The electricity came back on when he arrived so I declared his arrival as the blessing that brought the lights back. When he arrived I was preparing to be done for the day, so we didn't get too much more accomplished, but we decided to sit and talk about the project on Tuesday and evaluate where we were.

On Tuesday morning John had some errands to take care of so in the afternoon we had our meeting. We discussed the fact that we were behind on our proposed schedule and also acknowledged the fact that we needed to focus the project a bit more than we had originally talked about due to time and recourse constraints. That refocusing meeting turned out to be really great and from there on we have been able to push ourselves and our pre-production work. We've been able to come up with a script outline that has us now up to the late 1980s.

So the day on Tuesday was great. When I got back to the trailer that night the internet was finally working. I called in my email and was happy to see an up-date from my mom, but it came with some bad news as well. My Uncle in the US had been taken to the hospital sometime on Sunday. Three more messages soon followed giving details of a blood clot near his heart, his condition worsened, and finally he had passed away. WOW, seriously I went through the 4 messages almost as fast as I've just written them and, unless you're a VERY slow reader, you just read them. Not even an emotional rollercoaster that was more like an emotional cliff dive! Thankfully, I know that my uncle was a strong Christian man so I have no doubt where he is now, but it was still like having a rug pulled out from under me. It was a rather emotional end to the day, and I felt the distance between myself and the family back home.

On Wednesday I was back at work, John and I continued working on our script outline and accomplished quite a lot. In the evening my friend Michael came over and we watched a movie, which turned out to be just what i needed at the end of a long hard day, and in working out my emotions from the previous day.

Thursday John and I had a real victory as we installed and tested out the new hard-drive and slide-scanner I had brought. I am pleased to say both are working quire well. Not a lot else to say on hat day.

Our number 1 goal for Friday was to figure out how we could digitize some of the VHS footage John had in the library. For a while it was very discouraging and we could not figure out what to do. I have to admit I gave in to the frustration quite quickly and had trouble thinking of where to turn, but thankfully this is one area where John really came through for our team. He kept going through various settings dialogue boxes until he found 1 or 2 items that turned out to be the key. So in the end it was another victory for us as we began reviewing and capturing the tapes.

In the afternoon John had to go for another crusade so I finished in the office on my own. In the evening I went to church in town for a meeting with the Young Professionals (YP's), a newly formed group aimed at post college/pre-marriage and family adults. We had some nice fellowship and also "swallow-ship" of Mandazi's and Chai. The message this week came from the senior pastor who spoke on the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Specifically she touched on the 2 greatest commandments to "Love the Lord you God with all your Heart, Soul, and Mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself." The unique thing that popped out to me was that she pointed out the 3rd person we are to love in that verse. We talk a lot about loving God and almost as much about loving our neighbors, but we often for get to talk about how we aught to love ourselves! Just stop and think on that for a moment. Pastor Joyce pointed out that we are not necessarily supposed to be proud or selfish, but we need to be happy with who we are and what we do. Really, how can you "love your neighbor as yourself," if you don't love your self?

Getting back on track... Saturday was the 4th of July, which to me is a holiday, but to the entire rest of the population of Kericho, is just another day in July. So there were no big cook outs and no fireworks displays. My day started with laundry...uh...woo hoo? While I was bent over washing some clothes in my basin, minding my own business, this mal-tempered bee swooped in and maliciously stung me in the back of my neck! It was totally uncalled for! Thankfully, I am not allergic and so I think I will survive this episode of "when animals attack" but it was still an unpleasant experience.

I didn't let the sting totally ruin my day though, I finished my laundry and took the long walk to town, which really got my blood pumping, in pursuit of some groceries. That expedition had about a 50% success rating. There were a few items I didn't find, most notably meat. Last time I was in Kericho I would get all my meats from an ice-chest in a certain corner of the store which was not there anymore. I asked a man who just shook his head and said they don't have it. Don't know what happened, but now I'm going to have to start having my meat purchased and brought to me by other missionaries. A little disappointing and this requires a lot more pre-planning to find those coming my way and let them know what I'm going to need.

