A Walk in the Park. Haller Park that is! Haller Park is a nature reserve in Mombasa, just down the road from where the team is staying. It is the transformation of a quarry wasteland into an ecological paradise with lots of animals.
Today we had the opportunity to take the 8th grade classes from Bomani and Vipingo on a field trip to Haller Park. I don’t know about you, but taking 60 kids on a field trip doesn't sound like a walk in park, but we organized them in groups of 4-5, matched them up with a teacher or team member and it was a lot of fun.
Before we got started, we had pizza for lunch with the kids. Most of them have never had pizza before so that was such a fun adventure! We were assigned a guide who told us about the history of the park, the ecosystem and the animals as we walked to each exhibit. He began the tour by talking to the students about how they are the future so they need to learn to take care of the environment. One of our goals for these young people is that they will become the leaders of tomorrow. This trip has opened the door for many good conversations about who God designed us to be as light and salt in the world.
Other fun facts we learned along the way:
- If you are out in the bush and you get cobra venom in your eye, you can put urine on it and it will save you. If you are at home you can use beer or milk. The guide then told the children not to drink beer and not to go home saying he told them to drink beer. Hahaha!
- Crocodiles don’t have a tongue with taste buds, so all meat taste the same to them.
- Crocodiles leave their mouth open because it’s their way of cooling down their body.
- Antelope will bite you to death, but they won’t eat you because they don’t eat meat.
Yes, things here are not sugar coated at all. We were able to feed giraffe, observe hippos up close and watch them feed the alligators. It was a good day.
We have our community outreach events at Vipingo tomorrow and Bomani on Sunday. Please pray for good weather, safety for all the events and hearts open to hear the gospel as Pastor Rob speaks to thousands of people at the end of each event.
