saying no

We have nearly finished the mural now, just touch ups left. The head teacher asked if we could now paint the outside of the building. Um...no way! this has been a struggle enough trying to reach up so high, and i must learn to say no sometimes. i've been reading max lucado's book "in the eye of the storm" and he talks one chapter about saying no. that sometimes there are perfectly good requests that you have to turn down for the sake of balancing the rest of your life. it's funny that i've already gotten myself into over committments here. imagine that in the slow world of africa! i'm realizing that i need to focus in more on a few things that i'm good at instead of trying to do everything. there's been some things that i haven't been able to go to here that i wanted to, but i've seen that these things carry on just fine without me. i know this is so obvious, but i definitely have a bad habit of revolving things around myself instead of around God.

Matt is on his way home tomorrow. I can't believe how super fast this month flew by. I think b/c I have been the busiest this month and have been more focused on doing things that are really up my alley.
God has really taught me the power of prayer in the last few weeks. I'll have many more stories to explain when I come home but I can see the evidence of how God is watching over me.

all the class 8 kids are getting ready for their final exam in 2 weeks. it's crazy how they pour themselves over old exams studying. i'm thinking this is even worse than ISTEP. parents give their kids success cards for good luck on the exam...isn't that crazy? at the school i was at this morning they're having a prayer meeting one afternoon next week to pray for all the kids and the exams. prayer is good yes, but i fear that too much emphasis is placed on this one test. so at this school this morning, this is the place with the mean head teacher, we talked about the wisemen. and for the last few times all of the muslim kids have been staying in class and seem interested. i have no expectations for them becoming christians, but i hope that seeds are being planted. right now they're only 3rd graders, so i'm sure most of their beliefs are formed by what they hear from parents. but just opening people to another perspective is good, think.

i tried french toast here last week...it was deep fried, yes deep fried! it tasted like a funnel cake without sugar. they deep fry everything here, but then again in america they deep fry twinkies, which is even worse.

funny....there's a musical starting next week in nairobi. it's called "Obama, the musical." i cut out the ad b/c it made me laugh. oh, and the government is making places or discussing the possibility of enlarging the runway in one city in case obama is elected and air force one needs to land there! i guess they think obama is going to come rushing right over or something...as if there aren't other priorities at home and the rest of the world.

millions of peaches, peaches for me

Since we've been reading "James and the Giant Peach", I brought in peaches (you can find them canned here) for the kids at the juvenile and blue house to try. It's funny watching them eat them b/c they're almost afraid to taste them at first. But they all liked them, and I think they enjoyed knowing they were tasting something American. We had them make up a rap/song about the peaches using as many adjectives as possible. it worked really well on monday, but when we did it today it was rather blah b/c they spent so much time laughing at each other and being embarrassed. i'm beginning to remember why i always struggled teaching junior high.

i forgot to mention that when i first saw the picture of baby joy i commented that "she looks a little muzungu" b/c her skin is very light. victor started cracking up and then informed me that that's how all african children start out at first. amie tells me you have to look at their ears to know how their skin will finally look in a few weeks. wow, i definitely needed to be educated. clearly i'm very ignorant about some things.

when i went to church on sunday, they had a really interesting part of the service where they prayed for all the nations of the earth. they passed out lots and lots of big flags of various countries that we held as we sang and we were supposed to pray specifically for that country. we were all a bit perplexed about what country we had...we never could decide if it was rwanda or cameroon, or even something else. clearly, another thing i need to educate myself about. in any case, it was a great picture of unity and made me think about how wonderful it will be to meet so many people from all over the world when i get to heaven.

and i didn't mention that wonderful tara, upon returning from uganda, brought me cookies, yes real cookies like snickerdoodles and peanut butter ones, that she made...they had an oven there! and she brought me skittles her friend brought over from america. so yeah, i've been feeling very american with the food this week. i spent a long time talking with her about the situation at blue house last night. i ran into 2 americans who are with a u.s. organization that sponsors blue house. so i shared with them some of the problems taking place there right now. they said, they'd had this problem before and that they would look into it. they also spoke with the teachers, and i noticed a big change today. amazingly, lots of the teachers seemed to be teaching. so i think they're hoping that this organization is going to help them if they do their job. i'm hoping too. tara is meeting with an organization back home who wants to sponsor the blue house and i think they want her to help on the ground. but i think she is reluctant to get involved with this mess. that's the problem people don't understand here...that once there's corruption and broken trust, americans are hesitant to get involved again. so continue to pray for this situation, that problems would be revealed, and corruption identified. we need to fix these problems so that kids can be fed, educated, and loved.