On something of an up-side, I decided with it being a holiday I would break my rule and buy a DVD at the store. I hope no one from the FBI reads this because it is definitely a pirated disc with 5 movies on one.

When I made it back home I cooked myself a hamburger (a good 'ol piece of Americana) and sat down to watch Elektra. Not the best movie I've ever seen...Maybe we'll just leave it there, but it was a fun ride on a saturday afternoon. Michael came over and I was really feeling I'd make the holiday an excuse to take it easy so we watched 2 more movies during the day. All in all a pretty good celebration, except for that dumb bee.

This coming week I hope John and I will be able to digitize most, if not all, the slides and photographs we are going to need for the Tenwek video and also get the script nailed down quick enough that we can arrange to go around and shoot the footage we'll need.

God bless,

Jonny

Back in Kericho, Back to Work

Random thought, I've decided one of the weirdest things about driving in Africa is getting used to judging the width of the car from right to left instead of left to right. It's strange because you wouldn't think this would be a problem, but I really feel like I'm much less sure of my width here than in the US. Also not helping the problem are two facts, 1) I drive a different car each time I get the chance to drive, 2) the roads are insanely narrow.

Any way this past week has been quite eventful. I did make it to Nairobi on Friday as planned and spent the night in my old bedroom from high school days. It was bittersweet as I missed having the hundreds of posters and magazine clippings that used to line the walls.

After getting into town Friday I walked to a nearby mall to get passport pictures taken for my work permit and alien registration. While at the mall I popped into a computer store to see if they had any slide scanners. They had one that was about $50 more than I was really hoping to spend.

On Saturday morning I tried to call a few electronics stores in Nairobi to see if they had slide scanners. I got through to one of the three. They did have a scanner, but it was about $700! I was looking for more like $150 so I decided I'd pass on that.

My main plan for the day was to attend the Safari Sevens Rugby Tournament, an annual 3 day event. So I prepared to make my way there. There was no breakfast food in the house where I was staying and I needed to buy a few other small things so I first walked across the street to a grocery store and then made my way toward the tournament which was about a 30 minute walk down the street. I stopped about half way at my favorite coffee shop (Java House at Adams Arcade) and had a hearty breakfast so it would hold me until dinner. By the time I got to the tournament it was about 12:00, but I was just in time to see the Kenya A team take the field. I spent the rest of the afternoon with my cousin Heather Adkins watching the tournament.

In the evening I walked down to Robyn Moore's house where I would be staying for the rest of my time in Nairobi. "Aunt" Robyn had 2 other volunteer girls staying with her and the 4 of us would have a lot of fun through the next several days.

Finally after dinner a high school friend, Andrew Ruturi, picked me up and we went to another Java House to just chat and catch up. At 9:30 we were the last customers to leave the restaurant. Long day!

Sunday after church we (Robyn and volunteers Lindsay and Rachel) headed to the final day of the Rugby Tournament. The girls had never seen a rugby game before, so I got to pretend to be really smart and tell them everything I know about my favorite sport.

Monday I was met by Joel Kiathe who works with WGM helping with business such as work permits and other important, yet time consuming details. I had heard horror stories of waiting all day in long lines and trips from one office to another for this stamp or that piece of paper, so I was prepared for a long a tedious day. In fact, it moved right along and we were only there for 2 hours maximum which was a very pleasant surprise. I was actually back to Aunt Robyn's before lunch!

WIth my sudden extra time I tried again to call some electronics shops looking for scanners. I still had 2 that I hadn't heard from yet. I got one of them and was met with the quick reply that they simply didn't have slide-scanners. I had 4 different numbers for the other one, only one number connected and it turned out to be someone's private number. The lady was not interested in selling me a slide scanner. Having exhausted my knowledge of options I caught a ride with Aunt Robyn and picked up the one in the mall.

