-July 12, Sunday
Kisumu, Kenya-

I am so tired. Church is in a couple of hours, and I don't know how I can stay awake through another eight hour service and community teaching. I am not sure how I am going to be able to teach the community's young women when I can hardly keep my eyes open for long enough to even read a page-long devotion before bed. I miss my bed.

Today is church, tomorrow is Lakeside, the next day is the Safari, and the last day is flying, and then I will be home. I am already envisioning a warm, soft bed... my own bedroom... unlimited computer access... meals that aren't exactly the same every day... my own car... driving on the right side of the road... These will all be luxuries after this. I think that we are all ready for these things and a little weary of roughing it in Africa.

It isn't that I don't love it here. Never think that. This place has changed my perspective on everything worth a thought and more. I only wish that at the end of an amazing day, I could return to my own home and my own bed, and then reappear in Africa the next morning. Maybe this is only my exhaustion speaking.

Today is my last day to see Lavin, which makes me very sad. I am going to give her a shirt, some stickers, a notepad, a pencil with a heart eraser, paper dolls, jewelry, and last of all, my tennis shoes. In the tiny zippered pouch on the sides of my shoes, I placed a two hundred shilling bill, which equals maybe three or four bucks in USD. It is almost a week's pay for Lavin's mother, however, who makes barely twenty dollars a month.

I don't want to leave Lavin alone here... here, where she is living in only sad and devastating conditions. When you live in slums like these, how can there truly be hope for a decent future? I plan to try my hardest to support Lavin so that she can go through college to become the teacher that she wants to be.

The hotel doctor visited last night and examined Amy. He said that she has a bad case of food poisoning, but not cholera, thank the Lord. He said for her not to take Finnergan, because she needs to relieve her body of the poison, and so Amy was probably sick through most of the night. I pray that God will heal her quickly and give her rest.

-Later-

We arrived at the church around 9:00 and greeted the elders before sitting in the second and third rows under a great big tent. We were sitting in our chairs, waiting for the service to begin, when Jared came up to us and said that they needed a teacher for the Sunday school. Nobody seemed to want to teach, and I enjoy teaching children, so I stood up and volunteered. Jared led me upstairs to stand before the children in a small, stuffy classroom. At least two hundred children were stuffed inside the tiny room, and many more lined the windows and the doorway all the way down the hall.

"What do you want me to teach?" I asked helplessly.

"Anything you like," Jared replied. He turned to the children and told them that they had a new teacher from the USA. "And who is the president of the USA?" he asked seriously.

"The honorable Barack Obama."

Jared sent up an interpreter to help me, because many of the children, especially the young ones, struggled with their English. I had never taught with a Swahili interpreter before. I taught the story of when Jesus healed Bartimaeus. I think that the story was a huge hit. I explained to the children that Jesus could heal their problems and their sadness as well, specifically with three things:

1. Hope
2. Joy
3. Peace

I read Hebrews 13:5 and 6 and then asked questions and gave out prizes to those who answered. I finally gave away rubber bracelets to all of the children, who ended up numbering at least three hundred by the end of my lesson.

After the lesson, we went out to the church, stuffing desk after desk after desk into the fairly small sanctuary. There had to have been more than five hundred children squeezed tightly into this room. It was astonishing... and very, very hot and stuffy. I was prepared to return to the main service, but the interpreter asked, "Teacher, please teach them until lunch. Tell them about your life in America, and about the Honorable Barack Obama."

I didn't talk about Obama, but I did tell about my life in America. My father, Jeffery; my mother, Pam; my sister of thirteen years, Amy; my brother of nine years, Luke; and my two dogs- one that looks like a big pile of cotton, and one that looks like a black and white cat with a flat nose. I told them about my school and the classes that I take. They were fascinated about the fact that I took Spanish for my second language credit, so I taught them how to say hello- hola- and goodbye- adios- and count to one through five- uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. After this, the children taught me how to count to five in Luo. I will try to quote this, but I have no idea if I am spelling any of this right:

Achiel
Ario
Adek
Anwan
Abich

Again, I have no clue of how to spell these words. I spelled them how they sound. The children all laughed and laughed at my clumsy accent. I proudly quoted one through ten in Swahili without any help at all:

Moja
Mbili
Tatu
Nne
Tano
Sita
Saba
Nane
Tisa
Kumi

The children were so excited when I counted for them. I taught them how to sing The Lord's Army, and then the children joyfully sang the song I had taught them earlier in the week- Yesu ni Bwana. The interpreter had them all tell me what they thought of me, picking children out of the crowd to say, "God bless you," "Thank you, madam," "Please come again," and etc. It was precious to hear.

