Uriri, the "sweetest" of them all

Uriri was our destination today. Set in the rolling hills of sugar cane country, this orphanage is a neat place. Kenedy Chandi is the WBS worker here, and he has done a great job leveraging our dollars to help this orphanage thrive. The kids looked great here, and the facility was first rate.

We arrived in time for a quick inspection and for John to visit the widows before time for worship. All the kids start singing in the hall, about an hour before church actually starts. They are happy, motivated, and loud. Although they couldn't understand a word that was sung, Cherie happily sat ad listened to them until time for worship.

Worship here was similar to Kamulu last week except there was less singing during the service and more preaching. John was invited to give the sermon, and he did a great job. They were a little disappointed that he only went 10 minutes, they are used to 45 or so. So the man doing communion thoughts made up for it, and the Kenedy said another sermon in preparation for the contribution. I was trying to think to myself what would happen if someone stood up at GCR and preached for 30 minutes on giving before the contribution every week. I'm guessing someone would get an "elder call."

After lunch they showed us the "juggery" operation. This is the field refining of sugar cane into raw sugar for later processing. Cane is cut by machete, called a pongo here, and hauled to the site by ox drawn wagons. Then it is fed, a few stalks at a time, into a machine that crushes the stalk and squeezes out the liquid sugar sap. This is collected in buckets and taken to a huge cauldron that is heated by a fire of crushed cane, and boiled to reduce it's volume to a sticky syrup. This is poured into cone shaped, metal forms and cooled to a solid form. These cones are then bagged in 90kg lots and sold to a Saudi Arabian sugar company for further refining into white sugar and molasses.

It's a unique money maker for this orphanage, and they do well with it. It will never yield enough to make the orphanage self sufficient, but every little bit helps. It allows the some of the able bodied, and otherwise unemployed, church members to contribute to the orphans and everyone gains.

We stopped on the way "home" at the curio store where soapstone carvings are made. It's cool to watch them work, but our shopping was cut short by a sudden, fierce rain storm. We managed to make a pretty good dent in their inventory before we left, soaking, for the lovely Mash Park.

Tomorrow, we will head to Ndhiwa, the second-to-last orphanage on our complete tour of this ministry. Tuesday we will meet with all the orphanage workers here at Kisii, and then we will load up and head for Kericho, for another night at the Tea Hotel. We've managed to shave a couple of days off the schedule, so we will have a little time to be tourists in Nairobi, before we get on the plane next Saturday. Thanks for living this with us. Be sure and comment if you can and check out the pics on the Picassa link to the right.