Trip to Port Victoria and Western Kenya

We had the privilege again of traveling to another orphanage and a couple of churches this weekend. Our truck was loaded up and we took off on Friday morning with the Scheck's (Rob, Char, and little Micah) in their car. Our trip was to go look at one of the orphanages that we've been helping out a bit as we can. Angie had been to this one last year, but we were interested in seeing some other ways we could possibly help out some more. So we put all we could on and in a Samaritan's Purse truck we borrowed and headed out for our 9 hour drive toward the Ugandan border.

We bought some of our produce along the way. We had to put it at our feet because we just didn't have anymore room in the truck and car.

At one point we had to divert on some small paths, through people's yards, because some trucks decided to dump their loads of gravel in the middle of the road.

We finally got to Rosemary's house in Port Victoria. It's a pretty nice place which doesn't have electricity but does have running water when they are able to pump the tanks full. We stacked up the boxes containing the shoe boxes in her living room until we needed them. Rosemary is one of AIM's receptionists who has worked there for 25 years. She runs two different orphanages along with her job at AIM. She stay's pretty busy.

Her house is about a quarter mile from the shore of Lake Victoria so we took a walk on Saturday down toward the lake. There were lots of fish drying on netting. They call it herring, but it's just basically small little fish that they catch in nets during the night and put out to dry for the day.

The boy is sorting the size of fish and turning them over to dry faster.
We loaded up for the orphanage and headed off for the distribution.

We arrived at Sheryl's Orphanage Children's Center which is just about half a mile from Rosemary's house. The orphanage is actually a day center for about 120 children, because the children all stay with guardians. About 95 percent of them are orphans because of HIV/AIDS.

This Mzee (old man) is the guy who offered up the land for the orphanage. His house used to be on the land, but chose to build another one further up the hill after he gave the land.

We had a few extras that we loaded up to take on to some churches the next day.

This is the kitchen where they cook at least one meal for the kids each day. They usually eat beans, corn, rice, or maize meal.

The kids eat their meals under this cactus tree. They all have to wash their own dishes as well.
The little kids were really fun to watch sing us songs.

They all come together for a picture.

This cute little girl kept coming over to shake our hands and feel our skin/hair.

Then they all lined up outside to get ready for the shoeboxes.














They filed in and little Micah handed out the shoeboxes.














Angie helped them find seats to wait for everyone to get their boxes.

We couldn't believe how patiently they were sitting there with their unopened boxes.

The smiles and excitement were building.

Rob was showing them their pictures on the camera. The kids especially love to see themselves in the camera.
After that we went back to Rosemary's house. Big Micah was enjoying his DS for some of the afternoon.

The next morning we were off to a town called Kakamega about three hours away.
On the way we passed through surgar cane territory. Lots of big trailers on the road that we passed.

We arrived at a little country church for our first distribution.














There was hardly enough room to park our truck, but the congregation was warm and we enjoyed their singing and warm welcome.

Again, the kids eyes and expectations were so much fun to watch.

Getting ready to leave to the second church.














The little path we drove down to the next church.
We arrived at the next one.














Micah said that this lady leading songs was doing it "rapper" style.
The distribution at this church was a little more difficult. We had about 75 boxes and there were probably about 200 children. We did our best to give out to the orphans first, however things ended up getting pretty confusing and a little strained with all of those kids who didn't get any boxes.














The kids ended up pushing foward which made it very difficult to hand out the boxes. What a great trip we had though. We felt privileged to be able to take part in the weekend. What a tremendous amount of things we saw on this trip.

St. Paul's Children's Home, Health check-ups

This past Monday I went with a group of nurse and 2 nurse practitioners to St. Paul's Orphanage about 3o minutes out of Nairobi. The nurse practitioner that runs this program is with World Gospel Mission. She travels around to about 10 different orphanages in a month doing health checks on the children. This orphanage has about 65 kids from 4 weeks of age to 17 yrs. Today we saw 60 of the kids! I tried to get these in order - but didn't quite...I'll try to explain.

The below is the line up of kids. We were in the building on the left.
This is inside - Kimberly, one of the nurse practitioners, is checking one of the teen boys.

After we got about half way thru - they had a Bible story for the kids.

The above is Robin - the nurse practitioner that runs this program. She has been here for over 30 years! :) Here she is talking to one of the nurses about a baby she is checking on our right.

Here is Kimberly again - this little girl was so cute! (above)

Here we are weighing the mom and baby first - then just the mom to get the baby's weight. (above)

At the end of their check-up they took a multivitamin and deworming tablets - then got a smiley face on their hand so we knew who all was finished. :) We a few kids that were malnurished - possibly do to HIV, few streps, eye infections, some dehydrations and numerous kids with ear irrations do to wax or other.....

After the Bible story the kids each got a picture to color. They really took their time and really colored beautifully!

It was a good experience and hope to be able to go again when they need help! :)

And to end it up here is a couple of pictures of Micah with his club team during one of their practices. They played in a tournament a few weekends ago and did really good. Micah is the oldest on the team so before too long he'll probably not be able to continue, but he's enjoying it for now.

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.