I went to sit through the last five or ten minutes of the service, and then we broke up into the community teaching groups. Before the sessions began, I pulled Lavin aside and gave her the gift bag I brought and my shoes. She beamed at me and hugged me shyly. Lavin is the sweetest little girl. I later saw her showing the colorful new sneakers to her envy-stricken friends as they congratulated her while glancing down at their own worn shoes.

We returned to the stuffy church room. Connie, Olivia, and I were in charge of the women. We taught about Esther again, and we broke up into small groups at the end. It was an enjoyable experience. Jared brought in crates of Coca-Cola and Fanta, and we all sang songs together.

We left the hot church feeling sweaty and hot, and I saw a woman with the most precious five month old baby girl named Sarah. The woman, Lynette, must have noticed my adoration for all things small, for while I was sitting on a bench rather forlornly, eying her baby, she came up to me, plopped Sarah onto my lap, and said, "Hold her while I eat." What joy this gave me.

I examined this adorable baby from head to toe, tickling her round, chocolate-colored belly, listening to her chatter, touching her toes, watching her sweet smile. If you did not know this, and I have no intention of being racist in any way, the hair of black babies, at least African ones, is very soft and fine, almost like cotton. I loved to pet Sarah's soft hair, and she was fascinated by my long curls, pulling them with a kind of awe, so we were even. By the time that Lynette returned to take her baby back, my heart was stolen.

Lunch was chicken stew, greens, chicken, and ugali- all without any silverware. My hands were a mess by the time I was finished. Chicken stew without silverware...

Because this was our last day at Ring Road, we all gathered together with the Ring Road staff in one of the classrooms to sing and pray for the last time. Then we put on our new tee-shirts and went to take a group picture. "Mingle, mingle!" Jared insisted. "We are a zebra- black, white, black, white. Make a zebra. Anything else is dangerous." We took our photos and then got in a circle and held hands, now thoroughly mingled. We sang a resounding chorus of He Has Done So Much for Me, and then it was time to go.

I hugged Lavin tightly and promised to come visit her again one day, and until then, write her often. She held me close for a moment and then let go, retreating behind a corner, from where she watched me silently until I left Ring Road School for the last time.

We visited the Kisumu market, which is a huge, limitless space of land where people simply put all of their merchandise into messy piles on the ground, and eight billion people ruffle through it in the same space of land under a burning hot sun. There are thieves and pickpockets lurking around every corner. Everywhere I went, I heard shouts of, "Mzungu, mzungu!" I did not like that market at all.

From Kenya, Africa

Recently, my team has been taking precautions that we had not thought to take before. This is because a rapist with AIDS has been seen around the slums, following us. Milton even hired someone to follow us when we walked to the school. The rapist was hanging around even then, although I did not know it at the time. I am not that concerned for my own safety; I know that I will be fine. It is Lavin I worry about. She lives in the slums with only her mother and her uncle, and she often walks to and from school alone.

We are now at our hotel, exhausted. Supper should be at any time now. Tomorrow is our last day in Kisumu, and then we will spend a day in the capitol city of Nairobi before returning home.

-Later-

After dinner, Christian and Micah and Milton and I sat at the table for a couple of hours, talking through the nighttime darkness. After awhile, Chase and Cheryl joined us, bringing cokes for us to drink. I swear that I drink more cokes in a day here than I have anywhere else, but when a cold coke is the only sanitary drink available, you take it.

Towards the end of the conversation, Audie walked up to our group, explaining that a man who was also staying at our hotel had asked for help on becoming a Christian. Milton left to help counsel the man, and sure enough, the man became a follower of Jesus. It was awesome to hear about.

