Settled In

I am getting settled in now.

I moved from my friend in the woods into town in Marysville.

We had a wild 4th as the culdesac does the 4th with a big bang.

God is blessing me greatly.

Update

Here is an update with me moving to Kenya.
God has had me move to Seattle area so I can spend time rebuilding my relationship with my son Ted. He has not wanted to see me for many years and is open to seeing me now. So I am putting off my move to Kenya for a couple of years.

Bob

Abertine

Sammy Gitau

uzima

Kibera, Africa

The Forgotten

Kibera Documentary

Kibera Hotel

I couldn't believe they actually had hotels in a slum... but they did. $5 a day. (no electricity, sleep in a cot)

Lahash Kibera Slums Visit 2005

Andy's Kibera Movie

Walking Thru Kibera

Kibera Slums, Nairobi

Kibera Kids Center

Candle Light School

East Africa

When The Cameras Leave

Light in Africa

For some reason this giraffe

always looked to me like he was trying

really hard to hide behind the bush!

Make a Difference

I know one thing that I will be making Nairobi my home and will be making a difference in the lives of some of these children !!!

Nairobi slum life: Kibera's children

In the grey gloom of first light it looks like a pile of rubbish - a clutter of cardboard and cloth on a damp pavement.
There is a loud clunk, as the wheels of a city bus lurch through a nearby pothole. Then a small hand reaches out from the middle of the heap, and tugs at a black plastic bag.
I don't think I have a bright future
19-year-old Musa
It's 0600 and 11-year-old Eric Omondi is waking up. He's usually the first. Some of the others have sniffed solvent the night before, to try to take the edge off the cold. Eric doesn't like the solvent - it makes his chest hurt.
There are four boys in all, huddled under their cardboard blankets on the edge of Africa's largest slum.
Eventually the others get up. Twelve-year-old Evans, John who's 13, and the oldest Musa - who's just turned 19.
The boys leave their bedding where it is. It'll probably be stolen during the day - but they've got nowhere else to put it, and they need to start work.
Work
It's about half an hour's walk to Adam's Arcade - a cluster of shops on Nairobi's Ngong road. The boys aren't allowed inside - they'd be chased away by the security guards.

But they can beg nearby, and sometimes people need bags carrying. There's also a place on the other side of the road where they can sit and shell peas for a local businessman - who pays them 20 shillings - about 30 US cents - for a full bag.
Eric arrives at the Arcade wearing everything he owns. Two t-shirts, a pair of green and red shorts, and a battered set of flip-flops. He's eaten nothing since yesterday afternoon.
So he stands near the road, asking for money from the morning commuters - as they squeeze on board mini-buses bound for the city centre.
Someone gives him five shillings. Eric slips it into his grubby shorts and gives his nose a good pick.
Alone
An hour later, all four boys are sitting on a patch of grass behind the arcade, sipping steaming porridge out of plastic mugs. They seem to have got used to me tagging along.

Stealing could see you lynched in minutes
Eric is holding an old football. "It has a hole," he says, squeezing the leather.
"It belongs to us four - we share it. There's a businessman across the road who locks it up for us at night in his shed." Clothes apart - it is their one and only possession.
The boys were all born in the nearby slum. A cramped and filthy squatters camp called Kibera. Home to some 800,000 people - who can't afford to stay anywhere else.
At least half the population of Nairobi live in Kibera and other nearby slums - hidden away like a dirty secret along railway embankments, and beside rubbish dumps.
Eric ran away from home in December, when tribal violence erupted in the slum. He got separated from his family and hasn't seen them since.
Evans left home when his mother died, and his father simply drifted away. John says he was chased out by his mother. Although now he thinks she was actually his step-mother.
"She was bad," he says matter-of-factly.
Future
Musa, the oldest boy, has been on the street for longer than he can remember. He's spent time in a juvenile detention centre in Nairobi.
"I was lucky," he says. "I was not raped."
He'd like to get a proper job, but none of the boys have identity cards, which means the police can round them up whenever they like.
"I don't think I have a bright future," says Musa solemnly.
They all hate the police. When we talk about jobs - that's the one thing they don't want to be.
"All they to is take bribes and beat people," Musa mutters. Although to be fair, the police here earn so little, that it would be absurd to expect them not to demand bribes.
Eric, who had been dozing, stirs and sits up - looking around at his friends, and the potholed street outside Adams Arcade.
Quietly, he says "I think maybe we'll live like this forever."
Vigilantes
Eric is in a good mood. He's already earned 30 shillings today.
He can afford dinner, and then maybe an action movie in one of the crowded video shacks on the edge of the slum.

