End of the Week Recap

It has been a full couple of days. I checked up on Vincent at Sister Freda’s the other day, and he seemed to be recovering Nicely. He still doesn’t enjoy having a mouth full of metal, but I promised him that if he gave it a couple of days it would feel normal (I hope that’s true).

Thursday was an amazing day. Steve and I have set a goal that we will visit every house in Shimo La Tewa this summer. Shimo is a neighborhood down the street from us that many of the children from Oasis come from, and that is considered in some areas to be a slum. One of the churches that we have been working with is locate there, and the congregation has a huge heart for the community. Thursday marked the start of my house visits to Shimo, and we must have visited 15 houses talking with the mommas, and encouraging them in Jesus. The greatest part about these visits is praying for the women, and for their homes. I love the people of Shimo so much, and to become more a part of the community is something that I deeply desire. Soon I will do a blog solely on one of those prayer walks, God has really used them to change my life. I would encourage you to pray for Shimo as well, there is so much need there.

Friday was the kick off of “The Day of the African Child” Which recognizes our duty to the children of Africa. It was an awesome event here in Kitale. The celebration was kicked off by at least 200 children marching through town with a marching band and a motorcade of what seemed to be some very important people ( I wish I had pictures, and to be honest I forgot my camera at home, that can happen when you have 3,000 pictures of a place). Then I sat and watched some performances from local children’s organizations. I really am not portraying what a big deal this was in town, this was actually the national event that was held here in Kitale. Sometimes these types of things are lost on us foreigners.

Saturday was also an interesting day. I had decided early in the Morning that I would get some laundry done but at about nine I got a phone call from a pastor in town asking me if I would like to go plant a tree with him. Of course I said yes, just because it was such an odd request, and also because planting trees is a super important and symbolic experience here. Well as it turns out we were headed down to Shimo secondary school, which is a brand new high school down the road, and I was to plant a tree in honor of Steve Rutenbar. I must say I have never been to a function where I was representing someone, and I think when you get to the point of sending other people in your place, you are really someone, so congrats Steve, you are really someone. It was great, we planted some trees and listened to some speeches, and like most things in Kenya, it lasted hours.

Those are the happenings from East Africa, sorry for the delay and brevity, I’ll try harder next time.