i felt like we finally had a break through with the class 8 kids at blue house today. matt and i decided to take a new approach to our english lessons. i know that they're actually not going to learn much english in the short time we're with them. so instead, i'm hoping they learn respect and to become people of God. so we had them read a Bible story, which was good practice reading. much of their writing skills are bad b/c the grammar that they speak with is atrocious. i've never seen them listening so intently. we talked about zaccheus and stealing. and i really tried to hammer home the point that theft is bad and doesn't solve problems and makes muzungus not want to help them. then we made books from the stories they wrote about themselves. they each got a copy and got to color them. they seemed to very much enjoy reading what everyone else wrote.

I Love Kenya

Today has been a sunny beautiful day here, almost 80 degrees I think, which is a huge improvement from the constant rain everyday last week. When we were at the juvenile painting last week, we couldn't hardly hear the person next to us talking b/c the rain was beating so loudly on the tin roof "Rain falls, angry on the tin roof"...is that the Edwin McCain song? In any case, I'm in a sun shiny mood too. I just started realizing in the last few days how attached I'm becoming to Kenya. I know it was an adjustment at first to be away from everything and everyone familiar, running water, an oven, etc. But there's something so satisfying about a simplistic life b/c it makes you really focus on the people around you. I'm becoming so connected with these kids and friends that I've met here. Even though things can get me down like the slowness of things, the unorganization, the constant sickness that pops up, etc. I remind myself of why I'm here. So, it hit me that it's going to be wierd/hard to leave. It's strange b/c I feel so torn between my two lives. I mean, I miss all of you at home so much, and it can be really difficult when I have no American to process things with. But I know I will miss people here too. I think this really hit me on Saturday. We were all sitting in the living room with the new baby, Joy. There was a huge feast of food--samosa, pilau, fruit, ice cream, soda, etc. Then Amie's sisters got up, and they're late 30s i'd guess...anyway, they started singing/doing this skit of songs from various countries--The Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, U.S., etc. and it was so hilarious. Helen, the main lady, would talk in these funny voices imitating different people and they were dancing around. That's really the hardest I've laughed maybe since playing "Wise or Otherwise" with the Sieberts. When they were just doing this, I thought, this isn't something I'll see in the U.S. and i'm really going to miss it. Now don't for a minute think I don't miss you. I'm soooo excited that my mom is coming over Christmas, and it will be so great for someone else to share this experience with me. wow, i'm all sappy now!

tara came back from uganda on saturday, and she'll be around the next few weeks. i was so suprised to see her sitting in the living room when i came back on saturday. i didn't realize how much i missed having an american girl around. she sounds very interested in going to BOLM, the children's home. and now everyone else is getting excited about it too. popo loves it and rodgers, another guy on the team, went on friday and said it was fantastic. popo was telling me that he really wants this to carry on after i leave. i so hope it can. i really need to work on empowering people as much as possible to lead more and continue with things that i've been doing or i fear, and popo fears, it could all fall apart when i leave. so pray with me for these people here for continuing the work. also for our organization, that they would grow and have the resources to support these various programs.

monday we nearly finished painting the mural. i think thursday will be the last day. that means four days total for working on it. that is truly, truly amazing as you all know that it took ages at mcs. we rigged up this system for reaching the top of the wall. we stacked two tables on top of each other and a chair on top of that. i wasn't sure if it would be safe but it was actually very sturdy. so that combined with taping a paint brush to a stick will work i think. we also took pictures of the kids and had them make cardboard decorated frames. they were obsessed. it's probably the only photo they have of themselves. i think i also got sad b/c i realized that the class 8 kids are leaving on nov. 15ish, which is so soon. i really love some of them, and i'll never see them again. you hope that they've changed and will be all right. i was talking to joseph, one of the boys, and he hasn't seen his family or talked to them in 2 years. he's so excited and says he knows they'll cry when they see him. i just wonder if these parents will welcome them with open arms or not. you know the story of the prodigal son in the Bible--this is my prayer for those kids. that they will be welcomed home like the dad welcomes home the son who spent all of his inheritance. please pray for them as they transition back into society. that's a lot of changes.

