Monday, July 22, 2013
Monday AM
Blog 722
It is Monday morning and the sun is shining brightly. The rains of the weekend were a true answer to prayer. The crops were watered and we were able to get out of the back of the pickup Friday before the first drops fell. An added bonus will be not having to travel in the dust on our way to Ziwa. Saturday morning my lesson from Genesis 24 featured a review of the life of Abraham using class members as the characters and walking through his 175 years in about 25 minutes. The application came from the summary in Hebrews and was to walk by faith and when you find your faith failing get back to Bethel and call on the name of The Lord. Worship time is led by age groups. Adults children and youth all take a turn. Two western groups were added. Ann led the children in a song in English and Ryan led us in "Lord You Are More Precious..." Some of the Bible school students came up and led with us. Ryan's powerful sermon from Psalm 29 elicited many amen's and was warmly received. We had lunch at Mary's with some of the church members. Silas and Gladys had some other church members over to their house for lunch. The conversation at Mary's was very interesting. We talked a lot about the sermon and some of the men gave a history of their families religious beliefs. We learned a lot about issues in the Kenyan church and were able to offer encouragement. Later in the afternoon we came back to Silas'. The people he had over for lunch were leaders in the Bible college. We met for a couple hours with them discussing the future plans for progress. We were seeking ways that we could help without being an interference. My conclusion was that it was a very productive day.
On Sunday I slept in. We did not eat breakfast until about nine. Ann and Andrea had planned to make banana bread for the college students who were coming over in the afternoon. This meant getting the charcoal into the oven and getting it heated while they were mixing the recipe. Silas' Betty Crocker cookbook had ingredients for the banana bread which were not available. The creative ladies decided to use the zucchini recipe instead. They just substituted the bananas, made a few other adjustments and were on their way. I must admit I had some doubts but loaves came out looking very very good. The students began arriving about 3:00 PM. Immediately a volleyball game began It started to rain about a half hour later I came inside and started to do a few things but no one else did. Soon I was out standing under the shed roof watching the game continue in this in the drizzle. Two hours later the very damp competitors were still fielding teams while some of the spectators who had been under a tree gradually all shifted to the lean to shed area. It was getting very chilly so I came in for a heavier sweatshirt and began helping Silas and Gladys. Silas summoned the last of the dye hards to the sitting room where Ryan led in almost an hour of songs and prayer. The supper buffet began with a huge pan of white rice. Next to that was an equally large pan of beans. That was followed by another rice dish with herbs and a large lot of mashed potatoes. Smaller pots of greens completed to presentation. The plates used here are of the shallow wider cereal bowl design. Foods are piled high and usually consumed with the aid of a cereal spoon. Seconds and thirds are expected so we start with somewhat smaller portions. When most had had their fill and Gladys was ready to serve piping hot Kenyan tea from a large blue thermos bottle she asked me to serve the banana bread. The mashed potatoes and the "dessert" were an intentional westernization of the meal. There were six loaves of bread which I cut into 8 slices each. After serving everyone a slice I cut the remaining slices in half and started around again. No one refused a second portion even if as in a few instances they had not finished the first. There were also several requests for the recipe. The kids were totally delighted and could hardly wait till breakfast to devour the last existing crumbs. Discussion of Bible classes followed as I fought drowsiness on a couch back in the corner. The evening came to a close near eleven o'clock with most of the group having kilometers to walk home along dark slippery rain drenched red clay roads. A few steps to our room and I was fast asleep.
Answers to a few we questions:
We are offered bottled water when we visit. Silas has it available here. We supplement with water we treat with a UV wand that is rechargeable.
Silas' mom milks the cows twice daily and sells milk to a vender. Some of it is pasteurized on site for drinking and also used in the Kenyan tea.
Menu items not mentioned: fresh pineapple, avocado, oranges,eggs hard boiled and scrambled, ugaly, a cross between corn meal mush and corn bread, pancakes, a fried dough that the kids love called mangazi. It has a pocket I love to open and drizzle in generous amounts of local honey. Green bananas cooked to a potato consistency often in a gravy with potatoes and peas (a personal favorite).
It is almost lunch time and that means time to get cleaned up for the trip to Ziwa to get everything charged and do some printing for Ann.
