January 28th - The DANCE-adventure starts (Mombasa)

January 28th started as a normal day. To be honest I didn't really wanted to go out to do ministry, but it ended up being one of the coolest days of outreach for me. It was the day I danced in front of people for the first time during outreach; even though I hadn't planned anything and didn't even bring music.
That day we had planned to go out to a few different high schools in the afternoon, and we had some time to prepare for them in the morning. The group I was in decided to go with Anne (one of our contacts for the high schools) to Likoni Boys High School. The  school was about a fifteen minute drive from the YWAM base here in  Mombasa, so we needed to take 'Tuk Tuks' (three-wheeled taxis in Kenya).
When we arrived at the school we saw a Coca Cola truck parked by the entrance of the school, and we wondered what could be going on. We the to the office with Anne to try and figure out what was happening. We ended up having to wait until all the Coca Cola craziness was finished before we could begin. While we were waiting we watched what was happening with the Coca Cola truck and the boys. It was very amusing the to watch how all of the boys went so crazy about Coke, and it made me think--am I, or are we, this crazy when it comes to Jesus? It's a good questions, and I thought I could use this question as the introduction to our time with the boys. Also, Coca Cola had arranged a dance battle for the boys on the stage they had; so I joked  with Anne about how it would be funny if I, as a Mzungu (white person), would go up there and dance. However we came to the conclusion that since I was a girl and it was an all boys school, that it would be better if I didn't dance.
But thanks to Anne and her introduction I ended up being 'forced' to dance in front of everyone. Her,  my group, and the boys were all encouraging me to dance. I said that I'd dance but only if a boy would dance as well, sort of like a dance battle. Then I got the idea of asking the whole team to dance as well, since they are the reason I was having to dance in  front of everyone. I asked for six volunteers from the students and told my team  that we would rotate between them and us, similar to one-on-one battles. In the end I asked Anne to dance with me, so that she could show of her moves. It was so much fun and it really caused there to be a more open atmosphere.
I spoke to the boys,  and after I finished off the introduction I told them that Jesus is so much better than any coke, or any drug, because he gives us life and lets us experience really adventures that are so much better  than any Coca Cola event at school.
This day started a break through in dancing for me during outreach. Before I just didn't feel comfortable dancing in front of people and was believing a lot of lies about myself and my dancing. A couple of days later the Revive outreach team from Herrnhut, who were also staying at the Base for a couple of weeks, decided to do 'Pure Heart' with us. Through this I felt how all the pressure and weight I had been feeling disappeared. I started to break out my shell and step out and into what God has prepared for me. The next day, Hannah--one of the leaders from the Revive team--challenged me to dance during worship. She is also a dancer, and could understand what I was going though with my dancing.
Since then I had the opportunity to dance my testimony dance, for the first time in front of a group of people. Looking back I can see how special that really was to me, because it was in front of children that are awaiting their court cases and are living in a rehab center. Even though I don't know what exactly they are going though, I hope that maybe through my dance they will gain hope and see how they can find rest in God no matter what situation they are going through.

Meanwhile back in Germany

- My time in Kenya has come to an end -

Since the last post, I've been to some more places, and have seen God work in amazing ways and am now feeling a lot more free to do what I love, I almost feel like I could just spread my wings and start flying wherever God will tell me to.

So we went to West  Pokot as a whole team and were moving from village to village pretty much everyday. That meant we had to build up our tents the one day, put them down and back up again the next day, and for me that was quite exhausting, additionally it was quite hot, and barely any shade, but it was bearable and we all made it through the time good. We were able to show the "Jesus" movie and "Passion of the Christ" where a bunch of tribal people came seemingly out of nowhere. It was a really nice  picture to see all of them wrapped in their blankets and later on seeing the children sleeping on the ground also wrapped in blanket by their mothers.

Also the stars were really impressing, once you stood on a field and were looking up, straight into the sky you could see many and many stars, and the longer you looked the more you could see. At the end of our time, we got a goat as a present from one of the chiefs of the area. This goat "Frank" caused some vegetarians to worry because we needed to drive about 1.5 hours to our next destination, and our two missionary friends that were our drivers weren't willing to put the goat into the cars (what I can understand). We had to strap him down on the roof of the Land Cruiser, do it the Kenyan way. In the end everything worked out and the next day one other person from our team decided to be a vegetarian after we had killed "Frank" and two other goats for a feast dinner with our new friends.

After our experience in West Pokot we split up as a team, my group went to a Baby Center to help them wherever we could. When we first arrived, we were very positively surprised! And I mean we jumped and shouted for joy in the guest house once we were alone. It was almost like a dream, we had a full working kitchen with microwave, oven etc. which we could all use and we had our own rooms, and we could have hot showers, and I mean really hot. Also the missionary family was really nice. They were good hosts, and also all the workers at the Baby Center were awesome, some I want to introduce are: Manu, the deputy manager, Mwangi the main care taker and Lynette the lady who was in charge of our guest house. She blessed many many times! She cooked for us when we were still working, she made the best Chapati I have ever eaten, and she was a huge blessing to me and our team(s). Maybe you are asking yourself, what do you do at a Baby Center and what is the Baby Center for. We did a lot of practical work, like painting many and many walls in vanilla color and it may sound really boring because painting walls can be very monotonous but actually it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it a lot and we had really good talks.
But we also had the chance to hang out with some of the babies from the Baby Center once in a while. And it was crazy to see these beautiful children here in the Baby Center, knowing someone had abandoned them somewhere in the area of Nakuru with the hope of either killing the child or just not wanting to take care of the child. And this was a very sad thought for me but a huge testimony of how God did a miracle in their lives, so they can live and will hopefully eventually be adopted into good (Christian) families (which is the vision of the Baby Center).

After having to say our goodbyes to the Baby Center and our friends back in Soysambu after coming back for one or two nights we had to leave for Mombasa.

We left in two Matatus, to get to our bus stop where we caught our bus to Mombasa, it was a really nice lit with black light in side, equipped with electricity plugs and fake leather seats, which were really comfortable!
The ride it self was adventurous but I could sleep even though it wasn't the best road. Once we arrived in Mombasa, we were picked up by George one of the YWAM Mombasa Base staff. We took Tuktuks to the ferry, and TukTuks to the base from the ferry. WE needed to take a ferry because Mombasa is divided into the main part of town the island and mainland where most people live, and where the base is located.
We were welcomed very warmly by the Base staff and we had a really great time with the until the last day! They were a huge blessing to us and I hope we were a blessing too. We had our little bedroom cottage and were cooked for every meal and were taken care of very well.

For me Mombasa was the best past of outreach and also the part where I grew the most. And I'm going to try to keep it short even though I could probably write a thousand pages about my time there.
but I will write more about my time in Mombasa and what i am doing now in the next blog post.