Cheryl's Orphanage - Narok

Yesterday we went with the Roberts to an orphanage to hand out Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. The orphanage is put together and run by one of the ladies at our hangar. (Rosemary) She gives a lot of time to a couple of orphanage's that she and a few others started. It was just past a town called Narok, and just a little more than two hours drive from Nairobi.

We drove through a number of small towns that looked like this to get there.

There were quite a lot of small villages like this as well.

Cheryl's orphanage. It's a single building that has a couple of storage areas, a common bunkbed area that sleeps around 25 kids, and some outhouses.

We got a tour of the orphanage. Here we are looking at the bedroom area. There is another area that is not completed yet so the orphanage should be able to house around 50 when it's all finished. They still have so many needs yet as well. One of the biggest needs is to fence in the lot with the orphanage on it. There are quite a lot of wild animals around and sometimes the children have to stay inside because of elephants, leopards, and other animals that could harm them.

All of the cooking is done outside as you can see here. Most of the time they eat ugali, beans, rice, carrots, and potatoes. Occasionally they get meat as well.

The guys carrying the OCC shoeboxes down to the church were they would be handed out.

We first attended about a 2 hour program at a very small one room church. There were a couple of sermons brought. Including mine. :-)

It was a pretty small church, dirt floor, wooden benches and open enough that the wind could come through and help take some of the heat out. It was nice to feel the breeze once in a while.

After the service the kids were all lined up to receive their boxes.

The kids had a sticker on their forehead which showed which ones were to receive the boxes.

We all also got our chance to hand out some boxes. Here Nate is handing some out.

The kids went back into the church and all posed with their boxes. They were excited to open them up, but patient enough to wait.

After church walking back up toward the orphanage behind the kids.

Opening the boxes, what fun and how exciting to watch them.

Angie helping some of the kids see what's in them.

The boxes also contained pamphlets that help understand why people would want to give them the boxes. It contained the message of Christ and the "gift" that the Father has given us.

Of course the candy in the boxes was one of the first things they found. Some of the big hits in the boxes are: candy, hats, small clothes, t-shirts, cars and small toys, dolls, soft stuffed animals, crayons, etc...

One of the boys wanted to take pictures so I let him have the camera. He figured out that he could take a self portrait pretty quick.

And then he wanted to show how cool he was yet too. :-)

And he took numerous pictures of the food as well. funny,,,

And they all were eating around their bunk beds as well.

Then on the way home we were climbing the escarpment back up toward Nairobi and turned around to see the sun shining through in shafts on the Rift Valley floor. There was a lot of really great scenery on the trip.