Ndhiwa

Since today was Sunday, that means church, of course.  This time I honored a request that was made to me last March and came to worship at our orphanage at Ndhiwa.  Alfayo had learned in our previous meetings that I was a minister who had never preached; a foreign concept in Africa.  So I became a preacher, at least for today.  I adapted a sermon Charlton gave a few weeks ago about Ruth.  I told the story of a widow, with little money or hope but great faith and love, who God elevates to be the ancestor of both Davis and Jesus.  With a room full of widows and orphans who have been redeemed by Christ’s love, it seemed a perfect fit.  I’m sure I delivered it inadequately, but the expected response was there and at least two orphans fell asleep.  I now feel complete.

Ndhiwa was our second orphanage, and is led by the very capable Alfayo Bodi.  Alfayo is a big man, really big for a Kenyan.  I always try to bring him shirts or a jacket from the US when I come because you can’t find 2XL in Kenya.  Ndhiwa is 130 kids compressed into ½ an acre.  They have little room to move, but they make the best of it.  Like all of our facilities, Ndhiwa is sporting new water filters.  These filters are made in Kenya of a design that uses slow sand filtration to achieve up to 95% purity from contaminants in a self cleaning, maintenance free filter.  The widows we spoke to were adamant that they always use the filters and the water tastes much better.  I took samples for testing so we can be sure they work as well as they were supposed to.

We met with the secondary school students who had to go and take end-of-term exams today.  We encouraged them to do their best and answered their questions as best we could.  They were open and frank about their concerns, yet they were typical teenagers also; struggling to adapt to adult life that looms in front of them.  Hopefully we didn’t scare them too badly.

We met also with the primary school kids.  They were full of energy but politely asked us dozens of questions about America, including some great questions about American government.  Can you name the US Chief Justice? I’m glad I remembered.  We did our best to encourage them to study hard and look out for their large extended family at the orphanage.

By far the most interesting meeting of the day was with the orphan’s board.  This is a group of adults who live in the area that volunteer to serve to advise Alfyao on how best to care for the children.  Alfayo has done excellent work in choosing his board members.  He has a teacher, a pastor, a District Children’s Officer, an Area Chief, a widow from the orphanage, a church member, and the director of the orphanage.  Later he will add two secondary students (male and female) to make sure the orphans are represented.  They had great questions and some good ideas to consider.  It was refreshing to say the least to know that others are worrying about the same things we are back on the orphan’s board in the US.

Alas, rain showers and fear of getting stranded on a really bad road forced us to leave somewhat abruptly, but we’ll see Alfayo again tomorrow as we head to the brand new, Tom Manning Orphanage at Ototo.  Here are some pics from today’s visit. 

Ndhiwa

Keep the comments coming; they are like fresh water to us here in Kenya.