The Grace House

Grace House Orphanage was formerly the Nyango Feeding Station.  It is in a very remote area, that is difficult to reach by road in the rainy season.  It is on the site of a church planted by Alfayo Bodi some years ago.  We began construction on the orphanage upgrade here several months ago.  The construction has been very slow because of the roads.  The last time I was here, they were almost finished with the dorms and working on the dining hall.  This time, they are almost through with construction.

 

The dorms are complete and the kids are in.  The dining hall and kitchen are done and the church is meeting there as well.  They have built a great clinic building that also includes a manager’s office and a visitor’s quarters.  Alfayo has laid the buildings out well, with neat paths between the buildings, well designed drainage paths and painted white stones to mark the walkways.  It is so beautiful!

 

But the best part of this place was the kids.  When we arrived it was mid morning and the place was empty except for the widows and guards, since the kids were all back in school.  Around lunch, they all returned home and gathered in the dining hall.  After they ate, they did a short singing service for us, which is something that usually happens.  They are great singers and it touched my heart extremely.  But what really stood out for me was the smiles!

 

As an orphanage ages, the kids get used to what God has done for them, and sometimes even a little eager for more blessings.  These kids still have a fresh recollection of how bad their lives were before they lived in the orphanage.  They were so grateful, eagerly shaking my hand and thanking me for visiting them.  I had almost thought that I had lost the capacity to be touched so deeply by a group of orphans, but these kids restored me.

 

Afterwards, as the kids were getting ready to go back to school, the beautiful buildings really began to shine.  The kids provided the soul of the place and it’s appearance was even more beautiful then.  There was a lesson here for me.  We are all made by God to be beautiful, since we are made in his image.  But when His spirit is living in us and we are willing to let it show, our beauty has more dimensions than we can even see.   It must be the way God sees us, thanks to the redeeming blood of Christ, pure and beautiful, full of life and spirit, just has He intended.  The picture of Grace House that I shall always remember is of the kids, using the buildings, giving their collective home a real soul.  Be blessed.

Adingo Opanga, Glasscock, Uriri

Adingo has been a feeding station for several years, but in all my trips to Kenya, I have never been here.  It’s a bit remote, tucked in the same hills that Dirubi and Lee McGraw are in, and not too far from Ongoro.  It’s full name is Adingo Opanga.  Tobias accompanied us, and we met Thomas along the way.  It’s a small church, but one with a big heart.  They have quietly been serving orphans here since 2008.  They greeted us with tea and mandazi, and then we had worship.

 

It was a fairly typical Kenyan service, singing in choruses and congregational style, preaching for the contribution, preaching for theLord’s supper, and the just plain preaching.  I did the last part.  I think I did better this time, certainly it was longer, which the Kenyan’s like, and I was getting some good vibes from the church members.  Afterward, Thomas invited church members to speak and respond to the sermon.  I thought that was a really good idea, one that we could adopt if we weren’t so concerned with ending our services in time for the football games.

 

One of the visitors was Tobias’ primary school teacher.  Seems that Tobias lived in this area as a kid.  He was a neat guy that spoke excellent English.  He coached a competitive walking team for the school that Tobias was on.  Another visitor was the area Chief.  The chief is an appointed political office for the Kenyan government.  The chief’s job is to implement the governments policies in the local area as best he can.  He was a nice guy, and he spoke about how the church is doing the real work of helping the people, even more than the government.  It was refreshing to hear that take on things.

 

After church it was time for lunch, (yes, church lasted 3 hours).  Again the local dignitaries joined us, and the asked me all kinds of questions about America, Obama, and how I liked Kenya.  For a guy like me who finds great joy in taking apart my home theatre system and putting it back together, it seems weird to enjoy local Kenyan small-talk, but I did.  God moves in mysterious ways.

 

After we left Adingo Opanga, we drove in to Kisii for a night at the Dados, a western style hotel.  Electricity and hot showers are the chief attraction, but the very fast internet was a welcome treat as well. 

 

This morning, we loaded up to visit the Nana GlasscockFeeding Station, which is under construction to convert it into a full orphanage.  The drive in was very difficult, since there is no proper road.  We traveled on the edge of sugar cane and maize farms, down cow paths and over rocker washouts.  I was glad to have such a good vehicle to make the journey.  Every time we use it on terrain like this I say a little prayer for John Cherry and the others who contributed to buy it for us.

