New Video

This Video was made by Newspring Church and the 410 Bridge during the May 2010 service trip.

May 2010 video (5 min)

Wow! I'm in Africa

While I was walking around the mission I climbed up some rocks. In front of me in the distance was one of those crazy African trees that everyone sees on TV and in the disney movies. To the right was a dense area of shrubs, this is where the baboons lived. The baboons would sneak into the mission at night to steal corn. Elephants would drink water in the river behind me.

This river is the life blood of most of the people and animals in the area. The water is very dirty and it never flows quickly, even in when it rains. This slow moving river has cut away at the ground slowly. It has taken many years; hundreds or thousands to cut down 30 feet from the surrounding land. This river is very, very old.

Above is the view to the other side of the river.

This was the view to my left. I started to think about all the things around me and I heard a song. Someone had started a generator and hooked up a microphone with a keyboard so that one of the girls could sing. Her voice was incredible. She was singing about "Christo" which is Jesus in swahili. The music was very real and very African. I stood on the rocks looking around. I got goose-bumps and at this  moment I realized I was in Africa. I was in Kenya and I had a job to do. I prayed that I could do it well.

Pics from the Segera Mission

Segera Mission: David

David uses his bike to get water for his family with two flat tires. Like all the children I met he is very smart. David can speak swahili, his mother tongue (tribal language) and english. In school he studied calculus. He knows world geography better than I do. He is also very curious about everything we can tell him. For most of the children that can get to a school, education stops around age 12. After age 12 most of them start living life. They are treated like young adults by their family and tribe. The teenage years of western culture do not exist in the outback of Kenya.

Segera Mission: Our first look

We drove through the village of Nanyuki to the mission. All of the work projects that Newspring will do are located and arranged with the Segera Mission. It is a large compound with a church, school, farm, doctors office, library, barracks and community center.

The Mission was open to children from all over the surrounding area. Children were everywhere and most of them had seen Mazungos (white people) before, but not all.

Most of the Children had never seen a picture of themselves. When we took a picture of them and showed them the back of the camera they were fascinated.

Video using our Spiritual Gifts

Check out this video from the August trip.

Video 3 minutes long

Breakdown: On the side of the road

In Nairobi security guards were everywhere. Neighborhoods had gates with guards and the walls around the neighborhoods had broken glass or razor wire on top. Businesses had guards at the front door. The cops carried AK-47's. The police made check points by dragging logs with giant spikes in them across the road. This made vehicles slow down and drive through the barriers in a "S" pattern. We cleared the city with its traffic and about an hour later one of our buses blew a coolant hose.

It was warm so we all got off the bus and looked around. The British left Kenya in 1963. Many of the things the British built have deteriorated since their departure. Check out the telephone poles with no wires in the picture above. Almost every road, town, bridge or city that we visited showed signs of decay. Decay of something that was nicer in the past but was presently wasting away.

Children showed up to see what was going on. We took pictures of them we turned the cameras around to show them the picture. They were amazed. Most of the children we had contact with had never seen themselves before. They did not have mirrors at home so they had no idea what they looked like.

The children were grazing their sheep. They would have to walk for miles to find a spot where their sheep could find something to eat. Some times they would not even go home for days.

Leaving Nairobi to Nanyuki

Breakfast was interesting. Everything was cooked well done. The coffee was instant and I was very scared about what to eat and what not to eat, but the buffet table was huge and I ate like a king.

We ate breakfast, we prayed, had a meeting and loaded everything onto buses for our drive to Nanyuki. When we drove out of the gate I was shocked with the number of people. Nairobi had people everywhere. I was amazed with the traffic both cars and pedestrian.

Cars in Nairobi drive so close together that the hood is the best place for rear view mirrors. Check out the picture of the truck above. We drove for hours and hours to the town of Nanyuki. Nanyuki was our base of operations. We left every morning to drive to the Segera Mission (about 90 minutes) and returned every night.

