UPDATE: FLIGHT DELAYED...

Hey guys,

This is Jill Cox on behalf of Jenni and Jon. Jenni texted me a few minutes ago to let you know that the flight from Heathrow is leaving three hours late and will therefore be arriving late. I just checked BA's website, and it is saying that they will arrive at 5:31 p.m. However, as you know, the pilots try to make the time up en route if they can, so hopefully it will arrive earlier. :)

Click HERE for the BA flight tracker site- enter airport codes LHR and DFW and it will do the rest!

I'll let you know if I hear anything else from Jenni, but I don't think I will. The group should be on board right now as I am typing, waiting to taxi towards Texas!!

Praying for traveling mercies for the whole group!

love,

Jill

(PS- you guys thought you were going to make it without having to read a blog post from me this year. :)

LAST DAY - Wed. June 23

Wow - that trip went so fast! I can't believe our time here is already over. Jon just returned from seeing the group off at the Nairobi airport where they should be leaving in just about an hour.

Jon and I are staying here in Nairobi tonight since we are booked on a different flight and will be staying 3 extra days in London. There are 6 others here meeting up with family in London and going in various directions so we are all here at the Mayfield Missionary house tonight.

The group will be coming back with Brian Millet, Amber Marshall, Camille Millet, Mary Ndungu and Linda Halbert as chaperones. Please pray for a safe flight as they travel. I'm sure they will have lots of stories to tell you when they get home but give them one day to sleep first. :)

The safari was WONDERFUL - sorry Jill Cox, but I think this was the best one yet! Beautiful lodge and I think we had seen all of the "Big 5" animals on the first day. Saw TONS of baby lion cubs, we witnessed a pack of 4 cheetahs chase and capture both a wildebeest and a gazelle. I was actually not happy AT ALL about that part but the students thought it was great. We saw a boy and girl lion being "friendly", a leopard laying in a tree eating something that looked like a wildebeest leg, tons of elephant, tons of giraffe, about 12 baby lion cubs waiting with 2 mommies while the other two hunted. Well, you get the point. It was awesome!

Oh - and sorry Cindy Millet but your hubby is coming home slightly injured because he fell asleep by the pool yesterday and got SO sunburned because he forgot how much closer we are to the equator. ;)

I just wanted to say THANK you to the parents for letting your students come on this trip. They were fantastic in so many ways and we really enjoyed having them along with us. Also, thank you to the families of the sponsors who came along. I know, personally, how hard it is to stay behind and take care of everything while someone you love is gone for awhile so thank you for sharing them with us for the past 2 weeks.

Thank you to my kids (and extended family) for letting us go and share Christ with the people in Africa...we know you probably missed us even though Uncle Kelly and Aunt Helen are so FUN and the BEST babysitters! Max will be home tomorrow and we will be home on Monday. Can't wait to see you all! We love you!

Last announcement: Please encourage your students to copy all of their photos and video clips (short ones) onto a cd or dvd and arrange to get it to Jon or I in the next week or so. I would like to start working on the video early this year so I am not panicking about it during back-to-school week like usual. :) That would greatly help me so I don't have to call and track everyone down. When the video is done, we will try to have some kind of viewing reunion party and of course, everyone will get a copy of the video AND a copy of the combined photos. It is usually played in all 3 chapels at TCA during the earlier part of the school year too if anyone wants to see it. THANK YOU for your help!

We praise God for this trip, this group that went and all that was accomplished in the name of Christ!

Blessings

Jenni Millet

Day 11 - Safari Monday June 21

Hello everyone from the beatiful Masaii Mara Game reserve. We all made it safely to Nairobi this morning and actually both groups arrived within 5 minutes of each other so we timed it pretty well. We met at the Mayfield Missionary House and were able to leave the majority of our luggage there so we could just bring our small bags along on the safari.

