MCPs and New Life

Hello and Happy Belated 4th of July!!!

Oh this past week. This week left me exhausted. This week left me in need of God. This week was a good week.

With the team gone, we settled into our "regular" schedule. Tons of VBS and Bible Studies. We worked with all ages. The primary schools were a blast. Lots of singing and coloring... and only a few of them were scared of the Mzungus this time! Praise God! My personal favorite were the 10ish year olds... for several reasons. They understand enough English to not need a translator, which simplifies things a lot. They're also at an age where they can really begin to understand the Bible story and apply it to their lives. And... this age is a great age to just be goofy with and have a lot of fun with... and they all LOVED "Jesus Loves Me- NaNaNa remix"... mostly the jumping we incorporated with the song :) For more about the VBS and Bible Study ministry we did, check out Jessica's blogpost.

I'm going to talk more about the Ministry Care Points (MCPs) on Saturday at Nyahera and Manyatta.

We used a different approach to this week... instead of the normal play time-Bible story-song singing-color sheet routine, we mixed it up a bit. In an OVC meeting earlier this week, we all decided that we need to really get to know the kids now that they're beginning to open up to us. So, we focused on "emotional" well being this week. That meant no Bible story and no color sheets. Instead, we split into a few groups: older girls, older boys, and younger girls and boys. Jessica took the girls group, I took the boys group, and Anne took the younger group. In the older groups, we talked- about what they like to do for fun, who God is in their lives, what they want to be when they grow up, and their family situations. These kids blow me away. Completely. Most are living with one parent and several siblings... or with a grandparent or another relative. But, they are getting by. The older siblings take care of the younger ones. Every child helps in chores and work. Some carry water for the family. Others cook or babysit. And still, each child I talked to had such joy and longing to know the Lord more. Geoffrey from Nyahera even wants to be preacher! These children also have such a diverse ambitions: drivers, pilots, teachers, carpenters... the list goes on and on.

It's my prayer that the children will continue to open up to us. They each have hurt they need to share. They each have a story to tell. And they each have so much love from us here. It's a safe space. They can be kids. For just a few hours every Saturday, we can carry their burdens... and then continue carrying them through the week through prayer.

Today (Monday) is our day off... so Jessica and I decided we wanted to volunteer at an orphan home just a 10 minute walk from the CHI headquarters. This orphan home, New Life, houses babies, toddlers, and special needs children. Our task today was to attend to the needs of the babies and assist the staff with them. As soon as we began to walk up the stairs to their living area, we heard screams and cries from several children... feeding time! The living room had about 12 babies and small small toddlers in the arms of the staff women, or anxiously waiting their turn in the baby seats... I don't know how many children were actually in the room, because it is an intricate system of rotating the kids between feeding, waiting, and changing. Jessica and I jumped right in to help out. After we fed who knows how many babies, the youngest ones got put down for a morning nap while we took the older babies (the ones who could sit up) outside.

These babies have such personalities already! and some are just the biggest snuggle bugs... but don't get the snuggle time babies love. It's very interesting to work with children in another culture. Kenyan culture doesn't have as much emphasis on babies that America has... that is, their philosophy is seems to be if a baby is crying, leave him/her alone. If a baby wants to snuggle, distance yourself. Don't connect to these kids. Well, we found ourselves doing the exact opposite! With encouragement from Bev (an English women who seems to run the place), if the kids were crying, we played with them. If they were little snuggle bugs, we picked them up and held them. One little girl, Brianna, seemed to be only a couple months old. She only has two fingers on her right arm. I wonder what her story is? Anyways, one of the women put her in my lap. She was crying, and crying, and crying, and crying. So I walked with her... and walked... and walked... and walked. I sat--- she started crying again. So I continued to walk... and walk... and walk... and walk. At the point when I was the most discouraged, Bev came up to me and encouraged me to spend that time with just Brianna. These kids need alone time, mother time, 1-on-1 time... and because of the amount of children, and high demand of staff, these kids don't get that. Eventually, Brianna fell asleep so I continued to rock her. Such a precious little child.

The other two kids that really captured my heart and attention were Seth and Aaron. As we were feeding the kids at the beginning of the day, Seth was crawling around. He was so funny! The floor is real slippy tile, so he was sliding around and he was on his belly spinning circles and giggling... sounds like something I would have done as a kid :) He was maybe the biggest snuggle bug there was today. He loved to be picked up. He loved to play games with us... and make up games... and he eventually realized that if he fell backwards, someone would catch him before he hit his head on the ground... so he continued to fall backwards, again and again. He also kept trying to lay with his brother... so precious, but it was obvious that his brother wasn't feeling it. Such a funny kid which such personality! After outside time we went back upstairs to feed again... the older kids first so they could lay down for their afternoon nap, then the younger babies so that they could be awake for a bit before their afternoon nap. The first kid I got to feed was Aaron. He's such a little chunker baby. So adorable. And he was beyond thrilled that it was time to eat! I was feeding him some potato carrot mush stuff, and he would attack the spoon, then try to grab the food with his hands, and then do a happy-to-be-eating dance. It was a riot... messy too! When he finished the food and started to drink his bottle, he sat calmly and settled into my arms. His big eyes were interested in the entire room and he was so distracted by the noises and sights around him. When he finally finished, I took him in to lay him down for his nap... he wouldn't let go of my necklace, then wouldn't let go of my hand. Another precious child who stole my heart today.

So that's been our weekend and day today. Tomorrow Jessica and I are going out on Care & Compassion. Please pray that we can make the switch from kids to adults, that the Spirit will guide us and give us words, and that in all we do, we'll glorify our Holy God!

Mungu Aku Bariki,
Mary