 

Glasscock is coming along well.  They have almost completed the dorms, and by the end of this month the children will be in.  Then they will build the new dining hall, clinic and office.  You can see from the pictures on Facebook that they are doing a first-class job with it.  We renewed our friendship with Elly, the former WBS student that donated the land for this site and who will act as the manager.  He’s a quiet, unassuming man who loves these kids like his very own.  When the kids came back from school for lunch, they sang for us and we met with the church leaders.  I praised them for allowing God to use them to serve the kids in this way and encouraged them to continue to support the orphanage as time goes by.  We met in their old, mud church building that we will be tearing down once the dininghall is complete.  I will never see that building again, but it has been home to some amazing acts of love and sacrifice, so I will miss it.

 

After our visit, we drove on to Uriri Orphanage, one of our oldest and largest.  Kennedy is doing a great job here.  While we were touring the place, Kennedy introduced my to a 10 year old boy named Tyson.  He is an orphan, but not one that lives in the home.  His mom died of some kind of brain disorder, and his Dad died last year, probably of AIDS.  Tyson is blind since birth and his shosho, (grandmother) had brought him to us to plead for someone to be able to pay his school fees at the boarding school for the blind that he attended until hisfather died.  Now there is no one to pay the fees.  If you are interested in sponsoring him, the cost is about $4,000 per year.

 

We are staying here at Uriri tonight, and tomorrow we are off to see the Grace House orphanage that has been under construction and is now complete.  Should be a great time.

Ongoro and Adingo Kingsway

The drive down from Kapsabet went smoothly, although it was sometimes interesting mixing the way Kenyans navigate and the way Americans do.  Most Kenyans have not used a map to find their way, they simply go where they have been before, and if they do not know the way they ask.  Americans hate to ask, especially men, I guess.  But the several maps on my iPad were enough for us to find the way.

We toured the site and saw the two new buildings that Tobias has built; a dorm for the widows and a manager’s house.  Tobias was able to build both very well, even saving enough on the manager’s house to include a place for the nurse to live and a small office for himself.  Next for Ongoro will be to add another dorm for the boys, since 44 are crammed into a building built for 32.  Tobias fed us well and we slept in his house.

This morning we visited Adingo Kingsway Church of Christ.  This is a church started by Tobias in 2010.  We reached along a pretty bad road, taking about 30 minutes from Ongoro.  The church is way back in the bush, on the opposite side of the Sondu-Meriu river from Dirubi, Lee McGraw and the Training Center.  It sits on ½ acre of land donated by a church member.  It has a small church building, a choo, and an outdoor kitchen.  There are about 40 members in the church.

Since the church began they have been very involved in evangelism and in caring for widows and orphans in their area.  Already they have planted another church, and are feeding 25 orphans and 10 widows, 3 meals a week.

When we arrived, we were greeted in song by the children and women of the church.  We enjoyed hearing their praise songs and touring the compound.  We shared a time of question and answer with the elders and church members, and then shared a meal together.  It was a real blessing for me to see how people with so little are doing all they can to help the orphans in their area.

We are looking at this site, and others like it as possible expansion sites for new feeding stations.  This one has all the makings of a good place to expand our work.

In the afternoon, we spent some time talking with the orphans here at Ongoro.  They sang for us and recited original poems.  Afterwards, they asked me questions. All of them were from the secondary school kids, mostly centered around further education.  Some questions were a bit hard to answer; decisions made in America in board meetings are hard to translate when you are telling an orphan bad news.  The simple fact of economics is that we cannot afford to send every child to the school of their choice after the training center.  Oh well, that’s why I get the big bucks, I guess.

Tomorrow, we drive to our feeding station at Adingo, picking up Thomas along the way.  I’m preaching agin, so keep those prayers coming.

Kapsabet

On Tuesday, the Safari travelers returned to Nairobi.  We met them at Kamulu and traded stories, had dinner, and packed for their departure that night. It was a great end to a very successful week in Kenya.  All of them felt blessed to be a part of it.  Susie left with the rest of the team so now I am on my own here.  Well, almost.  My good friend Stehpen Owino met me in Nairobi and has agreed to be my guide and translator for the next couple of weeks.

