I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post. I guess I've been busy. My "week off" between teams turned out to be busier than I thought but still somewhat relaxing compared to the time since the team arrived.

Since my last post, I began with a little tea time with Esther, Diana, and Belle to celebrate Esther's 3rd birthday. It was adorable. Then on Sunday, I got to listen to Paul Maswai preach, and after I surprised all the children at the village by giving out kites to each of the homes. They got their kites all the way to the end of the string pretty quickly and then some as at least one kite broke the string as the kite floated away into the neighbors farm. It was quickly retrieved, but I haven't seen the kids flying kites since that Sunday (not sure if they lost interest, the kites broke, or they all floated away, or is it just possible that we have had an extraordinary amount of rain the past two weeks and it has not been good kite flying weather).

I was able to meet with every long term missionary at the village one on one during the week between teams. It was a nice time of catching up with them, finding out their challenges, their hopes, their goals, and their prayer requests. I look forward to catching up with a few of them, the Whitemans and the Wilsons in particular, to see how they are adjusting to being back in America for some well needed time off.

I also got to meet with some of the staff, and meet with old friends like Levi. It seemed like The Nova, the new hot spot in town, at least for good mocha milk shakes, was my hangout for at least one or two days that week. I also got to meet with Teach Lillian, and the rest of the teachers and see how the school is progressing. It was really fun to see how the children have progressed and how much they have advanced as a school, especially since they opened up the school to the community. They now have a debate club, a math club, a lot of sports clubs, and they have made a lot of progress. There are 13 or 14 teachers on staff. Most of the children have improved, especially in math and science, and they are advancing in sports and clubs as well. I, and the whole village let out a huge cry when we found out that little Johnny had advanced to the "third position" or third place in his class academically after he had been in last place almost every term since the school started.

On Sunday before the team arrived I got to preach again. It seemed like a good response but I wasn't sure until I had heard from two separate house parents and also someone in the community that they, and their children were really touched and made significant life changing decisions, especially in the areas of forgiveness and shame by giving up shame and unforgiveness. The 10 days between the teams was very quiet in lodge 3 but that all changed when the next team arrived. Though they were small, they livened things up, and with Kendra joining us, it became a party.

We started out digging holes for the tree planting ceremony, and then digging some more. Finally when the tree planting ceremony came on Thursday, August 16, we had 200 people there but no trees. We were supposed to have 5000 trees donated by the local Lions Club, but they said they couldn't get them from Nairobi to us in time.  Of course things are always exciting in Kenya, and at the last minute, we managed to purchase 300 trees in town, and have an additional 200 donated by a local nursery. We could have probably planted at least 500 more trees with all the additional help that day, but 5000 would have been pushing it, and as always in Kenya, it is always about the people and the ceremony. I also got to spend some quality time with Mocha, Java, and Chai, our three "guard dogs" at the village, who never missed a bit when they saw me, and just wanted to play and lick my hands, but when the rest of the team tried to get closer, the dogs let them know to back off. I had to frequently go over and calm them down when a bunch of volunteers came over to plant trees by the dog run. We even had a lovely time planting some trees down by the river, and Betty, one of the staff at the Open Arms feeding program, and myself, each named a tree after ourselves, so hopefully the "Betty Tree" and the "Matt Tree" will grow up to offer shade to many visitors who come to the village for decades to come. It was a lot of fun, and it was good to see some old friends like Chief Togom and meet some new ones as well.

We have continued to work this week, finishing some landscaping around the baby home, mostly rerouting the rain water in front of the baby home and Ushindi home, along with trying to finish the greenhouse for the widows in the community. We almost finished the greenhouse, and I know that Ted and Brenda were disappointed because they really wanted to finish this project before they leave on Monday. Of course, we almost got done, and the project should easily be done with one more short shift by a volunteer work team, but hopefully it can be finished sometime in the next week or two so that these ladies and their families can quickly begin to raise some tomatoes and be on their way to feeding their families and becoming self reliant. We also almost finished the baby house drainage area, and hopefully we'll finish that and some more landscaping around the baby house before the next week is over, but tomorrow is our day to rest, worship the Lord, and have some fun with the children at the village. I will sign off for now but try and fill you in sooner on how the rest of our week goes.

Mungu Akubariki (God bless you)

Matt