Karibu Sana Kenya

Sorry we've been so quiet. It's been almost a month since we've blogged. Nairobi was quite busy for us - not at all a vacation.  We landed on February 1st. I was given a 90 day visa, Praise the Lord. This was my third time to Kenya, though the first ever in HOT February. This is home for Muthoni so we stayed the whole month.

The first two weeks we volunteered in a children’s home located just outside of Nairobi in a town called Ngong.   The home is called Saint Paul Children’s Care Center.   We visited the home in 2009 for just a day and found it to be a place where we could serve and so we planned to spend a good bit of time with them.  We joined Jayne and her staff as they worked to bring these kids encouragement and preparation for their lives ahead.   

The home takes in kids from rather rough situations (orphaned, abandoned, physically or sexually abused, malnourished, or other irresponsible parental behavior).   These kids range from new born to 17 year olds.  Jayne takes them in and provides counseling to them.   The home is Christian based so the kids are fed not only physical food but also spiritual.   They have a daily routine that provides consistency and learning while at the home.   

Also connected with the home is a school called Shalom Academy (a 15 minute walk up the road).  All the primary school aged kids at the home are students at this school.   Here each child is matched in the grade level that is best for them as many of them have grown up without any formal education.   This school takes them from Elementary trough Middle school (high school students go to a high school in the area).   In the Kenyan Education System they are taught English, Swahili, Math, Science, Social Studies, and at this school they have a class called Christian Religious Education (CRE) (In most Kenyan schools they have an option for Muslims and Hindus). 

The first day we arrived at the home we got ourselves situated in our room and visited the school.  When at the school we got to meet many of the kids for the first time and we walked the younger elementary kids back to the home.   After the kids had taken baths we went out to the yard and played.   I played football with the boys (soccer to us Americans) and Muthoni played with the little ones.   (Something about playing crosses all borders and language barriers, the kids connect with you pretty quickly.)  We played for about an hour, teams of 3 on a short field with a small ball. 

Vernon attempting to play with some of the boys

Then the kids were called for 6pm prayers where they sing and pray.  After that the kids went on to do homework.   Muthoni and I went back to our quarters and spent the rest of the evening with Jayne and her husband’s (Andreas) sister and brother-in-law.  Jayne’s husband is German and so are the in-laws so we got to practice more German (or I got to be the interpreter…oh boy).

The next day after breakfast Muthoni needed to go to the city (Nairobi) to submit her documents so she could get a visa for the UK.  While Muthoni was in Nairobi I spent the whole day at the school. 

Front gate of the school



Classrooms



Playing Field

 I arrived a bit late because I set our alarm clock for 7pm instead of 7am.  I got there as the kids were in their morning session.   I talk to the Head Master of the school, Eric, and he gave me a class to teach, Standard 4 English.   (Wow, am I really doing this? I’m teaching students English, in Kenya.)  So yeah, I’ve prayed quite a bit and started to feel pretty good doing it.  Eric’s assistant gave me a text book, took me to the class, handed me some chalk and introduced me as the English teacher from America.  I introduced myself and class got started.   In this class I had 15 students.   All of them were pretty well mannered and ready to learn.  I taught them about opposites and how to make words and sentences singular or plural.   I gave them an in class assignment and then sent them to their break (What I didn’t know was that each subject was to last only 35 minutes.  I heard bells ringing outside but didn’t know that meant that I was supposed to change subjects or go to a different class to teach English.  I kept those kids there through the first break and two other periods teaching them English.  Oops.  Well at the break I walked down to the teachers’ lounge and told Eric how class went.  “Is there anything else you want me to do today?” I looked at the schedule on the wall and came to realize (at this point) that the class was supposed to have had math and CRE during the time I was teaching.  He said not to worry about it; they’ll cover those subjects on Monday.   Then he asked me if there was anything else I could teach that day (they are really, really shorthanded on teachers) and I said I could probably teach science, as long as I had a lesson plan.  So for the next period I taught the kids on the differences between cash crops and food crops.  We did exercises and, this time, I heard the bell.  I tried to leave the room, but another teacher came by and told me just to continue.  So we did examples of crops, we drew pictures on the board of different crops and I asked them questions about what they learned.  Then the next bell sounded and a social studies teacher came to relieve me of my duties.   I got back to the teachers’ lounge and had a talk with another teacher who was on break (he turned out to be a high school student volunteering since high school didn’t start until the following Monday…awesome teen.) We chatted about life: what he wants to do after high school, what kind of career he wants and I told him about myself.  It was nice.  This guy actually graduated from this primary school (though he was from the community and not the home).  It was really encouraging to see him willing to spend his time teaching those younger kids who needed a helping hand.  After that I walked back to the home to have lunch with Jayne for an hour.  I walked back to the school because I’d promised the boys that I’d come and play football with them.  (On Fridays they have games after school).  So I sat for an hour with Eric and the other teachers as the girls got to play.  Then I got on the field with a team to play for the next two hours.  There were three teams.  I was on the third team so we waited on the first game (first team to score stays on).   My team played pretty well together, though we only won one match of 4(maybe not good enough).  Some games were quick and the others dragged on and on especially as we all got more tired.   After the games there was a flag lowering ceremony and we walked back to the home.  I had some good conversations with the boys as we walked.   Then I went back to my quarters and pretty much crashed from fatigue.   Wow what a day!

