Thursday.

As you know from reading my blogs, I enjoy Thursdays. I love the fact that we can hang out at the house until around 11, and then we get to go swimming with a bunch of kids. Today is the first time that I will be swimming so I am excited to see how it goes. I think that the best par tis that we get to eat fries for lunch. That is like me dream, eating only french fries and drinking soda for lunch.

Day 2

Yes this was the second, and last, day of sitting around and doing nothing. I watched some ALIAS, read some Harry Potter, Thought some thoughts, had some laughs and overall enjoyed myself. Tomorrow we begin the hectic schedule again, and I could not be more excited to do so.

I was thinking about the trip to Kakuma and Lodwar, and I thought that I wanted to let you know more about it right now, but then I remembered how impatient I was when it came to this internet here, so I once again refer you to Daina's and Allison's blogs. They do a great job with uploading pictures, and telling the stories. I sometimes feel bad for pirating their blog, but when i think about it, I don't feel that bad. Thanks girls! (just click on their names and it will take you to their blogs.)

I pray all of you are doing well, and that God is doing great things in your lives. I love all of you.

Chris

HOME, SWEET HOME.

Well I have been gone for a week, and I am sure that all of you are wondering where I was, and what I was doing. Well the girls and I, along with a pastor from town, headed to Northern Kenya, to a place called Lodwar and Kakuma. There is no way that I will ever be able to describe the trip to you on this blog, so I am going to sum up a weeks worth of stories and experiences with this picture:

Yes, all is good with American relations in North Kenya. Thanks to me.

I also wanted to post this picture so that you could see how nasty sweaty I got; as well as how sweet my new hat is.

Lazy Su..um Saturday.

The rain never stopped, it just kept coming down like it was hell bent on drowning all the inhabitants of Kitale town. I can't complain though, I got to stay in most of the day and do some reading, writing and thinking. I also got some time to go into town today by myself. I love going into town and just observing. Today however I saw something that really hit me hard.

I was standing around talking to a couple street boys, and I noticed one that I had not seen before. Something wasn't right though, standing there staring I couldn't understand why my heart was hurting more then ever for this one. Then I noticed it, she was a girl, the first one I had seen. A street girl, it even sounds terrible to say; not that street boy isn't horrible. I don't know what it was about her that just made me want to cry out to God and ask him; why? She was sniffing glue, not unusual, but for some reason I could not stand to see her inhale the toxic fumes. Her eyes were empty, and I cringed to think about what terrible things they had seen and experienced. She just stared at me as I tried to talk to her, but my terrible Swahili was only matched with her worse English, my heart wept for her. I know her name is Josephine, and that she is 14, but other then that one can only guess where she comes from or where she is going. Even know, every part of me that hates what happens in the world is screaming for justice, and my heart aches. I have cried a lot while living here, but for some reason this idea of her and the rest of the boys in the rain tonight kills me.

This brings me to my next question: what the hell do I do? It is a thing that is always on my mind, and constantly in my prayers. What can I do? I am confident that the Lord has put me here for some reason, and I may not fully understand why for some time, but for now all I can do is try my best to follow His lead.

T.G.I.F

No, not the terrible restaurant, but the real thing; Thank God it is Friday! I love Fridays because I get to hang out with this guy:


His name is Churchill, and he is an awesome dude who lives at a place called discover to recover. This place is an amazing place where children form the surrounding area can come and get food and an education. The area is a slum of sorts, where the children come from very poor homes. Most parents in the area are uneducated, so the need for education is not important to them; that and the money to pay for uniforms and school fees just isn't available. Churchill is actually an orphan, he was brought in by his brother who was his guardian at the age of 7. Churchill is HIV positive, and that is the reason that he lives at the center. The center is also a place for children who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS to come and get counseling. Patricia Sowa and her husband Francis run the center. God has blessed them with unbelievable opportunities to travel the world and speak on HIV/AIDS; and considering that Patricia has been Infected with HIV for around 10 years, it makes her an incredible source of wisdom on the subject.

Then we went to the Oasis girls house and had the most amazing dinner. All of the girls are so great, and the food was probably the best that I have eaten in here in Kenya. I ate so much that I think that I was gong to throw up all over the floor. But it was a great time.

With Great Power Comes...

So, for the past couple days I have been reading the 6th installment of the Harry Potter series. I know what you are thinking, I am a complete nerd, a 21 year old dude who loves reading about teenage wizards and warlocks. If you think that I don't think myself a dork, you are sorely mistaken, I am quite enlightened to this fact. That is beside the point that I am trying to make however. If you have been keeping up with Allison's blog you would know that the other night we watched around 45 minutes of episode two of Star Wars, and you will also know that we watched Indiana Jones (all three). this recent overload of awesome has once again thrown me into a funk about being merely human. I want so badly to be able to wield a light saber and use the force. Or even cast a few spells on people, just for fun of course. Maybe I could find a few ancient artifacts, all while fooling the Nazis. But then I remember, I am just a dude, a dude who can't do any of those great things. And that is the way I was feeling for the past couple days, simply human.

That all changed today though. I was reading my bible in Acts, and I stumbled upon a simple human who did some really awesome things. His name is Paul, and his power? The holy spirit. So today I decided to shape up, get out of my funk and do something awesome. It feels good to be empowered.

(Editors note: This blog was purely for entertainment value. Nothing that was said by the author was meant to be takes seriously, except the part about Paul being awesome)

On a more "Kenyan" note, tonight we went to dinner at a dear friends house after a long day at the pool with the kids. Onesmus is actually Geoffry's brother as well as the Caretaker of Lydia's compound. He has a great little boy named David who is seven, so naturally our humor is the same. All in all it was a nice day, like i said last week, I love Thursdays.

I told him to make a face that made him look terribly awkward. I succeeded, he just got angry.

Crane Swinging

Wednesdays are the longest days of all. In the morning we went to Oasis for a couple hours and do the usual stuff (the girls work and I play). Then in the afternoon the girls and I met with Ben and Christine who run the high school Gilgal. We had to talk to Ben because we are going to Lodwar and Kakuma (spelling questionable) to work with the Sudanese refugees. Then after lunch we headed to Gilgal so that we could do the usual Wednesday things. Daina taught a great class about rocks, then we answered questions and then I taught some P.E., which basically means I ref. a soccer game. Just an average Wednesday, but our Thursdays are a perfect compliment to our Wednesdays, so everything is great.




Oh and a little something else, we found an amazingly fun thing to do in town. There is a crane by the train tracks that goes unused, that is until we found it. We now use it as a great wing, one of the funnest things to do. So here are some pictures to prove it: