Holy cow.
I think this is the second post that I have begun with an expletive, but it is so appropriate. Firstly, let me just say how AWESOME Amy, our guest blogger, is and what as asset she is to the team. I will brag on her-- her father-in-law is the gentleman who donated the money to purchase the land for the first children's home. Furthermore, it is so encouraging and incredibly fun to have a fresh perspective on our daily activities through the blog and through photography. Secondly, we would like to apologize to everyone for the lack of photography on the blog and the slow e-mail updates. We are using a dial-up connection, taking it back to 1993! As you can imagine even if you are only slightly tech savvy, posting photos on that speed are nearly impossible, but we are giving it a shot every day.
Now, on to the good stuff! Today was our first "BIG" day-- the first day in the classrooms with the children from the time they arrived for the morning assembly to the last bell for the older children. We are so honored to begin our day with them and they were incredibly inspiring. They lifted our spirits in the early hour with singing, followed by the unfurling of the Kenyan and American flags side-by-side. We did our share of singing too. Thankfully our rendition of the national anthem was better than our attempt to sing three hymns at church. Without background music on Sunday, we stumbled over the words and received blank stares in return. Today we redeemed ourselves!
I had a very special personal moment right after the assembly concluded and the students hurried to move desks and begin class. One of the two children I sponsored shyly approached me with a big hug. Only a few hours later, I was meandering with my camera over to the shack where the cooks prepare porridge and lunch for the children. As I approached a woman exited the hut and yelled, "Tiff!" I was confused, not quite sure how she knew my name. Beautiful moment: the woman is the mother of the two girls I sponsor. I was greeted with two, HUGE hugs, she took me by the hand to meet the women with whom she works, we exchanged stories about our families-- it was like we had been friends for many, many years. So cool.
In other amazing news, Susan's trunk arrived! Gideon received news last night maybe 2 minutes after Susan concluded her devotional that the trunk was found in Nairobi. He crawled out of bed at 4:00 this morning to pick it up so that Jonathan and Susan would have supplies for their lessons today. All of our teaching teams gushed over their experiences at dinner-- I am hoping to sit in on more of the classes on our next full day, Thursday, so that I can report more on the creative teaching techniques and lessons our team is introducing to strive to differentiate Mountain Park Academy in the future. Otherwise, we were avidly working to collect updated photographs for our sponsors. Amy and I pushed through close to 100 children in about 1.5 hours with white board marker-stained hands to show for it. Dee Ann, Joan, and Annamarie (with the help of two teachers from Mountain Park serving as interpreters) interviewed every child to be considered for the children's home. Jonathan introduced the children to NEW soccer balls and flying discs. And before you know it, the final school bell was ringing and we were all exhausted...
And we are still exhausted...even after our special Kenyan treat at dinner: corn roasted in the husk, Kenyan popcorn.
Thank you for reading and for your support of our goals. You are making an incredible difference, really. You are making an incredibly difference, really. As a preview for Tuesday, we will be painting the inside of the children’s home and spending another half day in the classroom!
Love hard! And as Missy would say, love like crazy!
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