stolen goods, painted walls, new baby

no, i didn't fall off the face of the earth, but it's been a somewhat crazy week. let's see, popo got mugged and had his phone taken, then someone stole his laundry right off the line (so lame), victor had his wallet stolen getting onto the matatu yesterday. good times. but in happy news, baby Joy has arrived. she's coming home today and we're having a party with lots of family this afternoon. baraka has been acting crazy all week; i think he knows something is up. plus he's almost two so that's part of it as well.

i thought lilian's baby was also scared of me b/c i'm white. she kept crying everytime she saw me today. but i think it was popo who started it b/c he gets really loud and acts all goofy and basically tries to scare her. it's really funny but today she didn't like it. and lilian kept saying, no it's not you, she's not afraid of muzungus, it's popo.

the mural is nearly finished at the juvenile. except that all the parts left are way, way up high. what started as a project for just part of the wall has now expanded to the entire thing, and i have no clue how to reach the top. we were standing on chairs on top of tables and that's not even close. the only ladder they have there is super sketch, so hmmm. i'm thinking of getting a paint roller and attaching it to a stick. you get creative here? the kids were freaking me out though b/c they were hanging off of doors reaching way high and one kid tried to stack another chair on top of the chair on the table. until i started frantically waving my hands yelling no, no. and then when we finished i discovered that several of them had taken paint and started painting the chairs. one was outside covered in green. most had soccer teams like manchester united painted all over them. so that was fun scrubbing it offf. the thing is that no one probably would even care b/c the furniture has graffiti all over it anyway. and the chairs are metal, painted blue and all the paint is flaking off. and no teachers are around half the time so it could be weeks before they notice anyway.

A Grand Entrance

Let's see, I had three cups of chai today before 3 in the afternoon, so I'd say i'm full of caffeine and milk now. Nereah, the cook at Sarah Junior, had me over to her house this afternoon for tea. people think it's a big honor for a muzungu to be in the house, so of course a neighbor woman stopped by too. nereah lives with her sister, who has 2 kids. the youngest, esther is almost 2. she kept crying every time she looked at me b/c she's not used to seeing a white person. it was pretty funny. we started using all of the curriculum stuff that ashley magically acquired from a stanger (thanks sis) and it was a success. i now have the ABC rap song memorized and even the teachers were having fun with it. and i made more playdough for the little yellow and little blue book. the kids were pretty fascinated watching the playdough turn green.

on my way back into town, i first thought that the matatu was going to break down. then everyone gets out and i was about to follow when suddenly, the driver starts moving again. i assumed it was b/c the police were standing up at the corner and you can get in trouble for letting people out on the side of the road. but that wasn't it. and our driver starts driving like crazy around this round about, basically making a U turn, which also confused me. then i heard all these sirens and the police are directing traffic and suddenly the matatu stops and then i could get out. but no one was crossing the road and all these security people are standing everywhere with their guns. so i got nervous at first. until i asked the guy next to me what was going on, and he says, the president is coming. i should have known. this has happened several times, i've just always been stuck in the stupid jam of traffic. it's so funny b/c they block off the road and tons of government cars come racing through. everyone is in a mercedes. but it must be obvious which car the president is in b/c the guy next to me knew. so it seems that stopping all this traffic makes everything less secure. anyway, it is quite the grand entrance.

yesterday was a holiday so matt and i went bowling with victor and jane. this was fun for them b/c they've never gone before. and the bowling place is super posh filled with lots of rich people. i feel a bit wierd in those situations...guilty i guess. but i'm also realizing that i need to do some fun things like this b/c otherwise i start feeling absolutely drained. we also taught them to play pool. and victor, despite being a first timer, was pretty good and almost beat me (not that that's anything to brag about.)

amie left for the hospital today to have the baby tomorrow. so as of sunday the house will be a lot louder.

