Monday, April 30, 2007

End of the year bazaar...

Saturday was our end of the year bazaar. We like to call it the HUGE missionary yard sale. Besides the craziness of over priced "treasures" there was also lots of yummy food and some carnival games. The games were a fund raiser for the 8th grade class for the trip we will be taking May 18th-20th (rafting). Some of the teachers had to sign up to take their turn in the sponge throwing booth. Kids paid about $1 to get three sponges to throw at their teacher. I sat there for 30 minutes as one kind after another threw spongs at my face. Thankfully not all of them hit me but some got me really good. I kept telling them that I knew they were doing it because they loved me so much! :)

Fund raising for our class trip


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Friday, April 27, 2007

Playing with the kids!

Yesterday I joined the 8th grade class at Dagoretti Children's Home. I have visited there before so it was fun to go back and visit some of the kids again. We made instant pudding with the toddlers and they loved it. I think it was definately the first time for many of them to eat pudding so they were so cute! But then again...I always think they are so cute. I was sad to say good bye to them...the little girl I was playing with cried...break my heart!
so so cute...this is one boy that I played with last time so it was really fun to see him again!




Once I picked up this little one she would not let go. I can't remember her name because it was really hard to pronounce. She was so cute though!



Newman had a lot of fun with the kids. I took a picture of him feeding this little boy and they both had their mouths wide open. So cute! After I took the picture he said, "No Miss Carraway now everyone will see that I have a soft side!"...look at those beautiful smiles...they were both saying, "WHAT'S UP YO?!?"




This little boy kept licking my arm, I think he wanted to see if I tasted differently. He would lick me and then look up at me and smile. So cute!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Kenyan Luau

Party time!!!
This week all the girls in my house are spread out. We are staying with various families to help take care of their kids while they are away at a conference up country. Yesterday was our first day and we had a big party in the afternoon with the kids. We ate lots of amazing fruit and played some silly games. I think the kids had lots of fun...and of course we did too!
Hawiian mummy...yes that is green TP (in Kenya anything goes)

they were having a lot of fun


making beautiful flowers with the girls









Saturday, April 14, 2007

MT. KENYA...16,000 ft...I DID IT!!!

We left on Monday, April 9th at about 7 am. There were six of us on the trip. Bill and Jan Bevins are a married couple who organized the whole trip. Daylan one of my very close friends that I live with and we were also joined by a couple other friends, Simon and Megan. We loaded all our things into the Bevins’ Land Cruiser and headed for the town of Chagoria. The drive was gorgeous, and this picture is of some of the tea fields we saw along the way.


Once we got to the town we had to transfer all of our stuff from the Bevins’ Land Cruiser into a REALLY REALLY old Land Cruiser. We had to stop about four times during our three hour drive up the mountain because the vehicle kept over heating. Here is a picture of us while we were waiting for it to cool off.





Ok so I know you can hardly see anything at all but this was my first sighting of an elephant in the wild. There were actually two of them out in the field. It was really cool to see them.








Although we never got any closer to them, that we knew of, they left their tracks and traces all over our campsites. We saw big holes the dug and HUGE piles of “dung”.











The first night we stayed in the Bandas, which are these buildings that we are standing in front of. They had beds, toilets, a kitchen area, and a fireplace. It was quite nice. After eating dinner, Daylan, Megan, Simon, and I played speed Scrabble and then headed to bed. The next morning we packed up our things and began our journey up Mt. Kenya. This picture is me, Daylan, and Megan just before we began to hike. Notice how dry and happy we look!














The hike on the first day (Tuesday) was only 3 or 4 hours long and fairly gradual. It began to pour down rain part way through, and this trend continued throughout the day. When we made it to our camp, we frantically pitched our tents in the rain. Three girls trying to get dry in a 2-man tent is not as easy as it may sound. I needed some fresh air so I put on my poncho and sat out in the pouring rain drinking my chai.

















After a few hours of rain and a small hike to the most amazing waterfalls and caves I have ever seen God blessed us with a few hours of beautiful warm sun shine. Our guides quickly made a fire and went searching for any possible dry wood. They helped us dry out our clothes by making stick clothes lines for us around the fire. They even held our clothes around the fire to help them dry faster. The dry weather lasted just long enough to get warm again and then we ran back to our cozy tent to hide from the rain.



