P.C.E.A. Guest House - Nairobi, Kenya

Kenya is on the equator so the sun sets very early, about 630pm. When we arrived it was dark and the capital city of Nairobi was a ghost town. The streets had very little traffic and I could not see anyone walking around the town. We went to the P.C.E.A. Guest House. The guest house is basically a hotel that was surrounded by a wall with guards and razor wire. The staff was very friendly and they met us outside with a table offering juice. It was a juice blend of passion fruit and grapefruit juice. In Kenya fruit juice is a luxury item and it may be the sweetest thing in a Kenyan's diet.

My bed in the guest house had a mosquito net. I was very tired so I took an Ambien (sleeping pill) and sleep like I was in a coma. I do remember hearing mosquitos flying around and I felt very safe inside the net. At 5am the Mosque next door played it's prayer calls so loud that the windows rattled. My roommate woke up with the Muslim prayer calls but I slept on until about 630am. Breakfast was an adventure by itself because the food was so different and I was not sure what was safe to eat. I had the omelet with cheese and sausage (in natural casings) with instant coffee. We prayed and boarded our buses for an all day ride to Nanyuki, the village that would become the base for our work over the next 10 days.

14 Hours in a Middle Seat

We went to the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport and we waited...
We flew to Atlanta and we waited...
We got on the plane in Atlanta and we waited... 3 hours before pushing back from the gate

I was in a middle seat for 7 hours. The people beside me took Ambien sleeping pills. 4 hours into the flight I had to use the bathroom but I could not wake up either of them, I was miserable. When we got to Paris I was very relieved.

We arrived in Paris after our flight was supposed to leave for Kenya. We rushed through the airport and had to go thru security again. The flight to Kenya was waiting on us. It was about 7am local time and on the way to the gate for the Kenya flight I passed by a bakers booth. I smelled fresh baked bread long before I saw his booth. When I got to the booth I looked at beautiful pastries and bread. I saw one fresh load of bread that just had come out of the oven and it was labeled with a sign that said "5." I don't know if it was 5 francs or 5 euros, but I knew my credit card could handle 5 what-evers. Then I looked around and I could not see any other people from my group. I was completely alone in Charles DeGaule Airport in Paris, France. So I went to the gate and boarded the flight. We sat at the gate for another 35 minutes before pushing back from the gate. Just dang.

I was assigned another middle seat. 3 hours into the flight the girl sitting beside me moved next to her friend and I got an isle seat. Woo Hoo!! When we arrived in Kenya we rushed through customs and into baggage claim. When I got to the baggage claim area the first thing I saw was 4 police officers with AK-47's slung over their shoulders in a group chatting. Wow! What a way to say "Welcome to Kenya."

Shadowfax

I loved my motorcycles. I named each motorcycle I rode "Shadowfax." This is a picture of me in Tombstone, Arizona on a Suzuki V-Strom 650. My most loved bike was a 1992 BMW K-75s. I was wondering how I was going to pay for the trip to Kenya when my dad ran my K-75 into an abandoned house. He broke his shoulder, cracked some ribs and lost a finger nail. He also gave me $3000 for the bike. This paid for most of my trip to Kenya. My tax returns paid for the other $500 for the trip, $425 for shots and $200 for spending money. God loves to take bad circumstances and turn them for good.

Jiggers Video

Jiggers are bugs that crawl into the children's feet. We put a cement floor into the school to protect the children's feet from the bugs. Check out this video to see:

Jigger Removal: 3 Min. Video

Medical Mission Video

After several of you told me how much you enjoyed the video. I decided to show several videos first and then send out my pictures and story. Here is another video about the medical missions that Newspring did around the Segera Mission. This is the largest Medical Mission that the 410 Bridge has ever hosted.

Medical Video: 1.5 Minutes

Video from June 2009

When my church Newspring announced our foreign missions trip, I knew I would go. I didn't have the money, but I knew I would go. The vision was clear: Help some of the poorest people in the world, Make the name of Jesus famous and Show his love. Check out this video made by Will Rodes Newspring's Video director. This Video is performed by the Newspring Band using video from my trip in June and is set to the "Desert Song" by Hillsong United. I am the guy is the goofy hat and can be seen for about 3 seconds. Click below to see.

June Video: 7 minutes