We left Nairobi on Wednesday morning and made the long drive to Kapsabet, about 7.5 hours away. The trip was uneventful, at least until we got to Kapsabet.  The short rainy season has finally begun here, so the road to the orphanage was a real mess.  I was ver nervous about getting down it, but I threw caution to the wind, slipped the LandCruiser into four-wheel drive mode and pushed on.  We made it, but were sideways most of the way.

Here at Kapsabet things are going on well.  The church here, with our help, is building a secondary school with the goal of making a profit, and providing a closer school for our orphans.  This should lower our overall education costs here, but it is the first time we have ventured into secondary education.  The construction is moving at a very rapid pace.  We only agreed to do this last month, and already most of the buildings are at the roofing stage. It looks like they will make the January start of school with no problems.

Today, Wilson Kiptoo of Pokot visited us so I could show him they way we wanted the buildings to be built.  He is so excited about the new orphanage at Pokot, and so am I.

Tomorrow, we will drive down to Ongoro to see our orphanage there and visit another church in the area that is a possible site for a feeding station.  I hope the rain doesn’t change our plans!

Kikitemo and Nairobi

Kikitemo and Nairobi

After our emotional and exhausting visit among the Pokot and the drive to Nakuru, we left from the Kunste to visit our friends at Kikitemo.  This former IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp is now one of our newest feeding stations.  The turn around here has been miraculous, worthy of an entire book one of these days.  We were very pressed on time so we saw the place, met briefly with the people and left medicines and gifts and got back on the road to Nariobi.

We landed at the Nairobi Java House in Gigiri, where we always have our lunch on the last day of medical trips.  Everyone really enjoyed themselves and Larry Conway, a Kenyan resident missionary from Odessa, dropped by to meet us.  Larry grew up with Vicky Durham at Eisenhower in Odessa, so it was a sweet reunion for them.

Then it was time for shopping at the downtown market.  It was really fun for me to watch the Americans interact with the semi-aggressive hawkers as they searched for the perfect souvenirs.  Danielle was really concerned, she doesn’t like bargaining, but by the end she was a pro, holding her ground on price and getting what she wanted.  Susie was pretty tame, but she knows we still have a couple of days in Nairobi to fill her checked bag with.

After that, we went to the Capital center, where last minute repacking for the departing people, (Brad, Ruth, and Bob Sears and Dr. Cochran) was accomplished in the parking lot.  We hung out there for a while at their Java House until it was time to take our leavers to the airport.  The rest of us went back to Kamulu for one more night before we split up.  One of the Made in the Streets guys drove the Safari people to Wilson airport Sunday morning and the Mbuvi’s and I went back to Kikitemo for church.

On my last trip here, I promised them I would preach at their church, so we came to fulfill that promise.  They made the most of the mzungu visit.  Grace invited four neighboring churches to worship with us and have a day of baptism.  They dug a temporary baptistery on the top of the hill, lined it with poly and filled it for the occasion.  When we arrived, John asked me if I would baptize the people they had been studying with and I agreed.  There were 22 of them.  I have baptized two others in my life, a good friend and my daughter, so this was quite an experience for me.  I know that they were not being baptized because of me, but they were waiting to be baptized by me, and that is a high honor.

After the baptisms we had church.  John Kariuki brought all of the kids from the Training Center for church, (two of them I baptized) and with the neighboring churches we had a full house.  Church went on for 4 hours, with my short (35mins) preaching at the end.  There was a meal for everyone and it was a joyous time.

A rainsquall came through, giving us a timely reason to be on the road, so we headed back into Nairobi.  We had invited the Mbuvis to be our guests at the Safari Park Hotel for two nights, so we could rest and enjoy some time with our good friends.  Last night we saw the newly revamped dinner show featuring all kinds of African dancing.  It was really a hoot.  This morning we slept in, and after having breakfast we are about to head out for a day on the town.  I’ll blog more in a couple of days.  Pictures on Facebook a little later.  Thanks for caring.