friday we were back at BOLM hanging with the kids. they come running up and are more excited than any other kids we see i think. and they always ask, when are you coming back? matt taught them to play rounders, the british version of baseball, and it was a big hit.

saturday, we were at Blue house teaching about laying down our life for others as Christ did (1 John 3:16). then we had them make hawaiian leis. i'm not sure how well they understood this play on words, but they definitely had fun. and they were so well behaved. we kept emphasizing that submission to others means you have good manners, are patient, kind, etc. and so for the first time, no one was hovering around me for materials and supplies or in my face about anything. it was great. maybe we're making progress? in the afternoon, ruth and i taught the ICY class about Esther. this is the class of people that are around my age, so it is more serious and a bit intimidating. i never feel quite qualified to be teaching people about an entire book of the Bible. but it was great b/c it turned into more of a discussion and everyone was contributing, so i learned as much as they did. by the way, pretty sweet book...really makes you think about timing in your life and how God works everything together for reasons.

and speaking of books, i highly recommend this book called "Speaking My Mind" by Tony Campolo...especially my Hope friends, Ash, Kristen. good book about hot topic issues in christianity. really spoke to me.

the election

i got up at 4 a.m. today to watch the live debate with obama and mccain. i wanted to be informed. other kenyans in the house also got up to watch the tail end of it. peter woke up for the last debate, and that made me think, you know he's not even american but he cares so much. how much more should i care since it's my country? we were discussing how people will react here if obama loses. peter said people might not treat me very nicely for a while b/c they would assume i was voting for mccain. even though neither of the candidates have spectacular views on education, i really like what obama said about parents having to take some of the responsibility. and even if america isn't churning out the most intelligent kids in the world (as was mentioned in the debate), i have seen from my experience here that american education is very good. we are creating creative learners who can think outside the box. and ultimately, that could be what makes them able to do great things down the road. i think a lot of the problems with kenyan education is that it limits kids from being creative. most of what they're taught is a regurgitation of answers. they have no vision about other jobs and ideas besides what is already there, which massively hurts their idea. this isn't true of everyone of course, but definitely for many people. others, like sam are visionaries. did i mention how we went to this fair and a girl was selling a burner that runs on sugarcane ethanol. he was telling her that she should be cooking food to market her product. she didn't understand. he kept saying, "can you get eggs and cook them." i think she thought he wanted to eat eggs or something. but the truth was, we didn't really know if her product worked b/c she wasn't showing us. sam is creative and knows how to help business people become profitable. by the way, he was educated in malawi...does that make a difference?

with part of the money you all raised, i'm using it to sponsor Popo going to college. i went with him today to pay the first semester (by the way, tuition is majorly cheap here). i've never seen anyone so excited about a receipt before. he's been waiting to tell his mom and brother until he had a receipt. he truly has a gift of leading. i've seen his passion for christ, and i think helping him to get an education will allow him to be used even more for God.

did i mention that amie is having her baby next wednesday? i'm excited, but also a little nervous about living with a new baby. they told me that baraka was a cholic baby :)

the mural has begun

let's see...we started painting the mural. did i mention that last time? it went pretty well. i let matt sort of take charge with having kids paint, which is good b/c he was able to do it in a very structured way that i probably couldn't. with me at mt. carmel, i just let the kids go, and consequently the floor was often full of paint. oscar came and helped too. which was really good b/c he drew this awesome giraffe that he then had the kids start painting. one corner got a little crazy b/c the kids started polka dotting everything, like the flower petals and the grass. no worries, though. i think we can touch it up with some shading.

i really enjoyed teaching english again with class 7 and 8 at blue house. they are so excited about the pen pal letters. so let's try to be prompt about it, pretty please :) mostly, i enjoyed simply sitting around and chatting to them. they need to know that someone loves them. things continue to be bad there with the salary situation. and therefore, many of the class 8 kids don't come to school or leave in the middle of us teaching. there's not too much i can do except reward those for staying. and just try to do the best we can with who stays. they only have a few weeks before taking their exams. we're trying to put together a class book for them, where they write stories about themselves, and maybe some pictures or something too.

