This one is a bit longer than normal, but you'll see a bit more of 'life' in it. Enjoy!
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This one is a bit longer than normal, but you'll see a bit more of 'life' in it. Enjoy!
I'm sitting in a guest house in Nairobi feeling tired with a minor headache. Eowyn is playing and making messes, Johnny is using the free wi-fi to do whatever it is he's doing, and my other kiddos are back in Nakuru with my friend and cook Leah. I always feel a little separation anxiety when away from my children. I have to deal with it every time I go somewhere.
I had to come to Nairobi to work on getting Ewoyn's birth certificate and then birth abroad declaration and finally her passport. We're still on phase I of just getting her registered as 'born' despite the fact that she's two years old. Things in Kenya can take a painfully long time to get done.
I hope that things go smoothly tomorrow and they just give us a birth certificate for her.
They didn't like the fact that she was born at home. (As if I'm the only person in Africa who gives birth at home.) Anyway, thoughts and encouragement are always welcome.
Tomorrow we try to convince them...
Johni is the one who owns the land. We will share the harvest. The white pickup you see in the background is one we hired to help ferry the seed and fertilizer.
I’ve got a few more pics, but dirt is dirt. We are a few days behind the normal planting season, but hopefully all will work out.
I would like to fence in these 2 acres and build a small one roomed house on it. Then we would be able to develop a bigger poultry project and/or pigs.
This is my prayer today, and well most days. It's from 2 Chronicles chapter 20.
A guest post by Suzie Althens:
When I started the "Painting Facebook Photos" series I looked at so many great photos. One of my friends told me about a friend of hers who lived in Kenya who took lovely photos of orphans. So I went to Kate's Facebook page and to her blog and saw not only some beautiful photos, but a mother's heart for her five bio children and the fifteen orphans she and her husband, Johnny have rescued. I painted their eldest "orphannomore" girl, Grace, and named the painting "The Shalom of Grace".
I didn't realize when I painted the series that all ten of the images I painted were really a study and a sort of mosaic of shalom, which means peace, but it also means rest, wholeness, safety and completeness as well as the process of all that. Painting Grace gave me an opportunity to see shalom from her perspective in a small way. I don't know the depths of her pain and won't pretend to, but I know that she is now safe and in the process of healing and restoration because she is with people who love her and who are committed to care for her.
So in the spirit of shalom, I would like to help Kate and Johnny feed all those hungry mouths. I thought first of auctioning off the painting, but then only one person would have the opportunity to help. So instead, I'm going to give you an opportunity to help by having a drawing for it. If you donate $10 to them on their blog here (and put the word PAINTING in the notes of your donation) your name will be put into the drawing. Your name will be added twice if you donate $20, three times if you donate $30, etc. No matter who wins the painting, everyone who gives will be able to help and give shalom. The drawing will begin today and end on May 13, 9pm Alaska Time. You will be notified by email if you won and the painting will be mailed to you.
I asked Kate what $10 would buy in Kenya and this was her reply:
"We can buy a thick blanket for a person in need.
Flour for a week or two
Almost 90 eggs (we use 35 eggs per egg meal)
8 lbs of meat (we usually use 4 lbs per meal)
2 lbs of butter
Medicines are relatively cheaper here, so that could buy malaria meds for one person.
40 avocados
15 lbs of tomatoes (we use about 10 lbs for spaghetti or chili)
25 large mangos
16 heads of cabbage"
Website: suziealthens.fineartstudioonline.com Blog: Creating in Alaska Facebook: Suzie Althens Studio
We need 120,818 KES or $1,452 U.S. dollars to pay all the school fees next week. This does not include misc. needs like school supplies.
If you're interested here is the breakdown, all in Kenyan shillings, which are approximately 83 to the dollar today.
| From Evernote: |
| School Fees 2nd term 2012 |
School Fees 2nd Term 2012Girls
Grace 6,000 KES
Sarah Apiyo. 6,000 KES
Mildred. 6,000 KES
Mercy. 6,000 KES
Mary. 6,000 KES
Teresa. 6,000 KES
Beatrice. 6,000 KES
Edith. 6,000 KES
Plus milk program which totals 6,318 KES for all the girls.
Total: 60,318 KES
BoysJoyce. 14,500 KES
Bande
John
Richard
George
Gregory
David
Total: 54,000 KES
Mercy. 6,500 KES
120,818 KES
The other day, as I was preparing pizza for our family, I realized that since having less income, I’ve learned a few tricks to stretch the food and thus stretch the dollar, er… shilling.
We used to buy 6 blocks of mozzarella cheese for our seven pizzas, but now I only use TWO! How did I manage such a huge decrease in cheese? Well, for starters, it was out of necessity. One day, when we only had enough money for 1 1/2 blocks of cheese, I had to figure out how to make it work so I grated it, weighed it, and then divided by seven pizzas.
Viola! I discovered that when just piling the cheese on, I used way more cheese than when I know the amount per pizza and stick to it. (Ya know, like sticking to a grocery list instead of just browse shopping.) FYI (it takes about 130-150 grams of cheese to cover our medium size 10 inch pizzas).
Since it worked with the cheese, I’ve begun weighing everything.
~Kate
Johnny says he’s a music lover. (He also claims to be a food ‘connoisseur,’ but the problem is, he won’t eat his veggies. How anyone can be an expert at something without being willing to try all of that something beats me.) Anyway, back to music… He (Johnny) claims that I, also a music lover, must not really love music since I don’t listen to it all day.
Where he is mistaken is I DO listen to it all day. It just keeps playing in my head! I practice songs, either singing them or fluting them, or just playing them over and over in my head all day…
And in my opinion, no one can appreciate MUSIC, REAL music until they learn how to read and play it. That’s just my opinion, of course.
I play the flute. I enjoy playing. I enjoy practicing. I enjoy making music. I love singing as well. I can’t say that I’m very good at either, but I can say that since having children, my flute playing has decreased. It’s difficult to play an instrument while nursing a baby, and I’ve been doing that for 14 years. Then add moving to Africa where musical instruments of the symphonic kind are nonexistent, well, I just played every now and then when I was in the mood or had time to make sure ‘I still got it!’
However, things are changing. My daughter Makena is 11 now. She’s taken to learning how to play my flute, AND I have recently learned that one of the ladies in our East Africa Women’s League plays piano!! It’s become our weekly habit to visit my 78 year old friend and make music together.
Today I found myself passionately practicing a piece she gave me so we can play it together next week.
There’s nothing like playing with another person to motivate you. I didn’t have that for over seven years. (Even longer, actually).
She and Makena brought music back into my life, and I’m so thankful. I have a reason to practice, a reason to play…
~Kate
Do I need to be commanded to do what is right, or to not do what is wrong? Does my faith need a do list and a do not do list?
I don't think so.
I haven't killed anyone today because it is wrong, not because there is a rule against it. I'm faithful to my wife because I love her, not in fear of the consequences of an affair. I'm here in Kenya not because God commanded me to be here. He's never given me any such command/order. His dictate to me was/is to love.
Love is radically different from a law or command. When you love someone you don't need to be told to feed them. No one makes me cook lunch for my children, I simply do it out of love for them. Just think how appalling it is to hear of a parent who doesn't feed thier kids. It shocks us. It's not shocking because the law commands us to feed our children. Who in thier right mind responds to that type of situation with "O my God he broke the law. Shame on him hope he is punished to the full extent of the law." Instead we feel bad for the child, and hopefully are compelled to respond to the kid in love.
The law is unconcerned with love, in fact it cannot be loving. That's not what is for. The law (of the land) exists to maintain order and perpetrate whatever system spawned it. Loves only concern is the person. It cares not about enforcing the rules or demanding ethical actions. Love brings correction not with a rod but instead:
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,
"Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
That doesn't sound like the law to me. In fact keeping the rules is a much easier path to take.
Johnny and I are humbled by the donations sent to support the work we do in Kenya. The needs are many.
Thank you for being willing to help these 'orphans-no-more' and other oppressed people we reach out to.
We try to live as efficiently as possible while still providing the best care and atmosphere for these children so they can thrive and have a hope for a bright future.
A little about us:
If you would like to know what we do, you can check out www.afutureandahope.com
Our biggest current needs:
Kenya Fund
713 West First Street
Beaver Dam, KY 42320
Lately, Emma has been shouting things to me such as, "You ruined my life!" and, "You broke my heart!"
Yeah. She's FIVE. I can't imagine her when she's sixteen.
I'm not sure why she's not like the others... But I love her. Even now as I type, I have released her from time out and suggested she goes and plays. She is beating her head against the door softly enough to not hurt, but loud enough to wake her sleeping sister. She refuses to move because I 'put her in timeout' and that is where she must stay. She can be very unreasonable.
She, Emma, requires a great deal of attention. Sometimes it's the bio-kids who are the most difficult.
Unfortunately our Paleo/wheat free diet has been derailed due to economics. We simply need to buy inexpensive food to be able to feed everyone. Which means more wheat, rice, and such fare on our menu.
At least Kate makes it taste good, as she is here making a herb bread.
Never fear we are still trying to eat as many whole foods as possible, and are looking into ways to grow more of our own.
Had a meeting with my lovely wife today to talk about pursuing a move to a farm. The main purpose being that we could grow more of our own food and bring the excess to the market.
We have decided to look into leasing a place, and then after we perfect our system trying to raise money to buy a place.
If you're interested here are my notes from the meeting:
| From Evernote: |
| April 23 2012 |
Who:
Kate
Johnny
Where:Office
Goals for acquiring a farm.
Should we use resources to lease or focus on buying?
Kate is concerned with owner selling property.
Advantages of Leasing
Which path?
Begin by leasing.
I’m working on the new blog banner. As I work, I can hear laughing, giggles, some running, playing, and other ‘fun stuff.’ Edith is laughing at the top of her lungs as she squeals in delightful play with Butterfly….
…A thought popped into my head, “She has no idea how lucky she is…” as I remembered where she came from 4 1/2 years ago.
Shhh. They may have no idea how ‘good they’ve got it’ here at a Future and a Hope.
Let’s just keep it that way.
I love that I’ve created a new normal for these kids whom society rejected, no LIFE rejected. They are accepted. They are living as children SHOULD.
“Love makes a Family.”
~Kate
Years ago, Johnny and I had a dream to move to Africa to help those less fortunate than ourselves. In July of 2004, we started the process, and by January 2005, we took a brave step, and we did it.
Then after years of dreaming, in ‘07 we fulfilled a dream of opening a home for orphans. After traveling to the States and soliciting your help, we were able to do just that! Now we have two homes for orphans, well, orphans-no-more because they live with us as a family.
Even during those times, we dreamed of having our own land to build a home for them with a small partially sustainable farm, and even another home for another ‘family of orphans with house parents’ and so forth and so on. That dream hasn’t died, but after seven years of just dreaming, I feel it is weakened.
I know we’ve mentioned it before, and I’m not sure why I even dare mention it again except for the fact that this dream is still flourishing and spinning around in my heart. It is so real, I can already imagine and feel it, just like when I was dreaming of moving to Africa almost a decade ago….
I’m writing this because I know that the only way purchasing an acre or two of land can even be possible is if I solicit help from people. I’ve contemplated traveling back to the States to hold ‘fundraisers,’ but I CRINGE every time I even think of doing such things. The expense of traveling to the States alone makes my stomach churn. Why waste so much money when communication can all be done through today's technology? Plus, I hate fundraising. I much prefer doing what I’m good at—loving those in need. I really want to leave the fundraising to someone else, hence why I’m hoping someone reading this will jump onto the idea and do it for me.
Our situation is such that when money comes in, we use it. We spend everything. Every penny that gets donated, we use on the orphans-no-more, the community, and helping those in need. It’s just how it is. There is no extra when one’s ‘work’ is to help those in need because there are always needy folks. And we are talking about BASIC necessities. With that said, we can’t just ‘save up’ money to buy land. It’s impractical. However, IF some of you out there felt lead to help us raise money to purchase a piece of land, and you kept that money designated somewhere just for that purpose, it would make this dream possible.
I’m not sure how it can be done, honestly. I don’t even know where to begin to convince folks that by us owning a piece of earth and being able to plant, keep farm animals, build cottages on it for our little ‘families,’ and even houses for single moms and dying folks or folks who just need a safe place to live while they recover from AIDS, it would be more beneficial than renting where we are now. But I’m sure that it goes without being said.
So there ya have it. A sincere plea. I have no answers, no idea how it can be done. I do know that land is around $12,000 per acre outside of town in Nakuru, Kenya, which is a surprise to most folks, especially Texans. ;) But it would be a huge blessing and a start of a fulfilled dream for our families.
Remember back a few posts where I was whining about my IPad not charging? Good news Apple decided to honor their warranty and replace it. Unfortunately it’s going to take up to 3 more weeks for the dealer to get the replacement IPad here in Kenya.
What an Easter Monday we had yesterday. Don’t worry we have not converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church, it’s just that Kenyan’s celebrate the Easter holidays from Good Friday all the way through Monday.
I started the day off by pulling that big muscle on my back, you know the one on the left side. Said muscle pulling occurred while I was digging up an access point for some plumbing from the shower, which was stopped up and spilling all over the side of the house. Wasn’t straining or anything, just twisted the wrong way I suppose. Still hurts as I’m sitting here this afternoon. Thankfully Kate was able to get some muscle relaxers, though I’m not so thankful for the nausea they are causing.
Despite the pain, though admittedly I numbed it a bit, I was able to grill chicken for the family, while Kate cooked deserts and side dishes. She and the kids also played games with eggs and boxes. All in celebration of Jesus’ resurrection of course.
We will be sending out our monthly email newsletter soon, today I hope. If you haven’t signed up for it there’s a box on the side of this blog.
Speaking of email here are our addresses:
afutureandahope@gmail.com (Johnny, mine.)
back2kenya@gmail.com (Kate’s)
Email is my favorite communication tool, though we are also on Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and phone.
www.facebook.com/johnnybrooks
www.facebook.com/kate34
johnny-brooks is my Skype id, though bear in mind that I’m on a bad connection, and so not always signed in. Just email me if you want to Skype and I’ll make sure and turn the thing on. Kate is purechristianity
www.twitter.com/johnnybrooks (Though I still haven’t figured out why anyone uses Twitter.)
When I was a child I never got why the day Jesus was killed would be called “good.” Even when it was explained to me I still didn’t get it. Especially since what I was taught as a child was that God hated me so much He had to murder His son in my place. John John (as I was briefly called in those days) appreciated the fact that someone else was sacrificed instead of me. What eight year old boy wants to be nailed to a cross? Though I still thought “bad” Friday would have been a better designation.
I now understand the atonement somewhat differently. Mainly that selfishness separated us from God, and Jesus’ sacrifice brought us back into the family. This is what I’m trying to pass on to my kids. Though for some reason all our biological children seem to be atheist at the moment.
If you follow Jesus then today commemorates a significant event in the history of our faith, no matter what view you have of the atonement. Remember it with someone.
So there is this really cute boy with down syndrome named Michael at the girls' school. Every time we pick up the girls, he hangs around the van staring at us.
Today, while eating lunch, Emma says, "Do you want to know who my boyfriend is?"
I inquire, "Yes."
"It's Michael." She exlaims with a sparkle in her eye.
"He's cute..." I nod, trying to wrap my mind around why she fancies him.
Then she states, "His brain is cracked. I know. I checked. He does weird stuff."
And that is when we fell apart at the table.
Emma looked at us with questioning eyes as she tried to understand what was so funny. I love her innocence.
Earlier today, I heard the chickens making a fuss. I didn't think much about it.... Until...
Now. I can't find one of the turkeys!
Oftentimes the closer you are to someone the easier it is to get hurt by them. They know your weaknesses, how to push your buttons, or how to make you angry.
We chose to have orphaned girls in our personal home so we CAN be close to them. It’s why we didn’t just put them in a separate home with caregivers. We want to know them. We want to make sure they have proper care and eat well. That they have a decent childhood and normal opportunities that children ought to have.
The girls have lived with us since October 2007. It’s been almost 5 years of being family with the first girls who moved here then. We work hard to make life easier for them than it was before coming to our home. We make sure we plan diverse menus so they get a variety of foods and thus have healthy bodies. We plan activities so they aren’t bored. We have karate lessons, buy them gifts, celebrate birthdays. The list goes on and on. I LOVE what we do! And I enjoy doing it.