Among the Pokot

Well, we made it.  I apologize for the lateness of this blog, but exhaustion overcame me last night and I just couldn’t get it done.  We have had an amazing couple of days, an adventure that I’ll always remember.

We left the Sirikwa Hotel in Eldoret early, for the long drive to the Kinyach Feeding Station in the Pokot tribal region.  We actually have two feeding stations here, Kinyach and Kipnai, but we just call them both “Pokot.”  The drive is a study in contrasts.  Leaving Eldoret to the northeast, we pass through Iten, home of 800 meter Olympic champion David Rudisha.  Leaving Iten, we begin a 3,000ft decent into the Kerio Valley.  The views on the road are spectacular, as you can see from the pictures on Facbook.  We stopped at the overlook site and took a break and dozens of pictures.  The road condition here is excellent for Kenya with good pavement and striping, even a few guardrails.

At the end of the decent, you make a hard left turn onto a very bad road.  What makes this road so hard is not just its bad condition, there are worse in Kenya, it’s just that it is so very long.  3 hours on this road, with a stop just to stretch your legs is a very hard ride indead.  I’m driving one of the LandCruuisers, so I can tell you It’s quite a workout.

When we arrived at Kinyach about one o’clock, the entire village came out to greet us.  Never in anyone’s memory have so many white people visited their town.  Of course many of them want to see the doctor or dentist, but we made sure that the children of the feeding stations were our top priority.  We unloaded and set up clinic in the smallish dining hall of the Feeding Station.  Our team has now had three days of practice, so they went a break neck speed.  We ran through the orphans and widows of Kinyach very quickly. 

The dentist did a few extractions and fillings, but overall they were impressed with the teeth of the kids.  The water here is has a lot of Fluoride, which stains the teeth but makes them quite strong as well.  I taught Wilson and another man how to build a tippy-tap for hand washing.  Dr. Cochran identified one girl with a cyst on the back of her head and near the end of the day, he successfully removed it.  There were a lot of flies, so I stood over him fanning the area with a dental tray to keep the flies away.

We worked until dusk and then walked over to a recently built community center building that the government had put up.  It was nicer accommodations that we expected, though we did have to hang our own mosquito nets, which was a good team building experience.  The locals had setup up temporary “showers” on each end of the building for us, which was greatly appreciated.  Overall, it was like a camping experience, and not as rough as many I have had.

Dinner was brought to us, and afterwards Cherie and I with the help of Mauryn, sat down for a visit with the local church elders.  Recently KWO has been given a large donation for the conversion of one of our feeding stations into a full orphanage.  I sent Thomas and Alfayo to three places to determine their suitability.  Kinyach stood out as a strong church with a great need and so after much prayer, I selected this site.  We discussed at length what responsibilities the church would have with the new orphanage, and what KWO would do.  They were very pleased and so were we.  So there you have it, orphanage number 14.  We started the year with 10 and God has continued to bless us beyond belief.

The next morning, we returned to the clinic to finish up those orphans and widows from the area.  We were able to squeeze in a couple of church members as well.  There were a few more extractions and a mother with a new baby with Cerebral Palsy, nothing we can do for that even in the U.S.  We were able to wrap up and get loaded by noon.  After a brief sendoff we were on our way back down the long road.  This time we took a different route out of the valley, since we needed to arrive at Nakuru instead of Eldoret.  The road this way was in great shape with light traffic and we made Nakuru by dusk.

Tomorrow we will visit our friends at Kikitemo (formerly IDP camp) Feeding Station and head into Nairobi for a day of shopping before some of our team departs for the US.  Many are staying a few more days to go on Safari at the Masi Mara.  Be blessed.

Nakuru Game Park

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We began the day with a later breakfast than normal, hoping to let everyone catch up on their rest.  We arrived at the Nakuru Game Park around 10.  Checking in there is a case study in Kenyan government inefficiency. You have to go in to the service counter, pay your admission fee, they add your entire party’s fees together, add a fee for the vehicle, and load your admission “key” on a smart card.  Then they give you a receipt.  Then you re-board your vehicle, drive to the gate, which is actually attached to the office building, show your smart card, and receipt, sign a register, list your first born sons, and wait 5 minutes.  Then you can go in.  There are no maps available, and very few signs.  Fortunately between Mauryn, Arrington, and myself we figured out where we needed to go, sort of.