Tuesday morning I stayed at the house and worked some more on research for the Tenwek video while the ladies went to a few orphanages to check on the kids and to pick up 3 MORE volunteer girls. When they got back the house began to overflow with estrogen, but I think we all had fun anyway. :) We went to a nearby shopping center for a late lunch and then I did some grocery shopping for my return to Kericho. The girls and I had made plans to go see a movie after the shopping was done, but that fell through because the film was apparently NOT at the theatre yet.

So Plan B was made. We returned to Aunt Robyn's house for the rest of the afternoon and had tacos for dinner, then after dinner I took 5 girls out to the movies! I guess that's how you make up for not going on a date in a REALLY long time.

Wednesday I had breakfast with all the ladies before they ran off to visit some more orphanages. Once they were gone I just tried to work on more Tenwek research while I waited for my ride to Kericho to pick me up. I caught a ride with the Bishop of AGC. By evening I was back in my trailer at Kericho. Within a couple hours Michael, one of my friends from the Bible College, came over to greet me and invite me to join him and some others in leading chapel! Fortunately I wasn't given too much responsibility I was just asked to join them in singing a few special numbers. It was fun, but kind of a whirlwind turn from where I'd been the night before.

Thursday I was off to work in the Media office, I started gathering several massive collections of slides and kept going through the books that I'd been reading for research. Really not a whole lot to talk about there.

Friday was similar though rather than slides and reading I set up a video projector and VCR and looked at some old videos about Tenwek. So far the most interesting has been what was probably the first ever Kenya Field Video that WGM put out back in 1980 something. Dr. Tom Hermiz hosted an interesting trip throughout Kenya. I had a few good laughs at things like Aunt Robyn's short appearance. Don't worry I'm sure people will laugh at me some day too. (And several of you are asking "someday???")

Saturday I started to catch up with my unpacking and laundry, did some more Tenwek research and then walked to town for a few groceries. With the shopping all done I spent most of the afternoon at the church waiting for a promised goat roast.

Man that was a long update and it's really late coming. I'm sorry, the internet has been real flaky lately.

By the way, my Uncle in the US passed away Monday evening. Please pray for my Aunt, Elain Brady, and her family.

Until Saturday, God Bless,

Jonny

TRY something new

Thinking about this blog today I recognized how long it's been since I updated anything here. My problem is I keep waiting for moments of inspiration and not really coming up with anything.

I recognize that the main purpose of this blog should be to keep friends and family up to date on my life here in Africa. So I am proposing (to myself) a new philosophy. Rather than just writing about the rare random story I should start going for a post a week. We'll see if I can be faithful and pull this off, but I thought I should at least try for it. So each week I will look to the week ahead, where I'll be, what hope to accomplish, and any interesting events coming up. I also hope to look back and make note of the previous week, where I was and what I accomplished. Hopefully this new blogging perspective will bring about some interesting stories as well.

So to begin...

I feel like this time I really should jump back and mention the time i was recently able to spend with my cousins Tiffany and Samuel Thaler and our friend Mark Schieffla. Tiffany had been in Kenya since September 2008 as a volunteer working in Physical Therapy in Nairobi. Mark and Samuel came for about 2 weeks to visit. Actually no account of our time is complete with out my going back about 2 weeks now to Tiffany and Samuel meeting me in Kampala, Uganda. They took the 12-14 hour bus ride over to meet me and we all went white water rafting together on the Nile.

After rafting we returned to Nairobi by bus and met up with Mark. We all spent 2 days in Nairobi seeing places where Tiffany worked, visiting the baby elephants and the Giraffes near the national park and shopping. During this time we rented a vehicle and because I was the only one with a license it fell to me to be the driver! So I had my first experience driving in Nairobi, and with the exception of a few wrong turns it went pretty well.

Moving on from Nairobi we spent a few days in Maasai Land first at a mission station there and then in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. At the Olderkesi Mission station we were privelaged to visit an actual Maasai village (not the touristy ones you find near the park) and were also treated to a night game drive using the spot light to try and find animals in the darkness.

After Maasai we returned to Nairobi for a night and last Friday (June 12) I said good-bye to the three of them and made my way to Tenwek Hospital. They were to fly out later that night.

