July 19th

Today started rather slowly. We thought we would be meeting Pastor Jackson and Eve in the morning, but plans changed, and we didn’t meet them until almost noon, even though we had eaten breakfast at 7:00am. We made it productive and did some miscellaneous tasks around the hotel that needed to be done.

The meeting went well. We went over about a million things. This meeting made me very excited for this trip. Afterwards, we ate lunch and headed to the village.

My first impressions of the village:

I got a strange sense of pride when we drove up to the village. It wasn’t necessarily pride in myself, but pride on behalf of every person that has worked to make this place what it is. Well done everyone. You are truly making the difference in the lives of these children.

It took some seriously bumpy roads to get there, amongst what I would call hectic streets and traffic, but when we got there it seemed happy and calm.

After taking care of some business, Asher gave me the grand tour. It is amazing of how much the ministry has been able to accomplish through God and through all of the generous people who have given time, effort, advocacy, and fiscal help. There is a kitchen, water well, cistern, and many, many cute homes. In addition, a computer lab, lavatory facility, and school are in progress.

It was nice to meet some of the children. I met Frank and Honest, two of Asher’s good buddies. Along with them, I got to meet many other boys. They each showed us their house, their room, their bunk. It was neat. One of my favorite parts of this personal tour was seeing how the main rooms of the homes were decorated. Since most of the houses only have beds, the main room is empty. One house had nearly all of the walls covered in newspaper articles, mostly about the World Cup. Some had colorings, stickers, photos, etc. There was even a photo of Asher in one of the main rooms (I must point out he was the guy in the background of the photo, but still!).

Along one of our walks around the vehicle, I felt a little hand slide into mine. Joshua, age 3 and 1 month according to his “brother” Honest, wanted to tag along. It was just one of those moments that has to make you smile. I hope everyone experiences one of those moments in their lives.

I also met three girls in particular. It started with Jane, age 9. She brought me a letter. As it turns out, she was the chosen deliverer for Caroline, age 14. Then came along cute Karen. All three live in Momma Bena’s house, which is right on the main strip. They chatted with us for a bit.

All in all, it was a very unique moment for me as I walked the village and saw the children, as I felt I partially knew all about this place and these children. It was like a chunk of my puzzle was missing, and now it is complete.

We elected to walk home. It was about an hour walk, but it was worth every second. It started as we passed a woman walking the opposite direction. She introduced herself as Moureen and, unprompted, thanked us for blessing the children in the village.
The children would all wave as we passed, and yelled out, “Muzungu, Muzungu” which means white person. As far as I can tell, it is an endearing word of sorts. They would stop whatever they were doing, smile and wave. Some would even run up to us with huge grins. It was touching. By the end of the walk, I couldn’t help but feel like I was on a parade float. People would wave, I would wave back…

We acquired a walking buddy along the way. Derrick, a 12 year old boy who was walking home from school, latched on to us. It was a good thing because he could tell us where to go if we were ever unsure! His favorite subject is English, and he was a very kind boy.

One of the more bazaar moments of our walk occurred when a bicyclist stopped and asked to take a photo of Asher. He said he liked white people. I do not remember his name, but he said his father’s name was James. I mentioned that my father’s name was James, too, and then I looked at Derrick and told him that my father’s friends name was Derek. He just smiled and said, “Really!?”

We followed up the walk with a dip in the pool, which considering the weather gets to be only 80 something degrees, it was a chilly one. But strangely enough, I weathered it, even though it was uncharacteristic of me. Finally, it was dinner and now blogging and uploading photos. Tomorrow will be a big day, as we have a list that is a mile long of things to do and buy. Pray for us!