Kenya: Putting on the Show + Blessings

There were so many memorable moments this week.  From Gloria deciding H was the greatest person alive to Samuel telling Rachel what he thought of our family due to AJ, to kids blossoming from shy teenagers to confident participants.  We have heard heartbreaking stories from a child's father dying unexpectedly in December to another girl's friend having to deal with the death of her little brother last week and one girl pulling away when asked about a cut on her face.  But we also heard of the hopes and dreams of this young Kenyan generation...and witnessed their compassion and love, especially in the way they just fell in love with our little AJ.

AJ and his buddy John (younger brother of Margaret who is one of our favorites from the week....she is the one in the video below who is singing to AJ and doing his 'cut the pickle' exercise)

That last picture was taken after these kids had been teaching AJ Swahili, doing AJ's 'cut the pickle' exercise with him, and singing with him.  I took video of them interacting with him and condensed it down to 2 min 30 seconds.  My favorite part is when he is singing "Oh the Lord is Good To Me" during the last minute of the clip...

The girls were great leaders this week and the kids worked REALLY hard on their dances and skits...

Dance choreographer extraordinaire!  

Story of Rachel Skit

Chains Skit

Trust Fall Skit - Joshua and Loreen

Hand Clapping Skit

Rachel walked in to rehearsal for her 'Flying Lessons' skit to find this on the board....

Flying Lessons Cast + AJ

The Stool Skit

And when we weren't practicing, we were goofing around with the kids, forming relationships, and generally having a good time.

Lillian, the drama teacher out at Joska

S doing an impromptu dance with the kids

Gloria and H....we love this girl and the special bond she has with H!  

Fascination with braiding S's hair...

Speaking of hair, I just love this series of pictures with AJ touching different people's hair...

And the sequence ends with AJ getting a hug from another one of our favorite kids, Margaret (whose little brother is John from above and hidden a bit in the picture below).  

Finally, it was PERFORMANCE DAY at Pangani (Saturday April 28).  Parents, siblings, friends, and MOHI staff were invited to the Pangani Center to watch the kids perform all they had learned during the week.  This is the Pangani Center, headquarters of Missions of Hope as well as an elementary school for Area 1 kids.  

The building is in a 'V' shape with the part of the 'V' shown below housing the MOHI staff (the full staff is 500 people, though most are teachers out in the field) + library, conference room, dentist office, pharmacy, computer lab, sewing class area, and jewelry class area.  The other part of the 'V' is the same sized building for the elementary school (over 500 kids).  

Attached to the RIGHT of this building is a covered area that serves as a bit of a conference center as well as a church on Sunday morning.  That is where we had the show! 

The kids did SUCH a GREAT job!!!  We were super proud of them.  Here are a few videos from the show starting with the 'Trust Fall' skit (2:17).  Click here if embedded video doesn't work

There have been so many times this trip where AJ has done something where I thought "I wish I had a video recording when he did that!"  And I finally got one of those moments on tape during the show.  This video was taken during one of the dance numbers that V choreographed.  AJ is watching and then decides it is time to dance (54 seconds).  Click here if embedded video doesn't work

Near the end of performance, Mary Kamau (founder of MOHI) said some very kind words about our family and encouraged the students from Joska to take what they have learned this week and use it to bless others....  (click here if embedded video doesn't work)

After the show, Mary talked with Rachel and me about the impact this kind of week has on these kids.  She said we really have no idea....that they will remember this week for the rest of their lives.  She also spoke about what we are doing next week with all these skits and dances.  They are all a part of a Vacation Bible School for the elementary school kids in Area 2 of the Methare Valley.

She said that often times churches come to Kenya wanting to do some kind of 'works' (ie building something) but in her opinion one of the MOST valuable things that churches do is coming and putting on a Vacation Bible School.  Why?  Because they DON'T do VBS in Kenya!   It is something completely new to the kids and to the staff....and what happens is that the kinds of things that are done are then repeated in other areas of the Methare Valley.  In addition, the teachers learn and apply these things to their own churches. So Mary highly values teams that come and do VBS.  In addition, she mentioned how relationships form during VBS that simply would not happen if teams were building something etc.  

She also said that all the skits and dances we taught this week will not only be used during our VBS this week but will be used to teach others in all the schools under the MOHI umbrella.  Wallace Kamau said that skits like the trust fall skit are not only great teaching tools for the Christian principles but also great teaching tools for speaking English.  

It was really wonderful hearing these comments from the two co-founders of MOHI!  

