Brett and Bronwyn

I am not a particularly good guitar player. In fact, if you play guitar there is a very good chance you are at least 5 times better than I am. I am good enough to lead worship for teens when there is literally no one else who can, and I am good enough to play at camp, again when there is literally no one else who can. I started playing guitar because I had told Bronwyn years ago I wish I could so one Christmas she bought me one. I think it may have been our second Christmas as a married couple. I never took a lesson and never really had anyone show me too much. I figured out where to put my fingers, made up strum patterns and sang loud enough to hopefully tune out my mistakes. I learned a few songs and improved only slightly but at some point, I set it down and didn’t play it for a long time. I think it was around the time we hiked the Appalachian Trail. And there it set, well actually they sat because I for some reason bought a second one.

Finally, after years of them collecting dust I started working at the YMCA and then became a lay youth pastor at a church. I really wanted us to do worship music, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t good enough and they weren’t even strung anymore. Again, Bronwyn heard me and took my guitars and got them restrung. I started playing again but this time I focused on just the songs I wanted to play for worship. And now I am a guitar god! Just kidding, I’m still terrible but I could lead worship songs for youth and teens. And if there is nobody else in the room that is a fraction better than me I will. When I led music for morning devotion at camp seven years old would always tell me what a good guitar player I was, I never heard that much from an eight-year-old. Something happened between seven and eight that makes you way more perceptive.

It takes years to build up the calluses on your hand to make it easier to play. Even when I went years without playing those calluses were still there. However back in February the fire burned my hand pretty good and although I have very little scaring from the injuries, I did pretty much lose all those calluses. They are coming back slowly and I know that I will never be a great, or good, or not almost bad guitar player. However, I can lead worship for youth and teens and honestly that’s all I want to do anyway.

Someone once told me that “how you do anything, is how you do everything”, and I think that’s true. I may not be great but what little talent I do have I give over to God and He does whatever He wants with it. Take what you have and give it to God and see if you don’t experience the same thing.

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One of the aspects of Bronwyn and my job is to recruit summer staff to help run camp. We started this process long before we arrived in Kenya and we do it in several ways. One group is from the United States, mostly college students who have decided to not only spend their summers serving the Lord in Kenya but also to work to raise their own support, so they are able to. We have summer camp staff coming from both coasts and lots of places in between. They are amazing young men and women and have their lives way more together than I did at their age. Here are a few of them.

We also have another group coming in the form of a “Nehemiah Team”. They also raise their support and come as a team to serve in countries all over the world. We are excited to have a team coming to serve with us at Camp BlueSky. We also recruit locally from Kenya as well and some of them are native Kenyan’s while other are international students from all around the world who are currently living in Kenya. We have staff from Europe, Asia and other Africa countries. Here are a few of those people.

Although all these staff are very different they do have three things in common. They love Jesus, they love campers, and they got through the application and interview process with us. Most of the team will have never met when they arrive for counselor training and will be relative strangers to each other. I’ve been there, my first day as a camp counselor in 1996 was my first day to ever see the place I would be spending my summer and the first day I would meet anyone I was about to work side by side with in June and July in Mississippi. However, just like those people became my family and the people who I still count on as my closest friends I know the same will happen with these strangers here in Kenya. I have been around camps and camping and campers most of my adult life and the same think always happens. Everyone goes from strangers to family.

This team will all be together for the first-time next month. And here is the cool thing, it would be fun if our job was to split wood or pick butter beans, some of the same relationships would be forged but we get to do the coolest thing in the world, pour our lives into campers and not only that but pour our lives into campers in Nairobi, Kenya. I honestly still wake up most mornings to a rooster crowing and must remind myself that this isn’t a dream. This is the calling that God has placed on my life. Bronwyn and I and the rest of the team have been super busy gearing up for camp, but it has all been exciting.

Going from strangers to family doesn’t just happen, it takes work and people committed to work but because we are the body of Christ if we allow him He will show us our individual roles in the body. Please pray for our staff unity, for our energy and drive to come from no other than the creator of the universe, and for God to work through us and in the lives of our campers in a way that could only come from Him so nobody could say look at what those people did. Only, look at what God has done!