Without ID cards jobs are hard to secure
A shower costs five bob (shillings). Eric always tries to spend what he's earned. Otherwise someone will just steal it from him in the night.
"There's a big boy called Marcus," he says. "He's a nightmare. He terrorises all of us."
Eric has tried stealing for himself. So have the others. A mango from a stall. A few shillings from a commuter. But it's a very, very risky business.
In Nairobi, in fact anywhere in Kenya, a lynch mob can form in a matter of seconds. The reflex action of a poor community with no faith in the police or the courts.
"I saw one boy I know getting lynched," Eric says. He starts acting out the scene. Showing how the crowd put a car tyre round his neck and set fire to him with petrol.
In the evenings, private vigilante groups patrol the slums, looking for troublemakers. Musa saw one group in action last week. "They'll burn you if you steal one shilling," he says.
And with that, the four boys start wandering back towards Kibera.
An orange sun is already low on the horizon. Just above it, a row of black clouds has formed along the edge of the Rift Valley - half an hour's drive to the west.
Together
The boys are laughing now - kicking a stone instead of their punctured football. And it makes me smile to think that these four dirty, hungry, lonely humans are still children at heart - still able to have fun.
Nairobi is full of street-kids who have lost that instinct. The dead-eyed zombies who patrol the roundabouts down town.
Ten-year-olds with plastic solvent bottles wedged between their teeth, brandishing balls of human excrement - ready to thrust them into an open car window - to force the driver to pay up.
A little later, Eric and his friends stop to pick up scraps of cardboard and coal sacks - tonight's sleeping bags. Later, when it's dark, they'll return to their usual spot on the pavement.
They pay five shillings a night to a watchman who guards the area. There's normally some iron sheeting they can use to shelter from the rain.
By ten o'clock on a weeknight, the slums are quiet. A few campfires flicker in the darkness.
Under a starless sky, Eric, Musa, Evans and John arrange their bedding and huddle down on the cold roadside. A familiar routine. John and Musa on the outside - the two younger boys sandwiched together in the middle.

Inside Africa #1: Great Expectations

Inside Africa #2: The Nairobi Connections

Inside Africa #3: Crismasi Jega!

Inside Africa #4: Inside Interrogations part 1

Inside Africa #5: Hit the Road Jack!

Inside Africa #6: The Other World

USA For Africa - We Are The World

Toto - Africa

Faith, Hope, Love

Faith will make you able to please the LORD each day

Hope will help your heart to know that GOD will make a way

Love will be the greatest gift, for love will see you through

In everything you do, I will always pray these gifts for you

Inside-Out Again

The Lord works from the inside out.
The world works from the outside in.
The world would like to take people out of the slums.
Christ takes the slums out of people,
And then they take themselves out of the slums.
The world would mold men by changing their environment.
Christ changes men, who then change their environment.
The world would shape human behavior,
But Christ can change human nature.

Nairobi "Green City In The Sun

"Africa: I Have Come Home"

Africa!

My homeland I have finally come home

My heart is full of joy

For I have been many places

And boy have I seen many faces

But the beauty of Africa

I have never set my sights on

The glory of African land

I have not stepped the magnificent elegance

I have not embraced

With its majestic Splendor,

my travels have stopped me from seeing

BUT AT LAST, NO MORE!

For I have made it home Mother

I have made it back to where I belong

Where every man is my brother.

Where people are equal to one another

I have made it home Mother!

Where my forefathers first stepped foot

Home to where my great, great, great, great,

great Grandmother made her bed.

Oh God I have made it.

No more will I wonder and dream

For Africa my homeland I have finally come home!

Ephesians 4:11-16

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head -- Christ -- from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

The Nations

Ps 2:7-8

I will declare the decree:

The LORD has said to Me, You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give you The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

About Kenya

Official Name: Republic of Kenya Capital: Nairobi

Total Area:

224,962.42 sq mi ~ 582,650.00 sq km (About twice the size of Nevada)

Population:

31,339,770 (July 2002 est.)

Tribes:

22% Kikuyu, 14% Luhya, 13% Luo, 12% Kalenjin, 11% Kamba, 6% Kisii, 6% Meru

Languages:

English (official), Kiswahili (official), numerous indigenous languages

Religions:

Protestant 38%, Roman Catholic 28%, indigenous beliefs 26%, Muslim 7%, other 1%

Currency:

1 Kenyan shilling (Ksh) = 100 centsExchange rate: Ksh 78 to One Dollar US (June 2002) GDP (per capita): $1,600 (1999 est.)

