Short and bittersweet...

I just couldn't leave Kenya without a final update of some kind. We had a wonderful safari August 1-3 in the Masai Mara. We saw so many beautiful animals including hundreds of thousands of migrating wildebeasts. I took lots of pictures to share, but John accidentally deleted my entire memory card and I hadn't backed anything up - good (but painful) lesson for me. Luckily, Lauren has a much better camera and was able to get hundreds of great pictures.

We arrived home Friday night hot and dirty from the 6 hour drive and I went to bed early. I awoke in the night to violent shaking and chills (the bed was slapping against the wall) which I couldn't stop. That led to vomiting and diarrhea - turns out I had malaria. I began treatment Saturday morning and was very worried about not being able to make my flight home Wednesday. The weekend passed in a blur of high fever, sweats, chills, and headaches. When I woke up this morning, I felt like a new (but very weak) person and even managed a shower.

While I've been in the bed or on the couch, the rest of the team has been painting at the LCC, finishing shoe purchases at Bata (we also got each LCC staff member a gift certificate there), hosting an appreciation luncheon for the most recently hired staff, and playing with/holding kids. Tomorrow is our day of goodbyes which will be very sad. We're stopping by Pat Dixson's in the morning and will spend the afternoon hours at the orphanage with the kids. Our flight leaves early Wednesday morning, so this will be my last post for this trip.

Thanks for all of the love, support, and prayers.

Spaghetti for 120...

 Chef Mary helping Elizabeth stir the spaghetti sauce.

 Elizabeth serving spaghetti

 Lauren cooking spaghetti

 Caleb delivering a "prize" egg to Caroline

The Easter egg hunt!

The Piki Piki Gang

The last couple of days have been wonderful. Sunday we spent the morning cooking spaghetti for all of the kids at the LCC, the staff, and a number of guests. Cooking over firewood was a new experience and quite a challenge, but it all came together perfectly and the food was ready right on time. We had two of the little girls (Mary and Belinda) in the kitchen helping us break 30 pounds of spaghetti into small pieces. We used 20 pounds of ground beef, 30 tomatoes, 20 green peppers, 20 onions, and 20 zucchini in addition to 8 gallons of tomato sauce.  I learned that when you're cooking for 120, you just dump the entire jar of spices into the pot instead of bothering to measure! The kids loved spaghetti. We had also brought bread to go with the spaghetti and they wanted peanut butter on the bread (ugh - spaghetti and peanut butter??) since they get it so rarely. We also bought chocolate bars as an extra treat. We shared a great meal together. Mama Joan and her family joined us and Geoffrey came from Nakuru (about 2 hours away) on a matatu (public transport) to spend the day with us. He was our guard in 2009 and we have continued to stay in touch with him and his family.

We wanted to give them a unique American experience so we brought  lots of plastic eggs and spent one evening wrapping small gifts (candy and toys) and ended up with almost 600 gifts. That meant that every child was able to find 10 gifts. We included four "prizes" that included a note that led the child to one of us, and we each had giant bags filled with stuffed animals, toys, and snacks. They had never seen anything like it - afterward a boy said to me "Kate, I have all of the sweets, what do I do with them?" and I told him to put them in his pocket or on his bed. He said "you mean they're mine?" It was a really sweet experience.

All of the kids were wearing their new shoes yesterday and it reminded me of a story my friend Rachel told me. She said that someone had recently asked her why shoes were so important to a child in Africa, and she said that shoes instantly give a person "class." She's a teacher and principal and she said that when a child receives a pair of shoes his/her test scores will go up immediately because they have a new sense of confidence (over being barefooted). It was such a moving story. The other part of our Mississippi team asked the kids if they could buy anything in the world, what would it be, and 70% answered, "shoes." They're that important here. Tomorrow, we're taking the six Kenyan high schools that live here in the house with us to Bata to buy them shoes. We're also giving the moms and other staff at the orphanage Bata gift certificates so they can pick out their own shoes. I've never realized how important something like shoes could be.

