Then There Were Seven.

The departures have begun. Yesterday we all ate a final banana pancake breakfast together and said goodbye to Lauren, Nate, and Drew as they headed home for Christmas. I don’t think any of us quite realized how much like family we’ve become until they left; it was a hard goodbye. The rest of us have been wandering the house in a daze wondering why everything is so quiet and then remembering that the teenagers are gone…

As we discussed over a bonfire Saturday night, the tough part about going home is having all the people who know exactly what you’ve experienced be so far away when you need them most! It will be an adjustment for all of us.

HBF Sleepover.

Before the departure, we were able to pull off a slightly chaotic but ultimately successful sleepover at HBF, sending house parents Ben and Virginia for a night in a nice Kitale hotel. They were thrilled to get a break, and we managed to win over the kids by cooking spaghetti for dinner (they love it so much they call it “super-getti”) and eggs for breakfast. To Ben and Virginia’s credit, their house of 30 kids runs like a well-oiled machine without them. Without ever being asked, the boys got firewood, the girls got water from the river, and no one fought or caused any problems. (Apart from a bunch of intoxicated Matissi tribesmen in a circumcision ceremony marching around the house yelling at 5am… that was exciting.)

It is amazing within Kenyan culture how instinctively the older kids look after the younger ones. This is especially obvious at HBF, where many of the older kids were the sole caregivers to their younger siblings before they were put in the home. So when Ben and Virginia left, all the responsible, parental instincts kicked in at high gear and we just watched in amazement! Susan, who is 13, took care of Baby Dan the entire time; getting him to sleep, feeding him (always before herself), changing diapers, bathing him. Linda had malaria again, pretty severely because of the HIV, and Elizabeth (16) slept with her and took her out to the cho 6 times during the night.

Some photos...

Nate & Martin.


Susan & Baby Dan, playing with an
aluminum can lid, as all babies do.....


Getting Ready for Breakfast!


Eggs, Bread, and Chai for 35.


Baby Dan, loving breakfast.


The Girls Bringing Water In.

Vero & I, Sneaking a Nap.

The Blanket Project.

Back in October, we were coming back from Nairobi on the night bus when Nate looked out the window and saw some street boys getting ready to go to sleep on the sidewalk. As hot as it gets during the day here, the nights are always surprisingly cold, and this got Nate thinking about all the Kitale street boys who have nothing but the holey clothes on their backs at night.

With a vague idea and God providing all the funds before Nate even prayed for them, he went out and bought 25 smallwool blankets. Each of us got 2 or 3 fabric squares, wrote notes to the boys, and signed them Baba (Father) or Yesu (Jesus). Then we took it all to Nema House, where the ex-street girls sewed the squares onto the corners of the blankets.

On a Sunday morning at 3am, Drew, Nate, and Alex loaded up a pick-up with the blankets and met Geoffrey, who runs the Oasis school and knows most of the places the street boys sleep. The guys were able to cover 25 sleeping boys with 25 blankets without a single one waking up. Before leaving yesterday morning, they were able to do another successful run with another 25 blankets. There is a chance the boys will pawn the blankets off for glue, but Nate decided to risk it and give them at least one warm night knowing God hasn’t forgotten about them. The only annoying part was that it was too dangerous for us girls to go with so we had to stay up in the livingroom waiting for the report…

2 more weeks left in Africa. Trying to make the most of it even though school is out and most of TI’s projects have finished for the year. This week is TI’s Christmas party, with over 200 kids coming from all of the projects! Next week Ina and I go to Uganda to visit some friends for a few days. And somehow the next week is Christmas… the heat and sun here has me convinced I’m stuck in a perpetual month of August.

See many of you very soon!