The area has had tremendous rains, the lake is overfull so some of the roads near the lake are underwater a couple of feet.  The park service has been busy building up the roads, but they were still working on some of them today.  Our first road choice was bad, we found a dead work truck blocking the road that had water on both sides.  After a turn around we got on the right track and encountered baboons, water buffalo, and zebras.  Then as we rounded a turn we saw, not 100 ft from the road, a very large rhino.  Rhinos do not usually like to be seen so they can be one of the hardest of the “Big Five” to witness.  But this one was a show-off.  He stood up and turned around, showing us all his sides.  Doug was sitting next to me and I heard him whisper, “I can’t believe I’m in Africa, shooting a picture of a Rhino.  This is amazing!”

As we moved on, we came to a place where the road was underwater. Most of it had been raised, but there were still workmen and three trucks on it, finishing the job.  They motioned us to come on, so we drove out, water on both sides, only to find that where they had stopped working, the road was invisible under the water.  After letting one of the trucks squeeze by, they directed us to cross, saying even the smaller vehicles had made it.  It was a lesson in trust, for sure.  But we cruised along, seemingly driving on the water, and made it to the other side.  We encountered another flooded place further on, and it was a little deeper, but we were emboldened by our previous crossing and charged on.  No problem.

We made our way up to the overlook, and were able to get out and take pictures of the entire park.  Our driver asked some of the other drivers where lions could be seen, but they said it was not likely.  Lions like to sleep in the heat of the day.  But the did show us where to find some twiga, or giraffe.  It was a longer drive, but worth it, when we cam across a heard of about 16 giraffes, eating from acacia trees and milling about.  That’s number two of the “Big Five” and at a small game park, no less.  Very cool.

We wrapped up or visit to the park with a late lunch at the restaurant there.  Here we experienced some more classic Kenyan moments.  As the waitress was taking our order, many of us wanted hamburgers.  She took orders for eight of them, but when one of us asked for a cheeseburger, she said, “Cheese on the chicken?”  we said no, on the beef patty.  “Oh we don’t have any beef, I was going to bring chicken hamburgers” she replied.  Time to re-order, and we ended up with lots of Hawaiian pizza and Margareta pizza.  Both were good. 

As we were sitting at our table on the patio of the restaurant, a family of baboons came near.  Baboons are cute but kind of a nuisance, and some Kenyans seem to really hate them. Especially Arrington.  We took lots of pictures of the little buggers, and some even ventured close.  As we got our food, the baboons decided they were hungry too, but they knew better than to come on to the patio. They decided to look through our vehicles for lunch.  I stupidly left the sunroof open on my truck and one climbed in.  We saw it happen, but before we could react, he found the avocadoes that we bought at a roadside stand, and made off with one.  We watched him eat it on the good of he truck, daring us to intervene and not sharing a bite.  He even licked the hood to make sure he got every morsel.

It was time to go, so we set out for Eldoret.  Along the way we stopped at the equator sign on the highway.  There is a curio shop there and its always been pen, but not today.  There is usually a man who can show you the "water trick".  That's where you can see the difference in the rotation of water going down a funnel between the north side and the south.  Brad and I tried to duplicate it with some trash bottles we found there, but we couldn't make it work.  Stink.

It’s a long drive and we started late, so it was dark when we finally arrived at Eldoret.   Mauryn called Arrington in the other vehicle and told him to lead us to the large, new Nakumatt.  He was headed the wrong way by then, so he decided to make a U-turn in a very busy street.  I guess he forgot I was behind him and he didn’t wait for me to make the turn.  Moments later he was gone in the rush of traffic.  What followed was a comedy of errors as we tried to figure out which way to go, Mauryn was on the phone with Arrington, neither could tell where the other one was, and we all got frustrated.  Finally we gave up and found the hotel, while Arrington and his people made the Nakumatt stop.

So here we sit in the recently updated Sirikwa Hotel in Eldoret.  Tomorrow, we will set out very early for Pokot.  The schedule there is unbelievably tight so I may not be able to blog until we get back to Nakuru Friday night.  Thanks for reading and remember to check out the pictures on Face book here.