Few pics from first day in Bhondeni

This is Dr. Carlos and some of our medical staff they did a great job treating all the kids and the sickness that is sadly much a part of living in the slums.  

This is where I hung out all day in our "Prayer Room" after the kids were seen by the doctors we had a chance to meet with them one on one and share the love of Jesus to them and pray for their spiritual healing!  We had several adults and kids accept the Lord as Savior, prayed for alot of kids to be healed and just loved one them....it was awesome!  (oh btw that is Kristen in the photo she was great at praying with the kids)!

This is looking up at the school that TPCC helped to build for the kids of the slums.  3 stories, several classrooms and HUNDREDS of kids like you guys!  

This is a picture of one of the classes beginning to see nurses and get medical help.

This is a shot of looking out of the second story of the school into one of the many streets of Bhondeni.

And I saved the best for last, this is the potty...yep a hole in the ground, sanitation is not great here and....well, you do what you gotta do man!  (how is this picture Maddie?  hee hee hee hee).

Seriously it was a great day and these kids and people have been the best, but it is late and I have to be up early so I am saying nighty night and I will post more tomorrow!  

Pastor Darren

Bhondeni Day 1

Hey Guys!

We had a great day at the Bondeni school today!  That is a ton of people and Pastor Darren and I are pooped!

I got to talk to and hang out with a bunch of kids today.  And you know what I learned?  Kids are kids, no matter where they are in the world.   

They do many of the same things you do.  They run, play soccer (which they call football), and steal the red chair from their brothers and make them sit in the pink chair. They love to sing and dance and they don’t like vegetables.  But these kids are different in other ways.  They don’t have electricity in their homes.  And their homes are tin shacks that are smaller than your bedrooms and they sometimes have 5 brothers and sisters staying with them in that shack.   They don’t have air conditioning, heat or toilets.  And often, they don’t have the opportunity to go to school or to know God like you do.  That’s one thing; we get to do, talk to them about God and how great He is, no matter where they are. 

Tomorrow we get to do it again so please pray for us as we talk to these kids and their parents.

We love you and can’t wait to see you at home!

Miss Kathy (K-Dog)

Pipeline Explosion

Please pray for the slums of Kenya as an explosion killed many people people today and left many homeless...our team is alright as this slum was not in our area but in Northern Nairobi.  Thanks for the shout outs of concerns but we are alright and just praying for those affected!

Pastor Darren

Missions of Hope!

Missions of Hope is the name of the ministry that we are working with while here and let me tell you they are an incredible bunch of people!  The work they are doing here in the slum area's south of Narobi is nothing short of amazing, as you look at these pics of the streets we hung out on today just remind yourself without the work of these people they would be much, much worse!

Typical alleyway where people have their homes, after an orientation today with the staff of the Missions of Hope we went on a tour (sounds so nice) of the slum area to check out the living conditions and visit some people in their homes.

We turn out of the mission and this is our entrance into the slum area...the smell of garbage, open sewer and people cooking on fires outside their "homes" fills the air!

We take an alleyway to head to a lady's home we are going to check in on, she has 6 children, living in something like a closet and most of them are in the school to give them a fighting chance to get out of here.

The slum is like it's own little world with small businesses in them, like this guy cooking bread and selling it, my fav was looking in on a small one room hut to see a woman with almost 20 little kids running her in home daycare with no lighting/running water or anything in her place but a bed and table.  

It rained today and made the slum a mess to make it around, slippery and smelly was the flavor of the day!  Still...............This was my favorite moment, these little guys shouting out to me "picture, picture" they wanted me to take their picture then show it to them and they laughed and laughed! I am amazed by the Kenyan people, seriously, they are unbelievable and how they carry on with such joy and strength, it has been something to see.  Hey see you tomorrow and tell you all about our first day of medical clinic!  

The Kenyan Version of Laura Yates!

Just have to throw this out there...Laura Yates we saw this scene and thought of you!  Not just the size of class and one teacher but because she was awesome (as any student who calls you mentor can say of you as well)!
I looked at K-dog and said "Oh my goodness it's the Kenyan version of Laura Yates"!

We're heeeeeeere!

Hey kids/rents/friends and casual late night blogger reader!

We made it man!  And it was not easy...a hour flight to Chicago from Indy, then 10 hours to London then right on a plane for another 10 hours to Kenya...whew!  But we made it and let me say you never know how much you can stink or how oily your skin can get until you just do nothing but set on a plane for over 20+ hours!

We landed boarded a bus in Kenya then went straight to our home for the next week "The Grace House Resort" now I know what your thinking "RESORT"?  Well don't think Disneyland Resort when I tell you about this place, it is small/old/my shower is right next to my toilet and I have mosquito netting around my bed to keep the little pests out of my face while I sleep and keep me from getting sick from them.

But we are here and today on our first full day we got up had breakfast (now I will tell you the guys/gals who do the cooking here could blow the Disney people out of the water....gooooood food).  But we ate then.....WOW.....the church is located right next to the slum that we will be at for the majority of the week!  The worship was over the top awesomeness, they sang/clapped/danced/jumped up and down/cried and it was great!  You know what it reminded me of?  YOU!  Yeah I had the same feeling worshipping with them that I have when we are singing in the Zone.....oops!  I mean the gym now, I had someone say to me "that was something wasn't it Darren"?  I told them "reminded me of worshipping with the kids each week"!  But they did it in a way that blew me away..sometimes when I have had a bad week or am upset over something I don't want to sing, I want to sulk, I don't want to lift up my hands to praise the Lord I want to cross them and put on my grumpy face...not these people!  Not these people who have very little if anything at all...they praised God!  They worshipped, they went for it, they got it on, they get it and they....they got it, they got to be in the presence of God because they accepted Gods invite to come and worship Him!  Wow...it was great!

When we left church (2 1/2 hours later...felt like an hour at most to me) we went outside and a new friend I made while here named Steve called me over and said Darren look over this wall and see....I looked this is what I saw!

This is the slum area that thousands call home, you look to the right and left as far as you can and all you see is slum.  We just looked in, tomorrow we go in!  I will talk more later on tomorrow night...be looking for it!  So glad to hear that Pastor Tim and the crew did a fantastic job this first week in the new digs for the kids, hope it was fun, so looking forward to being back with you guys!  

Pastor Darren

Bye Bye Zone...Helllllllllo Kenya!

Hey guys this is Pastor Darren and I am so saddened that this last Sunday was our last one in The Zone!  The place we have called home for the last several years since opening up our new campus here in Z-ville!  Well on to bigger and better things and this week (reminder alert, reminder alert) this Sunday September 11th we will be moving our elementary services to the mpr!  It will be the new home for our elementary Kids Blast program as we continue to grow and expand our facility to meet the increasing need of all these great kids and adults that God keeps bringing us! 

                                                                                                                                                              I am so excited that this Friday K-dog (a.k.a. Kathy Jarrell our awesome and very pontifical 11am coordinator) and myself and a bunch of other people from TPCC are going to be off to Kenya to work in the area we as a church have adopted there and am so looking forward to seeing the school and learning how are elem kids can better serve our friends there.  Thus my next thing I want to tell you about...please check out our blog here for the next week or so and I will be filling you in on the journey into the Dark Continent and our adventures in Kenya as we look to see what God is doing there and learn more about how we can be a part!

Love you guys, thanks for a wonderful week this last week as we said goodbye to our home The Zone and look forward to the next part of our journey together and kicking off our first week in the mpr with a bang!
Thats it for now but come back beginning this Friday and lets have a great trip together!

God bless guys
Pastor Darren