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Posted by Bronwyn

When we first arrived to our house in Kenya we were welcomed not only with some needed household items like a bed and kitchenware but also a fairly stocked pantry and refrigerator to get us through several days without the need for a full grocery run.  We have purchased a few things on some outings but yesterday was our first solo shopping day.  Brett drove and I navigated which to be honest was only a few turns but for those that know our terrible sense of direction know this was huge!  There are some small grocery stores around but for major shopping, the grocery stores are part of large malls which also take a bit of navigating themselves.  There are 3 malls pretty close together all on the same road and we went to 2 of them to get a feel for what each one had.  Things we have learned so far that are different besides lots of brands we have never heard of is that you can get many American items but they are super expensive.  Kellogg brand cereal will cost you $6-$9 a box, Skippy peanut butter (only U.S. brand we have seen) is $7.50 for a small jar, and protein bars are $3-$5 each.  We have not looked for chocolate yet but hear when you find it, especially chocolate chips, it is super expensive as well.  The up side is that fresh produce is pretty inexpensive and really good!  It actually looks like real stuff instead of perfectly shined, colored, and waxed fruit and vegetables.  However, local lemons are green and limes often more yellow in color.  The produce area is staffed so that when you bag your apples or whatever, they weigh it and put a price tag on it right there verses at the register.  As a general rule, if it is frequently purchased by Kenyans then it is inexpensive or what we are used to as normal prices but if not, then the price jumps up.  There is not a big demand for pork products so you don’t see too much of it.  Brett will miss his occasional sausage and biscuits but we did buy bacon. Plastic bags are illegal in Kenya (including ziplock bags) so you have to purchase reusable bags which is totally fine except we keep forgetting to take them with us.   We are currently good on reusable bags.

We have been asked several times about the possibility of sending us care packages, and you can absolutely do that. In Kenya mail does not get delivered house to house so we have a P.O. Box, we will attach this info at the bottom. Boxes can be searched by customs and you can be charged for what they think the difference might be if you purchased the items in Kenya. It’s somewhat arbitrary and possibly even a little corrupt, however there are some things you can do that will help. First regular and large envelopes almost never get searched so that is an option. Also the USPS small rectangle flat rate boxes also tend to not be searched and you can cram a lot in there. We will post some things that would be great to have at the bottom too.

It was a year ago today that I first sent the text about BlueSky to Brett and here we are living in Kenya. God has been so faithful through all of this and we are excited to see what the next year will hold.  We do still need more monthly supporters so continue to keep that in your prayers.  Thanks for following us along!

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I am calling this post “Driving in Kenya Part 1” because I am still quite the novice seeing as how I have only driven a few places and mostly in our neighborhood, but I can give you at least a glimpse of how it is going so far. As you may already know they do drive on the left side of the road here because at one time Kenya was part of the British Empire. I suppose I can’t complain too much about that because it is also the reason most everyone speaks English. My first time driving happened pretty quickly, Jennifer Watson who is the Area Director/East Africa and Bronwyn and I were heading to one of the schools we work with that is near our house and she asked if I wanted to follow. I said sure and off we went. This was mid morning so we knew the streets would be fairly empty, and it wasn’t really that far, I got the keys and the first thing I did was go to the wrong side of the car. Not off to the best start but not surprising because almost everytime I go to get in the passenger side of the car to ride with someone I go to the wrong side.

So I get in and back up no problem, it honestly doesn’t even feel that strange, the guard opens the gate and we drive out, Bronwyn in the passenger seat and us following Jennifer. So here is what is what I leaned pretty quickly, it really doesn’t feel that strange, your brain actually adjusts pretty quickly. At first the hardest part is judging how far you are from the left side of the road. I kept asking Bronwyn how much room I had and her reply was always “plenty”. It felt like I was in the ditch but I would scoot over and find that I did indeed have plenty of room. I think I kind of remember that same thing when I was first learning to drive, of course I was about 9 years old and it was in my grandfathers farm truck. However, the roads here in places are somewhat similar to the ones I first drove on in rural Mississippi. The turn signal and windshield wipers are on opposite sides so instead of signally left or right before I turned, I waved with the wipers instead.