Some days are better than others.
Day before yesterday, one of my orphan-no-more teens, in her anger, told me that I have done NOTHING for her. I know it’s silly. She’s a teen, and she was angry because I gave the radio to the younger girls because one of the older ones left it outside. But she knew just the right buttons to push. She knows how much I care, how much I try, how much I want things to be fair. The story has history. It goes back to the day she arrived. She was told by a Kenyan man that we had closets full of clothes waiting for her. When she arrived, we had nothing in her size. We didn’t have teenage girls, and didn’t know what age girls we’d be getting in our home… It was a disappointment for her. It seems that day after day, we disappoint. We don’t do enough, in her mind, and she feels like her life is miserable because we don’t live up to the ‘rich white people’ model most Kenyans talk about. We live day to day. (As you know by our recent post).
However, another of our ‘daughters’ is the complete opposite. She is always in the kitchen helping out. In fact, today, she willing gave her own money (money we gave her for snacks on her way to school) to help buy the cabbage we needed to cook for lunch. She asked for nothing in return. How is it that two girls with similar pasts have such different attitudes?
Johnny doesn’t care what the girls’ attitudes are, but in my opinion, attitudes determine altitudes. It can make or break a person. It can determine if you succeed or fail. One’s attitude determines how others see you, how others react to you, how you react to others. It controls your environment.
If this is your first stop at our blog, rest assured we do not ask for donations in every posting, nor even in every other posting. It's more like once in a blue moon type of deal, though without the baby smurfs.
Our life is sustained by the generosity of our donors. The little money we had was used up back in 2005. This means that in order for us to eat this weekend, we need donors. If we are to continue to care for the girls and boys that rely on us, we need donors. To reach out and feed, clothe, care for, and otherwise love the poor in our community, we need donors.
Currently life has served up one of those perfect storm type situations for us.
Gotta stop it with the bullet points before I overwhelm myself.
March has not been an easy month for us financially. I just paid our rent, yesterday.
Thank you to all those who have donated, your gifts have enabled us to continue to help bring a future and a hope to many people who otherwise have none.
If you would like to donate here's how:
Checks can be made out to Kenya Fund and mailed to:
713 West First Street
Beaver Dam, KY 42320
100% of that donation is made available to us here in Kenya.
You can use PayPal, and send to back2kenya@yahoo.com or click the link on the side.
Western Union and MoneyGram are also available to us. Use my names Johnny Lee Brooks and send to Nakuru, Kenya. (Then email me the receipt number and answer to the secret question.)
Now that that is done, back to our regularly scheduled program.
Having an email exchange with someone about interning and thought it would be useful info to post on the blog:
Here are my answers, or at least the best attempt at them:
The first part of that question is easy enough to answer. We work primarily with orphaned/abandoned children. We have a girl's home, which is where we live, and a boy's home. Not traditional styled orphanages, but set up to be more family in nature. (Which is what orphan children lack, family.) This endeavor occupies most of our time and resources. We also work with impoverished families in the community. Helping them with food, medicines, clothes, counseling, school, and occasionally small businesses.
Now the second part is more difficult. We have no missions statement, and our goals are broad. Our goal is to give these children a future and a hope. To give them a family, which will catapult them into the rest of their lives.
We do not participate in organized religion. Instead we follow Jesus and fellowship with whomever He brings into our lives.
Our leadership is linear in nature, meaning there is no one person at the top. Whatever we are good at, we lead at that thing. For example my friend Ali is knowledgeable in agriculture, so whatever farming endeavors we have going on he is in charge of them.
We do have a board, which consists of myself, my wife, a Kenyan friend, and an older couple in the U.S. Though the day to day decisions are made here in the field by us, the team.
Our funding comes from individuals and/or groups. When we started this work we felt that God did not want us to do traditional fund raising, i.e. speaking from church to church. We rely mostly on word of mouth, social media, and our blog to get the word out. 100% of our funding comes from donors. We used our own money long ago, and now rely on the generosity of others.
I hope you mean the orphaned/abandoned children, cause I am not having a "birds and the bees" discussion through email. All the children we have with us came through our interactions in the community. We work with sick and impoverished people, and through that work we met these children.
Two of our children do still have a mother, but she is mentally incapable of caring for them. Otherwise all the others are orphans.
We have no formal Bible studies at our home. We do however attempt to model a life of faith, and have discussions on faith from time to time. The children do go to a Christian school, and so receive some instruction in the Bible there.
We do not attend formal religious meetings of any kind. However the children are free to go to any meetings with friends on Sunday mornings. From time to time we meet together as a community and have communion as a meal together.
We do not charge people to visit us. We have limited experience with interns, however we have never asked anyone to pay us to visit us or help us out. Though all your expenses would be your responsibility.
That is a good question. I suppose that all depends on the goal or the field of study. Our visitors in the past have helped us with the work in the community, hung out with the kids, and assisted with household chores.
This is not something I have thought on much. It could not be more than 3 months, as that is the longest visa one would be able to get.
You don't need training to love someone, just practice. Start loving the "least of them" wherever you are right now.
Hope that helps.
Johnny Brooks
One of our major goals is to be able to produce the majority of our own food. We would like to raise cows for milk and meat, chickens for eggs and meat, rabbits for fur and meat, goats for milk and meat, vegetables for decorations, and fruits for dessert. Feeding everyone is our biggest expense, and growing our own food would free up more money for the work we do in the community. Not to mention we would be in control of how healthy the food is, i.e. organic and humanely raised.
Currently this idea/vision/dream seems distant, like a tiny blip on the horizon. Yet not entirely unattainable, just needs more work. I’m not fundraising here, at least not yet. We are still in the learning phase, though we do need some funds.
Currently we have a little more than 2 acres we need to plant. This is a cooperative situation with a friend, his land our capital. We share the harvest. Helps him and gives us food.
I’m also working on utilizing the space we have at the house we rent. I’m not a gardener, so it’s trial and error for now. I have managed to produce 3 chickens, a pumpkin, a few herbs, and some compost.
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Back in December I was able to get an IPad 2, in fact two of them. I took the black one and Kate the white.
In no time at all I was doing 80% of my computing on the thing. Found lots of cool apps, uses for a more portable computer, and even one or two fun games. Synched music, learned how to use a touch screen, and even was organizing my gardening with Evernote.
Till one day it stopped charging. After determining it was not a problem with the plug, I decided to take it back for service/replacement.
Three weeks later I found myself in Nairobi, and at the official Apple dealer. Warranty still in effect, I figured they would replace it or fix it. Whichever, as long as it works when I get it back.
It will take three to four weeks for that to happen, or at least that is how it normally works according to the service dude.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
P.S. I’m aware this is not a big problem. In our lives/ministry we deal with such humongous and monstrous problems that every now and then I like to think on the small ones.
Grace is something that eludes me most of the time. I mean I understand it intellectually. I can assent to the theological concept, but do I get it? I mean to ask do I live it?
Not really.
Most of the time I have to force myself to extend grace. I have to constantly remind myself that my Father in Heaven accepts me, and so I should reciprocate by embracing others. It is an exercise that does not come naturally.
Not that I'm saying that is a bad thing. After all I am a product of my life, and grace has not always been a big factor in said life.
I do look forward to the day when I can extend grace to all.
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Stop.
Take a deep breath.
Remind yourself that there is beauty in this life. Sure for many of us, that beauty is hidden. Hidden so well that we may only glimpse it once in our lifetimes, but it is there nonetheless.
I'm not talking about comfort. Comfort can resemble beauty, but it is only a mimicry. It lulls us into thinking that an IPad 2 is a thing of marvelous wonderous joy. Comfort creates in us a space where we can actually believe that chocolate cake can bring us joy. Comfort helps us to ignore the realities of life.
I'm not talking about attractiveness. Even a blobfish is beautiful. We use appearance to mask our disdain for the outsider or the outcast. We allow our cultural understanding of who or what is nice looking determine who we relate to.
I'm not talking about creativity. Certainly creativity contains or resembles beauty from time to time, but's lets not forget that creativity gave us the nuclear bomb.
What is beauty? Beauty is life.
If you are reading this, you are alive. That is beautiful. May not feel like it right now, but it is beautiful. Life itself. Not what we do with it, but the thing we call life is a wonderous, joyous, beautiful thing.
Monday's child is fair of face,
OK, so this week hasn’t been awful, but it hasn’t been the best either. My friend Tricia got a stomach bug, and now I’m throwing up, Eowyn was throwing up, and well…. ICK.
We had a fight in the house which is resolved, and eight of us were on our periods.
Also this week, we got some turkeys and a goose. I thought the goose would like some water to splash in so I filled a basin and put it in the coop… Sadly, two turkeys drown in it. :/ I know, it was stupid, but it happened so now I’ve moved the goose to it’s own pen so s/he can play in the water safely now. It seems very happy there.
One of our baby chicks also died because the mom stepped on it.
All of our camera’s (including Tricia’s) have died, which is a HUGE loss.
Makena spent loads of time crocheting some animals, and the dogs decided to shred them.
And to top it off, this morning, the orphans-no-more decided to eat ALL of the breakfast, leaving none for the rest of us.
I think my week must get better.
~Kate
My neighbor has geese, turkeys, and chickens. I wrote her a note asking for some eggs to buy and put in the incubator with the hopes of growing our own.
She was out of eggs so I ended up buying 5 baby turkeys. While there, Emma and Eowyn fell in LOVE with the geese. The old ‘grandma’ of the house noted their affection and GAVE us a free goose!! She let us chase and pick whichever goose we wanted!
I think we caught the prettiest one of the bunch, and he/she is now a part of our fowl family! (PUN) .
I was so happy, I almost cried as I hugged her neck and blessed her for blessing me.
I hope these new birds adapt and do well together!
~Kate
We have a lovely visitor at our house named Tricia Harnish. She and I (Kate) started our day with a walk to town. It took about 45 minutes or so. Then I introduced her to our public transport here in Kenya—Matatus. Basically, it’s a small van with 14 seats in it, and usually 20 passengers… We rode on to a nearby slum and after being pinched and grabbed by lots of my fellow Kenyan peeps, we walked to a friend’s house to educate some ladies about Menstrual cups. We drank chai and talked, laughed, and conversed some more. The ladies were so curious about the cups, and ultimately, I gave out the last 11 cups I had left. Tricia recorded 30 minutes of the meeting with our video camera. After more chai and ‘dot coms’ (deep fried bread balls), we walked to all the places I used to live in in that area, including the small house where Emma Caite was born. We popped into a hair salon and greeted a friend, then started towards town. We found a matatu, and Tricia had to sit squeezed with the tout in her lap. She got the full experience!
Next stop was the outdoor market in town. We shopped in the hot sun, got sunburned, bought clothes for some of our kids, then walked across town to a place to eat lunch and drink LOTS of water. By that time, we both were tired, and I was really missing Eowyn so we took a motorcycle ‘taxi’ up the hill to our house.
We decided we needed even more exercise and sun, so we played foursquare with Johnny and the kids. When I realized that I didn’t have all the ingredients for our vegetarian chili, we went back down the hill and bought groceries, came back and cooked dinner for 17, then watered my mushrooms, turned the chicken eggs in the incubator, did laundry, and sat down to write this and reply to msgs and such. Got a bit more to do, but I would say it was a pretty productive day.
We’ve had a rough week.
I wrote about a first for us recently with the number 34 bus in Nairobi. We’ve had another first as well. A fist fight.
Well o.k. more of a scratch fight, but the scratches did draw blood. Two of our girls decided to go at in the living room the other evening. Kate broke up the squabble, and there may have been an expletive or two used by Mommy, but we’re not going to tell anyone about that. Wounds were tended and the search for the why begun.
The girls just pushed each other to the brink with stupid little annoying acts.
I was somewhat shocked by the violence. Until that evening I wouldn’t have believed either of those girls capable of such an act. Even the dogs look startled and like they couldn’t understand how or why this was happening.
We calmed them down and had an emergency family meeting. The underlining cause has not been dealt with, but you can’t force love and peace on someone who doesn’t want it. At least we have physical peace once again, and the two can sit next to each other with out trying to claw each other’s eyes out.
Once again we have attempted to demonstrate how to love by not rejecting either one for this stupid and childish act. Discipline was done and the family remained intact. I hope that they can learn to understand love one day.
Our friends over at Family Room Media are making a movie! They will give 10 percent of the proceeds from the movie to us.
Here’s a blurb about the movie:
Associate Pastor Jeff Delay has a shot at his lifelong dream…to be a comic book illustrator! Oops! Uh, that is…to be the next senior pastor of Valley Christian Fellowship (and not a moment too soon)! With his wife Abby unemployed and pregnant and their living space having shrunk from a lovely suburban home to a low rent apartment, Jeff can really use the bump in pay. All Jeff has to do is put away his art supplies and his knack for turning solemn occasions into dippy displays and the job is his! Oh yeah, he also has to outperform the ultimate super pastor, Colton Beals, who also wants the job. No big deal. Or at least it wouldn’t be if Jeff’s apartment manager, mister easy going himself, Frank, would stop making Jeff believe in himself!
They are raising money for the production using KickStarter, a way for creative projects to get funding. Check out their project on the KickStarter site here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2018822976/jeffs-world-the-movie
Also why not check out their site and buy the Church Outside the Walls documentary. I’ve got it, and it’s full of great stuff.
According to the Kenya Bus Services website the number 34 bus in Nairobi goes to the airport. Apparently this is not always true.
Last week Kate and I need to go to Nairobi, which is about 2 and a half hours away from Nakuru, to pick up a visitor. She was coming in on a Kenya Airways flight from South Africa, and we thought this would give us a perfect chance to enjoy a meal at my favorite restaurant, Trattorias, in downtown Nairobi.
Alas it was not to be. By the time the day came to go to Nairobi we did not have enough money to eat at an upscale restaurant. In fact it was doubtful that we had enough money to eat anywhere.
So we made plans on how to pick up our visitor and make it back to Nakuru with the cash we had.
Step one of the plan was to take public transportation to Nairobi. We walked to town and bought two places in a van to Nairobi. Easy enough, and economical.
The week before we had booked a room at a Nazarene guest house, which is a really nice place for a fraction of the cost of a hotel room. Now we had to figure out how to get from the drop off point of the van to the airport and then to the guest house.
I decided we should take the bus to the airport.(140 shillings versus 1,900 shillings for a taxi ride.) I’d never done it before, but they had a website with all the routes listed, so how hard could it be?
The van dropped us in town and we walked/pushed our way through the crowds to the bus stop. Turns out it was the wrong stop, thanks to a friendly loiterer we found the right place and jumped in bus number 34.
Jumping in these busses is really easy for Kate, she’s skinny. However for a 270 pound round man, well it’s not so easy.
We took our seats. A lady sitting near us asked if we were going to the airport, to which we replied yes. She tells us that the bus does not go to the airport at this time of day, around 5 p.m. or so. That would have been nice information to include on the website. So we jump off, again not so easy. I had to have some folks back up and off the bus so I could get off.
At this moment for some strange and unknown reason Kate started to act like we were in a race or in a big hurry. She was running up to busses and asking if they were going to the airport. Eventually she discovered the one that was and we climbed aboard.
It’s about a 45 minute drive or so to the airport from where we were, though the bus would take a little longer due to dropping and picking passengers. Our visitor was to arrive at 6:45 P.M. and so we were figuring on arriving just in time.
Unfortunately things didn’t go so smoothly. We passed through the main gates to the airport and about a half mile from the international arrivals terminal the bus broke down. We all piled out and started walking.
We made it just in time. Just in time to see that our visitors flight had been delayed till 9 p.m. that is. So we drank a soda and tried to figure out what to do with ourselves for all that time. We didn’t really have the money to eat dinner and still make it back to Nakuru. I mean airport food is expensive after all.
We walked around the airport. That took 10 minutes. It’s a small airport.
Glancing up at the notice board we saw the flight had been delayed again, this time to 11 P.M. Sigh.
Another walk around the airport, and another glance at the notice board. This time the flight wasn’t even listed. Out came the computer and after a tap tap here and a tap tap there we discovered the flight had been cancelled.