Labor Force (by occupation)Agriculture 75%-80% Industry:

Small-scale consumer goods (plastic, furniture, batteries, textiles, soap, cigarettes, flour), agricultural products processing; oil refining, cement; tourism

Agriculture:

Coffee, Tea, Corn, Wheat, Sugarcane, Fruit, Vegetables; Dairy Products, Beef, Pork, Poultry, Eggs Arable Land: 7%

Exports:

Tea, Coffee, Horticultural Products, Petroleum Products (1995)

Imports:

Machinery and Transportation Equipment, Petroleum Products, Iron and Steel

Natural Resources:

Gold, Limestone, Soda Ash, Salt Barites, Rubies, Fluorspar, Garnets, Wildlife, Hydropower

My New Family

Here is my new Family in Nairobi that will host me in my first visit for a month.

Nairobi Slums

Nairobi Slums

One would like to think that river water is cleaner, but with hundreds of thousands of people dumping things into it, we found extreme contamination. You can see the pigs and there were at least a dozen in this one spot. I had a difficult time finding any bare ground to walk or stand on.
The water was a gray color and reminded me of run-off water from the scene of a fire. It was not a pleasant experience to dip my hands into the river for the samples.
We saw much evidence of distended abdomens, skin disease, worms, and secretions from the nose, eyes, and ears. It is so sad. Let us please never take for granted even the blessing of being able to bathe ourselves in clean water. We also know that God loves each of his children and we pray that one day these will be able to have safe water to drink and will be redeemed from this horrible place to live. In service of the Sovereign King of the Universe,Bruce

Nairobi Slums

Here is a view of one of the main streets in this district when it has not been raining - imagine what it is like when it is.

Nairobi Slums

I would like to share some of what's been happening here. First I will start with the Mayfield Guesthouse. It is truly a crossroads run by African Inland Missions (AIM) and as such is a Christian run franchise. There are Christians here from all over the world and about every type of mission from translation to grinding wheat to health care and aviation. It is a great place to talk about En-Gedi and everyone likes the concept of our putting a humanitarian piece with a ministry piece. My room is very tiny with barely enough room to turn around - my laptop fills half the top of the desk - but it comfortable, clean, and in a safe place in Nairobi. Thursday, October 21 - Nairobi, Korogocho SlumsToday we surveyed about 20 water points in the worst slum of Nairobi called Korogocho. The community that lives here numbers over 300,000 people and this is the worst of the worst. Because of the high dominance of Islam and the utter poverty, it would not be safe for a white Christian to venture here. When I asked our friend and driver, Joseph Mulinge, an African Evangelical Enterprise Team Leader in Nairobi, what would happen if the armed soldiers were not accompanying us today. He said, "You would be killed."

Nairobi

Kenya's capital city has risen in a single century from a brackish uninhabited swampland to a thriving modern capital.When railway construction workers reached this area in 1899, they set up a basic camp and supply depot, simply called 'Mile 327'. The local Maasai called this highland swamp Ewaso Nai'beri – the place of cold water.The camp became a rustic village, and then a shanty town, which by 1907 was the capital of all of British East Africa. It was soon an important centre for the colony and a mecca for adventurers, hunters and travellers from all over the world.Modern Nairobi is still the safari capital of the Africa, but the modern world has quickly caught up with the city. A frontier town no more, Nairobi has become one of Africa's largest, and most interesting cities.Nairobi is a city that never seems to sleep. The entire town has a boundless energy, and is thriving place where all of human life can be found. This is a place of great contrasts where race, tribe and origin all become facets of a unique Nairobi character.The city has not lost its sense of the past, with an excellent museum and the historical home of Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa open to visitors.

My Journey to Nairobi

I first went to Africa in December of 05 and spent a day in Nairobi. The mission trip took us to Moshe Tanzania. I spent a few days at an Orphanage with Mama Lynn at www.lightinafrica.org . I was holding aids babies. I also spent a few days in the mountains, a very beautiful place with banana trees and without power. I could see myself living there as the people are very welcoming and make there home mine and feed you with the best they have.
I came home and knew I was going back to Africa. So since then I have met Ashby who has the vision of www.visiblegrace.org in Nairobi Kenya. I also have met a family who lives there that will host me so I can visit there in September for month. My plans are to go there in September for a month and come back and get the finances to be able to move there for the rest of my life. Look for more of the Journey to come above....