Can it be Thursday?

Thursday morning we were surprised by a new teammate. Monica, a friend of Joe's from Canada arrived on a flight from Nairobi. She will be with us for the rest of our time here. She is traveling through Kenya and will be joined by a friend next week in Nairobi for safari, etc.

It had rained on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, so the village we were going to was not accessible in the early morning so we waited until after Monica arrived to set out. As you can see, we really didn't wait long enough. Going down the road to the village was a little like a ride at Disneyland, except of course for the getting out of the van to push part... The mud is very sticky, a composition of clay and manure mixed with copious amounts of water. Our shoes are still recovering. We were excited to get back to work with the kids, though, so we weren't deterred by a little mud!

We were greeted, as usual by the faces of many beautiful children. This was the village of one of the volunteers - Ruth, whom you met earlier. Her mother and father still live in the village with her "daughter" who is her sisters child. The concept of nieces and nephews doesn't seem to be the same here in Kisumu as George (pictured with Suzy on the left, who is 26 is the "father" of Solomon, who is 43 because Solomon's grandfather was the brother of George's father... some things here are hard to grasp.

We did part of our program outside at each of the two schools we taught at. Starting with our skit, which has become a highlight at each of the schools - we will have to perform it for the church when we get back, you may also get a chuckle from it. All of the activities that we do with the children are related to the choose to wait program, and the skit (written by Ashley) shows that the creator of some toys that others in the skit have gotten knows how to use them best, and that if used the way the creator made them to be used they can be great! Of course I (Dave) play the part of the creator - with booming voice and all! All of our team has parts and the skit ends up being fun, funny and instructive.

Following our skit we have one or two testimonies - this time it was Ashely telling her story and that of one of her friends. The children learn best here with stories, skits and other interactive activities. We try to stay away from anything that is like a straight lecture.

The classrooms in the village are square rooms built of brick with open windows and doors. The floors are made from dried cow manure. The manure makes a hard surface that resists chiggers - small insects that live in dirt and can irritate the feet. Of course that means when the weather is humid (pretty much all the time in Kisumu) the rooms have an interesting aroma to them. In each of these two schools we broke up into boys and girls groups for separate teaching times.

We taught the beginning introductory lessons for choose to wait in these classes. God is the creator and He knows how best to use sex. In the picture to the right we are doing an activity that shows that someone that draws a picture of the thing they like best, can best explain what the picture is of and why they like it the best. We then go on to do an exercise talking about what the culture says about sex vs what God says about sex. It is very interesting the reactions we get. Most of the students are good at figuring out who says what about sex, but this may be the first time for many of them that they understand what God expects of them - to choose to wait.

All in all, Thursday was another incredible day in Kenya. Please pray especially for the boys of Mosogo, that they would choose to wait from this point on. This is a prayer asked for specifically by some of the boys in the class.