After stopping at a few guard posts, I made it to the school without much incident. Bronwyn did instinctively put the car in park with her right hand after I pulled into the parking space. I even did my first roundabout. Nairobi doesn’t have any stop signs except the ones on guard gates and the idea of stop lights is a very new one so they are often ignored and you just kind of go. I received three excellent pieces of advice from other missionaries that seems to have helped tremendously.

1.  Tessa Shevlin told me that you should always be able to high five the person coming in the other lane. This is the kind of advice that works very well with my brain and I can’t tell how many times I mentally thought about high fiving the person in the car coming towards me.
2. James Covey told me that drivers in Nairobi are responsible for what is directly in front of them and not to worry about what is behind. This will take some getting used to, I am a cautious driver.
3. Nate Mast told me that getting in a wreck is such a pain here that nobody wants to and will avoid an accident at all cost.

I was feeling pretty good about my driving and we had dinner plans with some other BlueSky team members and I felt confident to drive to their house. It was really fine, the only new hurtle was that it was at 5:30 and people were getting off work and that meant lots of pedestrian traffic. There aren’t many sidewalks so there were people everywhere. Some of them would get out of the way while others absolutely would not. This was only truly harrowing the one time when I had a group of people walking on my left, a truck coming at me on the right and a motorcycle behind me that decided it was totally fine to pass right then. It was fine, I gripped the steering wheel a little tight but it was fine. Finally after dinner it was time to drive home, it was dark and I was a little cautious (read this as nervous) It might be a little while before I decide to drive at night again. There really aren’t many street lights and you don’t realize how much you miss the street reflectors until they are gone. But we got home and I have much more confidence now. As those of you praying for us know it was something I had asked for a lot of prayer about but ultimately it’s like anything new, you practice and you get better, you learn from your mistakes and finally you forget that it was ever a thing you had to learn.

This isn’t the car we will be driving but I was told it was a good one to practice on.

It’s a Probox in case you were wondering

Continue praying for us, this week we are jumping into lots of new things and I’m interviewing more camp staff both here and back in the States.

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As much as we have been able to we hit the ground running in Kenya. We spent all day Tuesday with the camp staff time doing camp planning. I think there was a little apprehension because people worry that the new Camp Director is going to come in a kick the doors in and want everything changed. That isn’t really my style, what I’ve always tried to do is constantly evaluate and focus on a few things that need work. For example I spent an entire summer once working on our camps communication with parents, a few summers ago Bronwyn along with the rest of our team introduced camper choice electives with tremendous success. Coming in and changing everything is often counter productive, in five years who knows everything might change but only incrementally and only because we saw value in changing it. It’s never change for change sake I’m striving for only constant improvement.

I love having “To Do, Doing, Done” boards, and I used that to run our meeting. If it’s any indication of how amazing this team is we managed to move everything to the doing board and even moved a few things to done. Not bad for our first face to face meeting. I had been praying almost everyday for unity with the staff and I have rarely if ever had a meeting where a bunch of leaders sat around the table and agreed whole heartily on almost everything. I was so excited afterwords for camp, not that I wasn’t already, but if I could have orchestrated everything about the meeting it couldn’t have gone better. God only leads in one direction and when there is division it’s on us to ask Him for wisdom and figure out why. Luke quotes Jesus as saying  “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls”. If anything is worth fighting for it’s unity among believers.

We have another busy day today, going out to one of the schools we will be working with and meeting the administration. Then we are going shopping, we need some things that we couldn’t bring. Tonight we are having dinner with a couple who works part time with BlueSky and part time with another ministry. We actually stayed at their house when we were here in July. They are amazing people who just had a baby but continue to serve the Lord here in Kenya. I’m really looking forward to spending more time with them.