We had quite an interesting ride out here to the Mara with a couple of bumpy spots in the road but it was fun and we saw TONS of animals just on the drive in. Our lodge this year is really nice and up on a hill overlooking the plains. We went out around 4:30 on our first game drive and immediately saw a lion right smack in the middle of the road. She was just meandering though so we drove off and immediately found 2 more female lions with 4 little cubs posing for photos. We saw hippos, giraffe, tons of deer/gazelle thingies and even witnessed the possible "creation" of a baby lion. That was quite educational. :)

We came back and had a late dinner and got to sing around the campfire and share some stories and prayer time and are now going to bed. We do have to pay for internet time here so I will keep this short and probably will not post anything tomorrow. But just so you know, EVERYone is doing well and enjoying our last couple of days here unwinding. Thanks so much to all of you for your prayers! And thanks to Gary O'Neal for loaning us his laptop for the blog update tonight AND the use of his photos that he took today.

Jenni Millet

Day 10 - Sunday June 20

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Well, today is our last day for those of us staying here at the Scott Campus. We will be leaving at 6 am tomorrow to drive in rented Jeeps to Nairobi. We will meet the other team, also coming in Jeeps at the AIM Missionary house called the Mayfield house. It is the check in and out point for most missionaries around here. In fact, Jon's Grandma Grace and Grandpa Ed used to look after it when they lived here in Africa. We will be meeting there and dropping off most of our luggage so that we only have to take a small amount to the Safari lodge. When the Safari is over, we will come back for our luggage and head to the airport again in Nairobi Wed. night.

So today was Sunday and we all went off to various churches this morning. Jon and I had Autumn and Lauren with us and enjoyed a fun service and a lunch the ladies served us afterward of chick peas and some kind of beans. All of our guys, Wes, Dale, James, Kevin and Ryan preached at different churches as well as Jon and Gary O'Neal. All seemed to have a great time and were well received.

This afternoon, we went on a hiking adventure to the Mwania riverbed. I'll post some photos if the power holds out long enough. We've had a lot of "dark" moments today with no power again. Anyway, the kids really enjoyed the river - it's a beautiful and weird area with giant rocks all along the riverbed. We came home just in time for dinner and are now heading up for our meeting and to pack and go to bed.

Oh - we did talk to Mary Ndungu last night again and found out that all were doing well and they were excited about getting up the mountain again today for church. Brian WAS with Mary and Camille during the Land Rover breakdown the other day so we felt better that they hadn't been alone and found out they had hiked back down to the town. The two people that accepted Christ were two people that Brian had talked to and he was very encouraged.

I know we are all tired and ready to get to the Safari but also sad that our ministry time here is coming to an end. We will miss all of the people here and hope to continue coming back in the future years. Thank you so much to everyone back home who helped make this trip possible and allowed your students to come along with us. They have been AWESOME and we are so proud of all of them.

You may or may not hear much from us from this point on but just know that no news is good news. If the lodge at the Masaai Mara has internet, I will try to post an update, but it might not have accessibility. If not, the group will be returning Thursday to DFW. Jon and I are staying 3 extra days in London so regret that we won't be able to see everyone at the end, but we will make sure they get to the airport at Nairobi safely.

Blessings to all

Jenni Millet

Day 9 : Saturday June 19

Okay, so power outage #3 just wiped out all of my typing for today so far. :) I'll try again.

Today we split into 3 groups for the morning. One group stayed here and finished out the work project on the Scott chapel. They are now DONE and accomplished all of our goals for the chapel. I am sure one of them got photos, but I don't have them here on my camera so sorry I can't post that. When we get home, we will put all the photos and edit the video into a dvd movie for the students.

We left another group of students here at Scott to run a VBS program for some local children. Wes and Shae offered to step up and run that and did a great job. We did another VBS later in the afternoon as a large group and the students really have gotten this thing down now. Lauren Wright had written out some questions and was handing out candy to kids who were listening well and answered the questions right.

Jon and I, Gary, Autumn, Dale, and James all went to the orphanage to deliver the tubs of supplies you had donated. We were also very blessed to get to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for their new property. Mary, the director, was so happy because she was really wanting us to see the beginnings of the work and was worried she wouldn't be able to get the building permit on time. The official who oversees the permit department has for some reason turned her down in the past when wanting to make improvements to the existing orphanage building. But she was happy to find that when she went to the office, the old official had just been let go - as of last week - and the new guy is very supportive and made sure she had the building permits in hand before she left. So we were able to go to the new property and pray over it with her and shovel the first couple of piles of dirt together. We know that the new property will allow them to take better care of the children and will be a huge blessing for them.

