My godson, John Kahera, trying to take a picture of himself. He was quite the photographer when he spent the day with us Thursday...
John Kahera
Friday, March 4
Today we stopped by to drop off Reagan’s gifts for his family. They were so kind and invited us in for tea; but we had already set a time to meet Goeffrey so we declined. We did commit to a cup of tea tomorrow morning and are looking forward to it.
We went from there to begin our painting project at LCC. Patrick had asked us to repaint the mom’s bedrooms; retouch the girls dorms and repaint the kitchen. We were pretty gung ho when we arrived - but through the process we quickly realized (as many of you could have told us) that painting in Africa is simply not the same as painting in America! It is sort of like digging post holes with a sharp stick!!
We attempted to clean and scrape the walls - which led to a huge mess on the floor....there was no water in the tanks (a block in the line somewhere) so every drop of water used to clean was like pouring out precious gold! There was not a ladder; we got to step on a little plastic table (veeeery carefully) to reach the higher spots. There were no rags! We ended up taking off our extra layers and tearing them up for cleaning. Karen said she hoped we didn’t get down to having to tear up our underwear - but with the mess we were making it seemed pretty imminent! We had to use oil based paint in these small rooms. Kimberly was pretty sure we left there with a loss of about 15 IQ points
Our scraping and cleaning left quite a mess on the floor which we then tracked all over the place. The LCC had rollers (Thanks, Zach!) but no pans to roll them in so we just had to put the roller into the can and try not to drip all over the place. Try is the operative word there. After getting one coat on each room we went down to clean the kitchen walls...this time we did not scrape - but even the most energetic of us quickly realized that we could not paint the kitchen this trip.
Returning to put on the second coat we found the walls still completely wet - so we went to work trying to clean up the floors. The final solution (after many ineffective efforts) was to scrub with mineral spirits, scrape paint chips and buff with a dry rag. At this point, mom Susan came up, complemented our paint job and looking curiously at us on our hands and knees; scrubbing, scraping, buffing....said kindly - “well, maybe next time you would like to put some newspaper down before you begin working....” Speechless.
Unfortunately we only had one dry rag and the option of ripping up our underwear so we decided to go back to Limuru to get some rags...and two new rugs!!
We came back to the house feeling a bit overwhelmed and guilty for not being able to accomplish more - but Kate had the great news of 22 African Impact volunteers who were more than able to paint the kitchen. Praise the Lord!
Kate and Grace had stayed back at Brackenhurst with John Kahera (Kate’s godchild) and we held them in high esteem for their choice! They also had the dinner catered and house set for our dinner guests this evening...Mom Susan and Mom Jennifer joined us and we had a wonderful time of fellowship and prayer. It is such a blessing to be able to get to know the staff of LCC outside of the context of work.
Tomorrow we are planning the day at LCC. Painting, cleaning/covering up our mess and playing with the kids. Wish you were here!!
It’s been a busy couple of days… I’m writing this at 1 am local time. Haven’t slept well so far. I think it’s jet lag and adjusting to the 8 hour time change. Today we went to the K Branch of the Limuru Children’s Center in Karimaithu, had lunch with the kids, and played all afternoon with them. We brought several soccer balls that a club in Tupelo donated. The K Branch has 60 pre-schoolers divided between 3 classes, There are an additional 90 students who went to K Branch for preschool but are now in primary school. On our first trip in 2007, we me the first “batch” of preschoolers who are now in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade! They came to the K Branch for lunch today and it was wonderful to see how much they’d grown since the last time I’d seen them in 2007. The older ones are doing beautifully with learning English. I also met Phyllis’ brother, Elijah. Phyllis made a huge impression on us in 2007. She was HIV+ and tiny for her age. By all accounts, she is doing well (she stayed home today – some kind of problem with her leg). I also met Mary who had a club foot. She recently had surgery to repair it and is in braces from her foot to her shin. Appears to be very confident and happy. Teacher David is still in charge of the school and is amazing and full of love and commitment toward these kids.
After the K branch, we went to the LCC main branch to greet the kids as they arrived home after school. John Kahera (my godson) was there early and has the rest of the week off of school. We were able to spend some time together. He loves his new school – a very competitive private school where he is in a class of 8 students (as opposed to 55 in a public school classroom). He just started there in January. There is a large bus that picks him up and drops him at home each day – that’s a real rarity in Kenya. I also met our new godson, Patrick Kiare. He’s a tall, pleasant, and quiet young man. He doesn’t get home from school until after 6 p.m. so I haven’t been able to spend much time with him yet. Looking forward to getting to know him better. We plan to spend all day Saturday there and will have the opportunity to spend a lot of good quality time with them then. The kids are growing up and seem very happy. The moms are doing great. I hope to do better about taking pictures and get some of them posted soon.
One great surprise – today, Anne Wambui came to visit me. I met her in 2007 and each visit, she’s managed to hear through the village grapevine that we are in town. When we met she was in 3rd grade. Today, she’s a beautiful 7th grade young lady!
Geoffrey, our guard from 2009, is with us this year as a translator and guide during the day. He is a joy to be around. We hope to see his famly this trip and also plan to see Mama Joan and her family. She was our housekeeper in 2009.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we’re going to visit some area schools and a couple of baby orphanages. In the evening we’ll meet with a team from African Impact to hear more about their work. We are expecting our great friend, Cornel, to come by to see us.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers – for safety and good health for our team, and for sleep for me.
It is wonderful to be here to see the children and to reconnect with all of the wonderful friends we’ve met through the years. It’s fun to drive down the road and stop to visit people we know.
