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!!

Getting very excited for our trip.  We are 10 days away from departure.  One of our men made us some great looking shirts to wear while we are there.  Here is a picture!