Youth visit to Kenya

This summer a group of young people, led by Hannah Cooper, Coggeshall's Youth Worker, spent a life-changing time in Kenya, helping at an orphanage, visiting schools and experiencing the African church and worship. A few photos and a 'blog' are below:

On July 13th we left Heathrow, landing at Nairobi nine hours later.

We journeyed to Utugi, via a football factory, where we purchased 15 footballs. At Utugi we were greeted by Rev. Phyllis, who is the manager of the centre for street children. While in Utugi, we cleared the site for the football pitch, which included digging out and moving boulders, levelling the ground, digging holes for, and erecting the goalposts. We then measured out the pitch using Daniel Page’s feet (thereafter known as Pageyfeet) and then chalked out the lines. We had a football match after Sunday worship. It was an unusual game as there were 24 people on each side, but it was great fun. We were very sad to leave Utugi after 5 days, but looked forward to the next part of our trip.

“The children were so grateful and they got excited when we handed out football shirts.” “For me, it really strengthened my faith in the Lord and gave me a lesson. The people there had so much less than us and they were still happy with what they had.” - Miranda Elliot

We visited a secondary school at Embu, where we were amazed by the amount of produce grown by the staff and pupils. We tasted sugar cane, many of us for the first time. We then went on safari for 3 days, which was a welcome break, and a bit of time to relax and enjoy the wild life. On return, on the Thursday evening, we were invited to the home of Cannon Moses, the Dean of the Theological College. We were surprised at how humble his home was, but we were served with the most amazing food. On Friday we went to St. Stephen’s Children’s Centre, a project similar to Utugi, but more established as it has been open 10 years longer. At this point we left Polly (a member of Great Baddow Church) at the project as she is working there for 6 months as part of her gap year. On Saturday we travelled back to Nairobi, visiting the Catholic Cathedral, and attending Sunday morning worship at the Anglican Cathedral (youth venue) before flying home on Monday.

We would all like to say a big THANK YOU to those who helped raise the money for this trip of a lifetime. Hannah Cooper.