For the not so faint of heart, this was something we so on our safari...

This is a short version of the dance the Massai Tribe Children did for us!

We are half way home! In Amsterdam waiting for our flight to San Francisco! 10 hour flight. Lots of video to post when I get home! Stay tuned.

Amazing, we were literally 15 feet away from these creatures!

Great shot if you blow it up.  We could only get about 50 feet from these large lions but great shot of him roaring.

We were only about 5 feet from these lions!?!  There were 5 in total.

This made the trip feel like Africa.  These kids from Compassion put on this amazing dance and then presented all of us with beads.

Very energetic people.

This is Peter, our host from Compassion US in front of the home of the Massai family that we visited.

Last Day in Kenya

Hi everyone.  We just returned to our hotel from a long journey out to visit the Massai Tribe.  We were able to visit one Compassion Project that has 370 kids in the program.  They put on a traditional Massai Warrior dance for us which was amazing.  The kids did the dancing and was a lot of fun to watch.  We were able to visit their church, their school and also one home.  The home was made of sticks and cow manure.  It was suprisingly comfortable after the homes that we visited in the slums.  The only issue was the small fire that they kept going in the middle of the hut for warmth and cooking.  Their was no hole in the roof, so the exhaust from the fire was a bit overwhelming.  Before Compassion arrived here, there was essentially no school for the kids, no church and the girls were often married off by their families between the age of 12-14.  Now, there are several girls beyond that age that are still in school and doing great.  Amazing stuff.

We also had the opportunity to visit another small church about 10 miles away from the previous one.  This church is in the middle of an area with a lot of kids, but they can not get to the current Project because of distance as well as they are full.  Their is a man, Salomon, who just graduated from Kenya University as part of the Compassion Project.  He is 25 and has been part of Compassion since he was 4.  He is now done, and is moving back to where he grew up and is trying to start his own Compassion site.  The minimum for starting a site is a Church, classrooms, an office, bathrooms and a kitchen.  They already have the Church and through Salomon's work, they just completed the bathrooms and kitchen.  When Pastor Ray from Bayside visited this church last year, he was amazed at the passion in this young man and said we would try to help.  Bayside raised enough money for the Dandora Project that we were able to put some of the extra towards helping to build the school buildings and office.  They are hoping to have it done by Christmas of this year.  So, by this time next year, their will hopefully be another Compassion Project in the area that is serving 300 kids and teaching them about God, feeding them and teaching them Trade Skills.  Our brief visit with Salomon was great and he shared his vision and plans and is excited about being able to give back to the community through the organization that was able to rescue him.

Kenya Update

Hello all, sorry for the delays and not getting any new news up the last 48 hours.  We got into small bush planes and flew out to the Mara area for a short Safari.  No internet service.  It was truely amazing.  I have lots of pictures to share, but now my camera card reader is not working, so cant upload any new pictures!?

Tomorrow we will be heading out to the Massai Warrior Villiage.  There are several Compassion Project sites out there and they are working on starting a brand new one.  Our church has also raised some money to give to this project so that they can build some classrooms.  We will be assessing the site for the building and Bayside will more than likely be sending a team back later this year to begin construction on those facilities.

I will hope to give you all some updates tomorrow night.  We board planes tomorrow night at 11:30pm in Kenya, heading home.  I land in San Francisco Tuesday around noon.

This is the sewage running down the side walk path.

This is the creek that the sewage runs into.

Should this kid be on a billboard?

This is Dancan, a child that our family is sponsoring.

Day 4 Update

So today was pretty rough.  We visited the Mathari Slum.  It was really, much worse than anything we have seen at Dandora.  The best way to describe it is that the people in Mathari looked dark and sad with emotions, almost waiting for the end.  The people really just wonder if they will be around tomorrow.

We toured the slum on foot with several of the locals from the Compassion Project.  The sewage literally runs in an open "gutter" down the side of the road.  It then empties into a small creek, in the creek, people were standing up to their knees searching the bottom of the creek for anything volumables that they can sell. 

In the middle of this is the Compassion Project, and it is described as a little bit of Heaven in the middle of Hell.  In this slum, we were not really welcomed except for in the Compassion Project.  In the project, we met 3 kids that are graduates of the Program.  They were 3 amazing men and they way they talk about Hope and love that they get through the program.

I also had the pleasure of meeting a child that our family is sponsoring.  His name is Dancan and he lives in the Kebula Slum, which is 1.2million people living in a 2 square mile area.  We spent about 3 hours talking, playing football, fresbee and games.  It was awesome.  I also called the family at about 5:45 am and woke them up and put them on Skype.  It was an amazing experience for the kids to be able to meet him that way.

Tomorrow we head out on small planes for a Safari and will not be back until Sunday.  I will be without internet connection for the time, so you will not see any more posts until Sunday afternoon.

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Matt Lantz playing with the kids

These are two of the girls that are Compassion Alumni.  They volunteer now at the Program daily.

This is Momma Hildi.  She is the original founder/visionary of the Dandora Church Project. She is 71 years old.

Video from our Home visit to the home of Marie.

Day 3 update

On the side of the road, a pig eating in the trash

This is the entire team of Bayside team and the volunteers from the Church

This was the meal that they made us each day for lunch, with homemade tortillas.

Dandora Project, Day 3

Today we spent our third and final day at Dandora Project.  We spent some final time in the construction site, but spent more time just playing with the kids from the project.  We talked about their age, their names, their favorite subject in school.  They love to rub the hair on your arms and on your head.  I will post some pictures and video of that soon.

