Kenya: VBS and Home Visits

We started the Vacation Bible School (VBS) on Monday with approximately 160 kids.

We start each day with a group meeting like the one above.  V leads the group in song and dance.  The first day they didn't know what to do, but V's station each day in VBS is to teach them the songs and dances.  So, as the week goes on this morning time is loud, fun, and very active.  By day 2 there were kids in the buildings in the background on their porches dancing with us!

Also at this morning session we do one of the skits that the teenage kids learned last week.  On Monday we did the Chains Skit to start the day and then referred back to it in other sessions as the morning progressed.

There were really funny conversations Monday morning because the boy who played Jesus in the Chains Skit didn't show up.  So the conversation went something like this....

"Where is Jesus?" and "Do we need to get a new Jesus?"  It just struck me as funny...but we did get a 'new' Jesus and he did a great job learning the part in literally 5 minutes (thank goodness we did all those dress rehearsals late last week because he saw the skit enough times to do the part nicely).

We have 4 stations each day.

V = song and dance.  I keep track of the 15 minute sessions based on the music she is playing.  Her group is where all the teenagers from last week hang out and it is done under the canopy seen in the background of the picture.  The other stations are inside the little classrooms.

H&S = arts and crafts.  Each day the kids make a different part of the body.  Monday was the head.  Tuesday the body.  Other days will be arms, legs, heart.   By they time we finish the kids will have a little person they put together with a transparent red heart where the light shines through

Rachel = Bible story (which she makes super fun)  I was able to see Rachel do the last half of her Monday presentation.  My wife is SO creative.  She had AJ's little book on Lightning McQueen based on the Disney movie 'Cars' and was tying in biblical concepts to that book.  The kids loved it.

Andrew = Science...I get to do experiments that tie in to what we are talking about on that day.  For example, on Monday we were talking about LEARNING and so I did an experiment about ABSORBING all the information we can about Jesus.

I had a glass of water in a solid colored cup.  There were 3 cups and I would tell the kids to watch the cup carefully that had the water, and then I would switch them around.  The kids would tell me which cup had the water, and I would show they were correct by pouring the water into another cup.  Then I would do it again.  The last cup had a super absorbant polymer in it so that when the kids picked that cup and I turned it upside down nothing came out.  I flipped the other cups upside down as well and it was just awesome to see the wonder in these kids eyes at how the water had disappeared!

Then I showed them how it was done and how this special substance absorbed all the water and made a gell that stuck to the glass....and that is how we are to be with knowledge about God and Jesus.  We are to absorb everything we can.

H&S in their arts and crafts classroom

Each class had 40 to 50 kids in it.  The teachers told us on Monday that word would spread through the community and other kids would show up as the week progressed.  Sure enough on Tuesday we had to do 5 sessions (one group would have a break as one of their stations) and well over 200 kids!

The theme for the week is 'Children of the Son'   We explained to the kids that in English the word that sounds like 'Son' can be spelled 'Sun' or 'Son'.... 'Sun' gives off light and as we go through the week we will be building a 'Sun' with 5 rays that spell the word LIGHT.  Each day we focus on a letter until we have the full Sun and the word Light made.  The lessons revolve around the letter for the day.  So Monday was L = Learn about Jesus.  Tuesday was I = Involved (be in community and be involved with Jesus) G = Grow spiritually  H = Heart (God wants our heart)  T = Teach (share with others)

The Bible says that Jesus is the LIGHT of the world, and we are children of the Son of God.  So, that is how we are progressing through the week with this VBS.

I give all credit to Rachel and the girls for this brilliant idea.  I was the logistics guy for this whole trip and was responsible for all the details, tickets, places to stay etc.  They were responsible for putting together this whole VBS, the content, skits...everything.  Way to go girls!

I was the 'billboard' in front of the group on Monday as this was all explained to the kids....

Here is a really wonderful thing that has happened this week.  Each day there are skits that we practiced last week that are performed in front of the little kids.  So, the teenagers are sharing their talents to teach the little ones about God and Jesus.

We thought that the only people who would show up were the teenagers who were in the skit on that day.  But what has happened is that the Area 2 school has become the 'cool' place to be for the teenagers ;)   So, we have the kids doing the skits for the day but then we have a bunch of other kids from last week who have been showing up as well!  In fact, on one of the VBS days there were supposed to be only 2 people doing a skit on that day but 25 teenagers from last week showed up!