I've been here at Tenwek for a week now mostly beginning to research my next video project. Tenwek Hospital is celebrating 50 years since the first full time doctor, Dr. Ernie Steury, came. My coworker, John Makibior, and I have been tasked to assemble a video that tells the story of Tenwek's early days and how far it's come since then. I am very excited about this project, but it is no small task. On Tuesday we had a meeting with the hospitals Executive Officer, Mr. Geoffery Langat, to discuss plans for the project. It was reassuring to see that he was looking for similar things to what we were thinking of.

On Wednesday morning Mr. Langat asked us to join the celebrations planning committee and present our thoughts to them. This meeting also went quite well.

I have spent the days since continuing to research and beginning an outline.

So what's in store for next week?

Today (Friday) I'm heading to Nairobi to hang out for the weekend and do some business at the beginning of next week. My work permit has been approved so I need to go and finalize that and apply for alien registration and a multiple entry permit so I don't have to pay every time I come into Kenya. I also plan to try and look for a slide scanner for AGC Media that we can use for this Tenwek project and for digitizing the large slide library at the office.

Until next week, God Bless.

Unique Offering

Every once in a while I experience something that reminds me, in a good way, that I'm not totally and Kenyan and some things here are still strange to me. This is one such story...

This past weekend I attended church a little outside of Kericho and joined in the celebration for several recent graduates of the Theological Education by Extension (TEE) program. I was there to film and help create a short story about the program and graduates. At the end of the service a special offering was taken. I was surprised here to see a woman bring forward a live chicken and give it to the pastor. Honestly, I should not have been surprised, this is not really an uncommon occurrence in rural African churches, but it did catch me off guard. I actually started thinking of my church back in Michigan and wondered what Pastor Dave would do if someone brought a live chicken and set it in the offering plate. I started picturing his face and laughed a little to myself.

What I had forgotten, or had never known, was what is done here with chickens that are given in the offering. Once all the congregation had been given a chance to give their gifts the chicken was auctioned off to the highest bidder! So Pastor Dave, if someone brings you a live chicken for offering that's what you do with it! The chicken sold for about $6.35. Later I found out that if I went to the market to buy a chicken like that I could expect to pay about $3.75 for it.

In this area people mostly live off their live stock and what they can grow on their farm. Most families will have at least one parent involved in some kind of small business, but the money from this mostly goes toward paying for the children's schooling. The chicken that this woman brought could have been a meal for her family, it's possible that it used to lay eggs for them even and she probably gave it because she had no money. Today I've been thinking about the gift she gave and how God used that small amount to instantly bring in an even larger return. If she had come with the 300 shillings the chicken was worth, that's what she would have given, but because she brought forth this chicken she was able to give that amount and God was instantly able to multiply it! I guess this just made me think of how we can bring so little to a God who created everything and He can use it to do amazing things!

A day in the Life

As I've been uncertain of what to write about here I think this time we'll just go for a basic topic... A day in my life in Kericho, Kenya.

I am now living in Kericho and working with John Makibior in the Media department at the Africa Gospel Church head office. I live in a small house on the compound that is referred to as "The Trailer" because it is a converted trailer. To get a sense of this small but homey living space check out my Facebook group "Adkins Media On Location."

Last night I started writing about my typical day here in Kericho, it wasn't very interesting. Then today came along and I had a rather unusual day! So I'll write about that day!

I have been running low on groceries for 3 days now and each day I just put off going shopping especially as I've been quite busy at work writing and re-writing a script. Well after dinner last night I was running real low so I decided I had to go to town today.

I got to work a little after 8 this morning and worked probably until around 9. I decided to walk to town, good exercise and it's cheap, so I went out and took a short cut I learned last weekend. It was quite a nice walk though if I had really thought it through I would have left behind some of the things I was carrying. I have no idea how long it took me to get to town but I would guess 45 minutes based on the fact that i listened to a 12 minute podcast and half a CD album on the way. On the way in I passed some fruit vendors and made a plan to buy mango and pineapple on my way back.

