Bittersweet

I cannot believe it is the last day! Today is our last day in Kenya and the past two weeks have flown by at an incredible rate. It seems like just yesterday that we arrived in the Nairobi airport! Our time of ministry here has been amazing and I wish we could stay an extra week and work more with the children here!

Today we woke up and headed to a place called Village Market. On Fridays, the Village Market is where a bunch of street vendors come and set up their merchandise and people come and shop. It is really cool because this isn't like shopping at Wal-Mart. This is shopping where you barter for what you want and the price you want it for. We went first thing in the morning to scope out what we wanted to buy. We were only there for an hour. As we browsed, some of us bought things and some of us just made mental lists for when we came back after lunch.

After our hour was up, we went to lunch but we went somewhere that was outside of Village Market. We went to a place called Mitchell's Tea Farm. In Kenya, there are two major crops that are exported: coffee and tea. There are fields of each everywhere here. Last week we went and handed out backpacks at a school that was on a coffee plantation. Today, we went to have lunch in the middle of hundreds of acres of tea plants. The landscape looks like a blanket of green because of the plants. The lady who owns this small tea farm told us how they make it and what goes into the tea. It was quite interesting to see and watch. However, the most awesome thing about this lunch was the landscape and the beauty of the farm. It is a gorgeous place! We ate lunch there which was amazing!

After lunch, we loaded back up on the bus and headed back to the market. When we got there it was a free for all to buy what you could at the lowest price you could barter. Many of us did fairly well! We had about two hours there to get what we wanted to bring to family members or even for Christmas presents. It was an awesome experience as well!

Today was a great day to end on because it was as if yesterday was a huge breath in and today was a huge breath out. What I mean is we saw a lot yesterday as far as the poverty of Kenya goes. We saw some very discouraging things. But today was a day to take a step back from all of that and relax and rest. We got to see the beauty of Kenya and not the injustice. We got to just sit back and think about our journey home. This place is an awesome place and I truly believe each of us is leaving a bit of our hearts here! I know that a piece of mine will always remain with the children here and the people here. I believe there is so much more that God has for me here in Nairobi and through partnerships, I want to see them happen. I think everyone on my team would agree with that statement as well!

We are excited about coming home though! We will leave Heart tomorrow morning at 4:30 to get to the airport. Our flight from here leaves at 7:30 and we go to Dubai. There we will have about an 8 hour layover. We don't quite know what we are doing there, but we might go to a huge mall there or just go on a bus tour of the city. We will see once we get there! Once we leave Dubai, it is a 14 hour plane ride to Atlanta and then about an hour plane ride to Louisville! I think we are scheduled to arrive in Louisville at about 9:50am on Sunday! We are looking forward to seeing you all and can't wait to hug you and squeeze you! We love you and miss you! Please be praying for our travels and we will see you soon!!

84 days Mallory!! 84 days!!

- Jameson