During the sessions, the kids tend to hang out at V's station and sing / dance with the little kids.  It is neat to see them encouraging the little ones to really get involved and follow the 'big kids' lead.

Because they are at V's station, there have been many interesting conversations that V has told us about.  She has learned much about being a kid in the slums of Kenya and has been able to correct them on perceptions they have about America.  For example....

Kenyan kids talking about their future...one said 'if I move to America won't I get teased because I'm black?'  V pointed out that there was a time in America where that would have been a problem, but that America has grown as people from all over the world of every different color and culture have come and become citizens of the USA

Child abuse / beating kids.  That was a big one as it is common in the slums.  V explained that it is illegal in America to beat your kids.  The Kenyan kids were amazed that it is against the law to beat your kids in America.  They asked how she got punished and she talked about kids having cell phones taken away for a week....and they said A WEEK! (seriously as if that was a terrible punishment as many do have phones).  She also talked about not being able to go to friends house, no sports, grounded etc.

American fashion - V asked why do women have to have knees covered in Kenya?....b/c in Kenya if you have a short skirt then you are probably going to be beaten and stripped naked.  V was asked what do Americans wear to swim?  Swimsuits...not just bikini as seen in most US films but tankini and full suits as well

Kenyan kids wanted to know about Idol worship of famous people.  They mentioned Rhiana, Chris Brown, Niki Minage.  V said that people don't worship these people by getting down on their knees and praying to them.  However V did talk about modern day idols and while they don't pray to these people they imitate them regardless of the lifestyles they live.  She gave song lyrics as an example to a very popular song with the kids that glorifies things that separate us from God (beating girlfriend, getting high on drugs, getting drunk etc)

They asked about school and V said her school goes from 7am to 230pm school in America.  THEY WERE AMAZED AT THIS.   Why?  Here is the schedule for the kids from Joska (6th grade through 12th grade boarding school outside the city limits and away from the slum)....

5am  wake up & dress

530 class / study hall

7am  breakfast

730am assembly, morning devotion

8am  class instruction

930am break

945am class instruction

1130am break, tea

Noon class instruction

1pm Lunch

2pm class instruction

320pm counseling (Monday), Clubs (Tuesday…journalism, drama, wild life, math and science club, art club), Church (Wednesday), Awana…approved workmen are not ashamed…those people who do the work of God are no ashamed.  Memory verses, games, bible challenge, compete against each other and then other schools (Thursday), Football, basketball, volleyball, running (Friday), Cleaning dorms and class room, compound, toilets (Saturday)

4pm change uniform, clean clothes, bath / shower, sleep, study, visit friends, school teams (basketball, football etc) practice

6pm class instruction

7pm dinner

8pm study hall

930pm assembly, evening devotion

10pm sleep

A kid from the USA would look at that schedule and think it was some kind of torture.  But these kids genuinely don't mind.  They know that this education is their ticket out of the slum.  They know that if they fail or don't take it seriously that they will live their entire lives in the slum.  They take it seriously!

So many American kids have an entitlement attitude and have no idea how good they have it.  I can tell you as well that the education these Kenyan kids are getting isn't watered down 'make everyone feel good' education.  It is a real education with a solid Christian, moral center.

I mentioned in a previous note that at the end of 8th grade all students in Kenya take an exam.  They are only allowed to go to high school if they pass that exam.  The national average is for 50% to pass and move up.  Kids in the Missions of Hope schools so far have a 97% pass rate on that exam.  They take it seriously.

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S also had some conversations with the teenagers and one such conversation led to one of the FUNNIEST quotes of the trip so far.

They were having a discussion on the purity rings that V and H got in Israel.  The Kenyan kids were asking 'what is a purity ring?'  And S explained it this way....

"A purity ring is a reminder to not have a bad relationship until you are married!"

I just laughed and laughed when she said that.  I love that girl.

H has a really hard time hearing because it is very loud at the Area 2 school.  I'm so very proud of her as well at how she is staying engaged and keeping a positive attitude despite the challenges.

HOME VISITS

Monday after lunch at the area 2 school, we went out into the community for home visits.  Before leaving we prayed the following prayer with our girls and with the social workers who were going out with us.

"Lord, we know you love all the people in this community and want them all to be in relationship with you.  But we can't visit every home this week.  So please send us to places where the people need to know RIGHT NOW that you love them and want to be in relationship with them.  In your Son's Name we pray.  Amen."

I love home visits because you really get into the community.  They have little cubes to teach people about AIDS/HIV and Malaria and a cube called the Evangicube that goes through the story of Jesus.  We also learned how to purify water.

