Grab a cup of Joe,...you may be here for awhile. =)

I have no voice.  I went from having a cold, to a possible sinus infection, to laryngitis...and am not taking antibiotics.  I'm not going to lie, this really sucks.  I think what is most upsetting is that tomorrow we are supposed to go to In-Step, the baby orphanage, and I may not be able to go if I'm not feeling better tomorrow...and it's not looking good.  Faith has lost her voice, and is on day 3 of that; I'm only on day 1.  So please pray that God miraculously heals me overnight so I can spend time with these precious babies tomorrow.  I will have another opportunity on Friday, so that gives me some hope, but at the same time - I know my body and sometimes my sicknesses last awhile. 

So there is a lot to catch you up on!  AJ was supposed to post yesterday, but of course we lost Internet again. This honestly happens on a daily basis, along with the power outages.  In fact, today as I was taking a shower, the power went out mid shower - leaving me all soaped up and conditioner still in my hair in an icy cold shower.  Needless to say I ended up just 'drying' the soap off!  I don't think I will ever get used to these cold showers.  We have electric heaters for them, but really all that does is take it from icy cold to a cold/barely lukewarm temperature water.  Yeah, the toilets and showers are what I am most missing while I am here.

Ok, so yesterday:  We were all given an option to either go to a Kenyan Church, The Veronica Home again for church, or to stay here at the compound and rest.  AJ and I chose to stay here and rest since I wasn't feeling very good and so that we could spend a little time together.  In the morning I decided to wash my clothes true African style!  Steph and I got out our buckets, little bit of soap, and a scrub-brush and went to town! It was fun!  I have to admit though, if I had to do more than one load's worth, ...I probably wouldn't make it very long.  It takes some of the people here a half a day to just do a loads worth. So as I'm sure you can gas, I probably did not scrub my clothes as much as I should.

Steph =)

The line she is trying to jump to was covered in Ants!! Yuck!

No one can do laundry true Tupac Ghetto Style like Steph & I!  (not to be confused with Aunt Jemima!) 

Steph & Penny =)

Becka =)

Around noon we walked 2 miles into town to have lunch at a roof-top restaurant (clearly one of the more luxurious spots to eat...and seemingly safer for us 'muzungo's' (white/European people).  I ordered samosa's and fries....the samosas were terrible!! I loved the ones on the bus, but these had some weird aftertaste that just grossed me out.  So fries for lunch it was. 

Saw this on our way into town.  As you can see...truck ran off the road.  Not uncommon here.

Walking into town

Steph's Goal: To pet a cow.  (I think she managed to forget that we have a gazillion of these in AMERICA!! lol)

AJAYS SHOP HARDWARE.  AJ was VERY excited about this (though you could never tell by that facial expression!) Is it bad that I notice the fact that AJAYS SHOP is not grammatically correct?  Oh my... 

The roof-top restaurant where we sat.  I love how I asked everyone to smile, and THIS is the look I get from AJ.  Brat!!

...in case you were contemplating eating the bottle...

Whose that good looking milky white couple lacking a good shave and make-up!?  It's us! It's us!

Overlooking the town of Kitale

Overlooking the town of Kitale

This samosa was NOT delish...

The restaurant.

So now I'm going to fast-forward a minute.  When we were doing devotions today, we went over Luke 10:30-35 on the Good Samaritan.  During this we saw that Jesus talked about how the good Samaritan first acknowledged the poor, secondly comforted and showed compassion, and lastly he gave.  He didn't give money or handouts first...he first showed interest, acknowledged the man; he treated him like a human.  So often we are quick to give handouts, to give money to help...with not much thought about where the money goes - but we are missing the most important first two steps of what Jesus calls us to do.  So when we were going over this this morning, I felt convicted...and challenged in my faith.  Backtracking now...when we were heading to the restaurant, we stopped at a certain point along the street and saw an elderly man.  The man was standing there, clearly the man lived on the street, was very hungry (he was very, very thin), and just held out his hand to us...begging for money without words.  And the catcher, I didn't even acknowledge him.  I attempted to ignore him, to pretend he wasn't asking, wasn't looking at us...I did the exact opposite of what Jesus wants us to do.  So I was challenged with that today.  How hard would have been for me to just stop, sit down and ask the man his name.  To give him a smile, to ask him if I could pray for him.  The people that live on the street here are treated as if they are worthless...they are practically shunned from society (especially the street kids)...it's all so disturbing. 

After lunch we walked the 2 miles back home.  Somehow with no sunscreen and the hot African sun...I did not get even a slight burn.  Yes, me...the fairest skin out of everyone here!  As soon as we got home, it took all of my energy to go back out again to visit Daniel's friend, Daniel Juma down the street.  Daniel has 7 of his own children, and houses 23 orphans.  We all sat in his living room while he told us his story, served us chai tea, and then we proceeded to play with his kids.  Now for all of you that know me...you know that animals are my heart!!  Of course I love kids...and babies...and people (YES COLLEEN AND AMANDA, MORE THAN ANIMALS!!!) but if I see animals in pain, it breaks my heart.  The little kids had caught a baby bird and had tied it's little leg to string and was letting it fly, then pulling it back again.  I asked to hold the bird and saw that it's claw had broken off and it was bleeding on my palm.  I just wanted to cry out and yell at these kids, to ask them what the heck they were thinking, but I knew I couldn't.  Animals here are not the same as they are in America.  Where we live they are our pets, our family members.  Here, in Kenya, they are not treated that way - they are just animals, some have a purpose, some do not, but they aren't really considered family members in the sense that we are used to.  For example the dogs on this compound - 2 of them are guard dogs.  They are tied up all day, and let loose during the evenings all night.  The other 2 dogs both have mange mites (though I am suspicious that they may all have them). I  don't know if they are being treated, but you can tell they are in a lot of pain. No one really pets them or gives them affection because we know it is more painful for them to be pet than we think.  Bunnies here are eaten.  The chickens here are eaten.  In fact, apparently there is a ritual, that may happen while we are here, where some of the team members will slaughter chickens for us to eat for dinner.  As I'm sure you can guess, I will be inside if this happens!  I have told AJ that he better not do it either!  At first I think he wanted to, but then when I saw his reaction to that little birdie yesterday, I knew he would never have the heart to murder an animal. 

