The weekend is finally here. Carol and I are spending the weekend with our good friends of many years, David and Patience Waweru. We first got acquainted with David about 10 years ago when the Nairobi Chapel band along with their Pastor Oscar came to the United States to begin the strategic partnership between their church and ours, Grace Community Church. We were able to host David and another friend Alfred in our home. This was the beginning of a great friendship. David and I refer to ourselves as “brothers with different mothers”.
A few years later, David came to visit us and was able to experience snow for the first time. We continued to build our friendship as we had a lot in common. We both work in telecom, he worked at Kenya Telkom, and I worked at Verizon. We both enjoyed outreach, music, travel, and he had a real entrepreneurial mind. We kept in touch by e-mail and always looked forward to our short term trips to Kenya. In fact David did a lot of the coordination for us as a host. He arranged for our ground transportation, our host families, the safari, and was always there to help us whether it was bartering at the Masai Market or taking us to visit his mother up country.
In fact, I was able to live vicariously through my Kenyan brother. We were blessed to hear about his courtship of Patience, pray with him during the dowry negotiations, and bless their marriage. We even were able to help them realize their dream of having a child. They had tried for years without success to get pregnant. About 2 years ago, David asked if we could locate for them a fertility product called Pre-Seed. It was not available in Kenya, so Carol went to the internet, found it and sent them a quantity to see if it would help. To their and our amazement, 3 months later, they were pregnant. In fact last year when we were here, Patience was in the early stages of pregnancy, and it took all the self control we could manage to keep it a secret. They wanted to make certain that she was several months along before telling anyone. Shana was born about 4 months ago and she is the most beautiful African girl I have ever seen. She has the sweetest disposition and holding her and singing to her is truly one of my greatest joys.
On Sunday, we will attend Nairobi Chapel with them and will be reunited with many friends there we have been blessed to know over the years. Afterwards we will treat our host families to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, the Carnivore. This restaurant is similar to the Brazilian steakhouses where they bring many different types of exotic wild game and other types of meat on large skewers and carve it for you table side. In the past I have eaten ostrich, camel, crocodile, élan, zebra, water buffalo, and others. For those who want something less exotic they serve more common meats like chicken, beef, goat, pork, and lamb. It is always a lot of fun to fellowship with our host families. In addition to David and Patience, our host families include, Carole Kariuki, Chris and Elizabeth Kamuna, Marcy and Muhia Karianjahi, and Twity and Manaseh Uzele. We are very grateful for them opening up their homes and giving us a taste of Nairobi by experiencing life through their eyes.
A few years later, David came to visit us and was able to experience snow for the first time. We continued to build our friendship as we had a lot in common. We both work in telecom, he worked at Kenya Telkom, and I worked at Verizon. We both enjoyed outreach, music, travel, and he had a real entrepreneurial mind. We kept in touch by e-mail and always looked forward to our short term trips to Kenya. In fact David did a lot of the coordination for us as a host. He arranged for our ground transportation, our host families, the safari, and was always there to help us whether it was bartering at the Masai Market or taking us to visit his mother up country.
In fact, I was able to live vicariously through my Kenyan brother. We were blessed to hear about his courtship of Patience, pray with him during the dowry negotiations, and bless their marriage. We even were able to help them realize their dream of having a child. They had tried for years without success to get pregnant. About 2 years ago, David asked if we could locate for them a fertility product called Pre-Seed. It was not available in Kenya, so Carol went to the internet, found it and sent them a quantity to see if it would help. To their and our amazement, 3 months later, they were pregnant. In fact last year when we were here, Patience was in the early stages of pregnancy, and it took all the self control we could manage to keep it a secret. They wanted to make certain that she was several months along before telling anyone. Shana was born about 4 months ago and she is the most beautiful African girl I have ever seen. She has the sweetest disposition and holding her and singing to her is truly one of my greatest joys.
On Sunday, we will attend Nairobi Chapel with them and will be reunited with many friends there we have been blessed to know over the years. Afterwards we will treat our host families to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, the Carnivore. This restaurant is similar to the Brazilian steakhouses where they bring many different types of exotic wild game and other types of meat on large skewers and carve it for you table side. In the past I have eaten ostrich, camel, crocodile, élan, zebra, water buffalo, and others. For those who want something less exotic they serve more common meats like chicken, beef, goat, pork, and lamb. It is always a lot of fun to fellowship with our host families. In addition to David and Patience, our host families include, Carole Kariuki, Chris and Elizabeth Kamuna, Marcy and Muhia Karianjahi, and Twity and Manaseh Uzele. We are very grateful for them opening up their homes and giving us a taste of Nairobi by experiencing life through their eyes.
Our team member spotlight is on Carol Fischer. She is sleeping in this morning, one of her favorite things to do. Carol grew up in on a farm in Eastern Kentucky. She was the youngest of three girls. An interesting fact about her family is that Carol, her mother, and both of her sisters graduated as valedictorians of their high school class. Carol went on the major in accounting at the University of Kentucky and later earned her Executive MBA from Duke while working at GTE. She held various positions in finance and accounting working in Lexington, Kentucky, Durham, North Carolina, Tampa, Florida, and Westfield, Indiana. She met her husband of 11 years, Ed, in Westfield. After 28 years in the corporate world, Ed and Carol realized a dream they had shared for 8 years when their purchased the North Fork Mountain Inn, in beautiful West Virginia. Carol enjoys the hospitality business and feels like she is living out her purpose serving those in ministry and missionaries that come to stay and enjoy the peace and natural beauty of our Inn in “almost heaven, West Virginia”. Carol is an excellent baker and cook. You can see many of her most popular recipes on our website at http://www.northforkmtninn.com/.
Perspectives from Carol: This is my 4th visit to Kenya. I think its part of Ed’s plan to convince me to move here. I always enjoy coming here and enjoying the beauty of Africa. While the animals, flowers and landscapes are beautiful, the real beauty is in the faces of the Kenyans we meet and especially the ones we have gotten to know over the years. The world feels like a much smaller place and makes me much more aware of things that happen outside the US. I am looking forward to the church service on Sunday and especially the music. After the first visit from Nairobi Chapel to Grace, I remember commenting that when I get to heaven, I’m going to find the Kenyans because they know how to worship. That’s even truer today. Even when the songs are in Swahili and I don’t understand the words, there is such a special worshipful quality in their voices that it penetrates my heart and I feel so blessed to be here.
Amazing how much we can learn from different cultures...especially in worship! Praying tonight for each of you to deepen your connection with our brothers and sisters from Africa that the partnership between Grace and Nairobi Chapel would further bring the Kingdom of God at hand in both our lands!
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