The Trust Fall Skit and the 'Everything' Skit (huge video file that I couldn't upload at this time) were performed this morning at the Kosovo Church where we attended services last weekend and this weekend.  The kids were GREAT!  

The Everything Skit is very powerful and as I looked around the church there were many, many tears.  I've seen this skit probably 50 times but this morning while watching the reaction of the Kenyans I had a very powerful Christ centered experience.  Huge blessing....

In fact, here is where we got the 'Everything' Skit for anyone who has not seen it before.  Click here if embedded video doesn't work

The kids, staff, and us after the performance.  What a GREAT week!

We are heading out soon to the Java House for Sunday night dinner.  Tomorrow we begin working with the little kids in Area 2 with our VBS themed 'Bring the Light'  

Til then, God Bless

Other favorite pictures and stories from the past four days....

We said goodbye to our new friend Keith Ham.  He told us of how he came to Christ, met his wife, and ultimately ended up in Kenya.  Keith is blessed with a truly great sense of humor.  Just before he left, and old friend of his showed up at the house who he must have served with in northern Kenya as they did the kind of greeting that is done in the tribal area (much jumping up and down and bobbing of head).  It was a neat thing to watch!

In the picture below, Rachel pointed to the wall and said "Look!  There is a lizard!!!!"   S looked over to the corner of the room and Rachel took a huge bite of her dinner.  I love the second picture and the laughs that ensued....

Rachel and staff member Annisiah.  I am convinced Rachel wanted this picture so that she would have ONE picture in her life where she felt tall.... ;)

AJ and his posse....

Driving away from the Pangani Center after the performance H said "OH!  A pink house!!!" and V deadpanned....'with a dead cow hanging in the window'   LOL  Might be one of those things where you had to be there for it to be funny.

And, what would blog post be without at least one picture of the PhotoBomber....

Kenya: Tryouts, Rehearsals, Relationships

There is something invigorating in doing something you have diligently prepared for over a 6 month period.  Many know about the girls' shoe fundraiser but preparing the 14 skits / dances we are doing with the junior high kids this week has taken a lot of time and effort as well.

THE PLAN

The plan is as follows:

1.  Work with Junior High kids Week 1.  This would allow us to build relationships with kids who are similar ages to our girls.  All these kids are going to benefit from the girls' shoe fundraising effort (though they don't know that yet).  It is just neat that the girls are getting to form relationships with some of these kids.  

2.  These Junior High kids are normally at a boarding school called Joska outside Nairobi (about 25 miles away from the center of town).   The kids are on school holiday this week and next week.  Missions of Hope International (MOHI) felt it would be very positive...and we agree....for them to be doing something productive during this time versus just staying at home in the slum.  

3.  The Joska kids will be learning skits and dances this week.  We have 14 skits/dances and will be teaching 5 of them in the morning and 9 of them in the afternoon (V is teaching multiple dances in the afternoon).  All kids who arrive will be cast in something.  Many will be in 2 skits - one in the morning, one in the afternoon.  

4.  On Saturday the kids will perform all 14 skits and dances at Pangani for their friends and families.  

5.  On Sunday a select group of kids will perform at the Kosovo church (where we attended services last Sunday.

6.  NEXT WEEK each skit will be performed at least 1 time (sometimes many times a day) at the Vacation Bible School we will be leading at the Area 2 elementary school in the slums of the Mathare Valley.  That is the 'real' purpose of these skits as they all tie into the things we are teaching the elementary school kids next week.  

Implementing the Plan

Monday (Apr 22) started with a bit of chaos as we thought we were going to be auditioning 150 kids for 14 different skits / dances....but we arrived 15 minutes late to see only about 19 kids there.  Hmmmm...

Then we remembered that we are on 'Africa Time'...meaning that people tend to arrive late to things.  We ultimately ended up with 72 kids.  Recall from a previous post we had thought we could only handle 50 kids only to be told three days before we arrived that we would have 150.  So, it was a bit of a blessing that only 72 showed up as it was a challenge 'auditioning' 72 kids in less than 2 hours to somehow find the kids who spoke well, acted well, danced well etc.  

Kids before the auditions began...

We broke into various groups...some learning dance, others acting / speaking parts and then came back together to do the 'try outs'....

We each had a piece of paper numbered 1 to 72 where we would quickly write comments...those little comments we then talked about at lunch and if 2 of the 5 family members wrote something similar then we made decisions based on that.  It actually worked better than I had anticipated.