Pray for Bronwyn and I, we are doing great. We promise to start taking more pictures.

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Saturday afternoon we said goodbye to family and left Memphis to move to Africa. There were hugs and tears and excitement and nervousness mixed with anticipation and an eagerness to finally get to the place God called us to almost a year ago. We flew out of Memphis around 2:30pm and went west to Dallas. Going west to go east would not have been my first choice but the flight was way cheaper and cut down on the possibility of being delayed by weather in cities like Philadelphia or Chicago. Plus the Dallas airport gave us an opportunity to eat Mexican food one last time. Although we have been told there a few new “Mexican” places here in Nairobi now.

After Dallas we flew to London, it was a pretty uneventful flight, Bronwyn slept and I watched movies. I’ll give my quick movie review here:

• Justice League – not good
• Thor, Fraggle Rock – is still excellent the second viewing
• American Made – I liked it better the first time when starred Johnny Depp and was called Blow.

Other than that the trip was pretty uneventful. Once in London we had just enough time to find our gate, grab a few snacks and board our flight to Nairobi. I will give you my Airport reviews here:

• Memphis – I liked it better when you could actually fly to places and not hubs.
• Dallas – Modern, clean, easy to navigate, and did I mention Mexican food?
• Heathrow – not great. Bizarre set up but you do get in a pretty good walk which is needed after a 9 hour flight
• Nairobi – I’ll just tell this story in the next paragraph.

We land in Nairobi after about an hour delay in London because one of the cargo doors wouldn’t close. There was a part of me that was worried it might have something to do with all our huge heavy tubs. We arrived in Nairobi around 10:30pm Kenya time which is 2:30pm Memphis time. So we had flown about 24 hours and were 8 hours ahead. I don’t sleep much anyway, I mean it’s 4am as I’m typing this, but I was a little jet lagged. At the airport here you still have take the stairs from the plane onto the tarmac and then a bus picks you up and takes you to the main building. Because, I was traveling with a guitar that the very kind airlines allowed me to put in the coat closet we didn’t make the first bus because they had to retrieve it for me. So we waited a few minutes on the stair case and I know several of my friends just immediately thought of the Bluth Family, and waited for our bus. We loaded on and then headed in to have passports stamped and then collect all our luggage.  I will say that lines work differently in Africa, and even in London than they do back in the states. For one people don’t line up as much as they kind of bunch and you just move forward with the mob. It actually sounds awful but the reality is it went fine. You just have to move forward and it all seems to work out and no one gets mad.

So we got through that line and then came the part I worried about, we had been told customs had been really strict lately and we were told to say “we are missionaries with BlueSky moving to Kenya, we have work permits waiting for us”. I also was concerned about negotiating about 400lbs of stuff through the airport. So here is what happened, we walked in and I almost immediately saw some of our tubs, we grabbed the suitcase from one carousel and 4 of the tubs from the other. When it was clear how much stuff we had assistance was immediately offered and then it was just a matter of waiting on the last tub. Finally there it was, all our luggage had arrived and with the exception of the wheels being off two of them they were relatively unscathed. The zip ties hadn’t even been undone. So with help we started to move towards the last hurtle and I walked through looking confident and just said, “We are moving to Kenya…” and that was it, they just waved us through. We didn’t have to cut the zip ties until we got to our house.

So we get outside the airport and immediately welcomed by the smiling faces of Jennifer, Nick, and Karlie who helped us grab luggage and take it to their cars. We loaded up and left the airport. With the exception of the delay in London and American Airlines charging us $200 more than we were told over the phone for our extra luggage it was an amazingly easy trip. However, when we left the airport Bronwyn and I rode with Jennifer while Nick and Karlie were in the other car with our tubs. We passed the two of them and they had been pulled over. The Kenyan police officer claimed Nick’s tire was low (probably from our heavy tubs) and essentially was looking for a bribe to let him go. So yes there is some corruption, but Nick essentially refused and finally after lots of run around he let him go.

