This is a tiny recap of the last several days since we've been slack busy.
This is James AKA: "Kamau". He is 10, but looks no older than about 8. I am pretty sure James could not love Kevin any more. I think he wishes they were siamese twins. For whatever reason James loves me too. Last week we were playing soccer and i gained at least 5 lbs on the bottom of my shoes b/c of all the mud from the crazy amount of rain here. I thought about playing barefoot, but quickly reminded myself I grew up wearing shoes most of the time and my feet weren't nearly as tough as theirs. After the game I jokingly walked back to their building with a ton of mud still on my chacos acting completely oblivious to the obscene amount of mud on my shoes. This made James and Dan laugh. When James noticed I was in no hurry to clean them up he became very concerned saying in swahili "Lindy, your shoes are dirty!!" over and over again. (He talks so fast and half the time I can't understand him, but that never stops him. He just says it over and over again- as if it helps me "know" what he's saying.) He kept trying to step with his little dirty feet on the big chunks of mud and then push me over in order for me to lift up my foot so the chunks would come off. (Guess he gave up on even an attempt to tell me to move my foot to get the mud off. Soon I was standing in line to wash off my legs and feet. I slipped my shoes off and set them aside. A few minutes later I see this:
A little boy cleaning my shoes off with his bare hands... for no reason. Humbling, huh?
Wait a second... we're ministering to them???
We spent some time with the St. Boys having a Super Saint Boy Birthday Celebration! It was complete with cakes for the boys and even candles to blow out! I made 2 cakes with 6 names on each cake. (Please refrain from laughing at the really ugly one that is barely leagable due to the horable icing job..) It was their first ever birthday party! We had to explain to them about blowing the candles out and all that jazz. Let me tell you.... they LOVED IT! And would you believe that those 12 boys ate every bit of their cake? We are talking 3 and 4 HUGE slices of cake. My sweet little James was trying to shove it in his pocket to save for later. That was not going to be a good situation so I caught him and we found a great hiding spot. :)
After their celebration we played soccer which is per the norm with them! Those boys LOVE to play soccer.
Untitled from Thomas Thompson on Vimeo.
Friday- Sunday
Last night we got back from spending 3 days in the bush- out in Kibwezi. It is about a 4 hour drive east of NBO. Our group of 13 (5 of us, Graig's group of 4 from Michigan, and a group of 4 from Kenya) followed our partner, Meshack and his pastor friend Dan to Kibwezi for a "Voice of One" outreach to youth. Dan did the setting up and coordinating with the boarding schools we visited. We spent our 3 days in and around kibwezi speaking to a total of about 2,000 14-18 year olds. God was truly glorified this weekend and we were all so blessed to be a part of Meshack's team. He is an incredible leader and so passionate for the lost youth of his country. I have just a VERY few pictures of the past 4 days.
This is the team in front of a boabab tree. These trees are beautiful and Dan told us that these trees were used by his ancestors who would use them as they traveled. At night they would find a tree, cut a hole out of it and make a door of thorns and sleep in it at night. I tried to talk everyone into doing this, but to my dismay- no one was interested.
I'm sure you were expecting "serving pictures" to be posted but surely you know me better than that. You know I had to post something funny. While Meshack was preaching a locust flew up on his back. Please click to enlarge. It was almost big enough to eat him!
St. Mary's school- Kibwezi
I'm not too sure if these boys like the interns much....