God's blessings on you all.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Sunday July 20
Blog 720
Friday was kind of a quiet day. I did not try to do much in the morning. I took time to read and pray and get a few projects done around the house. After lunch I went to Ziwa with Ann to help her copy some of the things she needed for her class. I also-needed to get all of our electronics charged up for the weekend. Silas's solar battery has been acting up. Gracie had gone with Ryan in the morning so she wanted to stay home. Caleb wanted to get some more time in on the ponga so he was home also. He and his dad were gutting trees to be made into a lectern for the college. Andrea took time after class to walk over to the market to get bananas. The students from the college are coming over Sunday for supper and she and Ann plan to bake banana bread. We found out this morning that Silas' first bananas of the season were ripe. Did you know that tree ripened bananas taste so much better? We were glad we had gotten some to get dead ripe though anyway.
During the evening I struggled with just how to teach Genesis 24. I had made various plans all week but rejected all of them. I stayed up after Ann turned in and came up with a basic format. At sometime in the night I awoke with additional ideas. There is no chance to do Saturday night prepping here since we worship on Saturday morning. Rising before dawn I made my way to the sitting room with my headlamp. God answered my prayer and the lesson came together in plenty of time I was soon joined by Ryan who was putting the finishing touches on his sermon. He said Andrea was sitting up in bed working on her Sunday school lesson but he had found that too uncomfortable. Ann had heard me get up but had fallen back to sleep. When she was awake she used her beautiful printing skills to do all the visual aids for my lesson on the life of Abraham. We all then walked down to the church building. Young men were putting up the tarps to shade us from the tropical sun. Ryan and I joined into help. When Silas and Gladys arrived he helped too. It is now late Sunday afternoon and supper is almost ready so I will close and continue later.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Friday
Blog 719
It has been a very busy week I have gotten behind in my reporting. If I think of anything important that happened on Wednesday I'll include it at the end. We went to Ziwa with the rest to get some things set up. We had some shopping to do so we both took empty backpacks. In Zela there are commercial vehicles which carry passengers into Eldoret. They are easily identified five broad yellow stripes on the side. It was not very comfortable and we waited over a half hour before the trip began. It was however covered much more quickly than in the white pickup. The poor road conditions only lasted for a couple of kilometers past Silas's place. Then the road turned beautifully smooth. By the time we got to Eldoret my back was feeling a little bit tired. As we neared the center of the city the driver stopped for gasoline. We decided to walk to our destination. First stop was a mall with security guards wanding patrons as they entered.
We hit a very secure ATM on the outer veranda and then went inside multistoried building. I followed Silas to a modern super market. After checking our backpacks at the door we grabbed a shopping cart and began checking things off our list. We spent over 4000 shillings took our collection of plastic bags to the counter to collect our back packs. The heaviest item was a 5 L bottle of orange juice. My pack was the biggest so I started with that. Next we headed for the hardware store. Before long I was wishing we had gone there first. It did not take this long at the hardware store to get the things we needed. Leaving the store we called the driver who had brought us into town to see if you could pick us up. He had already left so we started the long uphill walk back to the lot where the transportation vehicles load there passengers. The area was crowded with vans and busses heading to various places with hardly room to walk between. The next 14 passenger van heading to Ziwa was about half full. Silas decided we should take the second one so we could sit in fromt. We waited about a half hour for our vehicle to move up to first place. And we waited another 15 minutes for it to fill The hour ride home was no less comfortable than the ride into town and we had our heavy packs sitting on out laps. The van had been full for the whole trip but just before we were going to get off at Silas' a couple wanted to get a board. They were Silas's neighbors so we agreed to walk the rest of the way. This meant walking in front of the school near Silas's house while all the children were out at lunchtime. By the time we got Silas's drive kids were mobbing me. While trying to shake my hand they were pulling my arms with grocery bags in them. Having dealt with schoolchildren all my life I was soon free and walking up to the house. By the time Silas helped me out of my heavy pack in the kitchen I was exhausted.
Thursday afternoon I went to school with Ann. She had some copying she wanted me to do with the new printer, scanner. That was accomplished in pretty quick order. The machine was indicting low ink but we figured how to recharge it. Soon after we got home I was falling asleep on the couch. The kids came into play games so I retired to our room. Ann had everything spread out on a bed for her schoolwork but I found a little spot soon was fast sound asleep. After supper we shared some pictures of our wedding and after prayer we were soon asleep.
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