The next day, Saturday, we woke up early to to go to the farm owned by the home.  It was a long drive over some very bumpy roads (we had to get off the asphalt on to the dirt shoulders at some points because the road was so bad).   Anyhow, we got to the farm and saw all the food that is grown for the school.  (It is Jayne’s dream for the home to become completely self-sufficient.)  The farm plays a big part.  This season, however, was not a good one.   The rains failed and caterpillars had infested much of the crop.   But there were still some plants that produced a crop.  There were also 3 green houses on the 10 acre farm which are being used to grow peppers (Green, Red, and Yellow).   We took some time to harvest them, picking the good ones and tossing the bad.   There was some bad news though.  Overnight there was a very strong wind storm.  One of the green houses had half of its plastic roof ripped off.  Not good in these conditions for the peppers.  So Jayne made some calls for someone to come fix it.   


The farm with green houses in the background



This is fun. Career change, perhaps?

Hello Donkey!

 They said they’d meet us at the nearest town.  So we rode to town, had some lunch while waiting (nyama choma (barbequed meat… yumm), ugali and kachumbari (a tomato based salad)).   Jayne sent us back to the home with a taxi while she and Chris headed back to the farm with the technician.   On Saturdays the kids spend quite a bit of time cleaning.  They wash their clothes, wash the carpets, and bathe the little kids who can’t bathe themselves.   We went out to chat with the kids who were done cleaning and I got to play some more football with the boys.   Then something I thought was pretty cool happened.  The kids heard that I was a minister so they started asking all sorts of questions about the Bible.  “Who saw the burning bush?” “Who was Jesus’ mom?” “Who was in the lion’s den?”  After passing their test they approved of me being called a minister.  We talked for a bit and they were so blown away because a minister would still play with them, from football to volleyball and handstands they would say “You’re a pastor and you do such things? What?”  But yeah, we played pretty much until the sun went down.  Then Mu and I went to bed.  It was another long day.

The following weeks we had pretty much the same routine: wake up at 7am, have breakfast and head out the door to the school by 8am, teach from 8:15am until lunch at 1pm, eat lunch back at the Centre with Jayne, head back to the school by 2pm and then finish the afternoon classes at 3:50pm.  Then we head back to the Centre, play with the kids for a while, go to prayers with them until 7pm, have our dinner and finally relax for the evening.   It was so great getting home completely worn out but knowing that you’d been able to do something that really made a difference in the kids’ lives.  

Vernon preaching.

On our last Sunday at the Centre we went to the school for church service.   There was a woman from the community, Maria, who came to lead the kids in worship.  She’s been coming for the last year or so.   At first she said that the kids were not really into it, but after a while the kids really came to enjoy service.   Pretty much it was them that lead the service, where Maria was the facilitator.   The kids got up and sang to God in English and Swahili (yeah, I was lost for half the songs, but sang in my heart anyway).  Then there were prayers.  And then, what I thought was really awesome, the kids got up and gave testimonies about what God has been doing in their lives.  Some did this straight from the heart “this is what happened” and others got up and just sang a song that God put on their hearts.   I was glad to see it, the joy that these kids had despite their situations.  After this there were more prayers and then I had the opportunity to share the word with them.  I really wanted to encourage them to persevere despite their troubles.   I shared from 1 Peter where it says we shouldn’t be surprised when troubles come, but rejoice in God anyway.  I also shared from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 where it says “though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we do not set our hearts on what is seen, but what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”.  (This is one of my favorite passages) Then I shared some of God’s promises, Jeremiah 29:11-13 – He has plans to prosper us and not harm us, Deuteronomy 31:6 - he will never leave us or forsake us, and Isaiah 40:28-31 – those who hope in him will soar like eagles, run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.   It was a great day of worship and sharing the word.  

Heading back from church.

For our last few days in Ngong we’d been teaching at the school, helping the kids as much as possible.   Another teacher at the school moved on to greener pastures late the previous week so Eric was quite stressed on what to do to keep the students’ classes going.  All the teachers tried to fill in the gaps along with us volunteers.   Then the school got another volunteer that helped a lot to stabilize the teaching load.   Praise God for hearing our prayers for more help at the school.

Though our time at the home had come to an end we still came back a few more times the following weeks for a few hours only this time to work with the staff on some projects that the school needed.   The one we really wanted to help with was finding a way to bring tap water to the school for drinking, cooking and, especially, hand washing.  We met with one of the board members, Christiano, and worked on a plan to make it happen.  The project ended up costing slightly less than $1,000.

Also, while we were there, on one Sunday, a friend to the children’s home came to hold a barbeque for the kids.   The kids ate and played games all day.  It was really great to see the kids doing something with their Sunday besides cleaning and watching TV and to see other people who had a passion for these kids.  We’ll keep praying for the kids and doing what we can to support them.   

 

Yummy bbq.  I also couldn't wait to dig in.

Field day.

Sack race for the little ones.

If you’d like to help the home, shoot me an e-mail and we’ll get you connected to Jayne.  You can go there and spend a week or two or however long and teach at the school or help with a much needed project e.g. renovating the pit latrines into more modern toilets etc.