Touch your nose to a triangle...

Earlier this evening, I was doing some funky moves: galloping to a square, sliding to a musical instrument, touching my elbow to a food sign while keeping my foot on a yellow sign. Weird? I was playing Hullabaloo with a family from church.

I've been trying to spend quality time with supporters to get to know them as families or individuals, and tonight, it meant that I got to be part of this particular home's family night. I got to show them pictures from Kenya during dinner time, and afterwards, we played games. Fun stuff. Especially when you see little ones get excited about missions.

Earlier last week, I had lunch with another family with young kids, too, which is really an honor to me. For many of the kids (not only these families, but also from the classes where I got to share at church yesterday), I'm the first missionary the kids really get to know, which is a lot of fun, really. Many of the families have been following the Sifunas' story this past year, and were able to rejoice with me in the fact that Silas decided a week ago to follow Christ.

And they got to know Hannah and her family, and were delighted to know that Nancy is in the process of applying for nursing school...

Through my blog, these are not just stories. It's like these people are part of their world. I love that! Especially when it comes to children.

Right now, I need to sleep, though. Tomorrow's another full day of work, studying, and lunch and dinner appointments. It's all good, though. It's all good.

Except the cold weather. That's not too great. I don't get how it's April and we're still in the very low 30s here with snow in the forecast for later in the week again. This, too, shall pass, right? Of course it will. At least I have a bed at my friend Danette's house with the warmest bedding imaginable. And since Danette's out of town for work, her animals are all down in my room. In fact, right now, all three her cats are surrounding my legs. I think they like this bedding as much as I do.

I'm going to join the cats and head to Dreamland.

Going for a spin

I had asked some boys at the children's home to wash my car today. It was very muddy, and before leaving it under the care of a colleague, I thought it would be good to get it cleaned up.

When I got to the children's home to move my car, some 4 or 5 kids were sitting on my car's steps, just waiting for me to show up, likely so they could see the look on my face when I see my clean car. I praised them for the great work and asked, "Would you like a ride?"

Of course they did!

I let them (plus a few extra kids) hop in and took them for a fun ride, literally driving in circles on the open field by the children's home.

They giggled. They squealed. They laughed out loud.

They were having a blast. As was I. Some of them may have remembered the day I had picked them up in the village two years ago and brought them to their new home. On those drives, we sang songs and drove through mud puddles. We laughed a lot.

Today, little Dennis kept saying my name, even after I dropped them off. "Sema, Katonye" I'd respond. (Literally, speak, but it's kind of a "yes?" when someone addresses you. Katonye is the name he's given himself. It doesn't mean anything. He just has been using that as his name...)

All he'd do is smile. Maybe he simply doesn't have the words yet to say what's on his mind. But maybe it's just a way to say, "You're my friend. I know you're my friend."

I'll miss him and his buddies.

A Walk in the Forest

A walk in the forest, originally uploaded by Boyznberry.

I'm back from the forest. After getting up at 5:30 on Thursday to make coffee for the team that was leaving, I got my things together, loaded the car, and took off for the forest with 11 other staff members from our home-based care ministry. This is the team that runs ELI's AIDS ministry, but also cares for anyone in our extended community who needs someone to walk the journey with them. People like the Sifunas, or like Hannah, or Lillian, the mom with the twins.

I'm not part of that team, but I went along to assist with facilitating some of the sessions. The purpose of the weekend was to rest, to reflect, and to plan ahead. And we did all of that, and more. We laughed, got to know each other, we ate good food and shared stories.

It was so much fun to discover what things my Kenyan colleagues simply weren't used to. Understandably, they had no idea which knives and forks to use, which side plate was theirs, or which glass. But everyone was keen to learn! They asked the waiters to teach them to fold napkins, and they wondered aloud about the strange dishes that showed up. In fact, on our ride home, Meshak wanted to know if it's really monkey meat we ate at breakfast. I assured him that bacon was from pigs, not monkeys like his friends told him... He--and several others--had never had bacon before. Nor salad, pie, or sauerkraut.

So it was quite an adventure for them. So much so that some are talking about saving 20/= a day all of next year so they can go back there by themselves at the end of the year... (That's just more than a quarter a day.)

I love it about this team. They had fun, and they had no qualms showing it. They worked hard, like they always do, and came up with even loftier goals for next year. They want to see more people tested for HIV, more people helped. Most of them can find higher-paying jobs in other places, but they choose to stay and serve here because of the immense job satisfaction. And it shows.

We played Jenga our first night, combining it with answering questions about yourself after you jengad. (Jenga is Swahili for build, so here, we use the word as a verb while playing the game.) And if someone toppled the tower, they were showered with any and all questions people may want to ask.

By the time the generator was switched off, we continued the game by candlelight and flashlight.

Same last night. They watched a movie (I went to bed early) and played Scrabble, Chinese solitaire and Uno till way after midnight.

This morning, we did some fun team building activities where I had everyone blindfolded, trying to make a square. It's always fun to do these activities, but what's even more fun is to do the debriefing afterwards. "Who was the leader? Why did others take over? Why did you not listen to that person's advice?" and so on and so forth. Learn through play.

Oh, and yesterday, Juli had us all go out and spend time reflecting on "Thus far, the LORD has helped us," (1 Sam. 7:12) by drawing stones with people or event names in them. And so, throughout the various events, people shared some of the stories from their stones, and I wrote the names from their stone stories on rocks I had collected from the forest. We brought them back as a reminder of what God has done.

We concluded our time together with a time of affirmation. Though we thought it would take perhaps an hour or two, we spent almost five hours (!) sharing what we appreciated about one another. I can attest to the difference it has already made in relationships, simply because people could share their hearts. In fact, during the ride home, everyone in my car was involved in a VERY heated discussion about Christ and culture because of something that was said during the afternoon session. It was exhilarating to be a part of the ride home, to hear people's hearts, to be able to share some of my heart with them, too.

By the time I dropped everyone at home tonight and Maru's children ran and threw their arms around their dad, my heart was smiling.

I had made some good friends this weekend. I got to know an amazing team, and they got to know me a bit, too. I discovered that some of them had been a bit afraid of me before, because, I'm told, I have high standards. But spending these days together, sharing, laughing, praying, eating, having communion, made us a stronger team. Even though I'm technically not a part of their team.

Click on the picture to see more photos from the weekend.

Jenga!

If you know Jenga, you also know the Swahili word for build. Though the name of the game turns out to be Swahili, none of our Kenyan friends have ever seen the game. (There's a kid in our neighborhood who is a perpetual waver--he waves when your car is at least 100 ft away and keep waving till you can no longer see him in the dust behind you--who is named Jenga. Which fascinated me. Why would a parent call their kid "build"? Maybe he was born while they were building a house. Or something like that.) After dinner tonight, Nicole and I taught the Rono family how to play Jenga. Did they have fun! Angelina (the mom) giggled hard as she watched us hold our breath. John and Emmanuel kept trying to scare each other. We never got past 23 rows. (Nicole and my lunchtime game went to 29. I just read, though, that the record number of rows is 40, with two tiles in row 41. Wow!)

Anyway, it was a fun evening. It's after 10. I'm heading to bed. Tomorrow's a full day.

P.S. I'm told the Rono boys kept playing Jenga till 1 am and got up to 31 rows.