asante sana (thank you very much) for your prayers about the sleepover on friday. it was a smashing success! rodgers and i arrived at 3 and the kids came running outside so excited to see us. we played with the kids for a while, and then at 4:30 the chapati making began. rodgers had the older kids help him. we bought 5 bags of flour but i found out today that it took forever b/c BOLM had also purchased 3 bags of flour. plus they added too much water, so we had to get an additional bag. so that was 9 bags of chapati, which made over 150 chapatis i think. they didn't finish until 9 p.m. i was holding this little boy stanley, and he was so tired. i gave him a piece of chapati to eat and he started chewing but then his head began nodding to the side. i said, "wake up, wake up." it was pretty funny. before this i was helping peel potatoes and it gets dark around 6, so towards the end i couldn't see anymore. at first i only had a few to peel and i thought "easy enough." but then one of the teachers brought this huge bag full which made me say "oh...there's more." while they were making chapati i took the younger kids and had them color stars, make beaded jewelry, and play with playdough. they thought the play dough was ugali and this little 2 year old kept trying to eat it. (alex told me later about a former MST, andrew who fixed everyone kenyan food. he made ugali and then put food coloring in it, so it looked like a giant rainbow cake. ugali is just flour and water made into this big cake looking thing.)
meanwhile, the art activities were winding down, so we moved onto singing songs. the power went out there so we were doing everything in the dark (including the making of dinner). we had 2 little candles burning in this tiny classroom with 30 kids crammed inside. and as we were sitting there singing, an incredible peace came over me. how could you not experience God's joy sitting there in such a simple environment with the most precious children? i taught them the song "pass it on", which is one of my favorite hymns. after about 1 1/2 hours i was running out of songs. we moved onto lion king...hakuna matata (that's swahili) so they thought it was cool learning that. then we started singing i'm gonna be a mighty king. i was doing all these goofy motions and rodgers came in and started mimicking me. the kids thought it was hilarious. alex, steve, elisha, and eric arrived at 9, just in time to eat.
after eating we gathered all the older kids together and did a devotion with them . the younger ones went to sleep and i started nodding off as well. alex was trying to talk to them about esther and waiting upon the lord, but i think they were too exhausted. sleeping turned out to be fine. they gave a bed, and it was more comfortable than the one i normally sleep on. they made sure i had a mosquito net too, even though no one else did. i slept in the same room as all the girls and zipped myself up tight into my sleeping bag. i didn't want to feel anything crawling over me :) the building we slept in is made of tin sheets and has a concrete floor. it started raining right when we went to bed, and as you can imagine, it's quite loud hearing that rain pound on the tin roof. it made me think of that song "rain falls, angry on the tin roof, as we lie awake in our bed." most of these kids sleep with 2 of them in a bed and some of them were sleeping on a very worn out mattress on the floor (i offered to sleep there but they wouldn't let me). all of the mattress are just thin foam and have chunks coming out of them and look really old. i had to go to the bathroom before sleeping...there's no light in the outhouse and it's just a hole in the ground, so that was a bit interesting. these kids have no pajamas and they all slept in their dresses.
saturday we woke up and all the kids immediately started cleaning everything. they are such hard workers. they were even scrubbing off their shoes. we stayed and had tea...rodgers is obsessed with tea and had about 4 cups. today we were celebrating ruth's birthday and eating cake. he said "wow there's a lot of sugar in here...we should have just used it to make tea." everyone thought this was funny. the rest of the day yesterday was devoted to plaiting my hair. lilian (the girl who does my laundry) did it for me. it took 6 hours, and we were exhausted by the end. it hurt really bad this time, especially b/c she had to redo part of it b/c it was falling out. but pain is beauty right? she insisted on feeding me...even though i know she has hardly any money. her neighbor was there and we ate rice with avacado. she gave me half of the avacado, gave 1/4 to her baby and then split the other 1/4 with her friend. just shows how generous people are even though they have nothing. it's like that bible story in luke where the poor woman gives just a few coins as an offering. it occured to me, that probably most days lilian just eats rice and maybe a fruit or vegetable if she has money. i know that all of us would be so bored and tired of rice. sometimes i get tired of eating rice here. but i know that i have so much to be grateful for b/c at least i'm eating it with stew or something, not just plain like many people in kibera are.
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