We headed into Area 2 which is MUCH rougher than Area 1. As we were heading down to the community we passed the MOHI Area 2 school that is under construction to take the place of the 'makeshift' school that has been used to educate kids for the past 5 years.  This permanent school will eventually be 5 stories high and house nearly 600 students.  The first floor is already in use...

I WAS SO CRAZY PROUD OF OUR GIRLS when we went into people's homes.  They literally had 15 minutes of training on these cubes.  I have been on trips here with adults where people wouldn't do the cubes for days until they were sure they could say the right words....but our girls just jumped right in.  All of them did at least 1 training as we went into various people's homes.

Gideon lived in the first home we visited.  His niece, Anita, is a student at MOHI and lives in the home we were visiting along with 4 other people.  It was small, dark, and HOT (especially since our team was 8 people strong!)

I was excited to see why God sent us into this particular home....and it didn't take long to figure out.  Gideon said he was not a believer.  So, we explained the prayer we had prayed, said that of all the homes in Area 2 God had directed us to his home because he wanted Gideon to hear this message.

He paid very close attention as we did the Evangicube.  And Gideon accepted Christ as his Savior.  It was an AWESOME moment!!!!  There were so many smiles as we talked about Gideon from the Bible and then Anita showed up, and we got to know here.  She hadn't been at the VBS that day but she was definitely there on Tuesday!

Note: All pictures in homes were taken with permission of the individuals in the home.

We showed the picture to Gideon on the digital camera and he laughed and pointed at Alex (the social worker with the huge, goofy smile).  Then everyone laughed as we saw his goofy smile.  It was really funny.  Anita is the girl in the middle of the page.

Just a little perspective....the person taking the picture is as far back in the home as she could get.  What you see is the entire home and 5 people live there.

We did all the training here and it was hot by the time we left...not so much because of the weather (it actually started raining VERY hard while we were in the home) but because there were so many people in such a small space for probably about 40 minutes.

I asked the social worker what kind of follow up is done with people like Gideon who accept Christ and she said "I will visit with him tomorrow morning.  Then we have an entire team that follows up with him over the rest of the week and in the next month to get him a Bible, connect him into a church, help him to start learning & get into a community of believers etc"  I was so pleased to hear this kind of follow up takes place.

The next home we visited was a little deeper into Area 2 heading down towards the river.  The woman, Grace, said she was a Christian but she really wanted to go through the Evangicube.  So, H did that cube and then the other girls did training on Malaria, clean water, and AIDs.

I was starting to wonder why God had sent us to this particular home and then Grace opened up about how she had been sick with typhoid 3 times and last year she had been very sick.  She talked about how she was so depressed about not having children.  She had 3 babies die and her first husband left her because he said she was cursed.  Her next husband left her because she went to the doctor and learned that something in her reproductive organs wasn't quite right.  Her current husband's family is also pressuring him to leave her.

She is depressed at hearing kids run around all the time, but she can't have any.  She is 38 years old and said she feels useless with no job.  Then she said she had been thinking about killing herself.  And that is when we told her about the prayer we had prayed....and that God had sent us to her house and that He loved her so much that He sent people from halfway around the world to let her know that He does care.

There are no easy answers to why this woman (or any woman) who desires to have children cannot.  I don't know the answer but Rachel and I went through many years of frustration before having our own children...and we did feel His presence during that time, difficult though it may have been.  So, please pray for Grace.

Those were the only 2 homes we visited that day, but it was such a blessing to our family to be able to minister to these two people.  We got back to Pangani to pick some things up, told our friend Alicia about what had happened, and she relayed an amazing story from a home visit she and her husband Tim had done....

Tim asked this woman out of the blue if she was HIV positive (something he normally never would have done) and she just started crying.  She had learned that day that not only was she HIV positive but all of her kids were too.  She had bought rat poison and was going to kill all of her kids that night and kill herself as well because she was in such desperation.  But after speaking with Alicia and Tim about Jesus, she said she was not going to follow through on her plan.  2 years later Alicia and Tim saw this woman again and they felt that was God's way of letting them know that she is ok.

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TUESDAY VBS

We had a lot more kids show up on Tuesday!

Today the main skit was the 'Everything Skit' and once again Jesus was late!  I had the robe on and was ready to be Jesus....and I have to admit I was a little disappointed when Jesus (a boy named Kepha) showed up....

