Saturday, September 10, 2011

Retreat in the Rain Forest

Thursday morning, we packed up the family and headed about 1.5 hours north into the mountains to the Kakamega Rain Forest for a few days of of fellowship and ministry planning at Rondo Retreat Center with the rest of Agape's missionaries.  It was an awesome time of fellowship in one of the most beautiful areas we have ever seen!  One thing that really surprised us . . . the rain forest is cold!  Each of the houses had fireplaces, and we ended up having to use ours the second night we were there.  We had a great time, but are really glad to be back home in Kisumu!  Here are a few photos from our trip:


A huge tree (at the least what's left of it) on the grounds at Rondo.

The house where our family stayed at Rondo.  Later, a huge colobus monkey ran right past where I'm standing.


Gideon, Connor, and Sutton playing chess.  Gideon came to Agape with his grandparents to spend 3 months in Kenya with Agape.


Tammy roughing it while reading an article on poisonous snakes in Kenya.


A mountain lion crawling on our porch.


Lyla, one of the few pictures of her standing still.


One of the houses at Rondo.


Flowers at Rondo.


Lunch at Rondo


Walking back from lunch . . . Seth being goofy, as usual.


More flowers


All of the kids hiking on one of the many trails at Rondo.


Night Shade flower . . . a very poisonous flower in the rain forest.  I told the kids that their arm would fall off if they touched it (a slight exaggeration).


It's us!


Colobus monkeys warming up in the sun after a cold, wet evening at Rondo.


We went on a 3-hour hike into the rain forest up to a small mountain that has an old mine shaft that they call the "Bat Cave."  The view behind us is just half-way up the mountain at the mouth of the cave, but you can see the canopy of the rain forest below us.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died so I wasn't able to get a photo at the top of the mountain, but it was absolutely beautiful!!!


If this is the Bat Cave, then Connor must be the Joker!  We made it to the end of the tunnel (with our guide, Timothy), but Seth got pretty scared because all of the bats were swooping past our heads!


If you look closely, you can see a bat in the middle of the picture, trying to hide from our flashlights.


The whole Agape missionary crew!

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