We are fine here and trying to keep out of the rain which is still coming most afternoons. This has been a really wet “short rainy season” and people are now concerned that if the rain continues like this, the ripening corn cobs will not dry properly.
It’s Monday and I’m looking forward (can you believe this?) to our regular Monday lunch of boiled potatoes and beans. The potatoes (“Irish potatoes” as they call them here) are really tasty and are cooked in water with a little oil, onion and tomato. The beans are just normal beans but are delicious with a dollop of chilli sauce. (Terry maintains that chilli sauce makes anything edible here!)
We have a nice wee house here and we don’t mind sharing it with others. However, apart from the bees in the chimney, a few of which find their way out each morning and commit suicide trying to get out of the (permanently shut) back door, the other creatures we have found sharing the house have been a bit of a problem. On Monday evening Hilda noticed a little pile of earth on the floor in the hallway, and on close inspection found termites coming up through a tiny hole in the concrete floor. The night guards confirmed that they were indeed termites and we also found more evidence of their presence outside. In fact there was a large frog sitting beside a termite hole just waiting for more of them to emerge. Where there are frogs there are also snakes, the next link up the food chain, and Leonard’s torchlight then found a nearby baby black mamba, which he quickly dispatched with his hatchet. Life here is never dull! Today a fundi (expert) was brought in to dig round the house and spray insecticide, so hopefully we have seen the beginning of the end of the termites.
While we were out of the house this evening, waiting till the insecticide fumes drifted away, I joined some of the Home kids in a classroom doing “prep”. Some were revising for tomorrow’s Standard 7 maths exam, some were reading books or today’s newspaper, but six of them were gathered round a table reading the Bible and discussing its meaning. Encouraging!
On the other hand, a young man who recently became a Christian and seemed to be turning his life around has gone against the godly advice a church leader offered him and has got married. Arranged marriages are no longer the norm here, but this young man’s sister apparently found a suitable girl for him and he went off to meet her last weekend. The next we knew, he had brought her back to his house and they had “married”. While Western ways of courtship and marriage are not necessarily good either, the church here has a lot to do to help people to apply biblical principles to relationships and many other aspects of life.
Hilda and Dorine are starting a group for young mothers and the first meeting is Thursday morning. Hilda will be giving some basic health education and the first topic is “water”; Dorine will do a very short Bible lesson . The purpose of this group is to support young mothers who are struggling and to outreach into the community. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Wednesday 16 November 2011
Wednesday 9 November 2011
bizarre?
Kenya is a place of bizarre experiences.
• The preacher on Sunday is wearing a Somerfield fleece jacket. No-one thinks there is anything unusual about this.
• The Standard 8 children are sitting their primary school leaving exams – this is taken extremely seriously and as well as an invigilator from another school we also have a policeman on site (actually he looks more like a soldier, complete with semi-automatic rifle) to ensure that there is no cheating!
• We came back from Oyugis in a shared taxi the other day. The taxi waits until it is filled with passengers, then the driver gets in – how is he going to drive when there is another man sitting in the driver’s seat? Not a problem – he just squeezes over. There are 4 adults in the front of the Toyota estate car, 4 in the back, and another 5 in the boot, not to mention babies and luggage!
As I said, this week our Standard 8 pupils are sitting their KCPE exams which will determine if they can go on to high school and potentially university. Last Thursday, in preparation, all the standard 8 pupils from the area met in one of the local schools for a “day of prayer” for the exams! Then here on Friday all the school gathered together, one of the teachers spoke on the David & Goliath story (the exams are their “Goliath”!) and we prayed for their success. It was something we couldn’t imagine happening in the UK! In church on Sunday they were again prayed for. So if they don’t do well it won’t be due to a lack of prayer.
Our main work continues to be to support the church leaders in developing and implementing a vision for the church. We seem to have an open door at the moment for leading them into new ideas. We have a lot of respect for them as we see how strong their faith is, and their love for God. Some of them have come through very difficult circumstances, and all of them struggle to a greater or lesser extent to feed and care for their families.
I have been out in the community also with Dorine. We visited a 19 year old who first came to the Hope & Kindness gate last week with her 17 month old son. The child has really bad Kwashiorkor (wet malnutrition) due to lack of protein. The mother was given a supply of food, vitamins, de-worming tablets, iron syrup and an antibiotic for his infected sores. We will keep a close eye on him. She had stopped breast feeding early because she had become pregnant with his sister, who is now one month old. She gave birth, all by herself, in her mud house! Her husband keeps leaving to get a job in a nearby town and disappears for months and does not provide for them.