I truly love it here- the people and the places and the faces- but I still cannot wait to be home.

-July 11, Saturday
Kisumu, Kenya-

Today we got up extra early and went to Lake Victoria. We arrived at the dock, only to see a couple of rickety canoes bobbing unsteadily in the water. What makes things worse was not the fact that I am terrified of deep water or that once Milton got a parasite from Lake Victoria that nearly killed him, but the realization that the water was infested with hippos, and hippos kill more people per year than any other animal except for the mosquito... and we were going to be exploring these waters in nothing but a measly canoe.

My canoe carried our two guides, Milton, Cheryl, Amy, Olivia, Micah, Holly, Christian, and me. We were kind of the scaredy-cat boat, and so our hopes sank as we left the shore. The fact that we were required to wear life jackets, insinuating that there was a possibility, however so small, of entering the water, only increased our terror.

Once we were out onto the lake, things calmed down a bit. The smooth water was a pale blue that matched the early morning sky, and the sloping white sails of fishermen dotted the misty horizon.

Our guide was very intelligent. He pointed out the various birds and plant life that lined the waters and shore. He told us about the lives of the Luo tribes who were washing their clothes in the lake water. One man was walking along the shore butt-naked. That was an interesting sight.

At one point in our journey, Christian screamed, causing us all to look up in alarm. A three-inch long cockroach was making its way across Amy's back. "There is something on you," Christian said in a strained voice. Amy stood up in the middle of the boat and began to promptly freak out. The canoe was rocking precariously, and I was sure that it was going to tip. Poor Milton must have been horrified. The guide finally picked the roach off of Amy's back and threw it in the water, and things calmed down some, but everyone felt a little jittery after that.

After the canoe tour, we went to the market and were immediately pulled into a new world of shops and gifts and foreign currency. I enjoyed picking out gifts for my family and friends.

We went to go eat at a local restaurant, and most of the table ordered tilapia and chipati, including myself. I had not expected to receive the entire fish- head, tail, fins, eyes, and all. It was more than a little disturbing, but I ate it. Everyone else enjoyed their meal more than I did, I think.

We went to Jared's wife's tiny boutique to visit her and take a look around. On our way out, we were bombarded by three boys who were high from sniffing glue, one worse than all the others. He stumbled alongside of us, talking almost incoherently, and every few seconds he would lift his glue bottle to take a deep whiff through his mouth. It was heart breaking to see, but also a little frightening. One of the boys was carrying a knife in his hand. We offered to buy them some food, but all they wanted was money.

We went to the hotel and had four hours to relax before dinner, which a glorious feeling. Free time. A few of us walked over to the small art shop a couple of blocks away. It was neat to see how they made all sorts of things from rubbish off of the streets- portraits out of crushed egg shells, earrings out of coke bottle caps, necklaces out of cow and fish bones- they recycled everything they could find.

Back at the hotel, Sandi, Chase, Audie, Milton, and I colored foam fishes for Sandi's VBS next week until the wind became so disruptive that we couldn't work outside anymore. Then the downpour began. The sky opened and let forth three million buckets of rain onto the Kenyan soil. I went up to my room so that I could watch the small storm through the window.

At 6:00, we met downstairs, and I gave Jared my two Obama hats. He grinned at me in response. I love Jared's childlike grin.

We went to John and Connie's new house. It is very big and very nice, and it is guarded by Maasai warriors. They also have their own private cook. We were served spaghetti, which tasted amazing. Everyone stuffed themselves full with pasta until they could eat no more. We all held hands at the end of the meal and sang, He has Done so Much for Me, in both Swahili and English, and then Holly and (Kenyan) Thomas jokingly sang the song in Luo.

When we stepped outside, the stars had tumbled across the blackness of the sky in jumbled patches of white glitter. It was beautiful.

Amy began to throw up almost immediately when we arrived back at the hotel, so I pray not only that she feels better, but that nobody else gets sick after her.

I am exhausted. I am very much ready to be home and in my own, soft bed.