Week Two in Kenya

Sunday morning - the team led church for the orphans!

Alexa writing the ingredients of the fruit of the Spirit as said in Galatians 5:22-23

Veronica and Christine leading a song.  V is a cook, while C is a teacher.

Alexa signing "Patience" - a quality that we want to instill in the children as they often beg for candy!

Moises and Kristina, a terrific married couple, leading a song.  

Kat praying

Kevin, Larwance, Erick, and Evans holding down mother rabbits so the little ones can drink milk!

Building a felt canvas for Bible stories.

Two of the silliest children - Fredrick and John.  They often make faces like this!  We imitate them often.

The children did not have school bags, so we bought them all new ones!

Nice!  Now you can go and learn!

This is Daniel - the acting director of Lance's Deaf Orphans.  He is extremely friendly and very funny!

The kids checking out the contents of their bags!  They all got new pencils, pens, eraser, papers, and folders.

This is where we eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.  We do devotions every morning and have brief meetings every nights.  The food is always hot and is good!

Kristina teaching class

Moises loves to tell the kids ILY and have them say it back, then for both hands to meet as a "handshake"

New shoes!  Some of them were a tad bit too big, but we told them they'd grow!

Teamwork building activity - spider web!

Beware the ropes!  The children did great in this activity!  

Then it was the adults' turn!  We pulled it off, with a blind eye to a couple rope slips.

Sewing up dolls for arts/crafts.  No, these are NOT voo-doo dolls!

Kat can sew for hours and hours!  

Our tarp was ruined by a heavy storm, so we had to take it off and make it "temporary" - easy for us to remove and re-attach.  We are working on thinking of a permanent solution... The heat is really strong and we believe that a structure that gives shade is important as the kids will be either cooped up in their rooms or sitting against the sides of the buildings.

Cutting and folding sheet metal to build gutters so more water can go into the water tanks.

Playin' with the new toys!

Kids love to work, as well.  

And to just hug!  All the children love to be hugged and they hug you back.  There is so much love there.

There is a school next door, and the children from there often stare at us for hours and hours.  Children in villages really do love to stare at white people!  We get used to it.  

Kat teaching how to spell Cat.  The kids are hungry for education, but this school needs support in order to be able to hire full-time teachers with high qualifications.  There are good teachers, but more is needed.

Alexa teaching about Noah's Ark.  We used felt as our resource, and it was a hit with the kids!

All cloth and they stick right to the felt.

Twice a day, the children will walk almost half a mile downhill to get water in these tanks, and then walk uphill back.  Many of them can carry it on their heads.  We were exhausted when we tried to do it!  What STRONG kids these are!  They will beat any American kid in arm wrestling or weightlifting, guaranteed.

Alex might be smiling in this picture, but he is winded.

Kat leading a project to build new benches!  Kristina is also a huge help.  Kat and Kristina both have carpenters as their fathers, so they both are very confident when it comes to wood and general building concepts.  

This bench will serve many children's tired legs for years to come!

Sugar cane chewin' time!  It is very delicious.

Leah heating up charcoal.  All the cooking here is done with  charcoal or firewood.  

We finally got electricity!  There were problems so we had to go with the director to the power office and demand that it be done as soon as possible.  It worked!

Playing charades.  They all are gesturing dog.

Another activity - "Blind Walk" the children must navigate around obstacles to find the chair with the rock.  We all laughed as the kids stumbled and cheered as they succeeded.  We applied it with being faithful to God - we might not be able to see the reward, but it is there as long as we keep on seeking.

At the finish line!

Sewin' time!  Pauline and Leah.  Pauline is 6, while Leah is 13.

Another "blind" activity - but with guide.  The two kids on both ends must tug the blind man in the middle as to not let him step on any "mines".  This is to compare it with letting the Holy Spirit guide us.

Workin' on the gutters.  We play with the kids, teach them, work on projects, eat, sleep, and repeat!

Dallas teaching about Daniel and the Lions Den!  

Kristina leading a "God Says" - like "Simon Says".  

John, the littlest orphan.  He is 5 years old and absolutely cute!

They love the camera!  After each picture, they will run around to see what the picture looks like!



That's all for now!  We are now in Mombasa, the Kenyan coast, to rest and relax for the weekend as we have been at LDO for two straight weeks!  We will be back on Tuesday and right back into it!