It was hard to leave our friends in Kenya, but we had more business to attend to in South Africa. We arrived Wednesday the 15th, and have been in Pretoria for about a week and a half now.
We are staying at a guesthouse owned by a local South African in Pretoria North. It’s a five minute walk to CRM’s property, called Pangani, and much of our time is split between these two places. Evenings and mornings are pretty cold here this time of year, and the houses are not heated, so at night we each have to fill a rubber container covered in fleece with boiling water put them in our beds to keep them warm.
During our time here, we are working with two of EI’s established businesses. The first part of the week we helped a tiny bakery called Wholesome Bakery in the Soshanguve township. It is run by four people: Emily the manager, and three bakers, Esther, Danny, and Zakes. We took turns waking up at 5:30am to go help with the morning bread deliveries, which helped us get a feel for how the bakery operates and what we needed to work on.
We broke up into teams to address different areas of need in the bakery: Amanda and Katharina sorted out the accounting issues, Juli and Dwight refurbished the inventory and production systems, and Connor, Jason, and Ryan developed a marketing strategy. To develop our strategy, we printed out maps of several blocks in Soshanguve from Google Maps, then drove through the blocks looking for snack stands, called “tuck shops.” Whenever we found a tuck shop we plotted it on the map, then we would go talk to the owner about where they buy their bread and how much they pay for it. Our goal was to figure out what areas in the township are most in need of a free delivery service, because owners of tuck shops in blocks that are far away from major grocery stores often have to walk or take a taxi to a grocery store every morning to get bread. We visited over 30 tuck shops in four different blocks of Soshanguve, and found that many of the owners were interested in our offer. We printed flyers with our logo, price and contact info to leave with each tuck shop, and have already returned to deliver bread to several of the shops we visited.
Yesterday and today we were introduced to EI’s recently-approved auto rebuild business in Pretoria. It is owned and operated by a joyful, godly man named Christo and his wife Petro. We visited Christo’s shop yesterday to see the kind of work he does, and it was amazing to see how perfectly he can restore a car that was once completely demolished. Today we went with him to a place in downtown Pretoria where he buys the wrecked cars that he rebuilds and sells. He told us what to look for in a “good” wrecked car, as well as how the auctioning process worked.
That’s all for now, more to come soon!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Long Awaited First Update
So, I fail as a blogger….
Well, God answered my prayers, and I miraculously made the Virgin Atlantic flight to Nairobi. I was flying on low priority standby, and the flight was oversold by 40 seats, which, if you know anything about standby travel, is beyond hopeless. So, like I said, it was a miracle. Praise the Lord!
It was also amazing that I ended up on the same flight as one of the leaders of the internship, and that we both ended up right behind four of the other people in our group in the customs line at Nairobi Airport.
Speaking of our group, here's the team:
Katharina - Leader
Chris - Leader
Connor - Azusa Pacific University
Jason - Azusa Pacific University
Julie - Vanguard University
Amanda - Biola University
Me - Biola University
After customs, we found our driver and went to our hotel. It’s called Gracehouse Resort, it’s about 15 minutes southwest of downtown Nairobi. It is an amazing hotel, all the staff are so friendly and helpful, and there is a beautiful courtyard in the center filled with amazing flowers where you can relax and drink tea. The breakfast here is incredible, you can get a made-to-order omelet, pancakes, potatoes, sausage, beans, cereal, fresh juice, fruit, pastries, coffee, and tea… awesome.
The first day was mostly just resting and recovering from travel. We had a meeting with a bunch of business people in the afternoon where we met a lot of the people we’ll be working with during our time in Kenya. It was a pretty general meeting where we explained our goals for our two weeks in Nairobi, and we set up meetings with each of them for later in the week. After the meeting, the pastor of the church that our primary Kenyan contact attends came to the hotel with his wife to meet us and to loan us a guitar. They are amazing people, they walked us to the market to buy water, and gave us a short tour of the neighborhood. We ate dinner with them at the hotel, then called it a day.
Thursday was mostly another recovery day. One of the two remaining group members, Connor, arrived in the morning, and we had our first team meeting to discuss our plans and goals for the following week. We walked around the neighborhood a bit to get a feel for where things are. Our last team member, Dwight, had two flights cancelled, and got stuck in Dubai for over 30 hours.
Friday was fun. We had a meeting with a man named Wanjau in the morning. He is a manager for Navigators, which is an organization that disciples Christian business leaders and helps Christians start businesses. We asked him a lot of general questions about what the business climate is like in Kenya, and what it’s like for Christians to do business here. I learned a lot about the role of business in the mission of the Church last year in my Business as Missions class, but it was so encouraging to meet someone who is really doing it. He was such a kind and humble guy, it was really a blessing to meet him. After the meeting we got to tour around Nairobi in what they call a Matatu. It’s basically an old minibus that they use for safaris. The roof opened up, so we could stand up and see all around us. It was radical.
