t minus 7 hours until go time.

Hi! Thank you all so much for your prayers! We appreciate it...so much.

In 7 hours, we (the interns- Jessica, Ashley, and myself, and our leader- Crystal) will be arriving at chelten baptist church to leave for JFK airport to make an 11:20 flight out of the country. We will first embark on a 12 hour flight to Dubai and then catch a 4 hour flight to Nairobi (never did a 4 hour flight sound so good...). We should arrive in Kenya around 2:45 pm on Saturday (for all of you who are wondering, time in Kenya is 7 hours ahead of the time on the east coast). From the airport we head straight to our first Children's Home called Maai Mahiu. This home has been supported by Chelten for 7 or 8 years so lots of relationships have already been formed. It will be a great home to start out at as it is somewhat familiar surroundings and it is close to the AIC Kijabe Hospital...just in case any of us have trouble adjusting to our new environment (which is a HUGE prayer request...we had a health meeting a few nights ago...which was extremely helpful but a little scary as well).

To be somewhat brief, I would like to give you a tenative schedule of where we will be over the next 3 months. We will be spending 2 weeks in each of 5 Children's Homes extending across the entire Southern portion of Kenya (check out the map of the homes on Chariots for Hope's website at www.chariotsforhope.org. From May 29-June 12 we will be at Maai Mahiu, from June 13-26 we will be at Mogogosiek, from June 27-July 10 we will be at Ogada, from July 11-24 we will be at Kaptagat (which is sponsored be Impact Thrift!), from July 25-31 we will have a little bit of a break where we will take a moment to breathe and travel the country, and from August 1-14 we will be a Mukaa. The schedule is very open to flexibility...it is part of their lifestyle over in Kenya so know that this is definitely not set in stone.

A lot of people have asked me what exactly we will be doing while at the homes...well, i finally have some answers for you! i know it's hard to believe that as interns we walked into this trip blindly, but in a way, we really did. we just found out during our training this week what our responsibilities will be besides just loving the kids.

The first week at each home will be sort of a Home Orientation. Chariots would like to be able to make a Home Profile for each orphanage so that sponsors will have more knowledge on who they are partnering with, but it needs the information to do so! as interns, we will be interviewing the staff and writing up staff bios, getting into the children's lives and hearing/recording their stories, taking a general cultural survey of the area that the home is in, and taking note of the strengths/weaknesses/needs of the home. We have a lot of freedom on how we want to structure this and what questions we would like to ask, so we have been encouraged to explore in areas that interst us. At the homes we are also responsible for holding a Kid's Day (including games, crafts, songs, Bible stories, etc.). We will also spend a day in each home at school with the kids (where they will most likely ask us to teach them something--if you have any ideas...please let me know! it can be anything. seriously.), a day working in the kitchen, and a day doing home visits with the social worker. Other than that, we will live life with the kids! Sleep where they sleep, get up when they get up...eat with them, do wash with them, play with them...and love them!

Updates will be coming by way of this blog at least once every 2 weeks.

I better get going as we now only have 6.5 hours until we need to be at church ready to go. Please be praying for a safe flight over! and strength when we arrive...it will be a long few days and we're jumping right in at Maai Mahiu!