Below is S doing her judging....

Speaking of S....what a TROOPER she was on Monday.  She was throwing up before we even left the guest house.  She threw up out the window during the van ride to the Pangani Center.  And then when we started the audition process we were on the second floor of a building when she said "Dad, I have to throw up again!"  I hurriedly looked around....bathrooms were too far away, throwing up over the railing could hit someone down below, so I pointed to a 'landing' area that was in the stairwell (hard to explain but it was an area where no one would walk but was surrounded by the stairwell) and my 'awesome aiming' daughter perfectly threw up there.  Didn't even touch the steps (insert proud papa picture here....)   Glad I was able to document that for eternity here.  LOL...we got many laughs later that day as she rallied like a champ and was all smiles by the end of the day.

Anyway, we spent our entire lunch assigning people to different parts.  It is certainly the fastest 'casting' process any of us has ever gone through.  We announced the results of who was in each skit in the lower hallway of the Pangani classroom area.  You can see some groups at the back meeting with who their 'leader' was going to be.....

Rehearsals

Tuesday we started rehearsing.

Rachel with the airplane skit...

 V with the chain skit...

 S with the hand clapping skit...

 H with a skit called 'The Story of Rachel'

S watching her charges....look at the intensity in those eyes!  

V debriefing some of the MOHI teachers....

 V teaching one of the dances in the afternoon...

H getting to know some of the Joska kids near end of day....

Monday we kept AJ at the guest house, but he really let us know that he didn't want to do that again.  So, we took him to Pangani on Tuesday....as usual he was a great icebreaker and the kids LOVED HIM (and begged us to bring him back again)

 The staff at MOHI is just really wonderful.  This is our new friend Mercy with S...

 Lillian, a teacher...

And all the girls with Justine.  We love Justine.... (check out the baby bump on Rachel!!!)

We headed to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner with many people who have been serving MOHI both long term and short term.  REALLY great group of people....and AJ loved that there was a playground there..

This is what Ethiopian food looks like.  It is served on a 'spongy' bread.  You can see some of the spongy bread in the basket to the right.  You tear off a piece of the bread, grab a bunch of food, and proceed to eat.  Notice in the pictures below, the photobomber struck....

People and Relationships...

We had great company at this dinner.  Ryan and Justine Hayes who met while working at MOHI and were married a year ago.  Arty VanGeloof is a Missions Pastor from Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim, CA.  He is good friends with Phil and Keith (see below), has a fun loving personality, and definitely has a heart for Jesus....

Tim and Alecia Stewart...just completed their first year at MOHI and have a 5 year commitment here.  They are responsible for the child sponsorship program here & making sure all aspects of that program is running efficiently including kids writing their sponsors.  This week they have been updating pictures of high school kids etc.  I sat next to Tim at dinner and heard the wonderful story how God called them into ministry...

Megan (see below) and Glen Pieters.  We met Glen on our trip 2 years ago as he was leading a trip with his church from Colorado.  We were pleasantly surprised when he walked into the Guest House the other day.  He is here for a year doing quite a bit of project management type work and helping teach others in the organization to pick up those kinds of skills.

Keith Ham (goofball of the year! and long term Missionary in Kenya) and H.  We hosted his wife Kathy last year at our home when she was traveling with Mary to various churches who support MOHI.  And now Kathy is back in the States on furlough while Keith is with his buddies Arty and Phil fixing an agricultural project out at Joska.  Someday we may see Keith and Kathy together!  Keith is SOOOO funny and he is the primary one who riled up AJ so much our first night here that AJ ended up stripping down and running around naked....

Interns Ryan Barnett and Zach (see below) + V

Phil Meckley...successful businessman on his first trip to the slums of Kenya.  Really enjoyed getting to know Phil.  Ironically, he went through as a student the program I helped build years ago and still uses the platform as well.  Small world!  I hope Phil has as big a change of heart toward serving the poor as I did after coming to Kenya my first time.

Zach Krumsick and Megan Romines who picked us up from the airport.  Zach came to Christ just two years ago and yet here he is serving in Kenya.  Megan was wearing a shirt that said 'The future Mrs White' when we met her.  I think Mr White is going to be a lucky man as this young woman just radiates the love of Christ.

And finally, AJ's friend David who is turning 7 on Thursday this week and is just about AJ's favorite person in the world these days.  

We are tired but happy.  Please pray for continued health and for success in our mission here.  

Til next time, God Bless!