Wednesday, June 17

Okay so Scott and Noah are going to be very unhappy because they wrote this great post for tonight and when they gave my iPad back for me to publish it, the wifi wouldn't save it and it was lost.  I will try to recap what it said.  Actually I'm adding a lot but theirs was great.

Today we started out the day with a morning devotional from Steve Wolcott, who always has amazing stories from his life experiences as a full time missionary.  He talked about being a fragrant aroma to The Lord and told a story about his experiences with 2 witch doctors he was called to help years ago.  One turned his life over to Christ and got rid of all his things from his former life, but the other could not give up his stuff, including his Koran, and went off never to be seen again.  For some the fragrance of speaking out for Christ is life to life but for others who won't believe, it is death to death.

After our morning talk we went back to the orphanage to continue painting.  We finished the front building, started on the second, and broke some ground for the foundation of their new chicken coop.  We decided just to hire a fundi to build the coop right since none of us seem to have much experience building chicken coops...except Carrigan, and only because she lives in the country and has actually seen a chicken coop before.

Steve left around noon to head to the airport to take care of a previous commitment back in Uganda.  He will come back in a couple of days.  Please pray for safe travels for him, AND that his phone would miraculously turn up.  It was lost the first day we were here somewhere in the hotel.

The staff at the orphanage made us lunch of a mix of beans and maize.  A few of us took pity on the poor skinny residential dog, named Smartie, who is usually napping on their porch, and accidentally
dropped some lunch near his mouth.  He was quite happy with the Americans.  We stayed at the
orphanage until about 2:30 and on the way back stopped to buy a big shelving unit we had spotted on the way up there that we thought would be great for the school for disabled.  We strapped it to the top of the bus and will deliver it tomorrow when we go back to paint at the school for disabled.  We are hoping to repainting their entire kitchen and dining area for them, plus buy them some food to stock their pantry.

We got back just in time to put on clean clothes and run over to the church (it's  literally one block behind our hotel) for vbs.  We estimate we probably had a little over 200 kids again today.  There was a slight bit of chaos with the passing out of candy as they left (only at Mr. Millets door...not Jerry Fudges door - he would like to point out that his door was completely under control the whole time) so Mr. Millet has banned candy from tomorrow's program.  But other than that the kids seem to really be enjoying all of the music and fun.  Scott and Noah asked for prayer for talking with a boy named Ambrose tomorrow who said he had some questions about life he wanted to bring them.  He is a refugee and has been looking for his father for the past six years.

We came back for dinner and had a fierce competition between George, Jon, Noah, Christopher (our reigning champion), and sweet little Karoline to see who could chug a cold fizzy coke down the quickest.  The challenge was made a few days ago so everyone was quite excited to see who would win.  I can't tell you who won yet but let's just say the Millets are not even remotely close to being in the running, because both Jon and Noah took very small sips over about a three minute window.  We had our evening prayer time, made some preparations for tomorrow and headed off to bed.

Right now Jon, Jerry and George are on the way to the airport to pick up Mike and Dawson Fields, who finally managed to get on a flight over here after trying for a couple of days.  We are all excited to see them, but after almost 36 hours on four different planes, we know they will arrive around 1
a.m. exhausted...and breakfast is at 7 a.m.   Please pray for them to get some good rest tonight!

Well...Noah and Scott said way less than that, but they will get another chance to entertain you probably tomorrow.  Thank you all for the continued prayers!

