Giving Hope / AIDS Orphan Homes

So much has happened today and I struggle with where to begin. Our team was split up for different purposes today and each of found blessings sprinkled throughout. The challenge for today from chapel was to find God in everything today, the happy, the sad, the sick, the poor, nature. And he showed his face many times.

Karol Clay began her day in the Operation Room, called the Theater here. She was working with some wonderful doctors and nurses and learning their procedures. She had several biopsies and a thoracotomy scheduled. But when we checked in with her at 4 p.m. they had only done 1 of the scheduled surgeries because they had several emergencies come in. Karol's face was radiant when we went to retrieve her before dinner. However, she wanted to stay and continue her work until the last patient had been seen!

Shirley Smith spent her day assisting the hospital with sewing projects. At last count, she had completed 8 slings and had 4 more ready to finish. She, too, wanted to complete her work before dinner and chose not to leave. The room she is working in has wonderful acoustics and she said she passed her time singing and sewing.

Jim Takamoto and Liz Reed worked away on the AIDS orphan home. The continued the work from the day before and were completing the walls of the house, putting up the roof and adding the windows. At the time of the post, we have not caught up to them, so we don't have further report yet.

The rest of our group had a phenomenal trip that was educational and connectional. Our day started out with an hour of briefing on a program called Giving Hope. They work with orphans who have lost their parents mainly due to AIDS. As a result, they have been charged with being the head of household and raising their siblings. In this program, they are taught a trade and given psychosocial support to be able to take care of their family. We visited at least 7 of these children in different parts of Maua and the countryside. Some were tailors, one was a barber, another is learning how to be a mechanic, and still yet another had been taught to run her own vegetable stand. Each child was extremely thankful to God for letting them be part of the Giving Hope program. Many of them would have died and just been left to fend for themselves otherwise. It made us stop and think about how we choose to spend our money and what abundance we have been given. Our eyes have been opened to the fact that God works in every situation.

After visiting the orphans, we also visited a house being built for one of the orphans through the Giving Hope program by the Zoe program. This house was incredible and was being built in 4 days. Currently a 16 year old female named FAITH is raising 5 siblings and living in a 6 foot by 6 foot shack built of sticks and twigs with a tin roof. All 6 of them go to school and have to take turns studying because of lack of room. On Friday when she takes possession of her new home, it will have 2 bedrooms with a concrete floor and 4 windows. They will be able to split up to study. She said she will put the primary students in one room and the secondary students in another. She runs a tight household! She has aspirations to go to nursing school and continue to make a better life for herself. What we learned is that with perseverance, a good attitude and God on her side, the is HOPE. We encourage you to look at the Zoe Program website to see more about this program. You can google Zoe International.

The last thing to report today is that we stumbled upon a primary school during some of our village visits. The headmaster let us visit them. There were between 65 & 70 students in each class with 1 teacher. She had 10 desks and 2 blackboards. One class was learning the body parts in English and they began to sing the song head and shoulders, knees and toes. We sang with them and they thought we were fun! They left for lunch shortly after and stampeded us. It was the first time they had seen white people and they wanted to touch our blonde hair and rub our skin. They also wanted to "bump" fists, which was quick entertaining. What a special time for us. Many of the students didn't have shoes, wore torn and worn clothes, and were so dirty. But they had joy and passed that on to us!

Thank you for continuing your prayers for our team and for the people of Kenya. They long for God, as we do, and realize that faith is what carries them through tough times. Today we offer them blessings as the kids did to us at church. We hope they caught them and remember that their Christian brothers and sisters around the world know that we care.