Today has been a wonderful day of rest spent mostly at our house. This morning, we had tea at Pat Dixson's house (from the feeding program for the elderly). We enjoyed a nice visit with her and then had a tour of her beautiful gardens. We stopped at Tigoni Store on our way home and had the excellent adventure of taking a piki piki (motorbike) home from there. It was hilarious to see the four of us behind Kenyan drivers on little motorbikes and was actually a very fun form of transportation. They can be dangerous in traffic or with inexperienced drivers, but our guide made sure we had good drivers and we really only went up our very long driveway which was deserted, so it was safe. After the piki piki drive, we spent the afternoon cooking with Mama Joan. She taught us how to make chapati (Kenyan flatbread), and we baked up a storm. Tonight we're having potato soup, chapati, and cheese biscuits for dinner with brownies and banana bread for dessert! We made enough to feed a small army so we've invited several Kenyan friends to join us.

Tomorrow we have a full day of projects/activities and then we leave for safari on Wednesday. The trip is winding down, and I'm already getting sad to leave. It's hard to have such strong friendships and relationships with people who live on the other side of the world.

Ancient cultures and new shoes...

 The Masai women having lunch

 Rachel and her aunties (Rachel is in the yellow blazer)

 Lauren fitting John (a new boarder) for his new shoes

 Showing off the new shoes!

One group with their shoes

It's been a busy and exhausting few days... Thursday we drove to the Serare School - one of the best boarding schools for girls in the country. My friend, Rachel, is the principal there. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and stroll through the garden and spent the night in their guest apartments. After breakfast Friday, we toured the school and then drove about 2 hours deep into the bush to Masailand. The Masai are one of the tribes in Kenya who still follow an ancient culture that is centered around cattle. Rachel's grandfather was Masai and she took us to visit her Masai relatives. Her uncle passed away a few years ago, but we had a wonderful lunch with his 4 wives and their 20 children (and a number of grand and great-grand children). They roasted a goat and made several other traditional foods. We usually "pocket" the goat meat so we don't offend our hosts, but I ended up wearing pants without pockets, so I had to hide my small piece of goat meat in the couch :). We sang praise songs together and danced Masai style before leaving. Last night we were very dirty and tired.

Today was a beautiful experience. My mom sends me money each month to use toward our work in Kenya. This year, we decided to use it for shoes for the boarders at the orphanage where we spend so much time working. They had already been given sturdy school shoes, so we decided to transport them to the local shoe factory where there is an outlet store. We had 16 in the first group, and we took them one at a time to select and be fitted for shoes. None of them had ever been to a shoe store or selected their own shoes, so it was a little overwhelming for some. After we finished with the first 16, the matatu (public transportation) arrived with the rest - about 25 more. Many of the girls chose high heels - we made them demonstrate that they could walk in them before we bought them, and the boys all chose tennis shoes (their school shoes are black leather loafers, so many don't have any athletic shoes). One of the littler guys even found a pair that light up when he walks. Everyone was thrilled with their purchases, and we were so humbled and thankful to experience this with them. Thanks Shosho (grandmother) Shirley!

Tonight we're hosting the caretaker of our house and his family for dinner. The six Kenyan high school students that share the house with us are cooking a traditional Kenyan meal. Tomorrow is our big day to cook spaghetti for about 100 people over a fire at the orphanage - that should be interesting! We're also doing a giant "hunt" with the kids. We have over 500 small wrapped bundles that contain candy and toys and we're doing something along the lines of an Easter egg hunt.

Our team is well and getting along together. Please keep our continued health and endurance in your prayers!