We were able to call our visitor and learn that she would not be in till around 6 in the morning.
I gave up at this point and we took a taxi to the guest house, grabbing some fried chicken on the way.
She made it safely the next morning, and thankfully bought us some breakfast and we all made the 2 and a half hour trip home safely.
This morning I am 30 pounds lighter than when I started on the weight loss path back in November. Don't get all excited and start in with the "congrats" and "keep up the good work messages," please I get enough of that from Kate and myself.
I didn't start this because I was unhappy with myself. I don't mind being fat. I'm doing this because I want to be healthier and simply due to the fact that I'm too large for my teeny tiny wife to move.
The greatest thing about this is how easy it has been so far. Simply removing wheat and the majority of sugar is what I have done. O.K. There have been some struggles, I seem to have just come through a plateau, but overall changing what I eat is all I have done.
Sorry, but I can't spiritualize this like most other ministers would be able too. We will just have to settle with an occasional blog post on my waist line without any life lessons involved.
Recently I blogged about a new experiment to provide longer term care for a family with the purpose of preventing the children from becoming orphaned, or at least delaying that day for as long as possible.
Here are some photos related to that:
We bought her a small water tank, and plan to get another as soon as possible. This will enable her to keep enough water on hand to last most of the week, thereby saving her hours of water fetching time.
Food will be purchased every two weeks.
Most of our work in the community consists of trying to rescue people from bad circumstances. Someone living in poverty gets sick and needs medicine, but just getting enough food to feed their family is sometimes too big of a challenge. The meds simply do not get bought. That's where we come in, we buy the drugs, food, rent, school, or whatever is needed. Our assistance is temporary and typically limited.
This approach works for us and enables us to spread what we have further. Yet some people need a little more help.
AIDS is creating more and more orphans, children who are robbed of their childhoods and thrust into the world all too soon. If we could prevent this, even if just for a few years, it could make a world of difference in these kids lives.
We've begun an experiment, an effort in orphan prevention.
We are assisting a single mom, impoverished and H.I.V. positive, with more than a helping hand. I mean we will underwrite her life for three months.
Let me explain a bit. When we met this mom she was on the verge of death. H.I.V. had stolen her body's ability to fight off illness, and infection after infection had left her weak and unable to get out of bed (or rather off the floor since she has no bed.). Friends and family had abandoned her, and she lay there on her floor waiting to die.
Ben found her and managed to get her to a doctor. She has improved to where she can now walk a block or two. We want to help her recover to where she can once again fend for herself and her two young children.
To accomplish that we have done a few things:
Kate and I have talked about doing some urban farming for more than a year now, but have not been willing to commit to actually digging in. Well that has all changed now.
I'll be the one learning how to green up my thumb. Kate is already busy with home schooling and running our XX sized household. (Though I am positive she will attempt to run the gardening as well, or at least offer a hundred or so suggestions a day.)
Currently I'm trying to figure out what to grow. My plans include insanely awesome pictures like this one:
I also have books, lists, lots of notes in Evernote, and tons of research on the Internet to help me out. I'm new at this gardening thing, but we need food. Plus if I can figure it out we can help folks in the community set up their own urban gardens.
NOTE: I wish I could scan these so you could see her little drawings and her hand writing! Also, Mercy is 15 yrs old.
“Dear Mommy,
Thank you for the letter that you sent me. When I read it I felt loved and cared for. Your sweet sympathyzing words touched my heart leaving me as happy as a king. I sure know that God will bless you for your good deeds. Thanks for welcoming me in your home. I had no family but you gave your family and yourself to me. I had no toys but you gave me some to play with. Clothes and shelter you provided for me and gave me the most love no one could ever afford. Here is another story of mine. When my uncle came to the burial of my grandma he came and took me to go and live with him. We went to Kisumu where he had built a house. I was like three and at that age I pooped in the bed. One day my uncle sent me to the shop to get him some cooking oil for chapatis. I did not know where the shop was. I went walking past the bridge of river Yala and stood there watching the papers flow in water. The pressure of river Yala pulled me. I almost died in water but luckily a woman came and told me to never sit there again because that pressure had already killed many people. I continued with my journey. When it started getting dark I was scared to go back home. I went straight to my path where I was heading to and found a house with the door wide open. I went in and on the table there was ugali, chicken & sukuma wiki. I headed straight for the chicken and ate almost all of it. I was really hungry because I had not eaten lunch. When I heard voices I hid behind a big sofa set. The owner who had two grown daughters started asking who had eaten the chiken. Finally I came out and told them my whole story. The next morning they took me to my uncle’s where he was really angry at me.
I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH.
My friend, Sean Howard, is an amazing artist. He decided to paint portraits of our ‘orphans-no-more’ and donate the proceeds to A Future and a Hope!
He put us on his blog!
http://saintschizophreniastudios.com/main/kenya-dig-it/
These paintings are amazing. If I could, I would buy each one for OUR walls. Just lovely.
Check ‘em out!
(I tried to type Mercy’s letter JUST as she wrote it.)
ALL ABOUT ME
I used to live in a place called Kodioga where I was born. I live with my grandma, grandpa, my aunti and uncles. I did not spend lots of my time with my mom because she always woke up early in the morning and went to look for a job. I really loved my grandma. Her name is Josephine. She used to cuddle me around her and tell me stories. I was the really most loved by her because I was her first grand daughter.
After a year my grandparents died. That is when all my sadness began. Even my aunts died but only one survived. She left and went to get married. My uncles also died but Chege survived. Then I went to stay in Kisumu. I lived a sorrowful life. Then my aunt Betty took me and I went to stay with her in Yala. I was only six. I would cook, clean the house, and go to fetch water. She used to sell alcohol and bang. Her friend Lilian also helped her in selling those thing.
One day after she hade finished making her alcohol she went and dug under a banana a tree then hid it there. There were two boys who saw her hide the alcohol. After everybody had slept the boys went and dug there and drank the alcohol.
In the morning when Betty’s customer came, she could not find the bottle which had the alcohol. She came directly to me thinking that I had drunk the alcohol. That day I was not given food and at night I slept in a maize farm. In the morning is when she saw a boy carry the bottle. Even if I could go home, I was really angry. Then months passed. One day Betty cooked meat and ugali. She ate it all. Then when I was playing with my friends we started telling stories about how good or bad our parents were. Then when I told the story of Betty denying me food they were shocked. One day when my friend and I got angry to each other she went and told betty my story. When I went at home Betty removed her belt and started caining me. She told me that she had denied me food because my mom did not even sent money for me to be fed.
Life past on and on. Then one day we were all jailed. We had to eat the ugali that looked like grits with cabbage. At that time I did not like cabbage so I would wait for breakfast. Then Betty’s friend helped us to escape.
I really wished that Betty would have not been my aunt. One time when I went to buy chapatis, Betty told me that my mom had died. I threw away the chapatis and started crying. I could not eat or talk to anybody. When we went to the burial I knew that I would never see her ever again.
We came back with Betty to Yala. Then she got arrested for six months. Her friend took Betty’s two children and left me there. I could not enter in the house because it was locked. A woman named Nyalego who knew my mom took me. But life was still bad. I washed her class six girls clothes and did all the duties. While they ate I only drank porridge once a day.
Then by magic Sarah’s grandma came and took me. She raised me, took me to school and in return I always had good grades so I would show that I am willing to learn.
One day when I was at school, the head teacher called me. I saw daddy & Ben. Ben talked to me about the help you wanted to give me. I felt like my happiness was coming back.
Then here I am. Even people in Gem do not believe that I am Carol’s daughter. Sometimes I just feel like I am in a place protected by angels.
Kate recently blogged about needing and wanting ordinary folks to come and visit. You know barbers, chefs, mechanics, and supermodels instead of professional preachers, those who want to convert Africa, and doctrine enforcers. I agree, though I appreciate good preachers, or rather good lecturers.
The world needs Jesus, but not Halo Jesus.
Halo Jesus is only interested in pointing out what's wrong with us. He's the one peddling Hosana and Hillsong music and encouraging us to read the bible everyday, or else.
Kenya's got plenty of halos. What we need is Dirty Hands Jesus.
The Jesus who smells like armpits and doesn't know what a pulpit is. The Jesus that we pass up on the street because he stinks and looks homeless instead of Halo Jesus who demands we fall down and worship at his squeaky clean feet.
We need visitors who don't mind hanging out with folks who wear their lack of morals instead of undergarments. We need visitors who can distribute food without tracts. We need visitors who can buy condoms. We need visitors who can sit next to a Rastafarian smoking weed and actually listen to his conspiracy theories. We need visitors who can sip a good whiskey into the wee hours of the night talking about how awesome Captain Pickard was.
Come to think of it those are the same type of donors we need as well.
Insterested? The best way to share the love of God is by being that love.
Recently, Johnny and I were chatting in the car on the way to town and the topic of interns and volunteers came up.
Oftentimes when a person considers going to Africa, I think he or she might feel they have to be super religious, be a Doctor, or be a 'world changer.' I can remember a lady visiting saying she didn't feel qualified to be on a mission trip to Africa because she was just a hair dresser. Let me tell you, that was years ago, but she was one of the most refreshing guests we ever had. She gave us much needed new looks which perked up our spirits!
During Johnny's and my discussion, we came to the conclusion that we really could use 'normal folks' like hairdressers, farmers, landscapers, and even just people who can organize clothes or cook!
Often times, visitors imagine themselves doing roles that are not that realistic. We NEED help. Practical help. It may not be glamorous, but it is a need to be filled nonetheless.
Do you have what it takes?
If you feel under qualified, then you are probably the perfect person to volunteer.
To my lovely mom
From Mercy
Dear Lovely mommy,
I thank you for everything including love. The love you give me is precious than the love I was being given before I came here. Second is the food you feed me. You feed me very expensive food and I appreciate it. You are so generous and kind when it comes to giving. Third you pay my school fees without complaints and willingly. You offer giving me free stationaries without pay. You have given me a bed to sleep on, a house to protect me from bad weather, bad animals and bad people and clothes and shoes for free charge.
To you without lying I do appreciate what you do for me but do not know how to explain it to you how I appreciate it. I thank you for leaving your dear beloved family coming to Kenya to save our lives. If it was not for you our education would have really been bad. The thing I love about you is that you have a beautiful smile, you are kind and loving, you keep your promises and you tell us the truth.
I love you with all my heart. Living with you has really opened up my heart.
Love you
Oo x o x o
<3 you mommy
It all started with a medium sized cardboard box, color pencils, and a clever idea from Butterfly and the artistic skills from Makena…
Four and a half years ago, we opened our home to some orphaned girls in need. Each one has a story to tell, and a past I can’t even relate to.
Over the years, I have struggled to get these girls to open up, tell me their stories and ‘let me in.’ Often times, I wonder, “Am I really helping? Is it worth it? Am I making a difference?”
The girls don’t express their feelings to me very often. They are scared of grownups in general. They have traumatic pasts of being forced to work at young ages by the grownups they trusted. They’ve lost parents, and lived for a time without being cared for in the slightest until moving in our home. It’s a life that most of us can NOT imagine in its entirety.
Let’s fast forward to yesterday when a little miracle happened.
Butterfly loves people. She loves communicating. In fact, she has her own blog, if you’d like to subscribe to it: www.butterflybrooks.wordpress.com Yesterday, she decided to convert a cardboard box into a MAIL box for their room.
Thus the form of communication which the girls can relate to and feel comfortable with has begun! I have been getting letters in this mail box addressed “To Mommy” from the girls expressing what they were too scared to say verbally. One of my girls wrote her ‘story’ and told me about her past. Several letters have come expressing deep gratitude for what we’ve given them. I am surprised and comforted to hear these words which have gone unspoken.
We have been trying to reach out to some prostitutes in Ali's community. I'm not talking about a big project meant to rescue or rehabiltate them, but instead just attempts at building relationships. We are trying to be there, when no one else can or will be there.
Ali texted me today letting me know of an opportunity for us to be there.
This is the maternity ward where one of the young ladies went to give birth. Shirleen Njeru was born to Betty in this little maternity clinic here in Kenya. The baby has brought her joy, even if it's creation did not.
Yet creed attempted to sabotage the happy birthday celebrations. Betty was unable to pay the bill and so the clinic decided to hold her captive. It's a common practice here in Kenya. If you can't pay they punish you by locking you in, along with your newborn baby.
Here's the little bundle of joy.
We jumped at this opportunity to rescue them both and paid the bill. Mom and baby girl are home free now.
Yes even though it's 300 degrees out she is bundled up well enough for the artic.
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 NKLV
This is our goal. We attempt to give the orphaned/abandoned kids a future. One that they have some hope in. Before coming to be a part of our family these children literally had no hope in any kind of future. It was virtually impossible for them to answer the "what do you want to be when you grow up" question. We wanted and want to change that.
We want kids who dream of being doctors, presidents, business owners, or whatever their minds can think of. We want a house full of girls planning weddings and kids names. We want boys dreaming of souping up a dirt bike and riding to the hot springs with their girl.
We are creating a space where there is hope in the future. Will any of these children be doctors? Impossible to answer right now. However just the opportunity to dream of it is a huge improvement.
Dreams are important. The future is important. Hope in those dreams of the future, perhaps the most important thing of all.
Yes, I admit it, I’m on a diet. Sigh, glad that’s off my chest.
At the beginning of last November I slipped and fell off the steps at our back door. Not a very high fall, and other than a bruised up knee no real injury to speak of. The fall did however cause me to come to the realization that I was too heavy to be easily moved by my small wife. So I started researching.
I don’t handle restrictions well, or truthfully not at all. If you tell me not to do something I will do it, it’s my nature. Trying to restrict my diet was something that I knew would not work with me. I like to eat until I’m satisfied. Starving myself would just be setting myself up for failure.
I was looking for a way to change what I eat, instead of not eating. I found it in the Paleo diet, or at least a wheat free diet.
Two books influenced me in choosing this diet approach. The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation and Wheat Belly.
The first is set up to break your eating habits so you can recreate more healthy ones. It’s based on the concept of returning to a diet more alike what Paleolithic man ate. It’s all scientific and based on evolution. Essentially you remove all processed foods.
The second book, Wheat Belly, describes the changes that wheat has been subjected to over the past 40 or 50 years. It’s not a pretty sight, and encourages a wheat free diet.
Anyway the point is not to evangelize you to the Paleo/wheat free diet. Instead I’m simply informing you of what is going on.
We’re almost 100% wheat free. (We still have an off day and consume some wheat products on that day, for now.) We have completely removed margarine, seed oils, oils from petroleum, many other processed foods, and reduced sugar intake by 90% or so.
The menu has more meat and fresh vegetables on it, well actually that is the menu. Though we have to add in some restricted foods from time to time do to economics, but barring that our whole family now eats a paleo diet, at least at home.
Good thing is I don’t have to starve myself. By eliminating wheat and most sugar, I have shrunk 25 pounds since November.
Don’t worry about me I still have a few unhealthy items in my diet, like soda and alcohol, so my rebellious nature is sated for the moment.
I feel great and am looking forward to shrinking some more.
Thanks to a donor we were able to send Joyce, Ali and Virginia’s daughter, to be fitted for a new hearing aid.
Her current model is complete with a cord from her ear to a box in her pocket. Joyce being a teenage girl is naturally weary of wearing this older styled hearing aid. In fact I have never even seen it.
However she now has on order a new device that will not only enable her to hear better, but will be less conspicuous in her ear.
I love being able to help folks in the community who need a little boost (sometimes a big one) to get back on their feet. To preach the Gospel by actually feeding the hungry, clothing the nude, caring for the sick, and visiting those imprisoned, is truly an honor.
Yet I don’t always like having to make the tough decisions.
You know the financial choices. Do I pay the electricity bill or buy food? Which is more important; paying the girl’s school fees or helping a dying single mom get out of the hospital to spend her last moments on Earth with her children? Do I fix the van so the girls don’t have to walk to and from school or do I help pay for a baby’s surgery?
I’m not sure I always make the right choices.
By the way those are not hypothetical scenarios above. They and countless others are running around in my head everyday. I left the mom in the hospital. Not sure that was the right thing to do. The girls are in school and even have all their books (though we still need to pay the boy’s school fees) yet so many are still imprisoned in the local government hospital simply because they cannot pay their bills.
