The Day of LOVE

I have been so extremely blessed to have to opportunity to spend my birthday in a whole new way. In case you are wondering, I had a splendid birthday full of smiles, laughs, great company, and yes, even cake! My students brought homemade cards and we were able to share cake together at the end of the day. I learned that it is tradition to be “washed” on your birthday…aka have buckets of water dumped on you. I lucked out and was able to avoid this due to football practice after school. All of the older kids had to rush out to practice, leaving me dry!  This left me available to spend the afternoon playing some new games with the younger children. It was really fun and I was blown away once again by my friend, Rachel. Rachel is super sweet and is around the age of 11. She is always inviting me over to the apartment and is a very loving young woman. For my birthday she gave me a bracelet that she made, a necklace, a homemade cross that someone had given her and a bottle of lotion (because she had 2). I was blown away! I know it might sound silly to be taken aback by this, but not only was it unexpected it was an act of complete selflessness. Her actions reminded me of the passage that the students have memorized, Proverbs 23. In Proverbs 23:4, I believe is the verse, it says “Do not wear yourself out to get rich, have the wisdom to show restraint.” There are many verses in the Bible that warn us about chasing after riches and the things of this world. But seeing that we say this one everyday it stuck out in my mind right away. I constantly find myself worn down from work while back in the states. Always looking for a few more hours or how I can make a few more dollars. Sometimes it’s for completely honest things such as paying off loans or bills, but many times it’s out of pure selfishness; how much can I save up so that I can get….whatever it is that I desire at the time. I seldom seem to be able to show restraint when it comes to this. I have realized just how much I value “stuff” and how often I try to use this “stuff” to fill the void in my heart. This “stuff” is always, without a doubt, unfulfilling and meaningless; never accomplishing what I desire it to and instead leaving me miserable and empty. Looking at Rachel’s example is so inspiring to me. She hardly has anything to call her own and yet she takes from that and gladly gives to others….gives to me. It’s an understatement to say that I am touched and inspired by this act of love and generosity. God has definitely used her to remind me of the true desire of my heart: a desire to love and be loved by Him. His love and His presence is the ONLY thing that can fill me, NOTHING else will do. It is when we are completely in love with Him that we are at peace. And the love that He pours into us is so abundant that it overflows from our hearts and allows us to love one another. 1 John 4:7-8 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” God calls us to do many things but first and foremost He calls us to love. He calls each one of us to take up our cross and become more like Him. Sometimes I wonder what exactly that should look like, but I believe the answer is so simple… to Love. We are like Him when we love for “God IS love.” I believe that we all need to learn how to love in a pure and sincere way, just as Jesus loved us by giving us EVERYTHING, we too need to love without reserve. 

The Adventure Continues

On Friday, I went swimming with the older girls after school. It was a blast and a few of the teachers went as well. My supervising teacher, Catherine, was one of them. She confided in me that she didn't know how to swim so I promised to do my best to teach her. After splashing around and racing with the girls, Catherine and I went to work. She was really nervous but extremely determined. We tried many different techniques and even though the water was freezing, we were not getting out until we had accomplished our task! I wish that I could say that Catherine is now an expert swimmer, but alas I cannot. However, she made so much progress that it was impossible for both us not to be jumping and clapping at her improvements! She is still nervous but as long as she can feel my finger tips touching her hands when she starts, she has no fear! Luckily, we have another trip to the swimming pool before the term ends to perfect her swimming! We are both really excited to pick up where we left off! Then this weekend there was a couple football games at the compound. Of course I had to go watch, considering a lot of my students and the KKV kids were playing. They were really fun to watch and made for a great morning! Then on Saturday evening I went over to one of the apartments for supper. (The compound contains 4 apartments in one large building. Each apartment has a mom and a dad and around 10 children or so.) The girls fixed supper for everyone along with tea while I watched movies with the younger children. They are very adamant about not letting me help them cook and clean. It is such an odd feeling, being forced to sit around while someone else, who is younger than you by quite a ways, pampers you with hospitality. They also, as part of their culture, bring you out lots of foods. If they are cooking something, they bring out what they made, offering it to you first. Not eating it would be considered an insult, even though they always give you a very generous portion. Therefore, I am learning not to eat anything before I go to visit anyone! Otherwise I end up with a very full and upset tummy. After supper, I stood my ground and they finally relented and allowed me to help with the dishes. Then we gathered around in the living room while Lucy read a Bible story to the children and then quizzed them to make sure they were absorbing the material. As this was going on, I got to practice my hair removing skills! Pretty soon, I will be able to take out lines No Problem! Speaking of hair, Lydia said that she is going to put my hair in braids with extensions soon! I can't wait to have long hair again! Even if it is only an illusion! ha ha. Well that's all for today. Wish me luck because I will be completely in charge of the classroom for the rest of the week while Teacher Catherine is away handling some family matters. And I will need all of the luck that I can get! Thanks and God Bless!