One other really cool thing that happened today at the orphanage was with a little boy they have there named Dennis. Dennis is significantly handicapped, about 8 years old, in a wheelchair most of the day and doesn't really ever seem to make much eye contact or respond in any way. Jon and I always make a point to go and visit with him. This year we gave him a giant teddy bear that they could strap in his wheelchair with him to help prop him upright. So today Jon and I went in to say goodbye to him and decided to pray over him. As Jon was praying, he suddenly started chattering away and when we looked up, we saw him smiling and looking straight at us - something he's never done before. Please pray for him to find a loving family that can meet all of his needs. If we could take him, we would, but to adopt a Kenyan child you have to actually live in Kenya for a full year...something we obviously cannot do at this point in our lives.

By the way, for those of you who asked, we THINK we calculated this correctly - but it looks like a new commercial grade washing machine would cost around $1500. This would greatly help them, but she will never directly ask for or expect anything. They are always just so grateful for any help and supplies that we can give.

We did hear from the Kajairdo group last night that everyone is doing well and that KJ is feeling better again. Camille and Mary apparently had an interesting day as their Land Rover only turned out to be able to get them HALF way up the mountain and then died on them coming down about HALF the way down. They didn't fully explain how they managed to get back ( they were having a meeting when we called and so we only talked briefly) but they were both laughing about it and said it was quite the adventure.

Also, they said that Salem was able to go preach in the open market and reported that two people accepted Christ. They were very excited as one of those two people is a very key leader in the Masaai tribe and we hope will be an encouragement for others to believe as well. Tomorrow, the whole group will be trekking up the mountain - about a 2 hour hike - and then will be having church with the people in the village up there and staying for the early afternoon before returning. Please pray for their safety as they go.

We will be splitting up here tomorrow to about 7 different churches. All of the men and all four of the boys here - Wes, Dale, James, and Kevin will all be doing the sermon in the church they visit. As you can imagine, these young guys are a bit nervous so please pray for them as well. Tomorrow afternoon, we will be going to the other side of town to a pretty river area for a hike. Tomorrow night we will be packing up to leave early Monday and meet up with the other group in Nairobi and then travel together to the Safari. The time has gone SO fast but has been a great trip.

Parents, your students are AWESOME and we have been just so impressed with how hard they have worked and how they have been so willing to step up into uncomfortable situations with evangelizing and sharing their testimonies and preaching. They have done a great job and we hope they have grown a lot from their time here. They have all had great attitudes and have been extremely respectful so you can all be very proud of them.

OH, I almost forgot to post this but I want to brag for just a second on Autumn Adams. She has just been FABULOUS this whole trip, as have all the other kids. But yesterday, we were all so amused at her presentation that she did with Katie at the Mumbuni Primary school. They came up with a whole storyline on the 10 plagues they wanted to present and Autumn came up with a visual aid for every one. They had Kool Aid to turn the water into "blood". She even went out and caught some grasshoppers AND some little frogs and brought them along in a water bottle for the kids to see. She is truly Bob Adams' kid for sure! :) Anyway, she did a great job and the students just went crazy over the whole thing so I just thought you'd get a kick out of that.

Okay, so tomorrow MAY be the last post you will see depending on whether or not we find any internet connection at the Safari Site. Some have them, others do not. Thank you for your prayers over the past few days. We have definitely felt them and it has been a GREAT trip!

Sincerely,

Jenni Millet

Day 8 - Friday June 18

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Hello

Today was another good day here in Machakos. Started with breakfast and devotion from Linda Halbert and then headed off to work on the chapel. A few of us stopped by the local preschool and dropped off a couple of buckets of school supplies and stuffed animals for the kids. This little preschool was the very first project we worked on here our first year at Scott. We refurbished this little building and gave them all sorts of teaching materials, which are all still hanging in the exact same spot where we put them several years ago. They were very appreciative.

