We have had our first snake spotting here! It was very exciting because we were in the car! It was moving across the road right in front of us and went up the bank and disappeared into the grass. It was a green momba. They are a highly venomous snake. We had the camera in the car, but were not able to move fast enough to get a picture. Here is a picture of one that I got off of the Internet:
It looked just like this and was about 4 feet long. I was so glad that I was in the car! If I had not been, it would have been a terrifying experience to say the least.
We are finally finished with the Valentines Day fund raiser for the sophomore class. That seemed like a never ending thing! As I told you in a previous blog, we baked then frosted, then delivered over 1000 items in a week end. Last Monday was our day to deliver all of the hard sale items (flowers, baskets, mugs, balloons). One of our sponsors went to Naivasha in the morning and returned about 1pm with about 4000 stems of roses! We had to package them into groups of singles, 1/2 dozens and dozens with 3 different colors! Thank goodness the class had previously sorted all of the tags into these groups as well as by location (dorms). It went smoothly and 5 hours later we were finished! Here are a few pictures:
We have had a humbling revelation this week. Remember a few weeks ago when I told you that we were praying for the continuation of the Bethany Kids Children's Wing? The board had met and were debating whether or not to continue the project. I think that part of their agreeing to continue was because Jim and I are here. We have been here over a year now and have a working relationship with the people that matter for the building as well as have built up a lot of experience about how things work here. God sent us here quickly (we got ready and left in about 7 months) and there was no building going on. We were a bit dismayed at the physical lack of progress. But, it is not everything that is seen that makes it all work out. God has his timing and will teach us patience in it all! We are humbled at the thought that our being here will provide a new center in the next few years for the children in East Africa. But it is not just us - all of you who support us with your dollars are part of it. Thank you so much!
Weariness - we take so many things for granted in our culture. One of which is communications. I am not talking about just being able to speak Swahili or someone being able to speak English, it is about understanding. There are so many times in which you have to follow up with an issue and follow up again and follow up again! The Kenyans will say, "Yes" to just about anything (because they don't want to tell you "no"). We learned about that in the book African Friends and Money Matters - great read by the way. But, living that reality is nothing like reading about it! No one here will follow up on an issue. For example - the hospital was supposed to order the trusses for the MCH building before we left to come home in Dec. We left the order with the material department. They had some issues and didn't call anyone to resolve those and nothing happened, but the engineering department didn't follow up to see that it was done! It was Jim that called the company when we got back here and asked when the trusses would be delivered and they said, "For what order?" Things like this (usually on a smaller scale) happen all the time. One of the apartments in our old apartment building has been out of hot water for 6 weeks now. Poor Ruth has been taking a sponge shower in her kitchen (she now knows why they put a drain in the kitchen floor!) with a kettle of hot water! But it has been Jim that keeps dogging them to continue researching the problem until it is corrected. It just is a wearisome process. Please pray for patience and dogged stamina as we continue!
I am reading a great book called The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Stearns. He is (or was, not sure) the CEO of World Vision. He writes about how the American culture is living in a world far beyond the reaches of the majority of the world and they don't even realize it. He says that American Christians give only 2.58% of their money to their churches and only 2% of that money goes outside of our country! We are blind to the challenges that most of the world faces. Earning less then $4 a day is a reality to most of the world and for that matter for most of the Kenyans here that we know. There is a pastor here who has a program going where he is trying to teach people to earn up to $10 a day! That would be earth shattering if all of the people here in Kijabe made $10 a day.
There is a quote from John MacArthur in the book:
Mankind wants glory. We want health. We want wealth. We want happiness. We want all our felt needs met, all our little human itches scratched. We want a painless life. We want the crown without the cross. We want the gain without the pain. We want the words of Christ's salvation to be easy.
We are a society that has lost touch with the reality of the world. Being here really brings that home to us and the kids. Sallie ran into some teenage girls and a small boy last week who asked her for some food. She ran inside and asked me if we had something. She took out a bag of English muffins (that is one of the things the ladies come around and sell us). They were so grateful! She ran back inside and asked if we had any clothing to give them. We rifled through some drawers and found some things. Sallie was imprinted with the gratefulness on their faces for just these few "extra" things that she gave them.
There is another thing he talks about in chapter 7: "Another excuse we often use effectively to avoid serving God is that we don't have the right skills or abilities. We bow to feelings of inferiority, which tell us again and again that God can't use someone like us." Jim and I almost fell into this one. We didn't have specific construction experience (except for our house building project) and were not sure about how we would be useful. It was revealed to us very soon after coming here how God was going to use the skills he gave us to help his project come to life. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." NIV version.
Another thing he points out is how "for most of the poorest people in the world, their hard work doesn't matter. They are trapped within social, cultural, political, and economic systems that do not reward their labor. The result of this entrenched futility is devastating to the human spirit." (page 119) Ruth and I were talking about this just last week! We see here a hopelessness that whatever they do, doesn't matter. In America, we believe that if you work hard you can climb out of your circumstances and reach to whatever you want. But, it is just not that way here. If you try to better yourself in this society, your neighbors and friends (and family) will not cheer you on, they will want to bring you down because you have no right to be better (or have better things) then them. It permeates a feeling of hopelessness that we can feel everyday.
I have been impacted by this book this week (I got to read for 4 hours last Sunday)! And I thought I would just share a little bit of that. I highly recommend picking it up and letting God speak to you through it.
Please know that we think of you often even if we don't communicate directly. I surely appreciate that you come to this blog and we can talk that way!
In His Hands,
Jullie T.
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