My first impressions...

 I arrived at my new home around 5:30am Sunday morning, July 25th. Here's a recap/my thoughts and pictures are at the bottom. You're welcome Amy!! :)

Ok so the bus... my escort and I boarded the bus at 7:45pm on Saturday night. We sat in VIP seating which meant our seats reclined and our feet went up. We made many stops through out the night, dropping people off at what seemed like the middle of nowhere but they knew where to go. When I do the bus again, I will not sit in VIP seating because the front is noisy and they are constantly turning the lights on and off. The screeching of the brakes reminded me that I was Kenya where in any vehicle they speed and then brake just before they need to. :)

We arrived at "my stop" at exactly 5:30am, praise Jesus because I had to go potty so badly! I got off, looked left and right and literally just saw roads and trees. Where in the world am I??? As the bus drove away all light dissipated and it was dark, I mean dark! And then two men approached us... thank goodness D, my escort recognized them. We walked about 100 yards or so back down the street and turned off down a dirt road. I could see nothing, including what I was walking on. About 50-100 yards down the dirt road we turned again, walked another 20-30 yards and approached my new home. I was then welcomed by the Pastor and his wife to a house with no electricity (it came back on though)... welcome to Kenya!

We thanked God that we made it safely, I was shown the bathroom (oh I was so happy to see the hole in the ground!) and my bedroom, I crawled into my mosquito net and passed out!

I woke up, showered, enjoyed bread and chai and then went to Church. It was a beautiful youth run service completely in Kiswahili. I loved that I got a lot of what was being said and used my Kiswahili Bible to study John 15. Having studied John 15 last summer, I was quite aware of the words in English which made understanding that much easier. I sat in the front of the Church between the Pastor and his wife who both leaned over often to help me understand what was going. Church lasted 2 1/2 hours, but it was very alive and worshipful.

We enjoyed wali and kuku (rice and chicken) after Church and then D and I set off for my few day stay with my mentor and her husband in Malindi. A matatu picked us up on the road in front of my house, with a few stops dropping and picking people up, we made it to Malindi in just under an hour. Within an hour of being at the house, we were walking along the beach!! Pictures don't really do it justice, the colors of blues and greens are just gorgeous.

Tomorrow afternoon, we return to my village to drop me off where I will stay from now on. As "rough" as it might be, I am so excited for the challenges and blessings that are to come. God is so good to give me complete peace as I look forward to living in the village and getting to know the people there.

Here are a few prayer requests:
*Settling. Continue to pray for me as I settle in and get used to village living. The pastor and his wife have taken me in and made it very clear that I am one of their children. Pray for relationships and that I would be able to be apart of their family and not treated as a visitor.

*VBS/School starting. Wednesday through Friday of this week I will help out (as best I can) with their VBS and then in one week I will begin teaching alongside the two teachers in the school house. Pray for wisdom in how I can help in both of these opportunities.

*Language. You can continue to pray for Kiswahili acquisition. I feel I have a good foundation but with God's power, I pray I can become much more fluent quickly. The kids really don't know English, and my heart is to connect to those kids, which means I need to be able to speak their language.

Here are some pictures of my home I took just before I left for Malindi and of the beach here of course :)

My home!

My bed, I love that I'm next to the window, the breeze is amazing considering the heat!

My desk. That towel hanging off is what I used to dry off after
my shower. I now have towels that are a bit bigger. :)

The ceiling of my room. It's hard to tell but that is all open so you can
hear what's going on in the hallway and bathroom next door.

And this is what is on the other side of that wall. The far hole
is the toliet and the open area in front of that is where I shower.
It's quite warm here so the cold water is actually really nice
and wearing a skirt makes it easy to go to the bathroom. 

Here's my school where I will be teaching. The kids saw me taking
the picture and all ran to the front to get in it. So cute! It's hard to tell
but it's really just one room that can be divided into three.

If you walk out of my house and turn right you see the school, if you turn
right and walk on this pathway, just passed the blue building you can see
a bit of stone... that's the church below. I love my one minute walk and
Church that starts at 10am!

The Church building. The breeze was amazing and I love that birds
fly in and out throughout the service. 

And here begins the walk to my home. What you see in front is the main
street that I got dropped off on and where I go to get the matutu to go into town.

When you turn off of the road above, this is the "driveway" into my home.
That is my house at the end of the road and they have quite a bit of land and I love that
kids hang out here a lot!

At the edge of the driveway, I turned around and here's the view.
You can see the school house in the distance and then the church
is to the right in this picture.

And from the house, here's the driveway to the road. Such a beautiful place!  

Here's a picture of the bus I took from Nairobi to my village.
(photo credit...google images)

And the beautiful beach! This is a ten-fifteen minute walk from my mentor's
house! So beautiful!

Walking along the beach. I loved the green next to the blues/teals.
If you look at google maps and type in Malindi, you can see the
reefs of which I am referring to.

And our walk ended at a gelato place! I'm in heaven!
Cheesecake and Caramel flavored... I spoiled myself with
two scoops because I'm going to be "living in a village"
and won't have access to ice cream... or at least that was my
excuse for the day!