More ABO

As I type this post, there are only two days left of ABO. Hard to believe. We have learned so much, our heads and hearts are full as we begin to process all of it. Above, Malachi is enjoying the last bit of Coke at one of our meals in the dining hall.

Part of our curriculum has to been to learn some about Islam. Africa is home to many Muslims and no matter what our ministry focus, we will have some interaction with Muslims. The more we learn, the more we come to know that there are SO many differences between our faiths, but that we can still have meaningful (hopefully leading to salvation!) relationships with Islamic people. At the end of two days in the classroom, we were able to visit a local mosque.

Here we are on our way to the mosque. I wore a silky headscarf, which was just a bad idea. It kept slipping off and was quite awkward trying to adjust it :) The women's section is at the top and back of the mosque. We could just get a small glimpse of the men below as they said their prayers. Afterwards, the imam came up and we had a Q&A session.

One day last week we had a scavenger hunt in Machakos town. There were teams and we competed against each other. Since town is a ways from where we are staying, we took public transport in. Leo and the kids rode bicycle bodas. I took a matatu instead (mini-van). We felt sorry for the little guy hauling Leo on the back of his bike!

One of the places we visited was the butcher. yummy! Our team didn't win, but we had a fun (and entertaining) day :)



There is a family here who offers laundry service. They collect the laundry in the mornings, watch it by hand and then put it on the lawn to dry. Here's a picture of "the dryer". Since it's been so cold here, the laundry has never been dry when I've gone to pick it up, so we can hang it on lines in the back of the dorm, where it dries eventually. The picture right above is the dorm where we've been staying.


Yesterday we did home visits. We were with another couple and a single guy from our group and met up with this really sweet Kenyan couple. We then walked to their house, which ended up being at least a couple of miles away! We walked to town, through town, out of town, down a valley and up the other side... Malachi walked the whole way and did great.

Here we are in the home of Martin and Faith (and their friend, Lillian, in green). They were very strong Christians and after sharing porridge with us, we sang a song, heard a sermonette and had a prayer time. The kids were pretty wiped out by the end of the visit. We had a "family debrief" last night about how we can do better next time... :)