Sincerely,

Jenni for the group

Tuesday, June 16

       Jambo world!! This is Caroline Fields and Karrigan Blagburn. We want to tell you about our day. So listen up!
       This morning we ate the usual (hard boiled egg, mystery sausage, and awesome fruit ... And chai).
We then headed to the school for the disabled after being thrown around on the bumpiest road you've ever experienced ever. The school was on the most beautiful land on the base of Mount Meru. About fifteen lovely special needs kids waited with their teachers and a couple of mothers on the campus for us. We toured the campus and doubled the span of our Swahili with diagrams the school had painted on their walls. Then we played three songs for them and they all jumped around and were so joyful. We performed an oscar worthy skit featuring yours truly, and then made a craft with them (drums made out of cups). The rest of the morning we played with and loved on the kids. Special shout out to Jordan and Jeremiah, who showed SO much joy and laughter even though they couldn't walk.
       We came back for lunch (rice and meat...fanta/stoney(refer to Christopher's post)). After a much needed nap, we returned to the church for another evening of vbs. The kids seemed even more excited and energetic than yesterday, and they even remembered a few of the songs. Vbs went well. The kids painted little crosses (as well as a few of the pews...).
Back at the hotel, the bros and I (karrigan) played three sack whack ( the most intense game anyone could play with a hacky sack) until dinner time (more rice, pork ... Fanta). We gathered for evening devotions and now we are sitting in our luxurious hotel room writing a blog. These rooms are nice, so mom, don't worry I feel like a princess with these mosquito nets. :)
       We are tired so bye. Thanks for reading...don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for supporting us too!!! Kwaheri (goodbye)!
       -karoline (I didn't lose her trail mix...)
       -carrigan (still mourning the trail mix Karo left in Paris)

Monday, June 15

Hello everyone,


Firstly, everyone is alive and well just in case y'all were wondering. Isabel had to stay at the hotel today, but she is feeling better now. Our day was fun; we began painting the Olevolos Orphanage a vibrant, luminescent shade of yellow-green. After a yummy packed lunch of boiled eggs, chicken, grilled cheese with tomato, bananas, and coffee cake, we returned to the church for our first day of VBS. We had approximately 220 children and are expecting many more tomorrow. The children enjoyed songs, skits, games, and making drums out of paper cups (the drums were loud). We returned to the hotel for some free time where we played hacky sack until the sun set. At dinner Christopher Fox chugged a Stoney (a super strong ginger ale that burns a little when you drink it) in 13 seconds. He was hospitalized....

JK

Sorry this blog was so short we don't really do this much.

This blog was engineered by Michael (hi mom and grannie) and Christopher.
God bless.

Sunday June 14, 2015

This is Marie and Callie, today we went to the three church services at the hosting church here in Arusha. In the first service, Mr Millet gave the lesson and in the second and third services Mr Steve Wolcott and Mr Jerry Fudge taught as well. All three services were amazing and were filled with the  congregation's wonderful singing which distracted from the fact that the first service started at 7 and that the third ended 1. So it was fun, but very long. After the last service we came back to the hotel for lunch and a nap before we went back to a church at 3:00 for another activity with the youth, kids, and ladies. While Mrs Millet and Mrs Orten were studying and sharing with the women of the church, the rest of our group was split between the children and the youth. Our team members in the youth who planned an afternoon for 12-20 year olds were shocked when they realized that the "youth" group was  actually ages 12-40. However, that did not stop them from having a great time singing, playing games, sharing their testimonies, and having insightful and fun conversations together. While they were doing that, the rest of us were with the little children ages 3-12. With that group we played games (simon says, hide-and-seek, etc), sang songs, and our group even put on a puppet show which was improvised and a little rough, however the kids seemed to still enjoy it. It was so much fun working with the little kids. Then we came back to the hotel for dinner and an intense game of Hackie-Sack. In our final meeting of the day we discover that Dawson and Mr Fields missed their flight (unless Mr Fields was pulling our leg) so please keep them and our team work tomorrow in your prayers.  We start painting at the orphanage tomorrow.

