KISII REPORT #2

Perhaps sometime in your life you have been on a camping trip when every night you laid chilled in a damp sleeping bag listening to rain falling on the roof of your tent. With your flashlight, you could see little drops of water seeping through and falling from the seams in the tent material above you. After nearly not having slept most of the night, in the morning you finally gathered up enough courage to put on your least wet clothes and to go outside to try and get a fire going with wet wood and rain still falling.

I have been on some camping trips like these, and as much as I love to camp, I must say these times have been depressing, discouraging, disheartening, dispiriting, and a few other dis-words.

 

Now, imagine that you were on a camping trip like the one I described above, but that lasted nearly three months. Think of how demoralizing it would be to have to face yet another day of rain, cold and wet all day, and unable to find any place to get comfortable.

If you are able to get your imagination to go there, then you are getting close to what these kids from the orphanage of the Log Church of Kisii are facing.

In the past week or so, they have had a couple of days when it did not rain so that they could hang their few blankets out to dry, but I imagine that the humidity levels must be so high that they could not have dried much. These are not sunny days, only days when there was no rain.

I see there is a big hole in the middle of that one blanket. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I shared a double bed with my brother Danny. It was cold upstairs in our farmhouse in the winter, and we would fight for the covers.

 

One way was that we would each roll in the blanket from opposite sides, fighting for more than our share. Mom would complain that our blankets would always start to rip, right up the center.

 

I don’t know if that is what happened here with the blanket, but “boys will be boys,” as my mom would often say with a slight sound of exasperation in her voice.

Those mounds beside the hanging blankets are others that are draped on the bushes, trying to get them to dry.

Food throughout Kenya has remained in short supply and expensive because of the relentless rain. Some have sent help, for which I am very thankful, and so are the children and people in Kisii. 100% of funds go to the orphanage and church, and if you would like to help out, write and ask me how. Once it is received in Kisii, I will tell you exactly what your gift was used for.