I had 3 place I wanted to visit in town, there's the photo shop which I only know how to get to from the book shop, the book shop which I was pretty sure I could easily find from the grocery store, and the grocery store which I totally know how to get to! I went straight to the grocery store since I knew the way there, but my plan was to find the book store first so I could buy a small Bible. Well, when I got to the grocery store (Stagemat) I looked in each direction for which street looked right. I didn't see the book shop. I decided to pick a direction and start walking, nothing looked right. When the plan goes wrong go back to the beginning. I took another direction. still nothing looked right. Back to Stagemat, I asked the guard at the door if he knew the way. He just pointed me into the store. I thought maybe he was intending down the street and to the right so I tried that, still not right. Finally, I admitted defeat, I had misplace the book shop. Now it should be mentioned that this is Bethany Bookshopt, it was started by my Grandparents or Great Grandparents, this is almost like misplacing the family jewels!

Any way I decided to adjust my plan and do my grocery shopping, call a Taxi and have him take me to the book shop before coming back home. I did my grocery shopping and things were good. I called this taxi driver I know, his name is Soldier, and after a few minutes he came and got me. When I was getting in the car I asked if we could go by Bethany Bookshop first, he looked at me a little funny and then drove across the street! It was right there! Went into the shop and bought my Bible, it's a small one so I can easily pack it when traveling.

Soldier and I then headed out of town and stopped at the fruit stands I had passed on the way in. He helped me get a pineapple at the first one for 40 Shillings (about $0.50) which he said was expensive since they are out of season. Then we continued on to the Mango stand by the speed bumps and got a Mango. That was 20 Shillings ($0.25) which again he said was a rip off. As we came on to the church office Soldier explained that there's a market in town where Mangos are about 5 shillings (almost nothing). I have decided that finding this mythical market will be my next adventure!

When I got back to the house it was about 11, so 2 hours to loose a book shop, get groceries, find a book shop and get back, not too bad really.

I went back to work where I found Koech, my friend who brings chai twice a day, cleaning the office. The board is visiting us tomorrow. Koech poured me a cup of tea almost as soon as I sat down and that motivated me to keep working until lunch time.

I decided to make lunch my small meal for today so I just had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was pretty good.

The afternoon was mostly spent working on my script and logging my footage from Burundi about a month ago. John, my co-worker, has been in meetings all this week so I just kept myself occupied. John did make it back some time around 4 and then we suddenly go busy straightening the place up until sometime after 5 when we came home.

Getting back to the house this evening I had to do laundry (again I direct you to facebook to see my oh so efficient "Laundry Machine"). Once the laundry was out of the way I set about taking care of my produce. I had an onion, a pineapple and a mango to cut up and store in the fridge. The onion was easy to cut, but it was a strong beast of an onion so I cried through the whole thing. Then I went for the pineapple, I'd never cut a pineapple. I figured it couldn't be too hard, but I wasn't really interested in messing up either. So I went to Google and man it pulled through for me, I fond a site with step by step instructions and photos. Turns out cutting a pineapple is exactly as easy as I thought it would be. By this point I was feeling pretty good, so it was on to the Mango! I was pretty sure I knew how to do this so I skipped google and just dove in. Well I'd completely forgotten Mangos have a hard seed in the middle. That was issue one, but should have been something I could get around. However, I think the fruit was also a little under or over ripe because rather than a nice firm inside that can be cubed it was all mushy and stringy like a pumpkin. I salvaged what I could of it and we'll see how it turns out.

Finally, I cooked dinner. When I first got to Kericho nearly 3 weeks ago the only meat I found at Stagemat was hamburgers. Only problem since has been a lack of buns. Well I found some buns today and so I dug into one of my burgers. Oh man that was good. I followed the Burger with pineapple and cookies. Oh man that was good. After I finished eating I hopped her on the internet and have been blogging ever since. It's now nearly bed time, 11PM, so I hope you will all enjoy my roller coaster day as much as I did and we'll see you again soon.