Rachel reviewed Monday's teaching about getting EXCITED about Jesus and learning everything possible (she really revs the kids up!).  Then she explained Tuesday's lesson would focus on I = INVOLVED.  Involved with Jesus.  Involved in Community.

Her Bible study lesson focused on Ecc 4:9-12

⁹ Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
¹⁰ If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.
¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

In her Bible Study class she had a string that she could break easily but when she wound that string with 2 other strings it would not break.  In my 'science' class I had a kind of clear baton with lights inside it that would light up when the metal ends were touched by connected hands (essentially completing a circuit).

So, I would hold the 'baton' with one hand and show the kids that alone nothing special happened.  Then I had all the kids hold hands...the last kid touched one end of the baton and I held the other end while touching the first kid in the chain....and the baton would light up and make all kinds of sounds.

I wish I could video tape the kids reaction to these things.  It is really priceless.  I then talked about how Jesus wants us to be in community.  That when we are all connected to Jesus in community amazing things can happen but when we are all alone or just focused on ourselves then nothing special really happens.

Gloria Home Visit

After lunch we headed over to Pangani.  H's special friend, Gloria, had invited our family to her home in Area 1 to meet her family.  Before leaving, H gave Gloria a necklace that I'm sure will be a special memory for Gloria.

Her home is just off the main thoroughfare in Area 1.  This area is where teams are taken for their orientation 'walk' through the slums (as we did the first Saturday we were here).  But this time it was different because we weren't just going to anyone's home.  We were going to the home of someone we have gotten to know over the past 10 days...someone H sees as a special friend.

As I snapped this picture I had a feeling of Jesus whispering to me 'just as you feel a sadness in know this girl and now entering her home, this is how I feel for each of my children living here...'  He knows them all, every detail of their lives.

Of all the slum homes I have ever been in, Gloria's was by far the largest and nicest.  We learned that her mother grew up here and inherited the place from her grandmother who has passed away.  Her mother, Judy, was incredibly articulate.  She has graduated from a place of higher education focused on media but Gloria had some kind of health problem early in her life that impacted her career and finances.  Then her little sister came I think unexpectedly as there is no father in the home.  And to make a long story short, this is the story of generational poverty.  There are 3 generations of women and children living in this home including aunts.

I still can't believe this very articulate, attractive woman is living in the slum!  Then I think about Wallace Kamau telling me that the unemployment rate has come down from 48% to 40% (those are NOT typos!) and it is not hard to realize the difficulties many face.

Those statistics focus on people with full time jobs.  Few in the slums have full time jobs.  Almost everyone works cash jobs where they are hired and paid by the day.  Some days they may not get picked to do anything....so they sit for hours and go home with nothing.  Other days they work all day for anywhere from 100 to 300 shillings ($1.25 to $3.75 a day)

We met Gloria's mother, grandmother, little sister and aunts.  In addition her best friend, Joy, was there (she was the main female character in the 'Everything Skit').  The sense of community is so strong here....they served us food they had prepared and openly discussed life in the slum.  Judy said things are so much better since Missions of Hope came to the community in the year 2000.  She say 'the boys used to be so bad but now they go to school and are so much better.'

Her greatest concern is FIRE in the community as apparently things catch on fire all the time in the slums.  Just this past week the Kosovo church took a special offering for one of their own whose home in the slums had been completely burned.

It was a special visit with a special girl and her family....

And at the end of the visit, Gloria gave H a gift just as she had received a gift from H earlier...

We serve a great and awesome Lord.

Til next time... God Bless,

Andrew

Other Comments / Pictures:

When we left Gloria's home, a drunk guy came up to Rachel and said "I love you"

People here are much more open to input and don't take things so personally

Nice customs...when entering a room they go to each person and great them.  Serving chai and having time in community.

V said she noticed that there is no stigma about picking noses.  You can be talking to someone and they are digging for gold thinking nothing of it.

V very saddened by the kids she sees who are sniffing glue (8-10 years old).  Doesn't understand how they can be at such a low desperate point that that is what they do at such a young age.

They live in a war zone.  They can be learning about Jesus and then turn around and punch someone or push someone.  Pushing / shoving happens quite a bit with the younger ones.

V running her class Tuesday....

Rachel and Samuel...

Our friend and social worker for Joska, Mercy....

Kid outside Pangani with make shift toy cars made out of trash....

Main thoroughfare in Area 1.  This picture was taken after turning left out of Gloria's alley and heading back toward Pangani....