                 -Callie and Marie

Saturday, June 13th

This is Max and Brittany writing for Jenni since she is too tired and lazy!! Today we finally got our luggage, although some items were missing from peoples' bags. Some people are missing hiking boots, socks, skirts, underwear, belts, etc, and are unsure whether they were stolen or were misplaced. Please pray that they would be returned, or that these items can be replaced. Also, please pray for the hearts of whoever might have taken these items. Other than that, everyone is fine and healthy. Because of the delay in the luggage arriving, we got a late start to our day, sanding and scraping the walls of the pastors office at our church host in Arusha. We will be repainting the office later in the week. After working for a few hours, and eating lunch prepared for us by members of the church, we returned to the hotel and received all of our luggage. After taking a short break, we drove to a snake park and saw pythons, and other sweet animals. They were all behind glass, and in cages, though many of us held a small garden snake around our shoulders, and I held the hand of a baboon. They also had a museum about the life of the Masaii people, and a shopping area where we could buy carvings, jewelry, spears, etc. After these two areas we were able to ride camels for under one dollar, until it was time to return to the hotel for dinner and our evening devotions. Most are in bed now, and tomorrow we will be attending three church services at our hosting church in Arusha. We will be singing, and leading children's, youth, and women's services in the afternoon. My Dad, Jerry, and Steve will be preaching in the morning. Please pray that everything will go well and that Christ would go before us, and would be seen instead of ourselves. Kwaheri! 

-Max and Brittany

Friday, June 12

Hi everyone.  I was planning on having the students all take turns updating the blog for me but, unfortunately my iPad is plugged in charging so I can only update from about a 3 foot radius from my wall right now AND everyone else has already disappeared for bed.  Everyone is doing well but extremely exhausted and still a little jet lagged.  I am usually kind of wordy and so if you don't want details, don't read this.  I am mostly writing this for about 3 or 4 people who want details.  You know who you are.

We arrived last night in Arusha around midnight and were welcomed by the entire Arusha church choir!  Each of them had a sign with one of our names and a blanket for us and then after a warm welcome they started singing for us.  Let me tell you they were AMAZING!  I have a video of it on my phone I will try to upload later.

We had to stay at the airport a while because apparently, even though all of our bags were scanned and given a barcode, the airport here in Arusha has no way of reading the barcodes so they were handwriting a detailed description of each and every missing suitcase.   (Which was ALL of them, except for Brittany who had joined us in Paris).    Anyway, the choir members all accompanied us back to our hotel and stayed up until about 2 in the morning until we were all checked in.  Five or six of them have all taken 2 weeks off of work in order to stay with us and accompany us in all of our ministry!  They have been incredible and we are enjoying getting to know them.

Today we slept in until 10 and had breakfast and devotions and lunch before heading out.  We went to    get a few supplies and then went to visit the church we are partnering with.  We met some of the kids and told them all to invite 5 friends to VBS which we will host at the church Monday through Friday from 4-6.  Please be in prayer for this each day as this is a great outreach for the area.  We have been told to expect 30-50 by a couple of the church members, but other members said they are expecting 300-500!  Hello!  We have no idea what's going to happen so please pray for us!

After visiting the church we drove way up in the hills to the orphanage we will be ministering at.  The kids are so cute.  They have 16 boys and 20 girls that live there, plus a dog, a bunny, and some chickens.  Our guide George said he visited several of the area orphanages to determine which one needed the most help and felt God leading him to this one.  We will be painting, building a new chicken coop (a small building) and doing short portions of the VBS for them each day.

We came back for dinner, and practiced a few of our songs and skits for vbs and headed off to bed.  Tomorrow we will be up early and our luggage is SUPPOSED to be delivered first thing.  Most people packed at least one change of clothes so we are ok, but it sure would be nice to have all our vbs supplies and guitar and things we brought for ministry!

That's it for now.  Will try to post some pictures and stuff later.

Sincerely,

Jenni Millet for the group.

Heading to Tanzania!

So for anyone who has not heard, we have relocated our mission trip this year to Tanzania.  We are excited about the ministry opportunities we will have and look forward to meeting some new friends.  George Ndungu, our trip guide will be with us again and has coordinated places for us to serve with a VBS, a school for Disabled, an orphanage, as well as several schools and churches.

We will be leaving Wednesday, June 10, so please keep us in your prayers for safety and health as we travel for 36 hours.  We will try to update daily once we get there.

Sincerely,

Jenni Millet