Giraffes, Elephants and Foreign Foods...OH MY!

This last week has been full of fun and adventure! Since my fellow volunteer, Tiffany, left today back to the States, we were very blessed to get to spend some time doing "touristy" things! We started out by just hanging out with some friends. Selum, cooked us Ethiopian food at her home and it was absolutely AMAZING! The bread, in a way looks like a thin and flimsy sponge. all of the food is on one plate in the center of the table and you break pieces of the bread off and use it to pick up the other foods on the plate. It can get fairly messy, especially if your not experienced! Needless to say, I felt like a slob trying to eat!  Tray made a comment about us eating the same type of food that Jesus and His disciples ate...I have been throwing this thought around in my head. Even though the areas are quite a distance apart, it could still be likely. The thought of sitting around with friends breaking the same type of bread as Jesus himself might have eaten is kind of sweet (even if it's not true)! We are quickly getting to know some incredible people and their families! I love it and there are almost always people coming over to hang out! So while the lifestyle isn't quite so fast paced, time is always filled with people. It's so refreshing to be able to take time to spend with people instead of rushing about consumed in my own little world. With Tiffany leaving, there seemed to be a constant flow of people at the house. However, we were able to set aside Sat. to go to the elephant orphanage and the Giraffe park. The baby elephants were absolutely adorable! Only a rope separated those huge babies and us! Libby and Tiffany even got to pet them as they walked by. At the Giraffe Park we were able to feed the giraffes from a tower-like building. It is crazy how big those things are up close! They have the coolest looking tongues! The big thing to do is to put some of their food between your lips and the giraffe will "give you a kiss." Sounds crazy I know! But of course we took part! Let's be honest, how many times are you going to be close enough to kiss a giraffe?! Following the giraffe park, we stopped and ate some traditional Indian food. It was like nothing I have ever tasted. Some of it just strange, while other items were just plain delicious! It seems crazy that another week has passed. So much happens in a week that I can't possibly record it all at once. I will try to do a better job of updating this thing! Thanks for following! God Bless!

The KKV School

So I am sure everyone is just dying to know what the school is like. At KKV they use quite a different setup. The children do most of their learning on their own through PACEs, which are basically workbooks. All of the PACEs are reused. Everything is done in pencil so that at the end of the workbook the answers can be erased and the booklet can be used again by the next student. It is done this way because workbooks are extremely expensive and supplying them for all of the kids in each subject would be impossible. So everyday time is taken to "rub" (erase) PACEs. The students sit at their own little cubical, completing a few sections out of the booklet before they check their work with the score key. The whole system is very strict and is based on teaching the children discipline, integrity, patience, ect...basically characteristics of Christ. So after they have completed their work, they put up a tag on their desk and wait to be called to go check their work. From there they raise their hand and patiently wait for a teacher to come over and double check their work. If there are any mistakes the student returns to their desk and makes corrections and then repeats until 100% of the section is correct. If they miss 3 or more questions then they usually have to erase all of their work and get the section explained to them before they can retry. The entire room is silent all day long, which is way different from an American classroom. Everything is biblical based from the morning pledges to the bible passages that they have to memorize to the workbooks completely revolving around scripture! It is actually quite impressive in that aspect. These children memorize huge chunks of scripture and get demerits if they can not recite it. Their current scripture is over 25 verses long! And pretty soon they will be starting a new one! It is really amazing! Every Thursday, chapel is held at the Banda and usually lasts about an hour. The teacher I am helping, Catherine, is such an amazing woman! She is constantly telling the students about the love of Jesus and the importance of having His Word in our hearts. Last week, she talked for almost a half an hour after lunch about salvation and around 8 kids accepted Jesus as their Savior! I love the fact that prayer and scripture can be shared all day long! It is really an awesome setup. However, I do wish that there would be more interaction/ more hands on learning. All of the children in my class are from other orphanages, so I only get to see them during the school day. I know all of them now by face and name and am starting to get to know a few of them a lot better during breaks. Today I got to take a few students outside and work with them on adjectives. It was really fun getting to come up with different ways to explain things; by far my favorite part! With two teachers in the classroom now, they are making tremendous progress! This is great because many of them are really far behind in school, especially in English. On Fridays, school gets out at 1 instead of 4 so that the students can play sports. Football (soccer) is HUGE here and the kids are really talented! This Friday the boys get to go swimming and I think we are going to play volleyball with some of the girls who don't really like football. Next Friday, however, the girls get to go swimming! That will be fun! Last Friday, we took the young kids swimming and it was complete chaos! Most of them didn't know how to swim and since only Libby and I were teaching it was impossible but full of laughs. It didn't take long to realize that even the older children didn't care so much if they could swim or not as long as you were giving them attention and encouragement! Like all children, they just want attention and love; to feel like they are the whole world to somebody! It has helped me become more aware of the importance of encouraging and expressing our love to children and one another; no matter how loud, crazy, and inconvenient that it might seem to be at the time. Not only is it much needed but it's deserved!