I sometimes resent these types of decisions, o.k. I always resent them.
It is 9 pm. I am in the classroom aka my office. Two of my older orphans-no-more just walked in and asked, “Mommy, do you have any shirts we can use for PE tomorrow in your closet?”
“What happened to YOUR PE shirts?” I enquire.
“Dorkus, (our ex-house cleaner) gave them away.”
“So what do you want me to do? Go to Tusky’s, which is closed, or the uniform shop, which is also closed and get you both shirts before tomorrow morning? How long have you known you needed shirts? When did you find out this information?”
“Mary told us a week ago.”
I stress, “So you’ve known for a WEEK that you needed yellow PE shirts, but you decided to wait until 9 pm the night before to tell me this?
No response.
“All of my shirts have flowers or stripes. I don’t have a yellow shirt, so what do you want me to do exactly?”
No response.
“If you had told me on the weekend, I could have gotten you some, and I’ll gladly get you each one before PE next week, but what are you going to wear tomorrow?”
Silence.
Then the silence is broken with, “Sarah Muthoni told us you were giving all the money away to help needy people this weekend.”
So are these girls really thinking that I DON’T help them when I am helping others? And how did Sarah know what we were doing? I told her that I ‘Help needy people every day without her knowledge. That doesn’t keep me from meeting their needs as well.’
I am really wondering what is going through these girls’ heads. This is one of many times they procrastinate beyond help. And some of the other cases have been recent as well. But those tales will be shared another time.
In the mean time, I wished them luck with their PE uniforms for tomorrow!
Good night, y’all. I’ll be shopping for PE shirts tomorrow!
PSS
Even this MORNING as they were getting ready for their first day of PE at school, one of the girls asked me for a shirt. Yeah, I keep PE uniforms stored in my closet… LOL.
Leah Nyambura is my friend. She helps me in my home cooking meals along side me, and relieving me when I’m busy teaching school. She comes after breakfast and leaves before dinner, so don’t worry, she’s not over worked. ;)
However, she suffers with me when we cook because our pots and pans are falling apart, literally. Most of my pots are missing handles, have no coating on them any more, and are even rusting. See?
I recently bought a frying pan from our best supermarket only to have the handle pop off within a month’s time. So the dilemma came. Where am I going to find good pots, and HOW can I afford them? I’ll need about $500 to replace what I need…
Well, my little Makena sent an email to her grandparents without my knowing it, and I have some GREAT news! My folks are buying me new pots and pans!
However, WHERE to get them was still an issue. Even more good news… A Nakumatt opened up less than a month ago right here in Nakuru. (Funny how it started in Nakuru years ago, was named after Nakuru, then disappeared from Nakuru, and now has returned probably 20 times larger than it was years before.)
Nakumatt is so big, it has escalators. And if you want a good laugh, it’s hilarious to watch local folks step on them for the first time or even the fifth time. They even have a ‘soldier’ there to help folks.
Anyway, back to Leah, my cooking buddy… She has never been inside such a shopping market, so this Thursday, I’m taking her with me to go buy POTS!! She is going to flip when she goes in that store. This will definitely be a new adventure for her.
So thank you Mom and Dad for the money to buy pots and pans. And for those of you who’d like to help me get some of the more small items… I have a wish list on Amazon.com you can check out.
Many many thanks to those who help us feed so many. We prep between our two orphan-care projects over 100 meals a day!
~Kate Brooks
Let’s take a look at how we spent the money donated last year: (This does not include the money Lonnie spent building the nursery school, nor the money we have used for the boy’s home. I simply have not had a chance to go through their paperwork and computerize it yet. Also keep in mind that Kenya is still very much a cash society, and many of the places we buy food from are kiosks, or some guy standing on the side of the road. We don’t get many receipts, read any, from those retailers. So the following is not 100% accurate, but as close as I can get it. Disclaimer done, on with the lists and charts.)
The largest expense of the year for us was food.
That’s a lot of food! This was 29% of all the money we spent for the year. Prices were high last year, hopefully they will at least stop rising this year. That’s 3 meals a day for 20 people plus whomever else happens to be at the house, 7 days a week, 365 days.
Needless to say I’m looking at ways to reduce our grocery bill. Right now we are looking for farmers that we can buy direct from, and thereby cut out the middlemen. We could also use another freezer to help in buying more meat at wholesale.
Next category is household expenses. This includes our cook and housekeeper, cleaning supplies, repairs, any furnishings, and our chickens.
Living with all these children equals a lot of messes! We spent roughly 11% cleaning and cooking up after everyone. We also built a chicken coop, bought wood to build Andrew a bed, and cultivated a little more than 2 acres. (Not our 2 acres. We have a little co-op thing going on with the owner.)
Next up is rent.
Thankfully Ali owns his own place, so we do not have to rent a place for the boy’s home. I’m also thankful that Kate was able to find a big house in a nice neighborhood for a really good price. (FYI we live with the orphan no more girls. All in the same house. We have attempted to create family for them. One of the side effects of this is less money outgoing to rent. Since we only have one house instead of two.)
We spent 9% of all incoming funds on relief efforts in the community.
We buy food, medicines, clothes, and whatever else folks need. These are usually severely impoverished families, usually single moms or grandmothers, and more often than not sick.
Actually this category is hard for me to be accurate with. So many times I make these decisions while out and about, or after a hurried phone conversation or text message, and simply fail to log where the money went. Or I’ll set off with money for something else and get sidetracked by someone in need.
Also bare in mind that this is not inclusive of any money designated for Ben and this work in the community. He keeps his own records, and just like the boys home’s paperwork I have not entered the data yet. This does not include the orphan-care.
What’s next? How about the 4.1% we spent on vehicle maintenance.
We have old vehicles, and well the older they are the more likely something will need to be repaired or replaced. Cars are expensive in Kenya, and I just don’t see us buying a newer one anytime soon.
We spent 3.7% on electricity.
School Fees, 3.5%
One of our girls was out of school last year, but has returned this month. The school they are attending is nice, but not so nice as to be exorbitantly expensive.
Our biological children are homeschooled, and some of their grandparents help buy books for them. Thanks.
Eagerly awaiting the next percentage point? Me too, let’s go.
2.0% on transport.
Parking fees, taxis, motorcycle taxis, tuktuks (3 wheeled contraptions,) and other automobile expenses not related to repair and gasoline.
This includes any public transportation expenses, like when the girls go and visit relatives during the school holidays.
Here’s the 1.8% we spent on gasoline.
1.8% went to personal hygiene.
This is remarkably low considering that we have a house full of girls.
The graph is hard to read now, many smaller percentages squeezed together. Like these:
There are others, but for my sanity's sake we’ll stop here. I do from time to time order books from Amazon, download a song or two from Itunes, and buy software. Those expenses are in dollars, and I have the software set up to deal with shillings only.
You might also notice that we do not pay ourselves a salary. The project is our life, so our food, housing, entertainment, and everything else is taking care of there. When we feed the children, we are feeding ourselves.
Despite the down economy we were able to feed, school, and house all the children (and ourselves.) We fed, clothed, and took care of many people in the community. Thank you so much to all those who gave so we could give.
I thought we could start off the New Year with a simple post about what we do here in Kenya. So here’s a bullet list:
That’s it in a nutshell. Looks easy and simple in this bullet list, yet each and every one of those points can have an infinite number of little bullet points attached to it. The children have school, relative problems, health issues, emotional troubles, and on and on and on and on and on…..
We love getting things in the mail, I wish you guys could see the kids faces when we have a care package. It’s a wonderful WONDERFUL thing! Thank you to those of you who send us boxes, by the way!
Things we can use or just want:
Julienne peeler for making zucchini noodles
Hormel Salami
Hormel Pepperoni
Dried fruit (NO sugar added, please)
Nuts of a kinds such as Pine nuts, pecans, walnuts, pistachios, etc…
I’m almost out of Taco Bell hot sauce (in the bottle)
I would love to have some type of flea control drops for my small dogs
Some other needs are:
Mr. Clean Erasers
beef jerky
skirts size 8, 12, 14, 16, and 5
soap molds (I make homemade soap)
wheelies in various sizes (Andrew’s request)
any good family games
1000 piece puzzles for our teens
LED lights (lots of blackouts here)
Head lamps
Fragrant candles
Mp3 players (used ones?) The teens would enjoy them!
wii games
game cube games
playground balls
dry erase markers
Sharpies
SKIPBO Cards
*Please note that we are trying to make some dietary changes. We want to eat healthier. As much as we appreciate sweets, please do not send any candy, processed foods like Macaroni, etc.. Thank you for understanding!
Ok, that’s the featured ‘needs’ for now!
Thanks for being willing to help!
The best way to send a package is priority mail to:
PO Box 2974
Nakuru, Kenya 20100
THANK YOU!
This year I attempted to read mostly fiction. I think I needed a break from all the heavy theological/philosophical tomes. Though I still read plenty of that stuff online, in newsletters, and magazines.
So here is what I read in 2011 (In reverse order):
About halfway through this list I realized just how terrible an idea this was for a blog post. Yet I was halfway there and couldn’t stop myself. If you made it thus far, congratulations.
I’m on Shelfari if anyone is interested in connecting there:
http://www.shelfari.com/johnnybrooks
Also on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4050777-johnny-brooks
Happy reading!
Our year started off here at A Future and a Hope pretty much like everyone else’s, with January. (I’ll let you in on a little secret, it will end the same as yours as well.)
One of our big accomplishments this year was constructing a nursery school. I say our because we are one big happy family here, but really it was mostly Lonnie and Patty along with Ali who got the job done. Lonnie raised the money and came with the vision of starting kids off on the right foot in the educational system. (Not to mention giving them nutrition and love.) Ali gave us the space and lots of foreman type of help. The school is built and now awaits furnishings and decor.
Who knows, in the future we may open a primary school (elementary) as well. Whatever it takes to give kids a hope in their futures.
We got a visit from a graduate of Youth with a Mission (YWAM.) I know. Who would have thought we were YWAM compatible? I’m sure Josh is not so sure we are, but nonetheless he came. Besides refreshing us with his faith and energy, he brought a Wii to replace ours. Our original one (thanks Matthews) had it’s disc drive go bad. Guess Andrew played a little too much Super Mario Brothers.
The children had a safe loving place to live throughout the year. A major deal for them. They also went to school, and hopefully learned at least one or two things.
We added a new boy to our family. He lost his mother to H.I.V. this year and now stays with Ali, Virginia, and the other boys. It’s been a rough year for him, losing your mom can do that to you.
There’s more, but if my posts become too long I get a lecture from Kate.
I will mention that we are grateful to all of you who donated and continue to donate to our work. Without you we could not even have cared for ourselves, let alone all these children and families in the community. The finances this year were o.k., even with all the craziness going on in the world economy. I’m not saying we were rolling in dough, in fact we can always use more. But only a handful of times, well maybe two or three handfuls, did we actually completely run out of money. You know those times when you have to figure out how to feed everyone, pay the rent, and all of the other demands life makes of you?
Thanks again. Many blessings on the New Year.
2011 has been one of those years. You know where many good things have taken place, but they are sometimes hard to see through the mists of all the bad things that have gone down.
I'm looking forward to 2012. Not ,that I think nothing negative will happen, but at least it's a fresh start.
We will continue to care for the children God has brought us. We will continue the work in the community with the poor, sick, and oppressed. That alone is a full time job, yet I feel some new opportunities are on the horizon.
One of the ones I am most excited about is expanding our work with local prostitutes. I'm not sure how yet, but I want us to move forward with those young ladies, especially with preventing pregnancys and staying as safe as possible. All as part of our "orphan prevention" strategies.
Not that my plans always work out, yet I gotta try.
Emma and Éowyn were pretty much born into our current family dynamic. So when the orphans no more go on holiday, they get upset.
Emma and Éowyn kept asking when the girls would return, over and over again.
In fact, it is only recently that Emma noticed she wasn't exactly the same color as the Kenyan girls, and she has asked some questions, but I don't know if she quite understands WHY the girls live with us and who they are. In her mind, they are her sisters. End of story.
Of course Éowyn is still too young to even notice certain physical differences, but I find the psychology of it all interesting.
Edith and Grace are home and the others return any day. I cannot begin to describe to you Emma and Éowyn's excitement!
I love seeing the bond between all of my kids. It is there even in the older ones, but it is more openly expressed in the more free young ones.
I have a beautiful family,
~Kate
Just what is Boxing Day? Used to be that on the day after Christmas wealthy folks in the U.K. would give their servants gifts. These gifts would be in boxes, thus the name Boxing Day. I know, makes perfect sense right? Nowadays Boxing Day is essentially a bank holiday/shopping day in the U.K. and some of the commonwealth countries as well. Kenya being one of those countries celebrated Boxing Day today. Though I have yet to actually met a Kenyan who knows what Boxing Day is.
The girls are starting to make their way back to our house. (They have been off visiting friends and relatives for the December school holiday.) Once again the house is filling up with laughter, singing, squealing, arguing, and all the other stuff girls do.
Time to prepare for a New Year and get back into the grove of helping provide A Future and a Hope for those who can’t seem to find it on their own.
Christmas is usually such a stressful time. Gift buying and wrapping, cooking, planning, light hanging, people pleasing, gift unwrapping, messes to clean, tummy aches... It IS hectic, right?
Am I the only one who feels this way?
This year things were quite simple. We went on a trip, ate good food, and forgot about all the hustle and fuss of it all.
We watched Christmas with the Kranks last night, and I feel as if the writers of that movie had a great thing going until they decided to make Tim Allen's character selfish for not wanting to do all the Christmas stuff.
My point is, it is nice to not be stressed with performing 'Christmas' but enjoying it instead.
I got my kids one small gift and then had some guys build a sandbox for the family. They each got a second gift from grandparents.
I think we have some more care packages coming from grandparents, but having few gifts this morning meant less cleanup and more enjoyment of the gifts received. I am blessed to live in Africa this time of year, and I am thankful to my family and friends who helped us have a very sweet, simple Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Kate
Ps
I am happy they have presents, but it is convenient they are spaced out time wise. They won't be overwhelmed at once. I hope this post comes across the way my heart is feeling it.
Paleo friendly, Wheat Free, 'Fried Chicken strips!'
While sitting at the dinner table this evening, Johnny was talking about Africans who visit the USA and what they find fascinating upon their first few weeks there.
He mentioned how some are fascinated by automatic doors.
Butterfly: What are automatic doors?!
Johnny: Doors that open by themselves.
Butterfly: Oh you mean like in the MOVIES!
Yup, my kids are Africans. Butterfly was just 1 year old when we moved to Kenya. We don’t travel so she has a LOT to learn about the world beyond these borders.
~Kate
A few days back I mentioned that we wanted to help around 100 families eat chapati for Christmas….
Well we purchased the ingredients!
Ben loaded up this tuk tuk (a three wheeled taxi contraption) with the food. You can see the flour on the bottom with the cooking oil on top.
These are ingredients that many people we know simply cannot afford to buy in a big enough quantity to cook chapatis for their whole family.
Why do we care if people have chapati for Christmas? Because we’re eating Christmas dinner. If we are eating a special meal than we want to enable as many folks as possible to do the same.
Don’t get the wrong idea and think we only feed people on Christmas. No, we do this each and everyday. Christmas is about a special meal, the rest of the time we attempt to feed as many people as possible with whatever we can afford. (We also prepare around a 100 meals a day for our homes and team.)
We do it for grandmothers like this one; forced to care for her orphaned grandchildren.
I leave you with this young man. He will eat chapati for Christmas, and if we have anything to say about it, will eat his Christmas dinner wearing a new pair of pants.
It’s 9:13 PM, and I just got a phone call from two of our ‘orphans-no-more.’ Sarah A. and Teresa are at Sarah’s grandma’s in their rural home. (Teresa doesn’t have her own safe place to visit, so she went there with Sarah.)
I love that we are building ‘sisterhood’ among the girls. I hope that as they get older, they can keep the strong relationships they are building with each other here at our home, so that they’ll never feel alone or abandoned in this world.
It was lovely to hear Sarah and Teresa’s voice on the phone. “We just wanted to greet you, Mommy!!” they chimed.
So sweet. I’m glad they are doing well and that they miss us, because we miss them.
