The month of January came and went a lot more quickly than I
had anticipated. I had a great birthday party. It was a joint birthday with
Atieno a weekend earlier than the 27. Our site coordinator took the Kenya
volunteers out to this really nice hotel where we had a great meal and some
chocolate cake. We had a great time and got to see the different elevated bungalows
where guest can stay located in the Karen area.
I also had another party, this time with a friend of mine
named Ben. We had a group of people over and shared some great cake and some
great lemon meringue pie! It was great to have all of them over and nice to
meet a few new friends.
As we moved into February, there came to be more and more
office work to be done. We had another training session for community leaders
in which we got to hear different people share how they have begun to organize
their communities so they advocate for the needs and issues that they are
facing. In addition, the office did a small civic education so that the people,
even ourselves, could begin to understand the changes that will be made in
government in the coming months. The whole thing was a great success and it was
also insightful to hear the different leaders share what difficulties they had
when working in their communities and the strategies that they use to overcome
them. 
I was also called to help with another conference, which
another person from the office was leading. Dr. Seed joined the office about
the same time I got to Kenya. He is developing a curriculum for theological
education in different schools and colleges in Kenya. This past week he had his
first lectures at Carlial College for three days. I was helping managing the
time and making sure that all the participants had received the right materials
and handouts. This was my first theological education discussion that I have
ever heard and I must say that I enjoyed learning more about this topic and
understand a little more about how it plays out in the context of Kenyan
culture.