On Saturday we went to a place called Bomas of Kenya. It’s a cultural center where they have replicas of the traditional huts of all the different Kenyan tribes. They even have a replica of a village of the tribe that Barrack Obama is from, which is where we filmed a mock episode of MTV Cribs. They also have a huge auditorium where they perform all the traditional songs and dances of the Kenyan tribes, it was really cool to watch.
Well, I’m still not caught up, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Bye!
Well, God answered my prayers, and I miraculously made the Virgin Atlantic flight to Nairobi. I was flying on low priority standby, and the flight was oversold by 40 seats, which, if you know anything about standby travel, is beyond hopeless. So, like I said, it was a miracle. Praise the Lord!
It was also amazing that I ended up on the same flight as one of the leaders of the internship, and that we both ended up right behind four of the other people in our group in the customs line at Nairobi Airport.
Speaking of our group, here's the team:
Katharina - Leader
Chris - Leader
Connor - Azusa Pacific University
Jason - Azusa Pacific University
Julie - Vanguard University
Amanda - Biola University
Me - Biola University
After customs, we found our driver and went to our hotel. It’s called Gracehouse Resort, it’s about 15 minutes southwest of downtown Nairobi. It is an amazing hotel, all the staff are so friendly and helpful, and there is a beautiful courtyard in the center filled with amazing flowers where you can relax and drink tea. The breakfast here is incredible, you can get a made-to-order omelet, pancakes, potatoes, sausage, beans, cereal, fresh juice, fruit, pastries, coffee, and tea… awesome.
The first day was mostly just resting and recovering from travel. We had a meeting with a bunch of business people in the afternoon where we met a lot of the people we’ll be working with during our time in Kenya. It was a pretty general meeting where we explained our goals for our two weeks in Nairobi, and we set up meetings with each of them for later in the week. After the meeting, the pastor of the church that our primary Kenyan contact attends came to the hotel with his wife to meet us and to loan us a guitar. They are amazing people, they walked us to the market to buy water, and gave us a short tour of the neighborhood. We ate dinner with them at the hotel, then called it a day.
Thursday was mostly another recovery day. One of the two remaining group members, Connor, arrived in the morning, and we had our first team meeting to discuss our plans and goals for the following week. We walked around the neighborhood a bit to get a feel for where things are. Our last team member, Dwight, had two flights cancelled, and got stuck in Dubai for over 30 hours.
Friday was fun. We had a meeting with a man named Wanjau in the morning. He is a manager for Navigators, which is an organization that disciples Christian business leaders and helps Christians start businesses. We asked him a lot of general questions about what the business climate is like in Kenya, and what it’s like for Christians to do business here. I learned a lot about the role of business in the mission of the Church last year in my Business as Missions class, but it was so encouraging to meet someone who is really doing it. He was such a kind and humble guy, it was really a blessing to meet him. After the meeting we got to tour around Nairobi in what they call a Matatu. It’s basically an old minibus that they use for safaris. The roof opened up, so we could stand up and see all around us. It was radical.
On Saturday we went to a place called Bomas of Kenya. It’s a cultural center where they have replicas of the traditional huts of all the different Kenyan tribes. They even have a replica of a village of the tribe that Barrack Obama is from, which is where we filmed a mock episode of MTV Cribs. They also have a huge auditorium where they perform all the traditional songs and dances of the Kenyan tribes, it was really cool to watch.
Well, I’m still not caught up, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Bye!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Beginning...
Right now I'm in London Heathrow Airport, praying that I get a seat on the Virgin Atlantic flight to Nairobi in two hours.
This summer I have been blessed with the opportunity to participate in an internship with a company called Enterprise International in Kenya and South Africa. I am going with a team of five other interns, plus two EI staff members, and we will be doing research and development for small businesses in these two countries. But the most exciting part is our purpose: we are seeking to create and support successful businesses that will provide sustainable funding for local missionaries and ministries. Missionaries have enough trouble raising support in America where the poverty line starts at an annual income of $22,000. But try raising support in a country where the average annual income is only $15,000. This is where EI specializes. EI employs experienced business professionals with a passion for Christ who know how to identify solid business opportunities and pursue them. I had never heard of a company like this before I applied for this internship, and I am so excited to see what God will do during our time in Africa over the next month. Stay tuned!!
This summer I have been blessed with the opportunity to participate in an internship with a company called Enterprise International in Kenya and South Africa. I am going with a team of five other interns, plus two EI staff members, and we will be doing research and development for small businesses in these two countries. But the most exciting part is our purpose: we are seeking to create and support successful businesses that will provide sustainable funding for local missionaries and ministries. Missionaries have enough trouble raising support in America where the poverty line starts at an annual income of $22,000. But try raising support in a country where the average annual income is only $15,000. This is where EI specializes. EI employs experienced business professionals with a passion for Christ who know how to identify solid business opportunities and pursue them. I had never heard of a company like this before I applied for this internship, and I am so excited to see what God will do during our time in Africa over the next month. Stay tuned!!
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