Admittedly, I am enjoying my alone time with Andrew, Makena, Butterfly, Emma, and Eowyn. It’s refreshing to cook for less people. We are doing things that are impossible to do with 14 children in the house. We just had a candlelight bubble bath for them, which since the heater takes 1 hour to heat the bath water, we can’t do that luxury every day nor with all 14 children….
However, the orphans-no-more bring so much joy into our lives. Their smiles, their hearts, their laughter… They will all be home soon enough, and we’ll be back to letting their smiles be our ‘reward’ and our reminders as to why we do what we do. I love them, and I’m so happy they thought of me this evening and called to tell me so!
~Kate
“Mommy, why does my hair feel crunchy? --Emma, age 4, after getting her hair done.
I cannot remember a Christmas without some kind of special dinner/lunch. That’s 38 years worth of celebrating the birth of Christ by eating turkey, pies, cakes, hams, yams, candy canes, and every other kind of holiday food imaginable (plus all the regular foods). It’s just built in that come Christmas Day we will eat something special.
Unfortunately that’s not true for most of the people we know here in Nakuru. Most of them have have had too few Christmas dinners, and have no hope for one this year.
Kenyan Christmas dinners are not elaborate. Really the only thing that must be present on the table (or stool as most Kenyans do not have dinning rooms) is a chapati. Chapati is a flat Indian bread, and before you ask I have no idea why they love it so much on special occasions.
Don’t get me wrong it’s good, but it’s Indian not African.
Anyway the point is that is how they celebrate, and we want to help some folks have chapati on Christmas.
We have about 100 people in our main H.I.V. support group, and want to give them the chance to cook a Christmas dinner for their families. Instead of us cooking and having a party with the group, they will take the ingredients home and make the dinner for their own families.
If you do some quick math in your head you soon come to realize that a hundred people (each representing a different family) equals a lot of people.
We need some help with this endeavor. A thousand dollars will help us feed them all chapati, more will help us buy other ingredients such as meat.
December is typically a slow month for us as far as donations are concerned, hence this here special plea.
If you would like to give you can do so via PayPal using back2kenya@yahoo.com or you can write a check out to Kenya Fund and mail to:
713 West First Street
Beaver Dam, KY 42320
Just remember to include a note that it’s for Christmas Dinner.
Kate has written a newsletter for December. We only send these out via email (it’s just too expensive to send regular newsletter via the postal service.) If you are not on the list and would like to be fill out the form, which you can find in the left hand column. Do it soon, as December is right around the corner.
Also we are on Facebook:
I have a twitter account as well, though I have not been able to twitterize my life:
Here in Kenya, being an orphan is one thing. Being an orphan teenage girl is another.
I am sure you can imagine why, but let me put the pieces together for you.
A life of poverty can change people’s morals. Down in the slums, or even in the villages of Kenya, their seems to be a whole different set of rules. Men take whomever they want. Orphaned girls have no one to stick up for them. And hunger can also cause even the purest of souls to do ‘what is needed’ in order to eat.… I’m sure you can fill in the blanks and get my point. Life for an orphan girl is tough. Already, before coming here, one of our teens was raped when she was just 4 years old. She has herpes and must deal with this all the time.
Another of our Kenyan teens lost her mother to the ‘man takes all in the village mentality.’ Her mother was murdered because she refused to marry the murderer after her husband died. The guy got angry, and stabbed her to death in her home. My orphan-no-more woke up to find her mother’s body.
So the reason why I took in these girls is not necessarily to provide them with a wonderful education. Although they go to school now, it’s a perk. But it’s so we can protect them from the backward world we live in. They had no advocate before moving here, no one to tuck them under their wing, and they were being picked off one by one like baby chicks without a mother hen.
After their parents died, the girls were a burden to their remaining relatives. Some girls were viewed as cursed because of lack of understanding of how the parents died. One of our orphans-no-more was being sold by her grandma to a man in Mombasa to be his house worker. She was only 8 years old at the time.
So why do I have a house full of girls? Because they need me.
~Kate
To all our American readers Happy Thanksgiving Day! We have taken the day easy here in Nakuru, Kenya just hanging around the house.
Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net" border="0" alt="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=178">Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net" align="left" src="http://purechristianity.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451e7a169e2015393805757970b-pi" width="160" height="240"> No turkey for us today (I’m not a fan of turkey meat.) Instead we grilled chicken and sausage for lunch. Kate baked a pumpkin pie that fits into our new zero sugar and wheat diet. Turned out pretty good.
Four of the girls took off this morning to visit relatives and friends for the school holiday, and consequently the house has been a bit quieter. A few more head off tomorrow, and we will be a smaller household till the end of December.
Not that we will have much time off. The community work will continue, and inevitably there are issues that come up with the girls while they are visiting their relatives. Sometimes they run out of food, once a child was lost, and emotional distress at being with people who cannot or will not care for you fulltime.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today was the last day of the school year here in Kenya. Students are off until the beginning of January when they will start another grade level.
Johnny, Makena, Butterfly, Emma Caite, Eowyn, and I all spent SIX HOURS at the girls’ school today enduring, um, enjoying their closing ceremony. Andrew stayed at home playing the Wii. Lucky fella.
I have to admit, it did have its high points. Several of our girls were in the top 3 students of their grade levels, so we were able to clap for them and take photos with them as they received awards, which included two plastic baskets, and a small cooking pot.
The pride on their faces as they recited their poems, songs, and dances as they scouted across the audience for a glance from us- their ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ was priceless. I guess it was worth the other 5 hours and 45 minutes of lectures from headmasters and teachers and potential flu catching (got it last year after the ceremony) from all the hacking of students and parents.
Hawkers were outside the building with their soggy ice cream and small trinkets waiting to prey upon parents’ pride. It was typical, but we made it through it all. Only half a day sitting, listening to preachers trying to convert the students, and ungifted singers singing louder than the microphone could handle. Ok. It was painful, but I’m holding on to the priceless moments…
So, tomorrow Ben will travel with four of our girls to Gem, a rural village where these girls were living with their old grandparents before coming to our home. Then over the course of the next week or so, we hope to send the girls to various friends and family for the holiday. It will give us some time to be a nucleus family and to reconnect and make sure our biological children are not getting lost in the shuffle, and it will give the girls a chance to impress their villages with how beautiful, healthy, and smart they are. (Each time they go, the village wants to send us ALL the orphans they know. They are quite impressed with our girls.)
I’ve scheduled a ‘day’ for each of my bio-kids in December to spend it alone (or with Eowyn, too) with me. We have an advent calendar we are putting together to count down until Christmas, and we are still planning a 4 1/2 day trip to Nairobi!! Whoo hoo!! I’ve been to Nairobi one night this entire year, and our kids haven’t left Nakuru in over a year. This will be good for them. The other holidays (April and August), the orphans-no-more all go off and visit family, whereas our bio-kids just keep doin’ their norm staying at home with us- not to mention they even go to school at home with us.... I hope we can pull this off. It’s much needed for all of us! I think it’ll be good. I’m a flexible chic, so if it doesn’t work out, I’m sure we’ll be creative and still have a good family time even here in at home.
~Kate
*The photo shows some of our kids in their school uniforms.
So our new chickens have laid eggs, sat on eggs, and hatched some of their eggs! It’s a wonderful thing to see new life. Sadly, 3 eggs were left in the nest unhatched, and of course, my curious Makena begged me to crack them open.
So we did. I whacked the first egg on the counter, and found, not to my surprise, a baby chick inside. What DID surprise me was that it started cheeping! Quite loudly!
I gently pulled away the shell (knowing you should never do this to an unready egg, but again, the mother wasn’t sitting any more, so this egg was ‘dog food.’). The limp, cold, yellow newborn chick fell onto my hand with a little bit of blood.
I noticed the yolk sack was completely consumed inside the chick’s body, so there was hope!
Cheep.
Cheep.
Despite the blood, I pressed the cold, wet chick against my belly. I kept it there for hours. I built a fire, warmed my hands, and held them against its body to warm it up.
The cheeps got louder, and the chick began squirming. Its downy feathers dried into a cute ball of fluff.
When night time came, I realized I had no idea WHERE to put this little chick. I don’t have a heat lamp so I tried sleeping with the chick on my belly. It kept quiet if it was pressed under my shirt, but any time I needed to nurse Eowyn, it made a great fuss about being out from the warmth of my skin.
And every time I would fall asleep, the chick would start slipping off and would squirm and claw my tummy. It felt like a mouse crawling on my belly waking me up in a start!
Finally, around midnight, I decided I needed some rest so I went outside and put the chick under its momma. She tucked it in just fine under her wings, and now it seems to be ok. It's not as strong as its siblings, but it is also 3 days younger. It can walk and get under her when needed.
I’m hoping this little one pulls through! If not, well at least it had a few days of living.
If you look through the archives on this blog you will see that we started it back in 2005. Much has happened in our lives since 2005. I’m not sure that those changes are accurately portrayed here in the blog.
You’ll notice that suddenly we went from essentially an itinerant preaching ministry to pastoring a local church here in Nakuru. From there we began the orphan-care and community work that we are currently doing.
The transitions may not be apparent in the blog, but all those steps were necessary for us to arrive here.
So don’t freak out if you read a post in the archives about conducting Sunday meetings or traveling somewhere, we haven’t changed our mandate. We are caring for and loving as family the children God has brought to us, and reaching out with His love to the broader community.
It’s time to harvest the two acres of corn we planted earlier in the year! Hopefully I’ll make the arrangements tomorrow and we will remember to grab a few pictures as well.
Our plan is to dry the corn and have it ground up into a flour. Kenyans use this flour to make a food called ugali, which is essentially this corn flour cooked with water into an almost cake like substance. Cake like in shape but nowhere near cake like in taste!
Despite my distaste of the stuff most Kenyans simply love it.
After we have the flour it will be given away to hungry people we are working with in the community.
Last Friday after coming home from picking the girls from school, I turned on the water pump. I do this each and every day around 4:30 pm to 5 pm. That away I know the kids have plenty of water to bathe, etc. (We have storage tanks in the back of the property. Gravity pulls water from there to a tank on the ground near the back door, from there I pump it up to a tank on a stand which provides water for the house.) While standing at the back door waiting for the water to overflow so I could turn off the pump, I noticed one of the girls washing her school bag.
This struck me as funny. First of all I can not remember ever washing a backpack in my life. Maybe a quick dusting or wiping off of a spot, but never a vigorous scrubbing with soap and water.
Second thing that struck me funny was how this particular girl, a teenage girl mind you, hardly ever washes her armpits. In fact many Kenyans don’t think twice about body odor. It’s not that they are dirty necessarily, just the natural normal sweaty armpit smell is something they do not mind.
I on the other hand cannot stand it. Since the day I was born I have been learning what is appropriate and inappropriate on the smell scale. Smelly armpits are way down on the list. Kenyans tend to not even notice bad smells that much. Which makes sense. This land is one smelly place.
You have stinky people, stinky animals, stinky open sewers, stinky animal feces all over the place, stinky rotting mounds of garbage, and little too no money to spend on smell good products. It’s no wonder our noses have grown up differently.
After almost seven years here I still cannot stand smelly armpits. However I have become more accustomed to bad smelling animals, and even an occasional open sewer. (In fact our neighbors have an open sewer stream running through their property. When the wind is right we get a nice rank whiff of sewer.) The girls after living with us for 4 years seem to be more sensitive to smells. Though armpits still seem to bother them little, a few of them at least have developed a taste for the smell of deodorant.
This is a situation that we run into almost daily here in Nakuru, Kenya as we attempt to live out the love of God:
This mother is bedridden due to complications with H.I.V. I’m not sure how she contracted the virus, and to be honest with you I don’t care. My place is not to judge her life choices, but simply to be prepared to respond in love.
Loving and assisting folks like this mother is what we do daily. That and care for the 15 children (not including biological) that live with us (thankfully spread between two homes.) It’s hard to think of this as work, the rewards are just too great.
I have searched many years for Jesus. I looked in churches, cathedrals, temples, holy books, prayers, and a host of other activities/places. I couldn’t find Him there. Yet I find Him in the eyes of these people, the poor and sick. He is with them.
Matthew 9:12
12-13Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."
Let’s just say the average home has a few kids running around in it, ya know, like 2 or 3.
The average parent can keep fruit out and let their children snack healthily at will, right? USUALLY, that would be the case. In fact, in all honesty, I sometimes miss that aspect of having a simple nucleus family.
Emma, age 4, is growing. She is always hungry these days. I WISH I could just say, “Go grab a banana, Emma.” In fact, I did that today just to experience some normalcy because kids need to snack. I get that. She should have the ability to eat whatever is there…
But as I type this blog, TEN people (that is no exaggeration) have come in one after the other asking for a banana! Are they SO hungry? We just ate breakfast. And going on my own sense of ‘hunger,’ even after breast feeding all night, I am not feeling hungry at all. So most of them should be completely satisfied.
So No. They aren’t hungry. It’s the mob effect. They see one child with a banana, and so it triggers a response in their minds that they TOO MUST have said banana. Life must be fair! Give me a banana!
Why do I care? Because they eat, and eat, and eat, and it’s not a loss of 5 bananas in one snacking, it’s 32 bananas. It’s as if they compete to see who can get the most the quickest. Something about it bothers me. Maybe it’s because with only a handful of children, the competition isn’t so great, and the expense and consumption is minimal, but multiply it by 14 mostly teenagers, and well… it’s a greedy mess.
Living with 14 children is TOUGH. It really is. I enjoy seeing them live healthy lives, and am happy to provide an environment where they can feel love, protected, and certain they’ll have food on the table (including snacks), but I wouldn't be human if I didn’t admit that I hope to have a break this December and have some sort of ‘normalcy’ in my family.
Things are coming to an end.
Our home schooling year is coming to a close. The children are finishing up their studies, and we should be ‘free’ until the beginning of January when we will start a brand new school year.
The girls are also closing school around the 23rd of this month, and many of them would like to travel to visit their relatives for the Christmas holidays. The boys also will want to travel, as well. We have 16 orphans-no-more all together, plus Ben, Pauline, and their two children who would like to travel. If you’d like to help, we could use help with the transport money for 20 people. It’s approximately $60 a person. So we need about $1,000 for THEM.
Each year, we send the kiddos to their families, and each year, we stay home. It would be nice if we could take a trip somewhere with our bio-kids. We are thankful to those who helped us go to Nairobi for 2 nights last December. It was very fun.
Another closure is happening with the head injury I received. I am happy to be feeling well now! Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.
Life is good.
~Kate
Ok, so lots of folks are asking what happened to me.
I have this commercial metal potato cutter. It’s heavy and huge. It was screwed into our countertop, and I was trying to cut some butternut squash through it so they’d be uniform for roasting in the oven. The squash was harder than potatoes so it was difficult to push through…
I decided to give the handle a tug with all my might, and well… the whole thing popped right off the counter, hit me between the eyes, and sent me flying backwards to the floor. My back hit the ground, but my head met the refrigerator and left a nice little dent in the front door. My neck was and is sore, but the worst part was the full force blow to my face from the metal handle of the 15 pound machine that hit me right between the eyes. My head hurts, and I’m still dizzy if I move too quickly, but it could also be the cold I have. I couldn’t focus very well on tasks for a few days.
It’s been 2 days since the accident, and I’m still a bit spinny, foggy, and sore. But Johnny always wanted me to remove that thing from the counter. It’s off now, though I think I should have opted for using a screwdriver… LOL.
(not the best photo, but you can get the idea)
Dictionary.com defines " target="_blank">" target=_blank>bipolar as: characterized by opposite extremes, as two conflicting political philosophies.
That describes my faith walk perfectly.
Sometimes I feel all giddy, like I’m walking in the clouds with Jesus. I have a sense He is involved in my daily life, and cares about what is going on with me. It’s like my faith is so big and trusting that anything is possible.
Then there are those times when I can’t even see the clouds. I can’t pick Jesus out of a line up. It feels as if he could care less about my life. Feels like there is no God, and no point in worrying about Him.
I’m currently in one of those down times.
I’m walking along the beach, looking back and seeing only one set of footprints, my own.
Not necessarily doubt, but more of a feeling of distance.
Looking forward to the upswing.
I just thought I’d let every one know that we are making some life changes at our home.