We then headed down to work and a few of us went to hold babies at the orphanage again. Jon and I went into town to meet with the Principal of the School for Disabled and realized that the President, Vice President and Prime Minister of Kenya were all in downtown Machakos today. There were a ton of people around but we never saw them personally. We met back up for lunch and then went out to about 8 different schools. Today, I had Shannon and Meagan with me and we went to Machakos Academy Primary school. We did a puppet show for them to the Max Lucado story You Are Special and then did a few songs with them and shared the gospel message. They seemed to enjoy it. The other groups went to several different schools and I haven't heard all of the stories yet but I know everyone came back encouraged.

Right now we are all in the lunchroom and trying to play the movie The End of the Spear for them...having some technical difficulties so I came in here to do the blog while they work on it. It actually looks like the lights just went off in there so that is probably a good sign that they got it started. We have invited lots of local people to join us for the movie so there are quite a few in there.

We heard from Mary Ndungu late last night that the other team is doing well with the exception of KJ. Apparently, he is lactose intolerant, but chose to drink a big thing of milk anyway. Not sure why but his sister says he does it all the time. :) Hopefully, he is feeling better by now. I know that Salem was going to go and preach today in the open air market and I'm sure we'll hear some amazing stories about that. Also, Mary and Camille were taken to the top of the hill in a Land Rover to speak to the women. She also said that the group is extremely tired because the work on clearing the land has been very difficult. They have dull machetes to work with and apparently about 3 inches of shale rock on the top layer they are having to dig through to put post holes in for the building. I hope they are taking lots of pictures because according to Mary they hope to have put an entire building up by the time they leave. Not sure how that's going to happen but I'm sure they can do it! Sorry that we don't have up to date info. from them. We usually don't get to talk to Mary until later at night, which is after I do this blog. So I will have more updates from them by tomorrow.

Our group will be going at 10 am to do a groundbreaking ceremony with the Springs of Hope Orphanage to see them begin work on fencing their property so that they can begin putting in the pump to their well and then start the various buildings. We are very impressed with their director, Mary and she has given our students the highest compliments how they really seem to care for and interact with the babies and children there. On the way to the orphanage this morning, Kevin King kept saying "I don't really want to be with the babies because I'm not good with babies" But he quickly scooped up a little one who was crying and ended up holding that baby the ENTIRE time. I'm not sure how they got him to put the baby back down. :)

That's all for now because I love this movie and don't want to miss it! Goodnight from Machakos. To my sweet Marshall, Mikayla and Marie - We LOVE YOU tons and are missing you so much!

Sincerely,

Jenni Millet

Day 7: Thursday June 17

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First, let me make sure everyone knows that the group that left for Kajaido yesterday morning did arrive safely yesterday evening and has gotten all settled in there and all are doing well. I was going to post this information last night but Scott kept having power outages and I was unable to personally speak to Mary until after I had posted the last message. Thank you to you parents who passed along the information for us in the comments. Anyway, all is going well there. Today, they were asked to help clear and prepare land for a new church the Masaii people have started just last year. I'm sure Brian and the group will have a lot of information for you when we get back together. I heard that Mary and Camille were being driven up the mountain in a land rover to speak to a women's group while the rest of the group worked in the field. I'm sure our students were probably laughing when they heard the assignment since they just left here and thought they were through shoveling and moving rocks. Apparently, the Lord is trying to teach all of us something about basic hard work this year. :) Anyway, cell reception is sketchy where they are but we are able to contact Mary frequently and will be passing along word as we hear more from them.

Also, I just wanted to clarify that if your child did not go to Kajairdo, it does NOT mean that they are sick. We had already planned a set group of people to split off to Kajairdo to begin with. It only changed slightly when a couple of people were mildly ill and we just weren't sure how they would feel on a long bus ride and out in an area with less public facilities. Most of the group who stayed here with us was supposed to stay here with us anyway and were not held back because of any sickness. Actually, everyone here now is feeling well again and have been doing just fine today. We are grateful for only mild things this year.

Okay, I can't wait to tell you about today. As if it couldn't get any better than holding orphan babies, today was even more special for me as our group just got to go and visit at the Masaku School for Disabled. This is always a highlight of our time here. Most of you probably know that Jon and I have children with disabilities. So when we found this very special school right here in Machakos, we made it a priority to come back every year and help out as much as we can. Some very generous people donated money for us to have a well put in at this school several years ago and currently we are trying to finish raising enough money for them to buy a vehicle to use. Many times, they need to take children for medical care, and have no way to get them there. We have raised half the amount needed.

