Mission Team 1: Nairobi

I left Sudan very early in the morning of Monday, May 18, and – due to car trouble – arrived at the airport in Lokichoggio eight hours later, just in time to catch my flight to Nairobi. The entire team arrived safely in Nairobi the following day. We spent the morning of the following day sorting through supplies the team brought and getting oriented to Africa. In the early afternoon we took a walk to a nearby park where we saw lots of monkeys. In fact we’ve been seeing lots of monkeys almost everywhere we’ve travelled. In the late afternoon we headed into the city center and made a Holy Hour at the Eucharistic chapel of Holy Family Cathedral. It was very encouraging to me to see the number of people, especially young men and women, who spent time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. We then participated in the young professionals Communion and Liberation School of Community gathering, also at the cathedral. I was impressed and moved by the depth of the sharing from both the Kenyans and the members of our group. Afterwards they treated us to a supper of homemade pizza.

The next day we visited the CL/AVSI Little Prince School on the border of the Kibera slums, where we lead a morning session of praise and worship songs for the entire student body followed by a program with the theme of discovering our identity and vocation in Christ for the upper grades. Most of the team gave short testimonies about their own vocational journey. After lunch we ventured into Kibera, a sprawling expanse of wood and sheet metal huts stacked almost on top of one another, which is home to over a million people. The amazing work of education and formation being done at Little Prince can only be fully understood and appreciated against the background of the slums from which most of the students come.

The photos below show sunrise in Sudan on the day of my departure, the team in the park with the monkeys, a shot of our time with our CL friends, photos from our visit to Little Prince, and our trek into Kibera.