We finally got to see our beautiful amazing house which is a God story all it’s own and essentially why if anyone who is reading this would like to visit they can. Now what we should have done is gone straight to sleep but we were too excited. We said we were unpacking but really we just wandered around inside and outside till about 3am. We did play a fun game of guess which key because every door, closet and other kinds of openings has it own key half of which are skeleton keys.

Anyway, we are here!! Thank you so much for all your prayers and love and support. We have a busy day today doing lots of camp planning. I should try to sleep a little so this won’t get posted until Bronwyn has a chance to proof read it so you don’t have to suffer through my terrible spelling.

Can you believe it! We are finally here!

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This is going to be short! We leave tomorrow and we still several things to get done.

It has been just about a year since Bronwyn first sent the “Wanna go to Kenya” text. If you have never read that story I will link it here. Wanna go to Kenya In that time, we have been on a fantastic ride with God. One I can barely describe but I do encourage you to do the same.

Now here we are on the precipice of something I am still only able to imagine. Something that we have never be so sure about as being the perfect will of God for our lives. Something that God has been preparing us for since before we even met, since before He even called us to ministry and we are exited!

We are celebrating today what God is doing and asking for you to please pray about these things:

• Travel safety to Nairobi, we leave tomorrow from Memphis around 2pm and then fly from Dallas to London to Nairobi.
• I want us to quickly be able to access and prioritize what needs our immediate attention and be able to get busy as soon as possible. We are a month later leaving that we planned to be and camp starts in just a few months.
• Quick assimilation into life in Kenya, finding community, support, and body of believers.
• That we would find favor with people in Kenya.
• Finding our feet in ministry in God’s perfect timing.
• Learning to drive in Nairobi as quickly as possible, they do drive on the left side and traffic is a bit crazy.
• Continued growth in out monthly support team, those who are supporting us both financially and through prayer.
• Pray for our camp staff team and they are able to raise their support and that we have everyone we need to have a successful and fruitful camp.
• Lastly please  for Bronwyn and I that we would stay committed to the Lord, each other and the call placed on our lives.

As we prepare to leave please join us as we pray through Proverbs 3:3-8 and Ephesians 2:10 and of course Isaiah 43.

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On February 19th I posted this on our Facebook page “Brett and Bronwyn in Kenya”.

 

New Prayer Requests

That Bronwyn and I will have a smooth and rapid transition into life in Kenya.

That we will find community with both the national and international people and build bridges with those we already know and those we will meet.

We are still waiting on some of our medical bills to arrive so we would love for that to come quickly so that is behind us.

We currently have college students raising support so they can come be a part of BlueSky for the summer and help us have a successful camp. We are also recruiting and developing local Kenyan staff to have a role as well.  We still have a need for a few more staff for the summer.

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Something I have said half jokingly for years is “not only am I the best fire builder you know, I’m the best fire builder anyone you know knows”. When describing camp fires I have said many times that, “something amazing happens around a camp fire that doesn’t happen anywhere else”. I enjoy a good camp fire, I enjoy the beauty and warmth the process of building it, even the process of dousing it when it’s over. I enjoy, in a healthy way, fire. However I may not have respected it enough, I was around it too often and I got too comfortable with it and forgot what a destructive force it could be. You would think I would know better, I mean I have a blog post about how my dad pulled me from a burning car which you can read here. Hero Dad

Being around fire so often I did get too complacent about it’s power, and although I try to not over spiritualize every situation this one draws a pretty good line. We do this all the time with God, we remember the warmth and goodness of our Lord and Savior. We think about the light He brings into our lives and forget He is Holy, or as the Bible describes:

Deuteronomy 4:24   ^“For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God”

Hebrews 12:29  “for our God is a consuming fire.”