We all have decided to change what we eat to make us all healthier. I have to admit, I am a bread addict, and I love sugar… Some of our kids are getting cavities, and well, we need to make an about face so…
We aren’t eating flour, sugar, candy, potatoes, etc… for a while, maybe forever (except on birthdays). Personally, I’m already benefiting from the changes. We are committed for 21 days, but I hope they are life changes, and I’m thinking that with your help, they CAN be.
If you would like to help us in this endeavour, feel free to check out our updated care package list. We could use nuts of all kinds except peanuts. We still love pepperoni, and dried fruit might be a good ‘candy’ alternative. Oh, and dark chocolate, that’s good, too. :)
Thanks for understanding.
~Kate
You may or may not have heard that Kenya’s military has started fighting militants in Somalia this past week or so. You might or might not have heard that yesterday there were two explosions in Nairobi. The Kenyan government is making the connection between the two, and has begun a crackdown on Somalis here in Kenya.
In fact ten or so were arrested yesterday here in Nakuru.
First of all, don’t worry about us. The two explosions in Nairobi were hand grenades, and the attacks seem, at least to me, to have been poorly carried out. Besides what will worrying about terrorist attacks accomplish? If they want to through a hand grenade at me there’s not much I can do about it. (Though I have played Call of Duty so I might just be able to lob it right back at them. I do have some skills.)
Secondly our lives will go on just like they have been going. No changes because of conflict. I didn’t even know about these two hand grenades till this morning. We don’t watch the news at night and have begun switching our computers and phones off after dinner.
Alright, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
When talking to Ali, our orphan boys’ dad, he recalls that if he DIDN’T get caned at school, it was an unusual day.
I am still dealing with the schools threatening to beat my girls for tardiness or poor grades. (Due to a broken van, they are having to walk to school, which takes them 45 minutes so they are struggling to get to school on time, which is 7 am. Teachers aren't there at that time, of course, but students must be.)
IF I complain, the girls will be hit even more, from what I understand, AND it doesn’t seem to matter which school I put them in. I’m hoping this new school, St. Ninian’s, will be more understanding.
Today I wrote them a letter encouraging more modern types of discipline such as cleaning the school compound, writing compositions about the student’s misbehavior, or time-outs. Hopefully, the teachers will embrace the ideas.
I’ve been doing research today on the topic to see what actually is legal and whatnot. Here’s an interesting article from 1999. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,HRW,,KEN,45d1adbc2,0.html
And recently, the law has banned corporal punishment in the new constitution (as of Aug. 2010). http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/news/kenya-prohibts.html
However, there are NO consequences, that I can find for the schools who still follow their old ways of caning. I’m not sure how change will come about, but I’m hoping that I can at least nudge ONE school in the right direction.
It is my hope that they learn other means of discipline for the precious children of Kenya.
~Kate
Can I just start this day over?? So far the day has been a big FAIL, and it’s only 10 AM.
This morning I woke up and one of the girls told me that the head teacher says if I don’t call the school every time one of the girls is sick, they’ll expel them for 2 weeks. So I wrote a note to this teacher explaining that my 8 orphans-no-more can easily tell the teacher when one of their sisters is ill, AND if she expels them for MY mistakes, they will never return to the school. Keep in mind, I pay them to teach my children. It’s all silly really. There was no need to threaten me or the children with potential expelling, but just ASK me to call. That’s the grownup thing to do, right?
Then, as I started teaching my History class, my students were sluggish, so I asked them to wake up fresh… as I was joking about starting the day over, I got the phone call every mother fears—Teresa, my 12 yr old, was HIT by a cyclist on the way to the school and is at the hospital. I asked Johnny to go and see what was up as I was in the middle of teaching.
Andrew informed me, “Mom, you’re being called by Daddy.”
“What do you need Johnny? I’m teaching.” Again, Andrew mentioned that Johnny was still calling me, so I stepped outside to find him lying flat on his back in the mud. At first I was frightened, then I thought he was joking with me. “I’m hurt, and I can’t get up.” he whimpered. YIKES. In his rush to get to Teresa, he slipped on the wet steps and hit his knee hard on the cement walkway. It was swollen. I put a pack of frozen beans on it, and left him lying there with doggies sniffing and licking him, the baby sitting on him, and Emma asking him for sweets. He had to fend for himself as I went to check on Teresa.
No one should ever go to the Government Hospital in Kenya. It’s a horrible place. However, Teresa was hit right in front of the hospital and my girls took action and brought her there. By the time I arrived, Teresa was just coming out of X-Ray, They X-rayed her chest to check for broken ribs. As soon as she saw me, she started bawling. I just hugged her and comforted her. She was having a hard time breathing from being hit in the side, a bit of hair was skinned off her head where she hit the ground and her knee was badly scraped. I couldn’t help but think about Johnny lying there on the ground with a hurt knee waiting for me to come back, as well… It was rather surreal. The doctor said she had no broken bones and told us to get her a Pain shot and Tetanus shot. While we waited, we heard screams from ill patients. One lady kept screaming, “Help me. Help me….Oy oy… help. Help.” Then we heard vomiting and others moan. It started to get to me. Finally the doctor said he could only find the tetanus shot, but NOT the pain meds. He removed the needle without washing his hands or putting on gloves. I noted it, and informed him. He put gloves on and gave her the vaccine. We got tired of waiting on him to find the pain meds and band-aids, so we just paid and left the hospital.
After arriving home, we found Johnny walking around pressing through the pain. He’s ok, Teresa cleaned up and is ok, so all is going to be well. However, I received an email from a dear friend as I walked in the door. There was a misunderstanding… which is never a good thing.
Then while typing a very long email in response to her, Johnny’s computer got the blue screen of death….
That’s where I leave you at this moment. Johnny’s computer is rebooting. Hopefully things get brighter!
We did get a new puppy this week, and we have food, clothing, water, shelter… Things aren’t all bad, but it IS the 2nd child I have taken to the hospital this week, and it’s only Tuesday. Yesterday it was one of my older girls who has PID (pelvic inflammatory disease) and possibly Ulcerative colitis as well. We have to take her back for a barium x-ray in 2 weeks. Labs, x-rays, meds, viruses—it’s just life with so many people.
Thank you for caring for these children like we do. Keep sending your love and encouragement, ok? We need it!
We actually have 11 clothes lines strung about all over the yard to accommodate the drying load of our huge family. Here’s a picture of some of them. It’s a drizzly day so these will be on there for a long time.*
~Kate
*I saw a DRYER at our local supermarket for the FIRST time since moving here 7 years ago! Imagine that!
Just now at the dinner table, 3 of my Kenyan ‘orphans no more’ were whispering and laughing, saying, “Makena said, ‘1000 years BC!’ snicker, chuckle, snort…
I inquired as to what was so humorous. Then Beatrice told me her whispers out loud. “Makena said, ‘1000 years BC!’
“Do you know what BC means?” I pried.
Three dark, braided heads shook NO as they giggled. I said, “It means before Christ, and BCE means before the common era.’
They still laughed at Makena, and I felt a little offended that they would snicker at her because of THEIR lack of knowledge.
It’s one of the many things we deal with being a morphed family. I just thought I’d give you a glimpse of it as I walk through these issues each day.
I love my Kenyan kids, and I have them buried deep in my heart in a place that desires to protect them from all harm, but it’s not always easy to understand and deal with the lack of knowledge and the differences they have from our biological children. Still, we have grown together over the years as a beautiful, mixed family, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
~Kate
Living in Kenya for 7 years now means I don’t notice a lot of the culture differences I ONCE noticed when first moving here.
But on days like today, sometimes I just have to laugh at my Kenyan kids and the things they do differently than what American teens would do.
I just walked into one of the bedrooms where I found my girls, Mercy 15, Teresa 12, Sarah 14, and Mary 12, hanging NEWSPAPER on their walls. Really?! They like the advertisements because they are printed in color so they cut them out and tape them to their walls. I wonder what these girls would think of real posters? We don’t have them here, but I guarantee they’d flip over them!
Those of you who know me should have realized by now that I’m a contrarian at heart. I pretty much will disagree just for the sheer enjoyment of disagreeing. If you don’t know this about me or you are thinking to yourself, “but he’s so agreeable” there could be a few reasons why:
A) You simply haven’t gotten to know me well enough to realize I like to side with the minority.
B) I don’t want you to know me that well. So I just agree or keep silent to keep you happy and far away. Or you could be a family member, in which case I have to be agreeable because we are stuck with each other.
C) I don’t know you well enough and do not want to offend you with my unfriendly like nature.
I routinely drive Kate crazy with this quirk of mine, or at least she regularly yells and throws things at me. Why would I want to be like this? I don’t know, it’s who I am. I believe who God made me to be.
A contrarian spirit comes in handy in my life. Often I need to side with someone whom society has ganged up on. The children we love and care for were minorities in their communities. Ostracized for losing parents. Left to fend for themselves. I stand with them against their extended families and communities.
The folks we assist in the community are outcasts. Sickly, drunk, sinners, children, dirty, smelly, and mostly poor. This attitude helps me to stand by them when all others are against them.
Don’t get me wrong, I do take it too far at times. That could be why Kate is in my life. A well aimed pot can do wonders to on overly contrarian attitude.
I don’t believe in this or that, but you do. Is it really so important it should divide us?
One of the things I can’t stand is bickering. I hate it.
Even among my kids, it’s a pet peeve of mine. Whatever the ‘issue’ is, I remove it.
This dividedness is one of the reasons I don’t get into political debates nor touchy theological conversations. Not because I’m afraid to, but because I hate the division it brings. I believe people have the right to believe whatever they want to, and I should not FORCE my beliefs through anger or manipulation onto someone else.
Inside every person is some good. We are all selfish, too. I probably am the worst. But can’t we just get along?
I have so much more I could say, but I’m in the middle of teaching school.
Until next time.
~Kate
September has been a fun month. It started off well with a fresh look from our local hair stylist. We each got drastic hair changes. The neat thing about the hair cuts is they are only $5 a head for the children (including the dye!)
In the middle of the month, we got to meet a really cool young man named Josh Ulrich. He’s been working on landscaping our yard. It’s amazing. I’m loving the new change. Also, Josh brought us a new Wii, a large dog crate for a project I have in mind, flip flops for the kids, and all kinds of other goodies. The kids love playing in the dog crate, and Butterfly even spent one night in there! I woke up to her pretending she was a puppy. It was cute.
September also had lots of care packages in it! We got yarn, knitting needles, Legos, candies, etc… The kids are so glad to be crocheting again, and I’ve even managed to make 2 really pretty hats!
Our chicken coup is finished being built, and now we have 4 hens and one rooster. No eggs yet, but lots of mating going on.
Also, we had a ‘family reunion.’ Our four large Leopard Tortoises were at a neighbors house for a couple of years. They have returned now that we have enough grass for their grazing. The kids love hunting for them in the bushes and watching them munch on the grass. We are trying to corral them away from our garden, so we hope to build a picket fence around the front yard.
Another highlight: I received a stainless steel stick blender in the mail from Micah Mak, and I’m LOVING it!
School started in September as well. Our Van is broken so the girls are walking. We need about $400 to fix it. Home schooling has been fun, and I’ve been loving our new groove. We have 2 net books, and the kids have recorded podcasts, done research, watched educational videos, opened their own email accounts, and started practice studies in Khan Academy.
The month has ended with a virus sweeping through the kids, and so we have quite a few sick ones…. however, they are going to be fine in a week or so.
Now, October has started off with a big surprise birthday party for Grace 17, Sarah M. 14, Mary 12, and Teresa 12. They woke up to balloons, games, and birthday cake for breakfast! It was an exciting day!
Even though we’ve been in Kenya almost 7 years consecutively now, October marks our FOUR YEAR anniversary as mom and dad to orphans. It was 4 years ago that Edith and Grace moved into our home. Each girl came within weeks after that. It’s been a great adventure.
Let the adventure continue as we press towards our future with HOPE that it will bring even sweeter days ahead.
~Kate
Our friend Denny Huebner has started a new company called Dorcas Wear. What is Dorcas Wear?
From the website:
Our founder spent 3 years in Kenya, helping to establish schools and orphanages for the street children of Nakuru. While there, he met dozens of people named.... Dorcas? Curious, he did a little research. It turns out Dorcas lived in the first century AD in Joppa. Among her numerous charitable deeds was making clothes with her own hands for poor widows and children in her community. While she never aspired to leadership, she nevertheless became a symbol of benevolence, and throughout history has inspired women world wide to humanitarianism and philanthropy.
While we are a for-profit company, our charitable goal is to support the ongoing legacy of Dorcas. A percentage of every Dorcas Wear sale goes to supporting orphan children and young women in Africa, some of whom will help to design our logos in the future.
Why is this on our blog? Denny is donating a portion of proceeds to a few projects there in Nakuru, ours included. Last time he was here he brought along shirts for everyone, and they look great.
Check out the site:
P.S. One of the Dorcas’ he met works with us.
I wrote about Samuel a few days ago. (Actually his name is spelt Samwell.) We arranged for him to have a surgery, in fact today was the day the surgery was to happen. Unfortunately Samwell passed away early this morning.
I do not have any details, but he did have an infection that delayed his surgery.
Grieving for his parents and others that his short life touched.
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| From My Brother's Keeper |
Samuel is an infant born to young parents. He has hydrocephalus, which is basically fluid on the brain. It causes the head to enlarge and can cause brain damage. He is suffering, as well as his mother and father.
Ben (we work together to love people like Samuel) met Samuel’s family while helping someone else. They approached him and begged for any help possible. Ben was able to arrange a c.t. scan and have Samuel diagnosed. Doing so empted the coffers. They had to look for the money for a needed surgery.
Samuel’s dad is a boda boda operator. That’s a bicycle taxi. He doesn’t make much money for each fare, and Nakuru is being overrun by motorcycle taxis, meaning less fares for boda boda. He cannot even imagine the approximately 50,000 KES (which is about $507 U.S. dollars,) let alone raise that amount.
We do not have the money either, but decided to do something anyway. The hospital was willing to start treatment with a deposit. Ben went with Samuel and his mother to the hospital along with some money that I had earmarked for something else. (Times like this I appreciate being flexible.)
**Just talked with Ben on the phone and Samuel has an infection that has to be treated before he can get the surgery, but he has been admitted to the hospital. Hopefully he will have the surgery in the next few days.**
How will we pay for it? I don’t know, but this is something we have to do. Samuel is worth it, no matter what happens.
Often times when planning a trip to Africa to do a week or a month long mission, folks have delusions of grandeur. They imagine themselves changing lives on a massive scale, (of course it’s possible, I suppose, but I’ve not seen it happen, usually it’s on a meeker scale of say, ONE person or two… which I can write another article on the importance of that tomorrow.) The image they paint in their minds pre-trip varies of course from one person’s ideas of glory to another, but nonetheless, it usually doesn’t contain what we really need from interns and visitors.
I’m writing this article right now mostly because we have an intern/visitor here named Josh who is 18 years old, and he is one of the FEW who gets it.
In fact, he is outside pulling weeds right now. This young man has come to help. He came to do whatever we ask, and let me tell you, it is very refreshing!
Doing ‘mundane’ tasks shows God’s love more to me than if you were to sit my kids down and try to get them ‘saved’ or spend tons of money on huge preaching crusades.
Josh here, IS making a difference. He has lifted a huge burden off of my shoulders. He is getting things done that I can’t do myself. I’m proud of you, Josh!
Do you remember our school saga and how the children were being hurt at their private school? Then we took them out of that school, home schooled them for 8 months until we could put them in another private school that is much better?
Well, today Mercy told me that the teacher who was ‘abusing them’ as been transferred to their NEW school!
I am NOT happy about this at all. GRRR!!!
It costs a lot of money to move all of my kids from school to school. They have to get new uniforms, new text books, etc…
So here I am wondering what I need to do to protect my children. This teacher is teaching 1st grade at the moment so I’m hoping she won’t be near any of my kiddies who are in older classes.
I have to go to the school and let them know how I feel. Then I’ll see what to do next, if anything.
Please pray for us. I need wisdom and patience. Momma bear may want to do unto the teacher what she has done unto my kids.
I’m on Google+ now. Not sure how you can find me, but search my name and you should be able to get me. Haven’t abandoned Facebook, just trying out something new.