my posh experience

On Friday, I discovered a very posh side of Nairobi. Matt's girlfriend has family friends here in Nairobi so we went to visit them. The lady's name is Maria and her husband Patrick works for the UN. He was away in Sudan. They have a super nice house with all these beautiful flower gardens in the complex and a pool; i really felt like i was in the states. i felt so pampered being able to watch satellite. i even caught some of the phillies game :) they had other friends there who live in the congo. maria wants us to come back and stay lots more; she is very hospitable. it was quite interesting talking to her about america too b/c she doesn't have a very good opinion of it. and understandably so probably. but perhaps i was able to shed a bit of positive light on us. in some ways i felt almost guilty being there b/c it's such a contrast to the rest of life here. it made me know it will be very hard adjusting to our comfortable life at home.

saturday we had a sports day with the kids at the juvenile. i played sack races and other relays with them. they have no concept of how to come back and sit in a line, but i think they had fun anyway. i taught them the red hot cheer (thanks ash) and they seemed to think that was really fun.

obama book scandal

Have you heard about Corsi? The anti-Obama man who just got deported from Kenya yesterday for trying to promote his book that bashes Obama. i'm a bit confused as to why you would launch that sort of book here b/c i haven't met anyone who dislikes obama. but i suppose it's because much of the book was trying to link obama with various election scandals/government officials, etc. anyway, just wondering what the gossip was about this at home.

we finished all our penpal letters today at blue house. matt and i are really trying to work with them on being respectful. b/c often they yank pencils out of others hands and shout out, talk over you etc. i'm wondering if some of the ruby payne research carries over to other countries. for example--you know how fighting is so common with children of poverty b/c they must learn to defend themselves? well i see this all the time with the preschoolers here and no one does anything about it. very interesting. but back to blue house...so the teachers at this school aren't getting paid. there could be this underlying corruption scandal with someone taking money. i don't know. it's really bad though b/c they don't even have money to buy food. victor and i were discussing it b/c on one hand we want to buy them rice or something. but i also told victor, it's fine to do that, but really we need to fix the problem or it will only carry on and get worse. currently, the teachers are protesting by basically not working most of the time. often the kids are in the classroom and the teachers are outside talking or in the office sitting. and really i can't blame them if they aren't getting paid. i mean at home we would strike right? so i realize that they're using me when i come there to teach b/c it also is an opportunity for the teachers to not work. but i've decided i don't care if i am being used b/c the kids are the ones being cheated. so despite whatever is going on, i'm there for them. please pray about this situation. you never know who to believe or trust.

oh, and i got a call from lisa walters yesterday! so wonderful to hear a familiar voice.

Ambitious Ideas

Today was a wonderful day. Matt is quite the prayer warrior, so I really think that is having a huge impact on my day. We've been praying together a lot about the day ahead and even as we walk up to the juvenile home. It's been a bit difficult b/c he is super homesick and missing his girlfriend really bad. But I think he's working through some of that and hopefully can adjust soon. I mean it's only a month...in any case, we spent today writing the pen pal letters with the kids. i'm so excited to send them to you guys. the english is not perfect at all but they seemed so excited about it. lots of them were drawing kenyan flags on the letter. they also taught me a bit about playing soccer today. it was quite funny, especially b/c i was running around in a skirt.

so matt has inspired me to become ambitious. i had thought about doing a mural at this school but i didn't want to jump into it. i know from doing this at MCS that it is a huge undertaking but also very rewarding. but matt brought it up as an idea. and we asked for permission today. so now we have to find paint and brushes, hopefully we won't have to look forever here. and really anything will look better than the plain white walls that currently exist. we taped up all sorts of their collages and posters today in some of the classrooms and it looks better already. please pray for this idea. i know it's going to be a little crazy. i don't think matt has any idea what we're getting into and probably not me either. in any case, we're just diving in and trying our best.

oscar, another spanish volunteer there maybe in his 40's?, seems to have other great ideas about things to do with the kids. he wants to take the 8th graders on some sort of bus trip outing when they finish their year end exam in november. so i think a lot of people are trying to really love on them. oh, and oscar is a painter...so God is already helping us out here. he lived in prague for a while before coming here. he had some really good job, so he was able to simply quit and travel with friends for a while. we passed out the socks that i bought for them today. one of the class 8 kids got up and made a speech about being so grateful. and then he said may God bless you for what you have done.

