We made the 10-hour trip back to Brackenhurst yesterday. We spent the entire past week working in Mombasa on the coast of Kenya. We stayed at the Anglican Church of Kenya guest house. The rooms had windows that did not close, so we had a lot of little critters running around in our rooms. But we slept in mosquito nets at night, which kept us all bug-free. It was also very warm and humid there, so we were all longing for the cool temperatures of Nairobi.

There is a large Muslim population in Mombasa, and so every morning around five you can hear the call to prayer – then you could also catch the call to prayer several times a day. It was interesting to hear. Overall, the people seemed very friendly, but we were told we would not be able to visit any mosques because the Muslims were very anti-American.

Others were excited to learn that we were American. As one pastor told us, the Kenyans are very happy that Americans have elected Obama as president. (If you didn’t already know, Obama’s father was Kenyan.)

We set up the medical camp at Ushindi Baptist Church, which is a huge church able to seat 10,000 people. Ushindi also has about 15 extensions in different areas of Mombasa. My evangelism team worked for a couple of days around Ushindi’s church in the Freretown slum. We would work all morning, and then Al would preach during the lunchtime service. Al preached for an hour the first day.

The Kenyans came to evangelize with us to interpret. By the end of the week, they were also working on their own to bring people to Christ. We also prayed over a lot of sick people. I remember several who said they had been saved, but then “backslide” into their old ways of life. So we offered encouragement for those.

I remember talking to one Muslim man about the differences in Christianity and Islam. We share some of the same beliefs, such as there is one God. But Muslims do not believe in the Trinity, nor that Jesus was the Son of God or that he died on the cross. They do respect Jesus, but only as a prophet.

We talked to a lot of people going door to door, and I also remember one young man who was born again and whose parents were dead. He needed encouragement, and so we read to him from the Bible. He started to cry a little, and I felt such empathy for him.

The Kenyans would work with us until about 3 p.m., when we would finally stop for lunch. They then took us to someone’s home to feed us rice, beans, ugali and stew. It was good, filling food – and they always made sure we were full.

After lunch/dinner, we would go to a street corner or a little outlet somewhere and set up speakers, microphones and a keyboard for our outreach. They would sing praise songs, dance and pray, and then Al would preach for a little while. On Thursday night I danced with the Kenyan girls, and afterwards the pastor told me how impressed everyone was that I could dance like an African!

We would get back around 8 p.m. every night, dog tired and ready for bed. But every other night we would have a large group meeting to share our experiences. It’s really a touching time when everyone can reflect on the day. My boyfriend of about 2 ½ years is also on this trip with me, and he spoke to the group on Thursday night. He was telling everyone about the successes of the music team. Then he said that there was a question many of the Kenyans ask us but we refuse to answer. He had a very serious demeanor, and we were all wondering what he was talking about. Then he began to move to the center of the room, and we all thought we were in for a lecture. But he stopped in front of me and knelt down on one knee. He pulled out a little white box with a ring in it and said that the question was, “Will you marry me?” I started to cry because I was so excited and happy. We got it all on tape! That was probably the most excited thing that happened to me, personally.

Because we had worked so hard, we decided we needed a little break. So on Friday afternoon we spent several hours on the beach. The sands were clean and white, and the water was fairly warm. It was the perfect end to a week of exhausting work.

Friday night before we left, the pastors that had worked with the evangelism team brought us presents. They got each of the evangelists a bag of Kenyan tea and some wood carvings of a Masai man and woman. It was such a wonderful gesture of thanks for our work, but I believe we were more blessed to serve them.