O.K. I’m pretty sure if you follow this link you can add me to your circle:
I suppose a bit of information on what it is we do here in Kenya might be in order after asking Who Am I? yesterday.
There you go that’s what we do in a nutshell.
Who am I? I can’t answer that query with any kind of accuracy. When I embraced love as the one thing needed I lost so much of who I was, or who I thought I was.
I had been identifying myself by Christianity the religion. Here’s an example of my messed up means of identifying with religion: I carried my Bible in high school. (No back pack for me. Nope I carried a stack of books and always made sure the Bible was on the top or outside so everyone could see it. I’m sure I told myself the book was too holy to have any mere high school text book on top of it, but honestly it was an ornament.) God how stupid was I. I wasn’t carrying it around because I loved it so much and just had to read it in-between lessons. I was toting it around so everyone would see how spiritual I was, how holy, and close to God Johnny was. No longer was I just the fat kid, now I was the fat Christian kid.
I identified with my religion, with my obligation to God. If you asked me about myself, I started by talking about my church. Not Jesus not how much love was a part of my life. I talked about sermons, prayers, Bible studies, future plans for the ministry, and how holy I was compared with others.
That started to fall off when I was shown love.
Love is not a thing or label that can be applied to identify oneself. It just doesn’t conform to the categories all that well. In fact in order to love sometimes we have to take on labels that don’t necessarily define us. To hug someone in a ditch, you have to crawl into that same ditch. (and trust me not all ditches are as clean as the one outside of your house.)
It has taken me years to realize that I really don’t know who this guy Johnny Brooks is. I mean am I a Christian? A Christ follower? A Jesus lover? Am I a missionary? An Evangelical? A post Evangelical? A believer? A sinner? A saint?
I just don’t know. Today I’ll tell you one thing, tomorrow another.
Today I’m dad to 14 children here in Nakuru, uncle to a few more, and pastor to a great many more. Not labels I would have attached to myself, but to love these children I’ve found it necessary to embrace those identities. They have become a part of who I am, because love needs them.
Perhaps the question, Who am I, is just not all that important. What difference does it really matter? I mean come on, do you (yes you reading this right now) really care so much what label I apply to myself? I don’t. I’m friends with all kinds of labels. Christian, atheists, Buddhists, conservatives, liberals, tea-partiers, Libertarians, poor, rich, doctors, patients, kids, adults, Kenyans, Americans, English, Africans, and on and on and on and on.
Once upon a time one could find me at the church building anytime the doors were open. I was there early on Sunday morning and left well after most everyone else. I was present and sitting in the little cushioned chair at the midweek meeting, part of the intercessory prayer group, and came to all the special events. I was of the mind that I had to please God with my attendance, tithing, Bible reading, praying, and whatever else the pastor/leader mentioned.
The following verse described me perfectly:
2 Timothy 3:5 (NKJV)
having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
I appeared to be godly or spiritual but inside I was no different than anyone else in the world. Behind the scenes I was an animal. I lacked the one thing that is needed to truly be like God.
The world doesn’t need more church, meaning more meetings on Sundays or any other day of the week. We don’t need more prayer. We don’t need more rich people. We don’t need more Bible studies. We don’t need special Christian clothing.
Those things may or may not be good things, but certainly they are not necessary for godliness. If we assume that godliness means to be like God than one thing is really all that is needed.
Love.
Disappointing? That’s because we have no idea what love is. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 13 for a description of love, and keep in mind that those are adjectives that refer to God as well.
I remember the day that I realized that I did not have love in my heart. I was sitting at home watching a prochoice rally on CSPAN, and even though I did not care one way or the other about abortion I found myself feeling hatred towards those people. I gave myself over to the hatred and anger, mostly because my church told me abortion was sinful and God hated it and the people involved with it. I was fuming.
Then LIGHT.
God blazed into my being and opened my eyes. Suddenly I was aware that my heart was cold and black. The only people I loved were those I (or my church) considered to be good. I was as far from Jesus as one could possibly be. Sure I was saved, born again, redeemed, and whatever else you can call it. Many times over in fact. I paid my tithes, gave to missions. I spent 2 hours a day, each and every day, praying in tongues. I read and studied my Bible hours a day. All in an attempt to please God.
He wasn’t impressed.
When He opened my eyes to my loveless heart I began to understand what it would take to please Him. He simply wanted me to love. Love the same way and with a total disregard for myself, just as He loves.
My whole life changed. Not all at once, and I’m still learning to love today.
I took another look at that rally on t.v. and the politics faded away. What I saw were the children of God. Each and everyone of them. There was nothing I could do to actually love them, I was in Texas and they in Washington D.C., however that seed that God planted in me grew.
Today it is a full grown plant producing fruit of it’s own. I am living out my faith and love for God by caring for some of his children. I don’t attend religious meetings on Sunday, instead I meet with believers and nonbelievers almost each and every day of the week. I no longer speak in tongues, but I do speak love to those who are hurting and unloved. I no longer pay tithes, instead I gave everything, literally everything. I no longer look to the Bible for doctrine and ways to exclude, instead I see the story we are all part of.
Am I perfect now? Hardly. In fact I can honestly say that none of this stuff in my life is even possible on my own. He has saved me, is saving me, and will save me.
1 John 4:8 (NKJV)
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Today, as I browsed a magazine my mom mailed me two years ago, I saw a photo of a child with dark, sullen eyes pouring dramatic tears down his brown cheeks. It was an advertisement for donations to help. I thought, ‘Ya know, this kid isn’t crying like this all the time. He probably is playing and laughing like most kids I see here, even IF they are hungry.’
But the picture was painted. Painted, not with a brush, but by a moment. Perhaps the boy fell down and was crying from a scraped knee, but to the photographer, it was an expression that would produce an emotional response in you and in me. People have their ways of manipulating. If it’s not photos of snot nosed, crying, hungry children, then it’s promises of God’s blessing and return on your giving…
I know you know this, but it’s just not our style. We will do what we do to help orphans, the poor, the sick… whether YOU give or not. And although I pray for each person who gives, and I have a sincere grateful heart, I can’t promise God, the almighty, will do anything. If you give to A Future and a Hope, there will be blessings… OURS. The kids will be fed, clothed, happy, and we’ll help people in need. We do it because we love beyond ourselves. We care.
I was thinking, after seeing the advertisement, that I could easily take photos of my orphans-no-more while they are crying or dirty or sick… I COULD show you some really bad off people whom we help, and you’d feel the need there. BUT, despite the fact that our income is solely donated, I would much rather you give because you actually BELIEVE in us and what we do. Get to know us. CARE. I don’t want to manipulate you into giving. Do it out of your own free will, and if not to A Future and a Hope—somewhere! There are lots of good things going on around the world. Help someone beyond yourself.
We are a complete family once more. Mary, one of our Kenyan girls, came back last night. She got stuck in her rural home village several hours away due to logistical errors. She’s back and we are once again one big happy family.
About four years ago we started this family, and that was our goal; to create family for those without it. We don’t have some orphanage down the road. No we are the home. We live, eat, and breathe the same air. Just like any other family.
Yet it is not always easy. We pour our lives, hearts, love, and well everything into these kids. We are nothing without them, nobodies.
Which makes it somewhat painful when they just look at you with blank expressions when you talk to them. Or when they feel so much more loyal to their “biological” families. Families that have completely and utterly rejected these girls. These people want nothing to do with them, and even express that sentiment to the girls. Still at times it feels like they are more connected to them than us.
Sigh.
Of course there are many bright moments, and even occasionally once in a blue moon, expressions of love from the girls.
Today is Labor Day in the U.S.A., which is where we hail from originally, so I thought a little reminiscing would be in order. Just in case there might be one or two of you who do not know what Labor Day is, here is a bit from Wikipedia:
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 5 in 2011) that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.
Let’s put aside the fact that there is something sinister in celebrating the fact most of us work for the man, and instead focus on a few things I miss from back home. (Here’s my list in no particular order, unless the order they occur to me is particular.)
That does it for now.
When Johnny and I first got married 16 years ago, I was 19 years old. He was 21.
He had all kinds of ideas of what his wife should be like…
I had NO idea how to be that woman. We didn’t really fight much, since it would take an act of colossal proportions to get Johnny even slightly flustered. He’s just so laid back, which was good, but I was definitely a disappointment to him in the… KITCHEN.
The early years of our marriage, I would cook eggs- lots and lots of eggs. (I used to watch my dad cook the eggs and bacon on Sunday mornings…. My mom didn’t really like me in the kitchen as much, as I always had my nose up close so I could see, right in the way…)
Also, in our first year of marriage, we ate out often, too. I can remember feeling very uncomfortable in the kitchen. I was intimidated by all of the options. I didn’t know where to begin! If, someone asked me to cut veggies, I’d panic. I had no idea what size they should be, and I was afraid to do things wrongly.
Then we moved to Africa when I was 21. There were no prepackaged foods to ‘zap’ in the microwave. We didn’t have a microwave, either, nor an oven. I suddenly was forced to get creative in order to survive.
So I’ve learned to cook through the school of hard-knocks, and now I LOVE it. I love creating in the kitchen. I enjoy making things from scratch that remind my husband and myself of ‘home-style, southern cooking.’ So yesterday, after making a batch of raspberry jam, I had lots of raspberries from the forest leftover. I decided to make fried pies. They are just delicious!
Now I”m off to make homemade tortillas! Ciao!
~Kate
Today, we rearranged furniture, bedrooms, etc… Andrew moved out to the guest house, and we moved 3 girls into his old room to make space so Emma and Edith won’t have to sleep on the trundles since they get stepped on by the other girls and are difficult for them to push in and out, etc…
With that said, it has come to my attention that we are in serious need of new mattresses and pillows. The poor dears (almost all of them) are sleeping on worn out, very thin foam. I knew the need was there over a year ago, but we always have something more important. For example, school fees are due for all the orphans this week! So prioritizing is tough.
I figured I might as well let people know the need instead of putting it off any longer. Their little bums are hitting the wood underneath.
If you’d like to help buy a mattress, they are around $50 each for decent foam ones and about $10 per pillow (which is why we haven’t just bought them). We need about 10 mattresses, and I think the same number of pillows.
Would you help a little princess get her beauty sleep?
~Kate
Sometimes, o.k. if I’m honest almost all the time, life is difficult. That’s not right, life is horrible. Not quite there, life is painful. Closer; life is rough. Life is terrible.
Some people in this world are blessed with a life that is only bad on occasion. They have food to eat, clothes to wear, healthcare, hope in the future, and go through life not just trying to survive but thriving. Or at least have an opportunity to thrive anyway.
Others in this world have no chance to thrive, or a much more limited opportunity to do so.
Working in the midst of those people day in and day out can take it’s toll. Especially since I cannot eradicate poverty. I do not have a magic prayer that will cure H.I.V. I cannot make someone love a person who is unlovable.
Yet I find myself happy, content, even joyful in the midst of dire poverty, sickness, and total abandonment of anything resembling decency.
How do I explain this?
I’m not sure I can. Giving up on the idea of changing the world I’m sure goes along ways to having a life of joy. Back when we first started this ministry I had a vision of reaching thousands with the message of hope. When we started feeding the hungry I was eager to feed hundreds and even create an environment where they would no longer need food assistance. I quickly gave up on those ideas. Even with a million dollars I couldn’t eradicate poverty. I cannot love a thousand people the way I can love 9 girls.
I gave up on the masses, and started to love and care for the individuals. I can care for 20 children, even when I can’t care for the 2 million plus orphans in the country. I can help individuals make sense of their lives and climb out of the hole poverty has created for them. I can help a single mother pay her hospital bill and secure her release from debtors prison.
Thanks to some friends of friends we were able to rescue a 3 year old girl from a hospital. This child is H.I.V. positive and was sick with pneumonia when she went into the hospital.
She was treated for pneumonia and improved. This particular hospital has proven to be adept at helping people with H.I.V. Thankfully she was discharged in much better shape than when she went in. (Not always the case with hospitals in Kenya.)
Then came the bill. Until her family was able to pay she was trapped in the hospital. She owed approximately $120 U.S. dollars. An amount her family could not fathom paying. An impossible situation.
Then light shines through the clouds of the circumstances and a miracle happens.
We paid the bill, and sprang this 3 year old girl. Celebration.
Luke 4:18
The Message (MSG)
God's Spirit is on me;
he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to
the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
to announce, "This is God's year to act!"
This has nothing to do with Jesus, unless you like the old adage, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”
Having 14 children, all girls but one, means that we have collected a number of stuffed animals and a handful of dolls (all from the US because toymakers are nowhere in Kenya). The amount of storage we have here is minimal at best. In fact, we don’t even own a toy box! And all wardrobe space is needed for the girls’ clothes so I decided to come up with a quick and easy, frugal way to organize all those dollies..
I just whooped out my stable gun and some hair bands… There ya have it!
Usually, we try not to talk about money, especially when we need it…For the first time in months, we have enough money to meet the needs of TODAY, and even the needs for tomorrow. Usually, we live one moment at a time. One shilling (penny) at a time. We often times don’t know if we’ll have what we need to take care of the basic stuff for TODAY. (And on these days, we try not to say anything, but instead write about days like TODAY). 35% of donations that come in are spent on groceries. Not toilet paper, etc.. but FOOD. Not processed, prepackaged foods, but raw ingredients such as flour, meat, dry beans, eggs, etc… (keep in mind the number of people we are feeding.) We lead a simple life day to day…. but today…
Today was exceptional. Today, we had enough donations to pay the rent on the house (it’s only a week late), plus have enough money for food. And GOOD food, not just beans and rice. We ate pizza! I was able to buy meat for the week, too.
Today, we bought a blender to replace the one that broke, not just a cheapy one, either! I good, middle grade, Philips blender. I’m very happy about it since we use it every day for making smoothies, blending our refried beans, and making our pizza sauce (to name a few items). (We have gone through 3 or 4 cheap blenders, so I’m glad to finally have a decent one).
Today, we helped pay a hospital bill to release a ‘prisoner’ there.
Today, my mini got fixed so I can drive it now, and hopefully sell it. I hope to buy a good bicycle to ride to town instead, save gas, and get exercise. Coming up hill will be fun.
Today, I had fun doing Zumba with my ‘orphans no more.’
Also today, a visitor who is coming soon is buying me the dog crate I was wishing for since we can’t find them here.
Today, the electrician came and repaired the instant shower so we can have hot water in our shower and is also working on my waffle maker and tea kettle. I hope tomorrow he comes with them fixed as well…
Makena came in my room and said, “Mommy, you are so happy today.”
Today, life was just a little bit easier because of you. Thank you.
My Kenyan daughters were sent to various relatives and friends per their request. They have the month of August off for school holidays, and we feel it is good they get back to their roots and keep a connection with their remaining relatives. However, with almost a full month left before school opens, many of them are coming home. Let me reiterate, there is a reason why they live with us to begin with.
Edith has already returned. Her aunt is pretty much insane, so we didn’t let Edith stay there. Instead, Edith visited Beatrice and Sarah Muthoni’s Aunt with them just so BT could have her younger sister as a playmate. While there, Edith’s Aunt saw her and snatched her up! She was angry, and we assume it’s because she thinks we were giving BT & Sarah’s aunt money for food. Edith gives her aunt ‘buying power’ if you will. So we had to go to Edith’s aunt’s house and bring Edith home. Her aunt was hoping we’d give her money as she whined, “I had to clean her up, wash her clothes, and feed her…”
Wow. Seriously? Yeah, well we pay her school fees and feed her every day and she doesn’t even share any bio connection with us… So you owe us! (Ok, we love Edith, and no one owes us anything. It’s just crazy that the aunt would try to manipulate us into giving her money for caring for HER niece.
Now Sarah and Beatrice are coming home as well because their family really doesn’t want them there. The tiny one room house they are staying in is overcrowded with children. Some of them are siblings of Sarah and BT because their mentally ill mother keeps having babies. She disowned the youngest one who was born last December because she is not a BOY. The other day, she told Sarah that she is not her child. Needless to say it hurt Sarah’s feelings real badly so it’s time they, too, come HOME.
