A Year Away

A Tender Kenyan Holiday Season

I was almost done with a blog when Tumblr decided to eat it and throw it to the depths of the Internet never to be seen again, after a few weeks of sulking and realizing that never again will I recreate such beautiful prose I have decided to give it another shot. So here is my Christmas break blog:

 

The much anticipated holiday season has alas come to an end, although mine had fewer sugar plum ferries and Peanuts movies then in years past, it was still filled with new memories and experiences.

 

A couple days after the MAA students left the campus and the hearts of each faculty member empty, I had the pleasure of driving to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to pick up my family.

 

For the next ten days my family and I enjoyed a tender Kenyan Christmas together. During the ten days my family was here we were able to travel to various hot spots of Kenyan tourism; two days at the Masai Mara, another in Nakuru, and a few more buzzing around Nairobi.

 

After my family left I guess my body was so overwhelmed by the love it had experienced that it decided to revolt. I spent the next week in bed spending quality time with musical French revolutionaries, an alcoholic pilot hero, mystical little people, and a abolitionist president.

 

The last ten days of my Christmas break were spent in paradise at Mombasa. A few of the other SMs and myself decided to go “old-school” and take a train to the coast. So we boarded our sleeper car and took the 10-15 hour trek with wide eyes and immovable positivity.

The time spent in Mombasa was filled with swimming, dancing, card games, bonding, and enough calories to make John Candy turn over in his grave.

 

My holidays may not have looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, there may not have been as much turkey, presents, or consumerism as years past, but I wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything… well maybe some turkey. 

Blogging is fun I think…

Well I think the biggest failure of my student missionary experience so far is my failure of documenting anything. I came into this whole journey with the intentions of keeping an active blog, maybe journaling every once in a while, definitely wanted to take pictures and videos of everything I did, but now as I am closing in on my 5th month being here I have realized that I have failed miserably.

So since we have just freshly crossed the threshold into 2013 I have resolved to be proactive in my documentation of everything, from the life changing to the mundane. My future self will thank me. 

In fact I think I will post a list of my resolutions for the year:

1. Proactive in documentation 

2. Start that dorm bible study I’ve been talking about… 

3. Run, run, run 

4. Loose 30 pounds 

5. learn more swahili 

6. Have a cookout (gain 30 pounds)

7. Get job leads for summer back home