Feed my lambs

Elizabeth encouraging Pat

The  feeding program ladies praying for Pat

Today we had a wonderful visit to Pat's Feeding Program. Pat (the white Kenyan pictured above) is 80 years old and runs a feeding program for the unemployable - in Kenya that means the elderly and people who are HIV positive. We've helped with this program since our first year in 2007, and it has really grown. We arrived before Pat and helped her unload her car and set up for the program. Then the craziness begins. Hundreds of people line up with their plastic shopping bags and begin to walk the food line. Volunteers hand out bags of rice (Lauren), Ugali flour, maize, and beans (Kate), matches, cooking fat, and salt (Pastor Mbugua), bread and a small amount of money (Elizabeth), empty plastic drink bottles, and kerosene (Caleb). It was a long morning but so worthwhile because we felt exceptionally needed (usually there are other volunteer groups, but it was just the four of us today) and we also got to see a vulnerability in Pat that is quite uncommon. She is quite a tough lady, but is currently undergoing testing for throat cancer and is quite fearful for her biopsy on Friday. Please keep her in your prayers. Elizabeth, a speech pathologist, actually knew quite a lot about throat cancer and recovery. She was able to encourage Pat. Some of the ladies from the feeding program also sang prayers of comfort and healing over her when the handout was over. She is feeding His lambs, and I pray that God gives her the strength to continue this work.

That was the high point of the day. We also went to the market and bought huge quantities of produce for our house and for the big dinner we have planned on Sunday. We will be cooking a spaghetti dinner for all of the kids and staff at the LCC. We paid about $2.50 for 15 pounds or so of fresh tomatoes! And bell peppers, onions, and zucchini were similarly cheap. We also bought 20 pounds of ground beef. Should be an interesting day Sunday trying to cook dinner for about 120 over a wood fire!

Here are some other updates from our week...

 Passing out school supplies at Karen Academy

 The children at Karen Academy

 The school in Kibera

Principal William and the school supplies provided by the Mayor's Youth Council in Columbus, MS

Yesterday (Tuesday) was our day to visit schools. We started the day at the Karen Academy, started by my dear friend Rachel about 13 years ago. She and her sister wanted a way to honor their mother (Karen) who had passed away, so they opened a school that teaches in English only and has a strong Christian focus. The children pay a small fee (about $12) per month to attend. It was wonderful to see so many bright, happy children. We also brought some school supplies with us to give to the school. The teachers were thrilled to see pencils, crayons, activity books, and teacher guides. While we were there, Rachel shared with us a dream that she had in which there was a high school built on the property called The Mississippi Learning Center and that women from Mississippi would build it and help run it. She wants to have a class for special needs students which is virtually unheard of here (they are usually hidden away at home). She showed us the land and we prayed over it - it's currently a corn field adjoining the current K-8 school. Unfortunately, in the middle of the prayer, I was attacked by safari ants (also called crotch ants - named that because they sneak up your leg and bite you in places you'd rather not be bitten). I had to strip off my jeans in the middle of the corn field and 30 minutes later was still picking them out of my hair. I'm the first of the team to succumb to safari ants :)

After Karen Academy, we went with Rachel to St. Michael's School - a small informal school on the outskirts of Kibera - to drop off school supplies. In the past, we've always gone into Kibera to visit churches or homes, but the safety situation is a little worrisome here and there is little security in Kibera, so we chose to just pull up to the edge and leave some things at St. Michael's and quickly leave the area. For those who don't know, Kibera is the largest slum in Africa with over a million people packed into 1.1 square miles. They live on less than $1 per day and live in extreme, extreme poverty. We've seen poverty in some of the villages we've visited but not on this scale and not to this level. It's always a very difficult and moving experience because you want to try to fix what is a huge and long standing problem for Kenya.

On Monday, we did home visits with Care for Aids, a local grassroots organization that meets the needs of people who are living with HIV/Aids. It was a wonderful experience to be in their homes and hear their stories. We brought small gifts of rice, sugar, and tea, and they were very appreciative. That ministry is doing amazing things. They are up to 14 centers now, each serving 80 new clients per year, and they have large waiting lists. We heard a number of success stories, and it was so uplifting. We'll go back next week to help with the spiritual and health counseling at their resource center.

Here are a few more random pictures from our time here...

 We're staying at a home on a beautiful tea plantation - where the first tea was planted in Kenya (that's the tea tree to the left of the sign!)