Today our group arrived at the disabled school around 1:30 and we enjoyed a fun time of singing and dancing with them. This year, we did a puppet show for them. Shae read the story by Max Lucado called The Crippled Lamb - one of my favorite stories in the world for obvious reasons. I've wanted to read that to them every year, but always break out sobbing in the middle of the story so am completely useless to actually participate in any way other than planning it and taking photos.

Shae was our storyteller while Paige, Wes, and Heather were our puppeteers and I have to give them major props because the story is long anyway, but we also had a translator repeating it so the kids would understand. Sooooo....our poor puppetteers had their arms in the air for a VERY long time as the story went on, especially Paige who was the main character of the lamb. :) It's a very sweet story about a lamb who is crippled and is sad because he is never able to run and play or go to the meadow with the other lambs. His best friend, Abigail the cow, always reminds him that God has a special place for those who feel left out. In the end, because the lamb is left behind in the stable, he is honored to be there when Joseph and Mary wander in and give birth to Jesus. He is called upon to keep the new baby king warm and Mary tells him that God uses everyone for a purpose. The children loved the story and then Jon told a little about our family and gave an awesome sermon about how God uses everyone, and often uses the disabled in very powerful ways to glorify Himself.

Jon and I were also to meet with the teachers outside and pray with them and thanked them for their service to the school and these children. Because of your generosity, we were able to present each of them with a small gift. They were deeply appreciative and the headmaster told us that was the first time any group had ever stopped to recognize the teachers or thank them for their service.

We then passed out candy and left them with clothes, beanie babies, supplies and various other gifts. OH - They have a little store there where their students have been learning skills to support themselves such as sewing, leatherwork, jewelry, and other crafts and they have some things available to buy. We all went in and bought all kinds of goodies. I am so excited because I found the cutest hand sewn pajamas for both of my girls and my little niece Grace, who is staying at our house with her parents and helping take care of our kids. The clothes are darling - all the buttons are sewn on all crooked but they are so special because of who made them. I just love buying fun stuff.

We are now back at Scott and our group is out with the Scott students at nearby homes practicing their evangelizing skills. I kept getting bumped off due to power outages last night but there were some very powerful stories yesterday of opportunities that our students had while out yesterday. Apparently, Autumn Adams is quite the little power packed evangelist and had a whole crowd fired up yesterday. Kevin King also found himself surrounded by almost 100 guys on a soccer field once he started preaching and my husband Jon ended up on the other side of the field with another crowd of boys. I'm sure there will be many more stories again today when they get back here in just a few minutes.

By the way, I skipped this morning. We worked again this morning on the chapel worksite here at Scott. Our group has done an amazing job on the Scott chapel project. They now have all the land leveled around the whole chapel and will be laying the foundation for the porch tomorrow. The Scott people have told us it would have taken them several months to get that far on the project so they are extremely grateful for our help. We have just a couple more days here so are hoping to get as far along as possible on that before we have to leave.

We will be eating dinner in just a few minutes and then having our evening meeting before bed. I decide it was easier to try and post this a little earlier so I am not up so late at night in here. I know tomorrow we will be working on the chapel again, sending another small group to the orphanage, doing another VBS at a local school and hosting a movie night for some local children. I believe the Kajairdo team will still be working on the field preparing the site for the church building all day again tomorrow and then doing what we call an "open air" market night where they are going to set up to play the Jesus Film in an open area and invite people to come and listen. Mary Ndungu was able to arrange to get the Jesus film in their own native language so they will understand it and we were also able to find 15 Bible in Masaii as well.

Okay, I'm going to attach some photos and end here for the day. Thank you for your messages. I will pass them along to the students for you. Some are coming and checking messages often, and others are not. There are only 3 working computers in the lab, and very little time to use them so if your child is not responding to you it is NOT because they don't love you! It is because they are being kind enough to give others a turn and not be too imposing on the computer lab, which is technically only for the Scott students.

Thank you for your continued prayers and hope all are well at home!

Sincerely,

Jenni Millet