[insert Swahili for I got to pet a Cheetah]

Hi friends!

So it is Sunday afternoon and it has been such a crazy weekend! I am not sure where to begin but to say that saturday was such a long and ridiculous day and thinking back on it i just want to laugh about how much random and awesome stuff happened. Saturday morning we went to the Nairobi Safari walk with Cedric and Virginia, our chaperones, to see all the exotic and African animals. In order to get there we had to walk through the city for about 30 minutes before we were able to grab a matatu (small public transport van) to get out of the city to the safari walk. Traffic in Kenya is not for the faint of heart nor for the squimish, to say the least...There really aren't any traffic laws here and even if there were, nobody would obey them. It is basically everybody for themselves and everybody is in a mad hurry wherever they go. The matatu stops wherever on the road to let people off and pick up people but it never really stops, people will just run and jump on or jump off. Going to safari walk we had about a dozen close calls to hitting cars/running over people as there were about 15 of us crammed into one van. It has definitely an adventure and I don't think I will ever complain about city driving in the states again. So we finally got to the safari walk, it was very expensive and it just turned out to be a glorified zoo, which was kind of disappointing. But we had a really sweet tour guide and he let us cross fences and play and feed the monkeys which was sweet. We were then able to convince him to talk to some of the zoo handlers and let us into the Cheetah cage and pet the Cheetah!! We had to pay them, but it was so awesome! We all got to go in a pet this cheetah and get our pictures taken (wish I would post it to you guys now). But it definitely made the cost of the safari walk worth while. It was some special expo day there when we went so we were then able to pay a little extra and get all we could eat cake from bakeries around Kenya. Cake and a Cheetah all in one day...haha. When we left there we ended up having to walk for a good 20 minutes to grab another matatu and when we finally did we ended up getting stopped by the police because we had too many people in the van, haha, perfect ending to a crazy morning.

After that we all went back to the Y and passed out because we had our futbol game later that night. All the guys played with about 30 students and staff and random students from UON. We played an entire rubgy pitch which is about the size of a football field for about 2 hours until it was pitch black. We played that you could only score off of a header or by hitting the post because the goals were so big. I was forward and scored once, but Kenyans love arguing and for some reason the goal didn't count. We lost, but it was an awesome game and we got to know a lot more students and build relationships with those we already know.

After the game we got cleaned up and started our journey out to Diann's house (staff woman) for the sleep over. It took 2 hours to go into town and find a citi hoppa (bus) to get out there. There were about 25 students at the sleep over and it was so fun. We had a huge dinner and played games till 2 in the morning! I think everybody was dead tired from the futbol game so the entire time we were pretty delirious and messed up the games often. After the games we put out a couple mattresses on the floor and slept 12 or so guys in a small room while we watched a movie. I ended up sandwiched between nick (teammate) and Tony, one of the guys I met with. Most of the students stayed up all night watching the movie and then sports on tv...needless to say I am pretty tired. It was a great night though and we really got to connect with the students in navs, which was awesome. I love hanging out with them and continue to pray that we would all have a heart for them and for all the students at UON. Please join me in that.

I wish I could write more but we need to head back to the Y and meet up with Steve to work out finances for the week.

In Christ,

Chris