 Lauren's market find - antique masks from the Congo, Kenya, and Uganda

 Patrick counseling the girls at the orphanage after the sad goodbyes when the rest of the Mississippi Team left earlier this week

Lauren with a baby at Angel's Baby Centre - one of our favorite new projects

Another image of HOPE...

One more image of HOPE for Emily from Kenya. We love you and are praying for your healing.

HOPE for Emily

As a teacher, there are students who make such an impact on your life, you'll remember them forever. Emily was one of those students for me. She came to my eighth grade gifted class brilliant, beautiful, sensitive, caring, talented, creative, and REAL. She inspired me, made me laugh, and motivated me to be a better teacher. Today, Emily is a young married woman who is battling cancer and who needs an outpouring of HOPE. As she has bravely battled this disease for the past several years, she continues to face obstacles and challenges head-on, and as I would have expected her to handle them - with grace and humility. Recently, Emily requested that friends and family send her images of HOPE - that she might use those images to draw strength and peace during this very challenging time of her life. When I shared a little of her story with the 47 children at the orphanage here in Kenya, they wanted to send Emily this image. So, Emily, this is with love from children who came out of despair into hope... wishing you courage, faith, and hope and sending you our prayers for your healing.

Scaling Mount Longonot

Note: This post was written Sunday morning, but our internet has been down for almost two days...

 Caleb and John at the Summit

 Lauren taking a break

 The team before beginning the hike. We didn't know what awaited us.

 We surely weren't expecting to climb this... and many similar places.

 The ones who made it to the summit!

This is "the crack" - a recent geological phenomenon that happened near Jikaze after significant rainfall. One night this giant crack just opened up in the earth. It's about 30 feet deep and goes on and on. The geologists think that it's caused by underground rivers. We took a long walk Thursday to see it in preparation for scaling Mount Longonot.

About three months ago, our Kenyan friend, Kelvin, emailed me and said “would you like to scale Mt. Longonot?” and I said “scale a mountain – are you crazy?” Then, he assured me that it was really a nice walk – just an hour up to the top. Yesterday, we scaled Mt. Longonot, and I can assure you it was not a walk! I made it to the halfway point (which required scrabbling up sheer, sandy rock walls on your hands and knees). The halfway point was about 10,000 feet so the air was thin and exertion was way harder than in Mississippi at sea level (or so I told myself!). The rest of the group made it all of the way to the summit (including Lauren who had been vomiting the day before!). Longonot is part of a Kenyan national park and we saw baboons on the drive there and giraffe and zebra at the park. We were amazed by God’s incredible creation.

After coming down the mountain, we drove back to the orphanage where they were finishing up Mississippi Day. The other team from Mississippi arranged the day (like a field day) and did a beautiful job. They even made more than 300 sandwiches to feed the kids an American lunch with chips, cookies, fruit, and juice. Following lunch, we handed out shoes to about 200 orphans. They were so thrilled to receive sturdy school shoes. Thanks to Karen Cooley and the First United Methodist Church in Columbus, MS for arranging a fundraiser to pay for the shoes.

My Kenyan son, John, is spending the weekends with us. He lives at a boarding school, but we’ve been able to make arrangements to have him on the weekend. He is such a joy, and his English has improved so much we’re actually able to communicate. Last night he had his first hot shower which he loved! He shares a room with Caleb when he’s here. Lauren set up my ipod for him before we left the U.S.  and John has been watching spiderman episodes, listening to music, and getting really good at games. He calls me “mum” and has enjoyed being tucked in at night.

Today we’re going to church and then to the orphanage to play with the kids. We have a couple of projects to do that you’ll hear about in future posts.

Hitching a ride

This was my favorite sight of the week... a Kenyan bicyclist hitching a ride on the back of a large truck going down the highway. His wheels wobbled and he had a hard time balancing with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding onto the back of the truck. I feel certain that there is some profound wisdom to be found here - just too tired to clearly see what it is :)

It's been a fabulous first week. We are settled into our house, and our team gets along and works together great. We've reconnected with so many people and have visited some new programs that look very promising.  Our days have been so full that I haven't made time to blog. A quick recap...

