Count your blessings

there are days and moments where i wonder if i can take anymore. i spent hours waiting around for people and events to start on saturday. my body hurt. i kept thinking about how i could be in bed sleeping. then i take in the situation (knowing that kids are glad i'm there), take a look around, and realize that i have no reason to be complaining. how can i be upset when i'm so blessed? God has provided so much for me and i often fail to acknowledge it. dottie really put it in perspective for me today when she was talking about how she enjoys cooking but so many times she can't make the things she wants b/c they're too expensive. she was explaining how it the price of tomatoes had risen to 5 shillings. that's less than 10 cents! that really broke my heart. i took her, emma, and their friend, Peter to eat ethiopian food. (by the way, please we need to find an ethopian food in cincinnati b/c it is so amazing.) we walked past a vendor selling all sorts of odds and ends, one of them being a laundry basket. she started talking about how she really wants one of these and keeps telling herself that she will save up and buy one. i've never heard anyone talk about wanting a laundry basket. she was telling me about how she got fired from her job teaching b/c she was very vocal about some of the problems with the school. i think she was hardly being paid anyway, and i'm sure whatever she was speaking about was probably something that needed to be voiced. but she has interviewed for another job which would start when the new term begins in january and this sounds promising. she was telling me about how it could interfere with having surgery on her wrist. she broke her wrist some time ago and it hasn't healed correctly, so she needs to have surgery. but she hasn't been able to have surgery b/c she has no money. the way she told me about this though, she didn't ask for me to help her. she trys not to be reliant on mzungus. but i'm going to use some of the money you all have donated to help her have this done. like everything else, it's pretty inexpensive by american standards.

emma and i had a good discussion on the way to meet here about empowering people. she was so encouraging saying that the kids in kibera really admire mzungus b/c they are willing to just sit, talk, and listen to them. i was saying that i get discouraged sometimes b/c i wonder if anything i'm doing is really helping. mostly i'm learning that i am completely powerless to make any sort of change. it is only God's power that will make any difference in the long run. emma said that even if it's just small seeds that God is using me to plant, that kids will remember. we were talking about how most kids have lots of knowledge about the bible (better than in america) here b/c they have Christian religious education (CRE) in school. but when it comes to applying it, it's an entirely different story. often when i ask them questions about how something applies to their life, no one can answer.

i made christmas cards with the juvenile kids today. they don't know how to address an envelope, which i quickly learned. they have the hardest time sharing supplies, and that's a constant struggle. but they really loved doing this. i told them i would mail them to anyone in kenya, friends, family. many of them wanted them sent to their pen pals in america. emma and dottie were telling me how important it is that we try to keep the penpals thing going after i leave b/c this is a big deal to these kids. i really need to work on finding someone local to help me with this. i certainly don't want all these projects to simply fall apart.