Steph continues to fulfill her Cow Petting goal

Area of a circle = 2(Pi)r??? Hmm....

Daniel Juma.  Man with a HUGE heart.

Poor little birdie on a string... =(

This calf was only 8 days old.  So cute...

Duck, ...Duck,....GOOSE!!

Lauren & Me

So let me tell you more about Stella, the little girl I posted about prior to this.  I found out more information about Stella and her sister Lina, and while this story is sad - there are so many more that are sadder and more disturbing then theirs.  And the saddest part is that it is so common here.  It's not like at home.  We all have rough backgrounds and difficult things we go through, and some of our pasts are pretty horrible - but these kids?  Some of them have been through worse things in there few years of life, then ten of ours combined.  It really humbles you.  And to see the joy that they have - when our pasts seem to dictate our own joy?  What are we missing?  We are so overstimulated, so materialistic, commercialized, over-medicated, so in need of Jesus...and yet we are missing some very major points here. Get rid of all that clutter in our brains, break us down to the bare essentials...and maybe, just maybe we can experience the joy of knowing, serving, and loving the Lord that we maybe we could come close to the amount of joy these kids have. 

So Lina and Stella were living with their grandmother when Stella was 10, and Lina was 6..  When Daniel (head of TI) found the two girls, Lina was sitting in the front of their home, outside, with her head hung low.  When he picked her up, she was like a rag doll. Apparently their grandmother left them 2 weeks prior.  Lina had a huge gaping wound on her leg that had been bandaged weeks ago, and the dressing had not been changed in those two weeks.  When they removed the bandage they saw that there was actually fungus growing in the wound.  They took Lina to the hospital and found that she was HIV positive, but Stella was not (praise God).  While they aren't sure what may have given her HIV, it is believed she was probably born with it.  So the girls were taken to the Veronica Home 3 years ago to stay.  The grandmother came back several times to try and get Stella back as she cooked everything, and cleaned at the home.  The grandmother knew she would be able to help out around the house, but thankfully she stayed at the Veronica Home with her sister.  Even now they say that she is mature and wise beyond her years.  The responsibility she held, cooking and cleaning for her sister and grandmother at just 10 years old - to how many years prior, I dont' know; is just astounding.  Ten year olds in our country, some don't even know how to take a shower by themselves, let alone cook any kind of meal that doesn't require a microwave.  Now think how difficult it would be to cook in African fashion (much longer, and drawn out than what you may expect.  In fact, Ashley, Daniel's wife, spent 9 hours in the kitchen the other day cooking us dinner, 7 of the hours were without electricity.)  I could tell that Stella was mature when I met her.  I just fell in love with her and her sister.  I wish I could just take them home with me. 

So I want to try to finish this up - so a quick recap on today's events.  I woke up...without a voice.  After devotions, the boys and a few girls went to the construction site while the rest of us stayed back here and either learned to cook an African style meal, or helped the girls with the sewing and beading of jewelry.  I wasn't able to do much of any of that, and because Faith didn't want me talking - as my voice would be gone for longer, I documented the day in pictures of what everyone was doing.  I think I'm up to over a thousand pictures in just these few days!!  About early afternoon, after lunch, I took a nap for a few hours.  We then had dinner not long after, ...which brings us to now!  The electricity and Internet just came back on, so I'm praying that it stays so that I can post this!

It was hard for me to get pix of everyone working on the construction site considering I wasn't there, but when Steph went this day, she took my little camera and took a few. =)  THANKS STEPH!! 

Here are some pictures from when the Shimo and Neema girls came today:

Lillian

Eileen helping the girls with their beading

Ouch! How these women bend all the way down from the waist just looks SO painful to me!

Some of the necklaces

Faith, our team leader

Lauren, learning how to cook African Style!

Beans beans they're good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you ....!!!

One of the girls accidentally got a needle from the sewing machine into her finger. =(

So please, please pray for my health, and the health of the other team members so that we can all go to In-step tomorrow.  Please pray for Ashely, Daniel's wife, as she has malaria right now (she seems to get it a lot I'm hearing), and she is really, really sick right now.  Please pray for our whole team, and the girls and children throughout this week.

AJ's post will be up momentarily!  Love you all, and miss you!  And miss my shower.  And miss my bed.  And miss my toilet.  And miss chocolate!!  LOL.  But not enough to come home!! xoxo

Here is a quick clip of some of the Shimo girls singing a song, with Penny doing a guest dance performance!