Grace and Mercy, who has no family that we know of, are returning from visiting Grace’s grandma. We sent Grace there to try to get her birth certificate. Her grandma told her there was no rain nor food in her home so she shouldn’t come. I sent Grace and Mercy with extra money, just in case. Of course, I knew the grandma was lying because that area has been in the news for having MUCH rain and lots of food during this severe famine. When Grace arrived with Mercy, they found rain, fertile land, and food.. But alas, the Grandma is pushing them out and they are returning HOME.
So by this evening, my house will be a bit noisier, and meal prep a bit more extensive, and my heart a bit more full because more than half of my girls will be HOME.
~Kate
Yes. Yes we do.
Not the types that come to plant churches or save the lost, but we need the types that will love folks unconditionally. We need missionaries that will organize the feeding of the hungry, educate the ignorant, care for the outcast, stand up to the corruption of the institutional church.
We need lovers of orphans. Those who are willing to share space with children who have parents no more, and be substitute moms and dads. We do not need missionaries to come and save their souls, Jesus already took care of that.
We need them for short term trips and long term commitments.
We need folks to visit for a few weeks and simply love the unloved. We do not need them to come by for a few days and then run off to a game park. We need them to see us. Witness the poverty that stripes people of their humanity. See that the majority of people suffering with H.I.V./A.I.D.S are innocent of any immoral behavior. See the failure of religious obligation, and the triumph of simple faith, hope, and love.
We need missionaries to demonstrate how to live out the faith, therefore helping to undo the system of religious obligation put in place by previous generations of missionaries. We need missionaries who are willing to attempt to atone for the atrocities of empirical Christianity, and to confess their complicity in those crimes.
We need missionaries, here, there, everywhere.
With most of the African kids off visiting relatives and friends, this past week has been quiet. It’s amazing how much I have grown accustomed to having all the children here, even with all their noise.
It’s almost too quiet.
Why is it BIG decisions seem easier to make than every day small ones?
I mean, I was asked today if I wanted a care package with pepperonis in it or have the money just paypaled to us. I couldn’t answer. I felt pressure to make the decision, and I balked! This person has an amazing, generous, ‘can-do’ spirit, and I had no idea what decision to make!
I feel so inadequate.
I mean, ask me if I should just up and move to Africa, and my answer is “Well, yeah!” Or ask me to do something radical like spend all my money on a person in need, and I’d not hesitate to answer.
But ask me if I want to eat at this place or that place for lunch, and I have no clue. I literally can not decide.
Is it just me? Am I defective? Or are there other folks with this disorder?
~Kate
I hope you aren’t expecting a spiritual article about brokenness… although lately I’ve been finding myself humbled and pondering the amazingness of a God so great and yet ‘so tiny he can fit in your heart’ as Butterfly puts it. Perhaps I can write about that tomorrow.
No. Today we mourn the loss of several of our helpers in the house—
May you all rest in peace and not be offended when we replace you.
I’m not sure how we’ll manage without our helpful appliance friends. Already, life was tough when our tiny washing machine died recently. I’m grateful for those who helped us get a new one. She is a work-aholic washing ma-chine!
Can you believe that many things have broken? It’s crazy! When it rains, it pours. It appears everything is breaking at once! If you’d like to help us get new house helpers, click on the donate button at the top of our page and specify what it’s for. Thank you.
~Kate
I am happy to have toilet paper, peanut butter, and toothpaste.
I am happy to have good food on my table, joyful kids, and a smile on my face.
I’m glad that today, I had water to bathe, petrol in the car, shampoo for my hair
Because yesterday was a different tale… our cupboards were getting quite bare.
This is a silly sing song way to express my gratitude to those of you who
Help us continue to bring a future and a hope to those we do…
Including our family, too!
~Kate
Johnny didn’t like the look of our old blog. He said that the black background with white text was difficult on the eyes…
So per his request, I made a new banner and changed the design. I hope you like it. The star of our banner is our very own ‘orphan-no-more’ Mildred Awino. We call her ‘Milly'.’
She’s been with us for over 3 years now. She’s 16 years old, and spirited girl who loves to laugh and play active games.
I’m honored to have her as part of my family.
If you are reading this in an RSS reader, then be sure to click through and check out the actual site. Kate has refreshed the design, and I think it looks great. (If you are scratching your head wondering what RSS is, don’t worry it’s not important.)
I’m also using MailChimp for our e-newsletters now. Just sent one out today. If you don’t get our newsletter but would like to then sign up using the form on the side bar of this here blog. Don’t get too excited it’s just a newsletter.
For the last 3 years and 10 months, we have lived with added children in our house. It is a wonderful thing!
Extra people means extra mouths to feed which means more expense…
Now for the second time in (almost) 4 years, we find ourselves with all of the ‘orphans no more’ gone on holiday to various places, visiting their friends or relatives. This is a RARE happening!!
You would think that we would take this opportunity to take a much needed vacation… but alas, we find ourselves with very little money in our pockets. (It costs quite a bit to send the girls to their rural homes.)
God has a sense of humor, doesn’t he?
Here we have only a handful of children, meals are easier to prep, and expenses should be less- freeing up cash… but it never seems to fail that when our expenses drop, so does our income.
Sometimes I just have to sit and laugh at how our life must look to people on the other side…
It must be God’s way of making sure we never have too much. I don’t know. I just find it humorous.
~Kate
The word missionary brings an image that often times seems unattainable. In fact, I hate being called a missionary. I don’t feel it defines ME or us. Close your eyes. Think of the word missionary, and what picture does your mind bring? What ‘strings’ go along with that image? Or what ideas pop into your head?
One person recently told me that the word ‘missionary’ makes her feel as we are sponsored or ‘sent’ by an organization.
Johnny and I left our home country without any promise of support from any one. We were and ARE just normal folks who felt like we could TAKE A RISK in order to make a difference.
The reason why I’m writing this article is because I feel more people should do what we do, but sadly, so many people think , ‘But I’m not a missionary.’ Or perhaps they feel as if one has to be someone special or super spiritual to ‘make the cut’ of the missionary calling.
I say, hogwash. Forget trying to be a ‘missionary’ and find a way you can do some good. Personally, I believe you will have to take a risk.
When it came down to forsaking all we knew, quitting jobs, packing up a few items and moving to Kenya with less than $400 in our possession, we made the choice based greatly on the fact that I really believe there is no PERFECT will of God. I just thought, ya know what? How can helping orphans NOT be God’s will? That was the end of the debate.
So here we are more than 6 1/2 years of living in Africa with our children and added children, and then added home for boys, and then community stuff…. We are making a small difference, and many people think we are awesome for doing it, but I want to remind you, you can make a difference too!
Find ways YOU can change the world for good. Then take a risk. Just do it.
Just heard that John Stott passed away. His book Basic Christianity, had a profound impact on my life. In fact I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here in Nakuru, Kenya without it.
I actually don’t know all that much about John Stott, but I would love to have had a chance to hang for a day or two with him.
R.I.P. John
Brief history for those new here:
We, Johnny, Kate, Andrew, Makena, Butterfly, Emma, and Ewoyn live with 9 added daughters (who lost their parents or were abandoned by their parents) to our family. Most have lived with us for almost 4 full years.
Now our ‘orphans no more’ each have a painful past that lead them to us. A number of them, if not all of them, have gone through times when food was nonexistent. Each meal was not guaranteed…
With that said, they also have some remaining family members who cannot or will not take care of them. In most cases, it’s BOTH.
Now that the schools have closed, the orphans-no-more want to visit their relatives if they have any. Keep in mind there is a reason that these parentless girls are in OUR care.
So we have given them the money to travel to their rural homes. What does this have to do with missing eggs? I’m glad you asked.
As my day started, it came to our attention that a half dozen egg carton full of eggs is missing from our pantry as well as 2 large packets of spaghetti noodles. I noticed it because yesterday evening, I was trying to decide what to cook for this evening’s meal. The noodles and eggs were on the shelf in plain sight. Today, they are gone.
Now I sent one of our African daughters to her aunt’s house today…
My guess is, she took them—just in case she finds her auntie’s cupboard bare. This is not the first time things have gone missing just before a trip to an Aunt’s house.
I can’t be certain it is this particular child, but past and present evidence is pointing to this conclusion. I completely understand this child’s need to steal, and I am not angry.
It saddens me that these girls have had such horrible pasts and that their relatives even NOW don’t, won’t, or can’t provide enough food for them while they visit that this need to steal food from home would even cross their minds.
I recently wrote about some friends of friends who helped us pay a hospital bill for a single mom and her baby. Rose is now free and better able to care for her other children.
Unfortunately hers was not an isolated case. We know so many people, many women who have given birth, now trapped in the hospital because they cannot pay the bill. Literally they are in prison for being sick or having given birth. The hospital has gone so far as to install security cameras to ensure they cannot sneak out.
I would like to help as many of these folks as we can. Especially the people that Ben is ministering to. The folks we know personally. We need to get them out of the hospital before they catch something else while there.
In the past couple of weeks we have managed to secure the release of 2 women. Hopefully we can at least double that number before the end of this week.
Thanks for asking:
I was walking by the younger girls bedroom the other day and overheard a converstion about pastors and bishops. I was curious what they would say about those types, and popped my head in. I got something like this as a response from Butterfly (our 8 year old daughter:)
"We need the bishops. They heat the water for the bathtubs."
After a few minutes I still have no idea why she needed bishops to heat her bathwater.
So you have gone somewhere, packed the necessary equipment, and feel called to the mission field. Now what?
What exactly is the mission? What will you be doing from day to day? Who will you be ministering to?
Questions that seem like they should be easy to answer, right? Surely you will answer them before setting off on your missionary journey. A plan will be made. It will be written out, presentations made, and donors convinced that this plan is the one that will make a difference.
Then you land in that foreign airport, and your plan crumbles before your very eyes.
We had a plan, it was detailed and good. It started to fall apart at the airport, literally. We landed and went through immigration and customs and met our Kenyan friends outside the airport. By the time we were in the van and driving to Nakuru our entire plan had changed.
Go ahead and make your plans, but be prepared to change every aspect of said plan.
Give yourself time to learn the culture, language, and make trustworthy contacts. If you are in a big hurry to enact your grand scheme for your host country, you might want to take a look at your motivation. When God wanted to radically change the entire world, he started in a tiny little manager in a little town, in a nation that couldn’t even govern itself. He took more than 30 years to begin attempting to bring about change.
I can’t answer what it is you should be doing on the mission field, but I can say that it is hard to figure that out without being in the field. You need to be with the people God wants you to love in order to love them. If you want to feed the hungry, you need to be in a place to put food in their hands. If you want to care for orphans, same thing you need to be there to do it. (Or at least know someone doing those things. Perhaps you’re not supposed to be here, but it could be that you are intended to help us stay here.)
Plan, plan, and plan some more, but just like back in step one, sometimes you just got to do it.
I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. John 15 in the Message
Let that soak in for a sec.
He calls us friend.
Not servants.
Not religious suplicants.
Not acolytes.
Friends.
Calling, forget about it.
If the only reason you are coming to the field is because you are obligated by some high calling you received from God up in Heaven, then just go ahead and stay home. We don’t need you.
Instead we need missionaries who are in love with the people they are going to live amongst. We need people to help feed the hungry, because they actually feel bad that those folks are starving. Not because it will get them a gold star in the next life.
Religious obligation has no place in a missionary’s life. Love is enough, or rather should be.
Back when I was a kid and my parents made me mow the lawn, I didn’t appreciate it. In fact I pretty much resented the fact that I wasn’t able to watch t.v. instead. Not that I had a problem with manual labor, I just hated that I had no choice.
Thankfully the Christian life does not have to be like that. Allow the Father to create a heart of love in you, and you will do all kinds of great stuff for the world. Not because He ordered you to, but because you love the world as he does.
Our philosophy on orphan-care is to create or provide what is missing, namely a family. Our two homes provide a loving family atmosphere for the girls and boys we take care of. Their own families have failed to provide this very thing for them after the death or failure of their parents.
Yet we have not abandoned the extended families. We attempt to have the children maintain contact with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, or whomever is left.
This is a mixed blessing. I’m sure in the long run it will be good for the children to have this connection with their birth families. There will come a day when he/she will want to know about grandma/pa. They will want to reconnect with cousins and even siblings. So I’m happy that they are a part of those extended families.
Sometimes though those “extensions” can be a pain.
They never visit. In the past almost 4 years, only 2 visits have occurred at our house. We have 9 girls here. Half of which are from the same town we live in.
The only time the extended families seem to communicate with us is to ask for money. Well that’s not true they do call to tell us about funerals. No birthday wishes, or greetings on other holidays.
We do try and make sure the children visit their relatives during the school holidays. School ends this week, and the girls will visit family for most of next month. Helps them not only stay in touch with their families, but their tribal cultures as well.
We do have a couple with no place to go. We do not know any members of Mercy’s family, or even if she has any left. Edith cannot visit her auntie as the last time she did so the aunt left 7 year old Edith alone all day. Edith wandered off and got lost somewhere in Nakuru. Not cool. Teresa's sister is sick, and not a pleasant gal anyway. Hopefully these girls will be able to visit friends for a few days, so they don’t feel left out.
Let’s assume, for this article’s duration at least, that you have read How to Be a Missionary – Step One, and have already gone somewhere or are setting out on that journey now. (By the way I’m using the term missionary to indicate one who goes outside of one’s own culture or locale to another culture or locale with the intention of sharing the love of God. I’m including short and long term trips.) Now some advice on practical steps you can take might be in order.
Of course if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you will realize right away that my list could be unique.
What to Do/Bring/Believe/Etc. on your “Missionary” Journey
I’m sure I could go on, but I’m starting to get bored with this. I imagine you guys have already moved on to the next blog. Please comment some more to the list, or ask me why I left something or another off the list.
Kenya is a strange land. A place where a mother can take her child to the hospital in an emergency, and after the child is treated be held prisoner in the hospital because she can’t pay the bill. Seriously the guards will not let you leave without a receipt showing you have paid.
A particular mom, named Rose, had been stuck in the local provincial government hospital since May. She had a bill of not quite a hundred U.S. dollars. Since she was unable to pay her and her child, whom she was not able to leave alone in the hospital, were not allowed to go outside the hospital grounds. Plus the bill kept getting bigger each and every day, as they were charged for the space they were occupying.
I can’t say we fixed this obviously messed up way of doing healthcare, but we were able to help Ruth and her child come out of the hospital. Thanks to some friends of some friends of ours. The bill was paid and both are free once again.
Collaboration, it’s what makes our world go round.
It was requested that I make a paypal donate ‘button’ for the blog. I put it off for a long time (6 months or maybe longer, I can’t remember) because I don’t like the way it feels seeing it there first thing. :/
However, I think it makes it easier for folks who want to help. It’s not difficult to find and click on. Before, when people asked how to donate, it wasn’t as easy as just sending them to the blog. Now it is!
So please know that we hope people only help because they feel they want to. We try not to make emotional pleas for donations. We are grateful for all donations that come to A Future and a Hope.
Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land, saying,
“When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?”–
skimping on the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,
buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
~Amos
This is one of those rare posts (rare for us anyway) where we talk about money.
Our project, and therefore our lives, are funded entirely on donations made by individuals, organizations, and whatever else decides to send a gift. Kate and I are not paid a salary, and we used up all our own money years ago.
Thank you to all those who do give and have given. I’m not sure we can express how we feel about those gifts properly. Without you we could not be here loving and caring for these children and other oppressed folks.
I can’t make any promises of a 100 fold return or blessings from God, but I can promise that whatever you give will help us to give a future and a hope to a number of people here in Nakuru, Kenya.
If you would like to make a donation there are a few options to go about doing that:
Make a check out to Kenya Fund and mail to:
713 West First Street
Beaver Dam, KY 42320
100% of your check is deposited into the account and is available for us to use here in Kenya.
You could use paypal. Our email address is back2kenya@yahoo.com
One could even wire us money through Western Union or MoneyGram. Send to Johnny Brooks in Nakuru, Kenya. (Then email us the code number and answer to the secret question. I did manage to guess an answer once, but I’d rather not try my luck on that again.)
You could even come over and drop it off in person. We might even let you stay at our place for a few days.
Any others?
Kate’s thoughts:
Feel free to chime in.
Check out Tarrin’s post about visiting us…
