1/14/2010 - Orphanage

I was very excited this morning when I woke up to find that Adam and I were going to go with Pastor John to the orphanage to which he is the Director. They were celebrating their 2 year anniversary and we were invited to participate. The ride to the orphanage in Nukuru was really quite lovely. We drove down the mountain into the Great Rift Valley and drove through the valley for about 2 hours. Half way there, we saw some baboons on the side of the road, just walking alongside the traffic! They actually live there - in the wild! It was so cool. Drivers here in Kenya are crazy! I actually thought that we might end up in a head on collision today. I’m not really sure how we avoided it afterall. Pastor John wanted to go faster than the other vehicles so he pulled out into the other lane of traffic, with a car coming straight at us! The other vehicle was flashing his lights and honking his horn, but not slowing down at all. So we started moving into our own lane before we had even passed the car in front of us, managing to cut him off terribly! It certainly got my adrenaline going, that’s for sure! I have laughed all day long about our “hit and run” as well. We were in Naivasha, which is a crowded town and has lots of pedestrians. The pedestrians here do not have the right-of-way, so Pastor John honked his horn as he tried to pull off to the side of the road, into the sea of pedestrians, warning people that he was coming. One of the guys on his bike didn’t pull off far enough quick enough, however, because as Pastor John pulled over, we heard a loud thump and noticed that we had whacked the poor biker really hard! But Pastor John didn’t even flinch. He just kept going. There was no, “I’m sorry - are you okay?” We hit him with our car, and just kept driving. His wife did turn around and look at him, but she didn’t say anything. It’s a different world here. The orphanage looked very nice. I was a bit disappointed because I didn’t get to see much of the facilities. We just participated in the anniversary and didn’t even really get to play with the kiddos. Bummer. It was neat to get to see a part of their culture nonetheless. We were seated at the table of honor along with the Director and board. It was interesting. There were no decorations until after the ceremony started. Then, one of the men who works there started bringing out mismatched decorations: putting streamers behind the table of honor, tying balloons to the pillars (which kept popping because of the extreme heat in the valley), etc. So by the end of the ceremony, the whole table of honor was decorated. The children did various presentations for us. Mostly they sang songs and recited memory verses, but there was one group of kids who did acrobatics. They were very good and looked like they were having so much fun. They even painted their faces with “war paint.” They were cute. That was my favorite part. We had picked up Pastor Kariuke along the way, who was a lovely man - full of information about Kenya and curiosity about the US. He was the guest speaker this morning. He was very gracious and asked me to read the Scripture, so I read an entire chapter full of very difficult words! J I’m not sure if anyone understood what I read because I read it in English, but it was kind of him to invite me in to participate in the ceremony. After he preached, they had a time of prayer which he led. In our country, the Pastor leads in prayer, and then it’s done. Not here. We sat in the blazing hot sun for at least 30 minutes while 4 different people prayed. I’m not sure how they determined who prayed, for how long, and when to stop it. But by the end, because I couldn’t understand a word and we were sitting in the warmth of the sun, I felt my body start jerking! I was so sleepy. Pastor John said a few words, and then we had another 30 minute prayer time. I was convicted a little bit that at home we have our meetings, our celebrations, and then, almost as an afterthought sometimes, ask God to bless it and thank Him for his provisions and seek His guidance. It seemed to be at the forefront here. There was cake at the end of the ceremony. They were very gracious and called the Director, speaker and board up to eat a piece of cake in front of the entire gathering. They then called their “friends from America” up, as well, and we had to take a piece of cake and eat in front of every one. It was a little awkward, but very kind of them to invite us into their celebration. We had a meal and visited with a few people before we left. I learned today that if you take a bite of food and then drink some orange Fanta while you chew, you can’t taste the food and you can swallow much easier! I think I’ll have to take advantage of that tactic more often! Ha! On the way home, we saw a few more baboons and I even think we saw some zebra in the distance. We also saw what they told us at first was the Kenyan President in a motorcade. Tomorrow is National Tree Planting Day and he was headed up to one of the mountains for a huge Tree Planting Ceremony. Later, they suggested it might have been the Prime Minister, too. Not sure. The scenery on the way home was incredible. The sky was full of clouds, but the sun was shining through the bottom of the clouds, revealing individual rays of sunshine on the earth below. And the clouds themselves were outlined with a bright rim of yellow sunshine shining out upon the Great Rift Valley (and a volcano by Lake Naivasha! You can see where it exploded years ago. So neat). We didn’t get home until fairly late and were quite tired. One of my favorite pictures that I will hold in my mind happened right before we got home. People use their bikes and motorcycles here as a means of transporting large items - wood, water jugs, etc. There was a man driving a motorcycle this evening that had an entire 3 piece sofa attached upside down to his motorcycle driving down the road. I couldn’t get a picture, but I laughed so hard when I saw it. Can you imagine driving a motorcycle with a sofa attached to it!? Crazy!