Big Reminders in Small Packages

A few days ago, during our break at school, I was swinging at the Banda with a couple of the younger girls. They were just captivated by the bracelets (bangles) that I was wearing. Long story short I ended up giving them all away, all except one. It worked out perfectly that all of the girls had received a bangle and I still had my favorite one. I didn't think much of it at the time; all I could think of was their smiling faces after receiving the crazy Mzungu's (white person's) bangles. But then last night I was hanging out at the house and God used this bangle around my wrist to remind me of His perfect love for me. It finally had occurred to me that the bangle I wasn't willing to part with wasn't the most expensive or the most brilliantly made; it's the one that my beautiful sister Haley had made for me right before I left the States. I can clearly picture her standing in front of me with her box of strings, asking me to pick out my favorite three colors. Then she proceeded to put her best effort into making me a very special bangle. Her love for me is represented by the only bangle that I currently wear around my wrist.Yes, I could easily go out and buy a shiny, expensive, extremely decorated and beautiful bangle, but it would mean nothing to me. Sometimes I realize how inadequate I really am. I know that I have nothing amazing or shiny or brilliant to offer my King. Yet, in the same way that I find my bangle to be more valuable than gold, He sees worth in me. All He desires is my love. While everyone around me may not see anything special about this simple bangle, I consider it to be a treasure. In this same way, God treasures me. Not because I have "the best" to offer Him, but because I strive to offer Him my best and all of my love. Praise God that He can find worth in someone like me! His love is truly overwhelming!

A glance into my new home

Wow a lot has happened in the last few days, most of it seems almost impossible to explain so let me start with my new home. I live in a house with Lydia and her husband Tray, who are expecting their first child in about 5 months! Along with them are two other volunteers, Tiffany and Libby, who are also helping in the school. Our home is wonderful and is located in the compound so we get to see the kids almost constantly. We got to spend quite a bit of time with the children on Friday afternoon and it was so much fun! They are just absolutely precious! They are completely full of joy even though they have very little compared to most children in the States. In a short time, I was swarmed with little bodies each one wanting to hold my hand, arm, or basically anything they could grab onto. I can't remember the last time I have laughed so hard! Then on Saturday I spent some time with a few of the "older" girls, who act way more mature than what age they really are. They are extremely smart as well, completely blowing me away. One of them, Lucy, took me to her home and taught me how to cook! It was super fun and I learned a lot watching Lucy care for the younger children and prepare supper for 10+ people entirely on her own. Listening to these girls tell me about their childhoods completely broke my heart. To think of how they had no other choice but to work in order for their younger siblings to eat at the age of 5-6 just about rips a person's heart in half! And then to think of all of the children that still live in those conditions, and many in worse, brings tears to my eyes. But I am sure there will be more to come on that later so I will end this post with something a bit more up-beat. On Sunday we went to church at Nairobi Lighthouse Church. Service is held in a big metal building that seated at least a thousand people and first service was filled to the brim! Picture over a thousand people dancing, lifting hands and voices to our Lord! It was one of the coolest things that I have ever been apart of! The overwhelming peace and joy that filled my heart and soul left no doubt that God was present and enjoying the praises of His people! The church is having a Kesha (all night prayer meeting) this Friday and I can't wait! God is moving in BIG ways in Nairobi and in my own heart and I can't wait to see what is to come!

I made it!

Hey all! Just thought I would let everyone know that I made it safe and sound! Since I got in super late last night I don't really have a whole lot to say yet, but so far so good! I can't wait to get this day started!