This month, we share a recent newsletter by AIM missionaries who've just arrived in Kenya and will be serving with AIM AIR, our aviation wing.
We made it to Nairobi, Kenya! The four of us, with all twenty-two items of our luggage, made it from Atlanta, through Paris, to Nairobi on July 10th.
For years we wondered how we would feel being on the airplane to Africa. It was pretty surreal.
To be honest though, we were pretty focused one keeping these little guys calmly occupied for two, eight-hour flights. Thankfully, they did do some sleeping!
We received a warm welcome from the AIM AIR team at the airport and they drove us to a hotel/conference center where we will be until August 5th.
Africa-Based Orientation (ABO) is three weeks of orientation to Africa and the work that Africa Inland Mission does throughout the continent.
In addition to the sweet snacks, washing basin, and laundry powder in our welcome basket, we were gifted this household staple. It pairs well with the "monkeetoe" nets (according to Judah) that hang above our beds in the hotel room our family shares. Thankfully, this time of year doesn't bring many mosquitoes.
We have been blessed to have food provided for us during our stay at the conference center. There are always opportunities to try something new. We have seen quite a bit of potatoes, french fries, rice, lentils, chicken, fish, goat, pineapple, papaya, watermelon and more.
We share our orientation days with around thirty-five other missionaries and their children who are new to the field, as well as quite a number of AIM staff running the orientation. We represent around ten different countries and many languages. Each person will be heading to various countries throughout Africa to share the good news of Jesus.
Classroom topics range from AIM structure, child safety, and emotional health to worldview, culture, and language.
While we are in class, the children are being cared for by a team of ladies. Both boys are making friends and enjoy playing outside. It's currently Kenya's "winter" and we've already received a few comments about how cold our Hudson must be in these 60*-70* days! Kenyan's love children and we've learned that they really bundle up the babies when it's cold (to them!).
There is so much more we could say since everything here is so new to us. Things like flying, luggage, driving, shopping, monkeys, police, plants, recreation, culture, stories, language.
But we'll leave it at this for now.