The second day of our trip was also my best friend Monique Sondag’s 23rd birthday. Mo, I am so sorry that I missed your birthday and couldn’t even call you. But I wanted to make sure that you knew I was thinking about you so I made this sign for you! LOVE YOU!























We woke the next morning (Wednesday) in a damp fog and no one had really slept much at all. We ate an awesome breakfast that our wonderful cook Manaka (young man) had made for us. The hike was so beautiful. It was about 9 km but we went up about 4,000 ft in elevation, which added difficulty. Here is a picture of Daylan, Simon and I at a brief stopping point, still smiling!


















This picture of Jan and Bill is also from the same day looking out onto an amazing valley and waterfall off in the distance.





























After stopping for a lunch we continued our hike and it soon began to rain. It was raining pretty hard which was bad enough, when the hail started. Then after hailing for awhile the snow started. Needless to say we were quite wet, freezing and over all just miserable.
We hiked for a while in these conditions and then came to the place we would camp, called Minto’s. The only sort of building here was what Lonely Planet calls “a nasty hut”. This hut is for the guides, porters, and cooks to cook and sleep in. We were soaking wet. And cold. We stood in the hut probably for 30 minutes in our wet, cold misery, trying to figure out what we should do. There were probably about 20 people crammed in this tiny building, and eventually Daylan, Megan and I decided we would try to change into dry clothes. We created a sort of changing room, surrounded by 20 men in a dark, damp room. It wasn’t exactly the high point of the trip. Eventually it stopped snowing, and we went out and pitched our tent.
For the second day in a row God gave us a few hours of warn sunshine to dry out some of our wet clothes. We were not able to make a fire because there were no trees at this high of elevation, but we were thankful for the break in the rain. This is Simon, Daylan, Megan and I standing on a little cliff behind the lovely shack at Mintos.
































That night we didn’t sleep at all. We went to bed while it was still light out because it was raining and we had nothing else to do, and also we knew we had to get up at 2:30 am to start hiking. I remember just laying in bed, feeling horrible, thinking is it time to get up yet please. And if you know me, that is a very rare thought! We began our journey at about 3:15 am because we wanted to make it to the summit right at sunrise. We started off singing Lion King songs as we walked along in our warmest possible clothes by the lights of our head lamps. The beginning wasn’t bad, but as we got higher, many of us began to feel nauseous. When our guide said we still had 2 hours left to hike, it was only will power that kept me going. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done! This picture is super blurry but it is the only one I have of our final hike to just give you a taste of the conditions we were hiking in, notice the inches of snow on the ground. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Africa.



































After three hours of one foot in front of the other we all finally made it to the top(16,000 ft)! Here is Daylan and I at the top. The peak behind us is about 1,000 feet higher but can only be done by rock climbing (no thanks)! The smiles are completely fake because we were sick, freezing cold, and completely miserable. But it was totally worth it – the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I forgot to mention what as we hiked, we watched the sunrise above the clouds. The cool part was that we were above the clouds already, so we got to see the sun rise to meet us. I have never seen such rich shades of pink and orange, and the reflection off the snow on the mountain was indescribable.






































After soaking in the beauty for about five minutes and drinking some chai, which the guide had carried all the way up for us, we were ready to start descending. When we got to level ground and turned around to see the peak we had just summitted, we couldn’t believe how far away it was! I’m so glad we were hiking in the dark and had no idea how far we needed to go. The peak in the center of this picture is the peak we summitted, called Point Lenana.









































































The rest of this day was spent hiking all the way back to the Bandas where we started from. It was a loooonnnnggg day. We spent probably 10 or 11 hours hiking, and though it was incredibly beautiful once again, we couldn’t wait to be done. Pounding feet downhill is a lot hard on the joints after a while. Here is the four of us again just after we ate another delicious lunch.















































There was elephant and buffalo poop everywhere at the Bandas, and this sign explains why. Apparently on our first night (Monday), a guy got chased by an elephant. We saw both elephants and buffalo, but we were fortunate to see them from a distance. When we finished hiking, we were able to take hot showers and sit by the fireplace in the Bandas. It was so nice to hear the rain outside and know that we would be completely dry and completely warm.


















































The next morning (Friday), we ate breakfast and headed for home. Here is a picture of just a few of the guides and porters that helped us make it to the top! They were really fun to have on our trip, and I learned a few new Kswahili words Twende- lets go! We fit 13 people inside this land rover on the way down the mountain! Pretty amazing. The hike was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done, but as I look back on it, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I hope you all get the opportunity to do something like this one day.
I have so many more pictures that I can’t wait to show you all in just a few weeks! See you soon!




















































Sunday, April 08, 2007

Short Story about me...

