After a couple of posts to relate to you the current state of the orphanage in Kenya, in this following post, I bring you back again in time to the year 2017
This series of Kisii Orphanage posts is a recollection of entries from my journal when I visited the Log Church and Orphanage of Kenya for the first time.
This series of Kisii Orphanage posts is a recollection of entries from my journal when I visited the Log Church and Orphanage of Kenya for the first time.
To retain the continuity of the journal, please scroll down to the entry entitled How it All Began, and work your way up, reading each post that begins with Kisii Orphanage.
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After my short
conversation with Augusto and thinking about my years living in Venezuela, I
remember when I began to feel more like a Venezuelan than an American. It was
the same when I lived in India many years ago. It was less so in the other places we have
lived, but to a varying degree, in each place I began to experience a definite kinship
with the nationals while living among them.
Journal Entry – November, 2017
Last night (or I should say early this morning at
about 3:00 AM), I was awakened by a small ding
from my phone, telling me that I had a text message. Because I thought the
message could only be one coming from home, instead of turning over and going back
to sleep, I picked up my phone to read it.
“¡Saludos amigo Donald!”
the text read. “¡Soy Augusto!”
Augusto is a
friend of mine from Venezuela. Unknown to me, he had been following the blogs
of my trip and suddenly decided to send me a message. I don’t know if time
difference between us occurred to him. It was only about 8:00 in the evening where he was.
I was still
getting used to the time change in Kenya, and frankly, I had just fallen asleep
when I was awakened by the phone. Nevertheless, I did not want to dismiss the
contact from my old friend. I actually had not heard from him for several years.
I texted back. “¡Saludos a ti amigo vecino! Estoy
en Kenia!”
Augusto said yes, he
knew, and began to ask me how my family was, plus a few questions about my
trip.
Understand that
it is 3:00 in the morning in Kenya, my sleep is still being compromised by the jet lag,
and I am texting in Spanish. Frustrating to me is that the auto-correct on my
phone keeps trying to turn my Spanish into English. But although I was sleepy
in my eyes and in my mind, I chatted for a few minutes with my friend. It was
good to reconnect.
As I write this, it is now about
8:00 AM here in Kenya. I am sitting in the restaurant at the hotel having
breakfast with my morning coffee. I did fall back to sleep after my chat with
Augusto, so I feel somewhat rested. I am anticipating the day and wondering what
it will be like.
I am a little apprehensive
about what the day will bring and what will be expected of me, but after my very
positive experience yesterday in church, most of my concerns are very much
abated. I am actually struck by how much of a kinship I already feel with these
people.
But that kinship
did not happen immediately. It took time, and it took a sharing of common
experiences. I have gone through this process enough to know what to expect, at
least to some degree. It has been six foreign countries where I have lived through
the years, having set up households and settling in to live in each of these
places. I always expect that it will take time and a sharing of experiences with
the people before I feel completely "at home" with them.
What I have
experienced so far even in these first days here in Kenya has been an acceleration of that process. With
this people so different in race and culture than myself, I am a bit amazed at
how much at home I already feel here. Not completely comfortable mind you, but
much more than I would expect only a few days into my time here in this
country.
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I would like to speak a little about the children,
because it is
largely because of them that I have come to Kenya. There are so many of them in the church! I am astounded how well they sit all throughout the three or four hour services. It is true with all the activity that goes on in the worship, the time in the services goes very quickly. It holds your attention.
largely because of them that I have come to Kenya. There are so many of them in the church! I am astounded how well they sit all throughout the three or four hour services. It is true with all the activity that goes on in the worship, the time in the services goes very quickly. It holds your attention.
Still…these are kids! The seating in the church
are benches. These are simple wooden benches. No back rests—just a hard board.
Way in the back of the church, there are several of those ubiquitous plastic
lawn chairs found all over the world. We as pastors also have the same plastic
chairs in front, so it is fine for my old back.
But those kids! When they are not singing and
dancing down the aisle, they are sitting like little cherubs on their bench.
With their wide and bright eyes, they are as cute as baby owls sitting on a
stump.
Perhaps I should explain the seating arrangement
in the church. When my friends from Kenya read this, they may think that I
giving too much attention to such a small detail, but when something is new,
everything is so interesting.
The children are on the front benches—the youngest
children on the very front bench. Seated on the benches behind them, the ages
of the children seem to progressively become higher until they become the
adolescents, then young adults, and finally the adults in the back—the women
first, and then the men way in the back. The back of the church seems to be the
preference of men all over the world.
I did not try to count the people in the church,
nor do I think I will be doing that at the conference that begins today, but I
would not be surprised that in yesterday’s four hour church service, there were
150 people present. The small church was packed!
We as the pastors are seated, not in the front
facing the congregation, but in chairs along one of the sides next to were the
people come forward to recite verses, sing, dance, or do other things. We have
a small table in front of us where we can place our things like our Bibles, and
in my case, my lessons and my camera. There is also a pitcher of water on the
table.
From my vantage point, I can observe the children
who are sitting in the front benches very well, and I do not deny that their
quiet attention, and their wide and attentive eyes observing everything, often
completely captivates me.
Most of the children are orphans. Pastor Joel has
a special heart for the orphans, as do all the people of the church. These are
children who had been abandoned to live on the street. The parents may have
died from HIV/AIDS, highland malaria, or some of the children had simply been
abandoned by their parents, who cannot be found.
The church has taken them in. There is no outside
help for this work. Despite the fact that it is a poor area and I think that
all who attend the church must be quite poor themselves, they have opened their
hearts to take these children in. They have given themselves to feed the
orphans, to clothe them, to give them schooling, and to provide for them a
place to sleep.
The places where they sleep are unbelievably
small. There are eleven girls and ten boys (or maybe it was the other way
around). The girls have a room in the house of the pastor, where the pastor’s
wife is the matron of the girls—she is the one that takes care of their needs.
All these girls sleep on a set of bunk beds in a
room that is perhaps measures ten feet by twelve feet. Well…not all the girls
sleep on the beds. Since there is not room for everyone, they also spread a
cloth on the dirt floor and a couple of the girls sleep there.
The boys have a similar situation in a separate
building. They have two cots in an area that may be a little larger, but since
they do not have a bunk bed, that extra space is filled with the second cot.
There is a young man who is the patron of these boys.
When writing about the needs of people, I always
try to guard against appealing to the emotions of those who read what I write.
Appealing to emotion is the easy way, and it apparently works. That is why we
see all the photos of wide-eyed small children with the caption, “Please help
me.”
I am not doing that nor am I even asking for
donations. My intentions are different. I know that there are many who are
reading these words who will be asking me what I have found on my trip to
Kenya, and this is what I have found.
I had to come to verify for myself that this
pastor who contacted me more than one year ago to thank me for the sermons that
I posted on my blog page, and with whom my relationship has grown over the
months. I had to verify for myself if what he was telling me was true.
Every word that he wrote to me was not only true,
but he has even downplayed the actual condition of the lives of the orphans.
When he wrote to me that the children had to go to bed with nothing to eat for
the entire day, he was not telling me anything but fact. What he did not
mention was that I am sure that he and his own family went to bed that night in
the same situation.
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