Update #7

Saturday, August 16th:

Breakfast: veggie fritatta, taro root, sliced orange, potato with
carrot and Kale

I shouldn't have tried the tea at teatime yesterday. I stayed away til
then, having gotten completely off caffeine. I was going a tad loopy
after so many days with only warm water to drink (and a Fanta or ginger
beer in those tall, glass, old fashioned bottles from time to time) so I
broke down and had hot tea. They serve hot milk with which to make it,
(not water), and raw sugar. Oh was that ever good! So here I am having
another one. Caffeine headache...here I come.

At breakfast the room is all a-buzz with chatter about how in the world
to pull off the "health" classes. There are all sorts of ideas,
jingles and dances being worked out. Marshan, Monica and Laurin have worked
out a health and hygiene number which will be coming out on CD available
Fall of '08! It rocks!

Marshan comes up to me at Breakfast. "Ro...come here...you have to look
at the back of these movie video boxes." (There is a fuzzy TV in the
corner of our meeting room). He reads the synopsis on the back of a
couple of them. "This movie must leave a sad and deep impression on anybody
that watches it...WATCH OUT!  And on the next, "Good things never
last!". Hmm. Aren't you just hankering to watch these flicks?  There's
nothing like spreading a little hope and encouragement via cinematic wonder
in a land downtrodden by poverty.


The ride in was quite the thrill this morning. We were stopped on the
highway briefly by a herd of 50-70 camels!  Many were on the road and
still more, trapsing along in the woods. It was quite a sight! Shortly
afterward, there was a large "yellow baboon" (really gray in color) on
the side of the road. He moseyed into the woods before he could forever
be captured on film.

Kenny did a wonderful job with the devotion this morning, humbling
himself through sharing his thoughts on Satan's attacks upon him during his
preparation. He illustrated Ephesians 6:10 and the armor we must all
wear for the Lord to thwart Satan's efforts. Kenny followed praise,
testimonies and a memory verse by a few of the children.

Tea time! And 'water the garden' time, followed by our hairy scary
schedule. At least we got all the details worked out last night, so things
should run smoothly. (Snicker snicker)

Scheduled to begin at 11. The garden girls did not hear that we were
supposed to stay put until 11. So we sauntered slowly up the hill to the
classes shortly after 10. Hillary walks in to put down her stuff and is
met with a room full of anxious faces looking at her and a teacher
saying, "OK, are you ready to start?". Hillary gives that look only she
can give so well with those big eyes and says "I guess so!", and digs
right in.  Meanwhile, I was wandering outside and was whisked away by a
teacher looking very official in her bright red dress and brought to a
remote classroom filled with 7th and 8th graders studying nutrition. They
interrupted the lesson to introduce me and have me begin. And so I
did.  Hillary, Pat and I found out later that that pretty much messed up
the rest of the day. No problem! We're flexible! For the most part
everyone stayed calm, reorganized and continued with whatever whenever.
Completely organized chaos. I love it. This is so fun.....we can never
really mess up because we never know what is really supposed to be done. So
it's all gotta be good!  

During the course of the crazy, helter skelter morn, there was a moment
to rest under a tree while the children ate breakfast. We got
devastating news. Yesterday, while in Embu, Jeff and Marshan bought the team
each a bag of crisps. They originally arranged "potato chips" for each of
us, but when Jeff said that would take 20 minutes to make, it was
finally determined that potato chips are what we call french fries and what
we call potato chips are here referred to as crisps.  Typical to those
familiar with British culture, not so obvious to those who are not.
But that's not the bad news.  The bad news is that last night, in the
big hubbub to get everyone out and on the beat to a home visitation, the
bag of crisps slated for the team, anxious for a familiar, greasy
tidbit, was erroneously scooped up among the family gifts and given away.
Truly, the Lord had those crisps slated for someone other than us. I am
sure they were blessed by the 20 bags of potato chips! lol.

As we wait for lunch prior to all the stations a quick gander around
finds Jenn and Cristin practicing their face painting skills, Ana is
thrilling the kids  with little stickers on their faces. Marshan is reading
his bible and John is teaching the boys to use the little doctor
puppet Ana brought along and videotaping them.

Today we serve the kids! The line goes on forever....so many children
blessed by the food Compassion provides.  303! I just took 2 pictures on
my cell and sent them to you.  I hope they, and the one of Jared and
Marshan in the "sink" holes came through. Huge mounds of rice and beans
for each boy and girl. Choice of goat or chicken, broth for each,
cabbage salad, green bananas. Probably the only meal for the rest of the day
for them. Margaret from Compassion just called "Ro-zahnna!  Come
he-ah!". She showed me the LARGEST vat of rice I have ever seen! About 3'
wide and 4' deep!

