From Geoffrey to you; Soak it all in!

Sunday May 17, 2009

Soak it all up

I write this as I sit outside Parkcrest Hall, the building that Tumaini built that we use for our church service, while welcoming our guests to our service. The beginning of the church service is nearing. The members of the worships team are warming their vocal chords with angelic Swahili hymns. I have young children piling on top of me with their eyes fixated on this computer screen, though they haven’t the slightest clue as to what I am writing. Occasionally one of these children works up the backbone to do what the inquisitive look on their faces tells me they desperately want to do. With eyes wide open, they inquiringly, ever so slightly, use the very tip of their finger to prudently stroke the keyboard or slide it across the smooth computer screen and eagerly wait for my response. I normally scare them or chase them, which only seems to make them want to come back and touch more things on the computer.

Herds of children are flocking, meandering, and galloping towards their, eagerly awaited, Sunday school. On any given Sunday we can have anywhere between forty and seventy children encircle the Sunday school teachers and soak up the homily. They play games, sing songs, dance dances, learn rhymes and find the whole ordeal irresistible. These children generally wake up and walk themselves to this place of worship; it is of their own want to be here. Children wake up early, wash their faces, iron their clothes and allow their little feet to carry them to their Sunday school lesson because the instructors have been able to create a worthwhile and enjoyable environment where these children are able to freely learn and be loved.

Sunday school just ended, as did the first church service. I am sitting outside, once again, welcoming guests, entering their names into the register and making sure that no more children fall into manholes or sewage (we don’t want a repeat of last weeks incident). With the peaceful, soothing, beatific words being sung by our choir reaching my ears I just sit here and smile. I look at the different children running, laughing and playing in our field of grass and smile. I look at this building, which is one of the most aesthetic and functional ones in Masii, and smile. I look at the clean and newly finished medical building and think about the hundreds of lives that will be helped through it and smile. I look at the children who get chased off and told not to play near the church and laugh and then smile. I look at the Tumaini van and its model and make that seems to be out of the 70s and smile. I look all of the men and women that are sitting in the church service, lifting their hands, dancing, and praying and smile. I look at a mother trying to hold one of her children as she cries, she is trying to hand her a piece of orange but the little girl just throws it on the ground and pouts and then I smile. I look at the buildings Tumaini has built, the lives they have changed and the souls saved through this organization and I smile. I am simply amazed.

Do you ever have one of those days when a grin is painted on your face and it seems as though nothing would ever be able to take it away. Have you ever been so filled with joy, wonder and amazement that no matter what people said or did to you that day no amount misfortune could ruin it. That is how I feel right now, not even cloud nine I am on cloud thirty. When I thought that I couldn’t feel anymore at peace and as if I was maxed out with joy I looked at the gate and up came Carro with her mother pushing her.

The surgery was a complete success, she arrived back in Masii last night, and the water was removed from her head. No longer will Carro have the unbearable pressure in her head, she now has a tube that flushes any water from her brain to her stomach, so there will never be a build up of water in her brain. We are told that with physical therapy she will be able to walk on her own and wont even need the wheelchair. If you could have seen Carro after the surgery as her illuminating grin shined for all of our congregation as she made her way to our chapel, you would understand this sensational jubilation that I experienced. She was bouncing off the walls and had the biggest smile on her face. We normally have the pastors and leaders stand in a line and have them shake each persons hand as they exit the building, today we had Carro shaking everyone’s hands. She was laughing, dancing and shaking more hands then she had ever before. If you only could have seen this childlike awe… words cannot express it.

I looked around this facility and just smiled. I can’t believe the hundreds of lives that have been transformed. The hundreds of children who are able to go to school and eat each day because of Tumaini. People like Carro, who have been blessed in such a way that their lives will never be the same. The dozens of volunteers and workers that have invested their hearts into this organization. This whole ordeal started with someone just wanting to help a few AIDS orphans, then it grew into a slightly bigger dream, and now it seems like Tumaini has more dreams and goals then they have paper to write them down but they are coming true. It started as such a small dream and look at it now. This organization and this trip has encouraged me to dream small dreams, medium sized dreams, big dreams, impossible dreams… it has encouraged me to simply dream. When we dream big dreams and dream of the impossible we give God room to work.

Dream and dream some more and when you have nothing left to dream about then dream even bigger and even more unrealistically… give God some room to work in your life.

Asante Sana

Mwendwa the friendly mzungu

PRAYER REQUSTS:
Carro recovery… though it seems like she is fine
We are taking a nearly blind woman to the eye clinic on Tuesday, I get to wake up at like 3 AM to go, but we are hoping that something may be able to be done to give her the ability of sight again. She has cataracts.
Our medical facility

RANDOMS:
People tell jokes in Swahili and everyone is laughing and rolling on the ground from it… I ask what the joke was and normally it something that is completely over my head and doesn’t even seem funny
I learned how to make Chipati yesterday… it is basically a Kenyan tortilla but taste magical, probably from the tons of oil you put in each one… it takes forever to make but taste great
Seamstresses use those old fashioned sewing machines here. The ones that aren’t electric. The ones that you have to pump your foot to get it working. I started to learn how to use one and am told that I am going to make myself a shirt by the time I leave
The wine we use for communion is HORRIBLE. I have never tasted jack daniels but I imagine it is similar to this. The portion is one part wine and two parts water and I still gag when I take it. It tastes like it has been fermenting for centuries… I normally just take it once in the first serviceand don’t go into the service until right after the communion… ha ha
I saw a few cool things as I stood by the door of our church and greeted people:
1. a kid stuck in a tire
2. A girl pick her nose and eat her boogers…. Boogers taste good to children even in kenya… natures candy
3. Carro’s little sister was trying to take off her sweater and had it stuck on her head for a good five minutes… it was really funny watching her struggle to get it off
I sat and talked with two girls about 21 years old or so for about a hour. We talked about the differences in dating and relationships and culture in Kenya versus America… wow is all I have to say…
I gave the two of them some M&Ms and they looked at me shocked. They told me that good chocolate like this would cost them like $40 in Nairobi… really? Wow? And they said they had never had them before.. so that means you guys should send me some M&Ms and Reeses so everyone can eat them, including me : )
People always give me food… I was thinking that I was going to lose weight on this trip but I think I am going to gain some…
Do you ever wish you could break dance? I often do… man it would be so cool!

WORD OF THE DAY
Tumechelewa (two-may-chay-lay-wuh)
We are late… something everyone has embraced here

This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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