And if you want to read a story about getting too accustomed to being around Holy things and then getting burned have a look at Leviticus 10. My point is God is all powerful and we really don’t get a glimpse of that very often but I am not exaggerating in the least that when I looked back into our living room when I was disoriented in our house and I saw the power of that fire, I think I got a sense of what Isaiah saw in the temple. The power and Majesty that knocked him to his knees and what Moses saw on Mt. Sinia, what the disciples saw at the transfiguration.  It was devastating and powerful and all consuming and I was afraid. It’s with this in mind that we should approach God, knowing that He loves us but that He is also all powerful.

I have shared the fire story about 4 billion times at this point, and I honestly still enjoy sharing it. Last night Bronwynand I went to dinner with some dear friends of ours and we were sharing the story with them separately but were in different places but still sharing it exactly the same. They finally asked us to sync up so we could share it in stereo. The point is we have shared it a lot. But it’s been great, God has used this powerful event to help us tell our story and ultimately be glorified. People have asked if I’ve had any PTSD since it happened and honestly not really. The first night we stayed in a hotel on the third floor I had the slightest worry about fire and being up so high and the first time I was around open flame at Cracker Barrel of all places I had a moment of flashback. I had a few bad dreams early on and maybe the slightest trouble sleeping, but those of you who know me know I don’t sleep much anyway. I don’t think I’ll have any lingering effects, I still love fire. I still can’t wait to build bon fires at camp and sit around camp fires and see the amazing things that happen. Ultimately I view all of this as a positive experience. It’s not the way I would have chosen for all of this to happen but I know God has been all over it and used it in mighty ways.

Thanks for all your prayers! We leave for Kenya in 10 days!

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Fire I built in Sardis, MS

Fire I built in our backyard

For the second time this year we are 17 days out from leaving for Africa. When we first started talking about dates for the move I said all along I wanted it to be God’s perfect timing. There is absolutely nothing about March 17th that would have been my timing so I’m excited to see God’s hand in all of this. This morning I am typing at Bronwyn’s parents’ computer in Hernando, MS in front of a huge window overlooking a field with a horse in it. The sun is just starting to make it to where you can see the trees and fence posts but besides that there is only the glow from the computer screen. It’s a beautiful site from a beautiful place. We have enjoyed staying here and spending time with family, we have also done some nights in hotels in Memphis when we had a lot to get done there. No matter the hospitality it’s hard to get settled. However it does remind me that the in the Christian life we shouldn’t get too settled, getting settled leaves to stagnation. I’ve been there, I don’t want that again.

Yesterday I went out to the shed where we are storing some clothes we either weren’t taking to Africa or we were going to take on a subsequent trip and I realized I had a few shirts I hadn’t packed. I was way too excited over a striped button down and a Boba Fett Tshirt but I’m literally wearing one of them now, guess which one. I still have no idea what people must go through when they lose everything, I only lost a lot of things and it’s still this weird feeling that I can’t quite describe. It’s just stupid things but it is a part of my past. But hey, as Rafiki says, “it doesn’t  matter, it’s in the past”. I did replace a ton of clothes Monday. I still don’t know how I feel about all the Columbia shirts I bought. On the one hand they were on the clearance rack and will be extremely practical plus have UV protection the doctors said I have to have because of my burns. On the other hand, I don’t want to look like a Jeff Probst wannabe preppy tourist. I did buy some jeans and graphic T’s too, not all is lost.

Just so you don’t get the wrong idea and think Bronwyn and I are homeless we totally aren’t. We are staying with Bronwy’s parents in our part of their house, we literally have one room to sleep and and entire different room I do quiet times in. State Farm, which has been incredible by the way, also puts us up in hotels whenever we need to get stuff done in Memphis but this isn’t even what I mean. We actually have our own beautiful home, we just haven’t ever seen it and won’t for at least 18 days.

I’m planning an entire blog post about the house we are going to be living in. Of all the God things that have happened with this story, this is maybe one of the wildest. I’ll go into more details later but rest assured if you ever want to come visit Nairobi and bring your friends and family and also some random strangers we will have room.

Please continue praying for us as we start packing again and replacing lost items. Seventeen days will go by fast, I hope, and we can’t wait to be in Nairobi serving with BlueSky.

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