It takes some time get through feeding 303 children one by one, but at
last each has been fed!  Hillary notices that the children arise to
wash their own bowls and spoons, and there are no bones left. They have
eaten even the bones. Bless these children.  

The seed hole boys worked about 5 hours today, are beaten to the bone.
Please pray for healing, energy and strength for everyone, but
especially that team. Chris tried walking up the steps to our room, but could
not lift his leg high enough. My husband's hands are raw and everything
aches. I am sure the same is true for Jon, Chris and Kenny, with that
sort of work.  They are glazed over, but have apparently done such a
wonderful job. 125 yards of fencing put up today. 70% complete. That means
clearing the barbed wire, digging post holes, bringing in the logs and
setting them in place.

I am not certain, but I think the painting crew might be done. The
church looks great, and if there is any more painting to be done, I imagine
it would be the inside and/or waiting on the window guy to finish his
installation.


After our lunch the much anticipated  activities for ALL the Compassion
children commenced. There were groups doing games, singing, face
painting, coloring paper plates and making prayer bead bracelets.  At one
point I peeked into the singing room and saw Nicole singing and Cindy
signing to Jared's guitar playing with such huge smiles...they were
glowing. The kids LOVED Cristin, Jenn, and Jill's face painting!  Most of the
boys had snakes or red noses and cat whiskers on their faces. The
girls donned flowers, hearts and smileys. In with Danielle and my class,
the children learned the lesson of salvation via colored beads they put
onto bands to turn into a bracelet. I read the story of each color out
loud as they watched and followed Danielle's actions in putting it
together.   Then we repeated a corresponding poem together, and did a memory
verse. Every child left today with a face painting, a sign language
book mark from Cindy, a prayer bracelet, and a day neither they, nor we,
will soon forget. They have never experienced anything like it. The
teachers said over and over how much they loved what we were doing for the
children and how much they are learning from us.  We are learning so
much from one another!

The time at the project concluded with prayer, goodbyes and
appreciation from the children who will not be here Monday, as they are not in
summer school. They asked that we would all remember them, have safe
travels back and try to come back again someday.

The ride home culminated in questions about snakes (Joseph, our driver,
saw one today), game reserves (we not going on a safari with our
sponsored children apparently, but rather walking around a zoo.)

The boiling water has just arrived for my sponge bath (Samuel carries
it with no rag, bare-handed, in a plastic jug, twice a day. Evening when
we arrive and 5:30 am daily. I burn myself carrying it to the bathroom
from the porch!) Off to my water basin and then dinner. I have a
feeling we have a very long night ahead, rehearsing for the church visits
tomorrow. Oh....I tried to take a photo of the 2 inch long cockroach who
likes to play peek-a-boo in the pee/poop hole at the project, but he
was being camera shy. 

Dinner was great! Scoomawiki (kale), Ungali (white corn cakes),
"spaghetti" (angel hair with carrots, kale and cabbage), chicken and awesome
sliced avocados.

We broke into groups divided by the churches we are visiting tomorrow.
We are taking over a portion of each service. You might not yet have
been able to imagine that our "Everything" skit takes up quite a bit of
space, unless you logged into my blog (onto which these emails are
intended to be posted) and clicked on the YouTube video to watch it.  There
are 8 of us in it and there is dancing, fighting, etc.  The church the
team has been painting at our project is itty bitty. Apparently it's
the largest of the 4. I am interested to see how we, with ladies dressed
in skirts, are going to negotiate this. The plan for our group (Ha! I
have to laugh whenever I hear that word 'plan' in Kenya) is that Delos
opens with a welcome/thank you, allows us to each introduce ourselves,
talks from the book of James which leads into 2 songs sung by the group
(This Little Light of Mine and This is the Day that the Lord has
Made...chosen as those are the types of praise adults love to do here as
well) then onto the skit, followed by prayer and Chris' sermon. We are
expecting in all about a 2-3 hour service in all the churches this morning.


Last night was a bit of a scare. I was using the "facilities" when I
thought I heard footsteps and then someone leaning against the wall RIGHT
next to me. It was one of those "freeze and listen to every sound with
your heart pounding out of your chest" moments. Finally I got the
courage to stand, and while I have often glanced at a window in the dark,
fearing a pair of eyes peering right back at me, it was always a false
alarm, until last night. It was only a second til the perpetrator ran
off, so I ran out to see John and Jill heading this way, having seen
nothing other than the security guard they were chatting with. Long story
short, after Delos and John did some investigation, John came to find
out that there is a less than savory character hanging out here who is on
drugs and may have even approached one or 2 team members for drugs. He
is here temporarily and not necessarily all that welcome, so while we
do not know that it was him, for certain, at least there is now an
awareness.

Please pray that our messages this morning are anointed and well met
and that the focus, energy and enthusiasm will be there for all despite
exhaustion and bad tummies. We also have another crusade this evening!

Off to breakfast.