I have recently met another 19 year old, who has twins as a result of rape - they are very malnourished.
Seeing these two young mothers has made Dorine and I decide not to wait until next year to start a Young Mothers Group but to start next Thursday. Neither of these girls have support from families. They don’t attend church but both have been responsive to what we have shared with them, and one of them just cried when Dorine prayed with her yesterday.
We have a church leaders meeting on Sunday afternoon so we will seek their approval first – but I’m sure there won’t be a problem. We plan to do some basic health education and will have some spiritual content also. Maybe I’ll just play with the children!
With the leaders this Sunday we will sort out dates for the first Encounter weekend, which will just be for a few English speakers, including Dorine and Kennedy. Hope it’s not too hard going with just the two of us taking it! We are going away this Friday for the day to start working on it.
We have been invited to the wedding of one of the teachers on 3rd December so will be interesting to see how things are done here. It is only the better-off here who have a wedding. Most girls just go and live with their husband when a cow or two are handed over as a dowry. Often even this does not happen and the husband can still be owing the cows many years later!
• The preacher on Sunday is wearing a Somerfield fleece jacket. No-one thinks there is anything unusual about this.
• The Standard 8 children are sitting their primary school leaving exams – this is taken extremely seriously and as well as an invigilator from another school we also have a policeman on site (actually he looks more like a soldier, complete with semi-automatic rifle) to ensure that there is no cheating!
• We came back from Oyugis in a shared taxi the other day. The taxi waits until it is filled with passengers, then the driver gets in – how is he going to drive when there is another man sitting in the driver’s seat? Not a problem – he just squeezes over. There are 4 adults in the front of the Toyota estate car, 4 in the back, and another 5 in the boot, not to mention babies and luggage!
As I said, this week our Standard 8 pupils are sitting their KCPE exams which will determine if they can go on to high school and potentially university. Last Thursday, in preparation, all the standard 8 pupils from the area met in one of the local schools for a “day of prayer” for the exams! Then here on Friday all the school gathered together, one of the teachers spoke on the David & Goliath story (the exams are their “Goliath”!) and we prayed for their success. It was something we couldn’t imagine happening in the UK! In church on Sunday they were again prayed for. So if they don’t do well it won’t be due to a lack of prayer.
Our main work continues to be to support the church leaders in developing and implementing a vision for the church. We seem to have an open door at the moment for leading them into new ideas. We have a lot of respect for them as we see how strong their faith is, and their love for God. Some of them have come through very difficult circumstances, and all of them struggle to a greater or lesser extent to feed and care for their families.
I have been out in the community also with Dorine. We visited a 19 year old who first came to the Hope & Kindness gate last week with her 17 month old son. The child has really bad Kwashiorkor (wet malnutrition) due to lack of protein. The mother was given a supply of food, vitamins, de-worming tablets, iron syrup and an antibiotic for his infected sores. We will keep a close eye on him. She had stopped breast feeding early because she had become pregnant with his sister, who is now one month old. She gave birth, all by herself, in her mud house! Her husband keeps leaving to get a job in a nearby town and disappears for months and does not provide for them.
I have recently met another 19 year old, who has twins as a result of rape - they are very malnourished.
Seeing these two young mothers has made Dorine and I decide not to wait until next year to start a Young Mothers Group but to start next Thursday. Neither of these girls have support from families. They don’t attend church but both have been responsive to what we have shared with them, and one of them just cried when Dorine prayed with her yesterday.
We have a church leaders meeting on Sunday afternoon so we will seek their approval first – but I’m sure there won’t be a problem. We plan to do some basic health education and will have some spiritual content also. Maybe I’ll just play with the children!
With the leaders this Sunday we will sort out dates for the first Encounter weekend, which will just be for a few English speakers, including Dorine and Kennedy. Hope it’s not too hard going with just the two of us taking it! We are going away this Friday for the day to start working on it.
We have been invited to the wedding of one of the teachers on 3rd December so will be interesting to see how things are done here. It is only the better-off here who have a wedding. Most girls just go and live with their husband when a cow or two are handed over as a dowry. Often even this does not happen and the husband can still be owing the cows many years later!
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