Today we also spent some time doing some house visits.  If I thought that the house was poor, this was much worse.  We visited with a single mother, Rebecca.  Her Husband is deceased.  She has 6 children and they live in a small room, about 5 ft by 8 ft.  They all live there.  No electricity, no water, no bathroom.  The mom washes clothes for money.  She often time has no food for her kids to eat.  Her rent per month is equivelant of $4.

Her oldest daughter, Maria is 15 years old and she suffers from Sickle Cell Anemia.  All of her medical expenses are covered by Compassion and without the sponsorship, she would more than likely be dead.
Really puts life into perspective. 

Tomorrow we are heading out to the Mathari Slums.  We are told that this is the worst of the worst.  Their is a Compassion Project at a church in the middle of the slum.  Should be a real tough thing to see.

Great new Video from Bayside Blog:
http://www.baysideonline.com/kenya/2011/03/kenya-update-day-2/

Elcon, a local Compassion employee

Hi everyone, this might be the best one yet.  This is Elcon.  He is the local Compassion employee that is in charge of 12 different Compassion Projects around Nairobi.  He has been on site with the work.  He gave us some comments about what the locals are saying about us being here with them working.  This really makes it all worth while!

Stephen inside his home.

This is about 90 seconds and is Stephen, whos home we visited yesterday talks about what Compassion International has done for his life. 

Kind of unbelievable that just 20 miles from the Dandora Slums sits the city of Nairobi that looks like Los Angeles!

This is a picture from inside the church.

Day 2 Recap

Today we spent the entire day at the project site.  Yesterday, the contractor had 5 laborers there.  We quickly realized with just those 5, we were going to have no chance of getting very far quickly on this excavation of the floor of the church.  It is roughly 5000 sft and they need to take 18" of dirt out of the entire floor.  No machines, just sweat.  After a long day, we made some progress.  We talked to the contractor about why he did not have more help.  He said that he budgeted for 5 laborers.  We asked him how much it would cost to get some more for 2 days.  We all pooled together and put in $200 total of cash.  That bought us 25 additional laborers, for 2 days work.  This morning we arrived to a room full of guys digging.  We got a lot accomplished today!

The kids have started to realize that most of us are packing candy!  That brings even more smiles.  All of the kids say when they see you, how are you?  If you say to them, "How are you?", they reply, "I am fine, thank you!"  So cute.

When we were taking one of our many breaks from the manual labor, we noticed that as the kids came out of their classrooms, they had to jump about 18" down from the doorway to the ground.  For 20 years this school has been there and it was like this?  We took about 30 minutes and some stones that were excavated and build a basic set of steps for them.  When the kids came back around, they were so excited to be able to walk down their new steps, it was like Christmas!!

Update by Paul from Day 2 in Dandora

This is just a quick few comments by me from inside the Dandora Baptist Church, where we are working.

Video from Day 1

Hi everyone, attached is a link to the Bayside Blog with a video recap of Day 1.  http://tinyurl.com/kenya01

This is a short video of part of the Dandora Slum as we were walking through to get to Stevens house to visit where he lives.  This doesnt show much of what we saw, but a brief view of the streets.

Kenya Video

Here is a video you can watch that is on the Bayside Kenya Blog via Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/kenya0

This is the church in Dandora that we are helping to build.  It has been partnered with Compassion for over 20 years.  They have roughly 300 kids in this project that are in school and receive food, medical care and some clothing as part of the sponsorship.  The volunteers that run this place are infectious with spirit!

 This is Steven in the middle.  We got the opportunity to visit his home.  He is 20 and his mom and dad are both deceased.  He has been part of the Compassion program since he was 7.  His home was roughly 8ft x 8ft in space.  About the size of an average bathroom in California.

Several of the kids in the slums.  If they are wearing a uniform, it means that they attend school and are likely sponsored.  They all run up and say "hello, how are you?"  Since most of the kids dont have mirrors, they love to look at themselves in your camera display.  They laugh when you show them!

 

 This trash pile went for miles and is basically the city dump for the city of Nairobi, the largest town in Kenya.  The Compassion Project we are working at is about 400 yards from this trash pit.  People scavenger through the trash for anything useful they can sell.

First Morning in Nairobi

Woke up for our first morning in Africa.  Several of the guys are stirring around.

The sounds here are amazing.  Makes me realize how deprived we are of critters and birds where we live.  (maybe thats not such a bad thing...)  The weather is beautiful.  6:00am and I am sitting outside in t-shirt and shorts.

Today we head over to the Dandora Project of Compassion.  This is where the construction is going on.  We are all really excited to get going on the real reason for the adventure.
I hope to have some great stories for you later tonight!

Having way to much fun for this 8 hour leg...

Our deluxe accomodations in Nairobi...

Our Plane!

Bigger than Southwest!!

Getting bags in Nairobi!!

Landed in Nairobi!!

The 15 of us landed safely in in Nairobi, Kenya, 26 hours after leaving Roseville, CA.  It is awesome to be here finally after all of the preperations and planning and shots.  The flights were not as bad as I had made them out to be in my mind, but International flying is certainly not Southwest!!  Lots of food and movies.  I believe I watched 4 movies, 2 TV shows and read half of a book.  I am reading a book called "Fearless", by Max Lucado.  It is about living your life without fear.

More to come, I am going to try and download some pictures and add them tonight before going to bed.

Me and 415 other folks from California just touched down in Amsterdam!

On our way to San Francisco to catch our Flight!!