BLOG #6: Team Bonding

Dear Friends,

Thank you to everyone who came out to our car wash this past Saturday. Jiffy Lube on Almaden was kind enough to let us use a space on their lot and use their water too. Actually, it was so much fun washing cars together, and it was a good bonding experience for our team. We're actually thinking of possibly having another car wash this weekend since we already have the supplies, and it really requires very little planning ahead of time..... we're thinking not so far south this time too. I'll let you know!

Here's a team picture with one of the signs we had to hold in the street corner =)


The latest update: three of our team members decided they weren't comfortable with going on the trip anymore, due to the possible dangers (see previous blogs if you don't know what I'm talking about), so now our team is 12 members strong. The rest of us are excited still and staying focused on our mission to work with the children in Kenya.

Something positive... on Saturday at the car wash, our last customer was actually a girl named Liz who is from Kenya. Liz saw our signs and stopped to ask us why we were raising money to go to Kenya. We told Liz about our mission to work with the children in the orphanages and the slums. Then we asked Liz what she thought about the upcoming election and the potential riots. Liz spoke to our team co-leader (whose name happens to be Grace too!), and this was Grace's email to the team:

Her Mom is currently living in Nairobi and when I asked her about her knowledge and feelings on the referendum, she told me that she honestly didn't know much about it even though she was there just 2 months ago. She told me that she'd call her mom and ask her what she was hearing and seeing and anticipating. So when she called, Liz said that her mom is well-informed and involved politically in Nairobi and what she said was that this would be a regular voting where they go in, vote, come out. Not a presidential campaign or really much "drama" going on over there. She pretty much said there isn't much going on about it. She did mention that media and outside sources tend to make African countries look "bad" by publicizing violence and uproars. She blessed us and told me that we should be fine. We spent the next couple minutes talking about how kind and open Kenyans are and how it upset her that the outside world has a negative (violent) idea of them. She then went on to give me her sister's phone number and told me that we had to give her a call when we got in and that she would be expecting us.

It was nice to hear a different viewpoint about the upcoming election, especially from a Kenyan living in Nairobi. It brought a little bit of comfort and calm to our hearts, and helped us to continue thinking positive about our trip. Our number one concern is of course safety, but the conversation with Liz has helped to ease our fears!

Thanks for reading and thinking of us!
grace