We left Columbus for Atlanta Friday afternoon. About the time we got ready to land in Atlanta, they closed the airport due to thunderstorms. We circled the airport until nearly out of fuel and then were diverted to Birmingham where we landed and refueled. Instead of 45 minutes, our flight to Atlanta ended up being 4 hours. Thankfully we had a 4 1/2 hour layover so we were able to make our connecting flight to Amsterdam. Our other flights were fairly uneventful (other than not being able to sleep much). We arrived in Kenya very early Sunday morning exhausted and in need of a shower. We ran a few errands, ate breakfast, settled in our house, and spent a few hours at the orphanage before crashing mid-afternoon. We all slept 14-16 hours that night!

Monday was spent unpacking and getting organized and playing with kids at the orphanage. Tuesday, we visited a number of programs:  Cheshire Home for disabled girls, Dada's Nest Orphanage (they focus on babies of mothers who are in prison), and Angel's Baby Centre. Angel's was a new program for us and was pretty amazing. They have 15 babies under the age of 3 and have been open for only 2 years. Their babies are abandoned or have other horrifying stories (we met one toddler who survived an abortion attempt at 7 months gestation). So far, they have only adopted out 1 baby. I think they need to be better connected to Western countries that are interested in international adoptions - we're going to work on that. Their biggest challenge/need was medicine because babies who are abandoned are generally sickly and have not had proper medical care. One baby at the house had ricketts, another had bronchitis, and many had rashes, colds, etc... They had one who was born HIV positive but had been taking the retroviral drugs and tested negative recently. It was a great ministry and we plan to spend more time there.

Wednesday was John's birthday party at school which was a huge success. We brought Spiderman masks from the U.S. and all of the kids were thrilled with that. Kenyan birthday parties are a lot of fun with singing and prayers. And the birthday child serves everyone first before having his cake. We brought 3 cakes, potato chips, juice, and treat bags along with gifts for his teacher. He was pretty happy with the day.

Yesterday (Thursday) was spent at Jikaze which is a camp for internally displaced persons (refugees). In 2008 there was a great deal of tribal violence following an election and thousands of Kenyans were displaced violently from their homes. We have worked with these 145 families in Jikaze village since 2009 and it is wonderful to see how their situations have improved. When we first came, they were still in tents. In 2009 and 2010, our team helped build semi-permanent mud-homes, and in the years since have been involved with tree planting and other relief efforts. It was amazing to see the social businesses that have started there (greenhouses and chicken farms) through another organization - Uhuru Child. We toured the place and then were each placed in a different home to work alongside the family and hear their stories. Mainly it involved cooking lunch and washing dishes. We also ate lunch and took tea with them. Several hours later, we regrouped and were able to share our experiences.

Today part of the group returned to Angel's so spend time with the babies. Later we will do some shopping and prepare for Mississippi Day tomorrow. In the morning we are beginning our day by scaling Mount Longonot - that will be an adventure I'm sure!

The weather is always changing here - generally cool with mornings of heavy fog and mist and usually a little sun in the afternoons. We've had some problems with electricity this week. Kelvin (our tour planner) managed to surprise me by hiring Mama Joan to cook for us (she was our housekeeper in 2009 when we came for 6 weeks and we've continued to visit her on each of our trips). She is a fantastic cook and we are enjoying a mix of Kenyan and American food.

Please pray for health for the team and for safety. There are some concerns about safety from the US Department of State so we are being more cautious than usual. It doesn't really affect our daily routine in Limuru/Tigoni, but it does limit what we can do in the Nairobi area. We are adjusting our schedule accordingly.

Going back...

In just over two weeks, I will be returning to Kenya with a wonderful team of three young adults. We are excited to be working primarily at the Limuru Children's Centre, conducting home visits with Care for Aids, visiting our friends in Jikaze and Pat's Feeding Program, and learning about new grassroots efforts to create change in Kenya. We arrive in Kenya in July 15th and will be spending four weeks there. I invite you to follow our journey here...