worn out

i was just riding home on the matatu; traffic was stopped; i was in a daze. the woman next to me taps me and says, "look, you can see the brains." i glanced out the window, hoping not to see what she was talking about. first i just noticed the mass of people lining both sides of the empty street staring. i was just turning back around when i see the top of a head and a massive pile of red. made me sick. i'm guessing this person was either walking, on a bike, or carrying a cart of something when he got hit by a car. there's no way he was thrown from a car b/c traffic moves too slow for that. (mom, i understand your experience like this now).

i have become extremely mentally drained this week mostly b/c i can't trust anyone. monday night, peter called the child protective services counseling place (where amie works) to anonymously report the many cases of abuse that i've seen at juvenile. he didn't want me to do it b/c they would know it was a mzungu voice and it could jepordize us being able to go back to juvenile b/c people would likely know i reported it. but the entire call got us no where. we all listened to the conversation on speaker phone. the guy basically told peter to report it to the manager of the juvenile. amie realized by the way the guy answered that the juvenile is a government facility and they share an office with the place that we reported to. so there's nothing that can be done b/c it's like we're reporting to the same place that's causing a problem. amie was sure by the answer that this case had already been reported. so this whole thing irritated me b/c it's like every other problem here...there's no way to fix it.

tuesday at bolm we found out that the director, agatha, took all the beanie babies we gave the kids and put them in her house. and she took the Bibles and stored them in the office. so alex and i were really fired up about this. unfortunately, agatha was not there, so alex spoke to a teacher about it. he says he'll ask. i talked to the prinicipal, who also works at juvenile, about it. he seemed genuinely concerned and understood my point. he promised to ask about it. i told him that we want kids to keep the bibles in their rooms so they can use them any time. and i said it was a lot of work to get that other stuff here all the way from america, and we want them to use it. i don't know why agatha took this stuff, but i'm just getting really fed up with things. i'm going to keep pressing the issue. at this point, i don't care if i step on people's toes b/c i'm leaving soon anyway, and i'm just tired of this. please forgive my negative tone. i would appreciate prayers to pull me out of this "slump" so that i can be energized for the last few weeks.

as of right now i'm planning to come home on valentine's day (i know many of you were curious) when i booked my plane ticket last march, i booked out the farthest return date possible, which was february. originally i was planning to change the ticket to april and stay a bit longer. but honestly, while i've enjoyed being here a lot, i'm starting to feel ready to come back even though i know it will be very hard to readjust. the constant long days of traveling and running all over, plus dealing with above issues are starting to wear me out. i know in my heart, that i would love to come back again someday soon. but for now i think i could use a break. besides staying longer will cost more money and i think it would be better to use this money to sponsor people for school and help them out in other ways. i hope this doesn't mean i'm taking the easy way out by leaving. i've wrestled with the issue a lot, but unless i get some sudden memo from God, this is the current plan.

today at both juveniles, alex and i taught about recipes for a successful new year. i compared our lives to a peanut butter sandwich (God is the bread, etc.) and made it right in front of them and then gave pieces of the sandwich away to kids who participated. they seemed to like this.

in happy news, i'm planning to go to kogelo (obama's grandmother's home) for the inaguartation. then popo and i are going to his village for about a week to visit schools and do activities with the kids. some of them have never seen a mzungu, so this should be interesting. then we'll go to siaya and meet the rest of the team for a week of school ministry too. should be fun, except i'm not sure how it will be to not have indoor plumbing for 2 whole weeks. please pray as i prepare to go there. i'm glad to get out of the city for a while and think our time here could be very useful.

other exciting news, is that i have been able to use money from you generous people to support steve to go to school for engineering. he thanked me a lot today (i told him to thank God and you guys, not me) and said that God will richly bless me. he was telling me his life story, about how there's 10 kids in the family, his father makes less than $5 a day. his mom used to do laundry for people in a nearby estate but now she just had twins and can't work for a while. so i think their family is really struggling. but when he told his dad that he had a way to go to school, his dad was so happy. there's also another family friend that the dad knows that has paid a bit as well.