The End is Here...

Well, the end is here. I am actually heading out on the 14th instead of the 15th, so I can fly with the Sports Plus medical team to Nairobi. Cheryl, Dr. Mark, Eileen, Arlene, Denise, and Terry have become instant friends to me. I love you six fantastic people! This week has absolutely flown by, and I must say that I now have a much greater respect for people who take part in medical mission trips. The mobile health clinics that the team did this week opened my eyes to a lot of how widespread poverty and sickness is here in Kenya. The team allowed me to come along for the ride during the week and asked if I could help with crowd control. I figured this meant I would be sitting around watching them do their work. What I didn’t know is that when free health care is offered around villages where people are sick and have very little money, chaos ensues. It wasn’t complete chaos, but it was organized chaos. Trying to tell people who speak Swahili to line up in one line and wait their turn was nearly impossible. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me telling me how sick they were and how they needed to be moved up to the front of the line. People would do anything to skip people who had been waiting for hours. There are definitely some traumatic images from the clinics that are going to be in my mind for a long time. I think of the girl that is completely deaf and blind that came to one of the clinics with her father. They were basically told there was nothing that the doctor could do for them. I can’t imagine how the doctor and nurses must have felt telling people there was nothing they could do to fix them. It is awful to think that some of the patients who came to the clinics will not be alive at the end of this year. However, it was so exciting to see how many sick people they did help. Sports Plus did an incredible job. They impacted this community and surrounding villages in a huge way. I will never forget this week of mobile health clinics.

It is amazing how my tears have changed over time throughout this experience. I left with tears of sadness over leaving my family for 4.5 months. I got here, and there were tears caused by the beauty of the children and my instant love for them. I have experienced tears of homesickness. But now, I am soon going to experience tears of sadness over leaving these kids. I cannot believe how fast this has gone. I laugh at how homesick I was during certain times. When you get to the end of an incredible experience, you look back and wonder why things were ever as difficult as they were made to be. I have absolutely fallen in love with these kids. I have tried to be their brother or father figure, if only for a couple of months. Whenever I am with them, they express their love for me. They love touching and hugging me, and I love them in return. I don’t want to leave kids like James, Fesa, Toba, etc. I want to bring them back to America in my suitcases. It is an understatement to say that I have joy in my heart because of the relationships I have established with the children during my time here. I will never forget these kids, and I hope they will never forget me. Even more than that, I pray that they will never forget the Lord. That is by far the most important thing to me. I pray that my love for them has transcended the language barrier and has expressed God’s love for them. I hope they all experience salvation, and I pray that they would all know God.

As I have written in many of my past blogs, God has taught me lesson after lesson in the last couple of months. The main thing that I have learned through this trip is that God truly is all that I need. Nothing on this earth can satisfy me like He can. For the first time in my life, I was brought to a place where I could no longer rely on myself. I had to rely on the Lord alone. God allowed me to experience loneliness and homesickness so that I could cry out to Him for deliverance and satisfaction. He broke me of my attempts at self-sufficiency. He has been my source of life, my deliverance, and my best friend. There have been times where I have felt all alone, but there have also been times where I was certain that I was communing with the living God. I experienced fellowship with the Lord after difficult times of despair. I pray that I will remember when I get home that He is more than enough for me. I cannot forget that lesson. The other huge lesson that I wanted to reiterate is how happy people can be while having so little in terms of material possessions. In our culture, I get sucked into the trap of wanting or needing more things. I know that Christ has to be my everything, and He has to be the center of my life. Storing up treasures on earth would be completely foolish, when I know all that lasts is what was done to advance God’s Kingdom and bring Him glory. I see so many people here with joy in their heart but no money in their pockets. I want to learn to be content no matter the situation, for godliness with contentment is great gain. I hope this lesson sticks when I get back home and am surrounded by things, things, and more things. What else matters in life besides Him? I want to honestly believe that with all of my heart. I can’t say I always live like I believe that fact.


Wow, I love these children more than I can write on here. I am so sad to leave them, and I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone. I left Daytona Beach on August 1st, and here we are halfway through October. These children have had a profound impact on my life. Our goodbyes today absolutely broke my heart. I pray that some of my stories from here have encouraged you in your walk with the Lord or have created a desire in you to come serve in Kenya! I love you guys, and I thank you for praying and making this an unforgettable experience!

My next stop is Zambia for a brief safari with the wonderful Potter family. Then it is back to Nairobi for the second part of the mission trip. I will continue to need your prayers, and I am so grateful for them! Please keep them coming! I love you!

Stay tuned to the blog for the next part of my trip…