Baby Stories

i think i forgot to tell you this crazy stories about women and their children. One day we were on the way to juvenile and all the people were getting into the matatu. some lady had a baby and then the matatu conductor asked me if i was holding the baby. i just gave him this funny look and said no. i didn't think much of it until that afternoon. dominic told me that under no circumstance should i ever hold anyone's child on a matatu. b/c sometimes women give you their child and then get out and never come back. i guess they can't take care of the baby and don't know what to do. and sometimes, dominic says, the child can even be dead b/c they don't have money to bury it. so you could be left standing with a corpse. so crazy and sad! there's always little kids in kibera that are carrying babies on their back (tied on with fabric) and i always wonder where the parents are. i thought this was the case with this girl i saw yesterday b/c she had something wrapped in a blanket on her back, but then i found out it was a stuffed animal.

we went back to BOLM, the children's home yesterday. these children are so precious. we played games with them and had them color paper plates and cut them into spiraling mobiles. they were running around letting the wind twirl and spin them. they are much better behaved than a lot of the kids i see and so polite and good at sharing. it took ages to get there and 2 hours to get back b/c of traffic. i think we just absolutely wiped matt out. but despite that it's so far away, i want to go back.

i've had my first experience of a matatu dying and having to be pushed and we had another little fender bender with a car. the tally is up to 4 now. maybe by the end, i'll be at at least 10.

A Blessed Day

I am so happy right now. We just had another MST come. His name is Matt, from England. I've been praying that we would get along well, and I think it's going to work out just fine. He seems very flexible and excited to be here. And the best part is that he carried my 30 lb. package from home all the way here. Oh, and it has been glorious opening it up and seeing all this stuff from home--skyline, bubblegum, books, beads, lots of goodies. I went to the airport to pick Matt up, and we were looking for someone carrying a big Xerox box, but actually he just fit it inside his suitcase.

The other great thing about today was visiting this home for kids from the streets. it's called BOLM, bowels of love ministry...yes, i know the bowels part is odd. does this have another meaning besides what i'm thinking? in any case, this woman felt God calling her to start this home for kids from the streets, many who were involved with drugs and other bad stuff. so it's a school/home. there's not a lot of funding right now, so the facility isn't spectacular. but i can tell she really has a heart for what she's doing. they sang for us and recited poems, and i felt so blessed by them. more so even than most of the kids from kibera. you can tell that God is really changing their lives. we sang with them too, and they were all cracking up at me dancing around. today was a muslim holiday but also country wide holiday to celebrate the end of ramadan, so we had free time to go since everyone was out of school. i'm hoping to go back to this place on friday and do some art with them. i was truly touched. and to think i was so impatient about getting there b/c it is so far away and seriously took us over 3 hours between waiting for people to come meet us and waiting for matatus. but it was worth it. and i think next time we can get there much faster now that we know what's going on.

some other things:
the somali pirate thing has turned into this scandal b/c the u.s government is saying that kenya was sending the weapons on the boat to sudan, and not mombasa as kenya says. it is illegal to send weapons to sudan b/c of all the bad stuff going on there.

victor and i got our matatu conductor arrested the other day. there were too many people in the matatu--victor and i got on last and i was in the back. victor was sitting by the conductor, the person by the door who collects the money. it's really their fault that they overfill the matatu. but anyway, the police randomly decided to stop us. and he pulled out the conductor guy and was pushing him around and took him off to arrest him, i think. maybe there was a bribe instead?

the kids at church in kibera on sunday sang this song in swahili. the words translated to, "if the devil calls, tell him wrong number." i thought this was funny.

a few weeks ago, obama's grandmother in siaya was robbed at her house. and b/c of that, they set up all these tents for police men to live surrounding her house as security. seemed really funny b/c the woman is definitely not rich. she could have been robbed just b/c. it probably has little to do with being related to obama.

the kids in kibera think americans eat snake.

i ate pizza yesterday. it was fabulous. most people don't like cheese here.

i broke up a fight at the juvenile on monday. one kid had his fists ready to punch the other. but i ran over and pulled him away. where did this boldness come from? i always feared breaking up any fight at the high school.