This weekend I went to an ICEC (Christian School) conference and was asked to share my testimony as a MK. I thought I would also share it with you, so here it is.....I modified it a bit for you :)


Hi my name is Kayla Carraway and I am a teacher at West Nairobi School. If you ask me what I teach at WNS you will get a hesitated answer, much like if you ask me where I am from. Not because I don’t know the answer to these questions but more because I am not sure the best way to answer. Most people expect a short answer like 3rd grade or MS English-but I simply don’t have simple answers.
At WNS I am the Athletic Director, math teacher, PE teacher, remedial instructor, and whatever else comes my way. I am from…well, the best way to put it is…I was born in Idaho, raised in Papua New Guinea, I went to college in IL, my parents live in Michigan but are moving to Cambodia in a year (that is the short version). Yes-obviously I am a MK/TCK. In the first grade I went to six different schools, I have never lived in a house longer than 18 months and have moved approximately 30 times. I definitely know what is meant by the saying, “This world is not my home.”
But my purpose here is not to make you feel sorry for me. I want to tell you a little bit of my story. I always remember on furloughs how my parents would speak in various churches telling them about their ministry in PNG. After they would get done the whole family would stand at the back of the church and talk to people. I was always asked two questions. 1) Do you speak the language….always followed by…say something. To this I would respond, “Bai yu laik mi tok wanem samting?” Which means what do you want me to say. And 2) How did you grow up over there? Don’t you feel like you missed out on so much. I always wanted to say something sarcastic like “oh yea poor me missing out on things like drugs and swearing and the pressures of a ‘worldly’ society”. But instead I would give the MK angel smile and say “No I am quite blessed to have grown up in PNG.” I didn’t go into detail with them because I knew they didn’t really care about the truth. I know my heart and I know what I would be like if I had grown up in America and gone through the public school system.
But instead I had the privilege to grow up in a school for MKs. I was taught by teacher who were there because they wanted to and not because they were getting paid. I was surrounded by people who loved God and had given up everything for Him. My parents both had ministries that allowed them to be home when we got home from school. My dad was also able to coach our sports teams as we all got older. If any of you know me at all, you will know how close my family is and I know it would not be that way if we hadn’t grown up in that environment. But it was more than just my parents who influenced me. It was also the other missionary families, the ones I call my Aunts and Uncles. They helped to shape me and guide me into who I am today. The people who took time to invest in my life and to make sure I had a solid foundation in Christ.
When I left PNG after 10 years and went off to college I could have been floundering, lost in an unknown place, a whole other world. But I wasn’t because I was rooted in Christ. It was because of people who had made a commitment to love me and help me to understand that I am who I am supposed to be. Because as Kathy (our speaker) put it so well, “When you know who you are in Christ everything else is going to be ok!” It didn’t matter that I wasn’t up to date on all the things, and I didn’t know how to fill up my car with gas, or I don’t know the TV shows that people always talk about. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have the most expensive clothes or a nice car because my security was not in those things. I had been taught to be rooted in Christ! So, I just want to say thank you to all of you who had a part in pointing me to Christ and those of you who continue to do this for me everyday. God bless you all!




Happy Easter!!!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Easter Break plans...

For my Easter break I will be climbing Mt. Kenya with some of my friends (including Daylan in the picture above). We will leave for the Mountain Monday (9th). We will spend about five days hiking the mountain and be home Friday night (13th). Please keep us in your prayers. I would ask that you pray for saftey on the roads and hiking, especially as we will be hiking to just over 15,000 ft and there isn't much air up that high. Please also be praying for good weather and just that the whole trip will be an awesome time. I am excited to get to enjoy more of the beauty of God's creation here in Kenya. I will have lots of pictures when I get back!:)