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

Tuesday and Wednesday were work days. We spent Tuesday doing some work at the village, but it seemed like we didn't get as much done because I think people were tired and people were wanting to spend time with the children as well. On Wednesday morning we helped Ted and Brenda build a greenhouse for the local widows in the community that will enable them to grow tomatoes for their families and also to sell to the community. It should be a great sustainability project for the widows and their families. We worked hard and were able to get almost the entire frame of the structure installed in about 6 hours. I think the team felt good about what they accomplished on Wednesday, and on Thursday we got to play.

It was fun going up to Kerio View. Cheryl and I hadn't been there in a few years, and the team really enjoyed their time there. We got a rare treat as well, because several Kenyan Olympians were eating lunch there as well, getting in some last minute training before they ran the marathon next weekend in London. They were flying out this Tuesday, but we got to meet Wilson Kapsang (winner of the London Marathon) and Abel Kirui (2009 and 2011 World Track and Field marathon champion). We're not completely sure they will both get medals at the Olympics, but it is very likely that at least one of them will, and probably gold. I got my photo with Abel and I think he will probably win but we'll see.

On Friday morning, I had to say goodbye to our team and Cheryl as well as they headed to Nairobi and back home. As I write this blog, I called Cheryl this morning and she had arrived home safely after the long flight. After the team left, things at the lodge got pretty quiet, but first I found out I was the special guest speaker at the closing ceremony of the school for the term with all of about 12 hours notice. It was fun though, and it was great to see how much the children have learned and improved in school. There were a few wonderful surprises at the school as one child from the community, Peggy, got a perfect score on her end of the year exams in the top class of the nursery school, and numerous children from the village and the community improved significantly over the past year. The biggest surprise perhaps was little Johnny, who had been having significant problems learning in school over the past three years, and we found out at the ceremony that he was third in his class of 15 in overall testing scores. We were all so proud of him, and all the others that had improved so much.

On Saturday, I got to relax, do laundry, catch up on some e-mail, and have fun with three of my favorite girls: Belle, Esther, and Diana. Of course, Cheryl and I changed a lot of dirty diapers for them while we lived in Eldoret for a year. They have grown quite a bit, and the girls got to have a little tea party to celebrate Esther's third birthday.

On Sunday, I had Diana, Belle, Mama Rachel, and Kendra over for breakfast. I cooked everyone a yummy french toast and bacon breakfast along with some fantastic fresh pineapple. Yum yum!! After that we went up to church, and Paul Maswai, the house father at Amani House, spoke this morning. He did a great job, and we even had a guest choir come from the local Seventh Day Adventist Church. It was  a great time. After church, I brought kites over to each of the homes that Cheryl and I had bought.  I still think they are out there playing with the kites now. Some of the children were able to get the kites all the way to the end of the string and keep them up there for quite awhile. Seems like they catch on quick or some of them have done this before. It was a lot of fun. Now I am finishing up e-mail and this blog before I get ready for dinner and Skype Cheryl. I already miss her terribly.

I will try and get photos to have with all this text soon but they take too long to download with the internet here. Maybe I'll add them when I get back home at the end of August.

Mungu Akubariki (God bless you)

Matt

Whew. What a whirlwind of activity in the past several days. We just completed a 3 day medical camp in Kipkaren just outside of Eldoret, Kenya. We concluded the camp on the final day by treating 1227 people - by far the most people that Open Arms has ever treated on one day at one of their medical camps. The most previously might have been somewhere around 700 people.

We felt it at the end of the day, tearing down the tents, loading up, and driving the doctors and ourselves into town to eat at Mamma Mias - I just about fell asleep in my mashed potatoes, or in my pizza in this case.

We saw a total of 2300 people in the 3 day medical camp, plus 700 children at the school that were given de-worming pills and toothbrushes. It was an interesting camp, and sometimes, especially on the last day, it felt like the lines of people would never end. We did get to the end of the line though, and I got the last of the people through the prayer tent at about 4:20. Although there were still about 200 people in the medical camp at that point, about 60 people waiting to go into the Triage tent, about 80 people waiting to see the doctor, and about 60 more waiting at the pharmacy. We finally got the last of the people through the pharmacy about 5:30, tore down the tents, and loaded up the truck, shortly before dark. Perhaps the hardest part of the day were the 3 or 4 dozen people at the end of the day who arrived late while we were packing up the truck, who wanted us to see them as well. Unfortunately, we had to say no to them, with the limits of daylight and exhaustion reached, but we did pray with some of them who were willing to receive prayer.

The best part of the day, were the dozens of people who said thank you as they left the tent, some with tears of gratitude; the 58 people who received Christ on the last day including the 57 people who received Christ on the first two days, and the dozens of people who were miraculously healed in the prayer tent. In addition, it was interesting how many Muslim people came to the medical camp, more than I had ever seen at any time in Eldoret. While some of them declined to be prayed for in the prayer tent, we still treated them medically, and I trust that our Christian witness was demonstrated by our actions in those cases. Nevertheless, about half of the Muslims who came to the medical camp gratefully received and appreciated our prayers for them as they went through the prayer tent.

On Sunday, we had a wonderful, relaxing day, as we slept in. However, it wasn't quite as relaxing for me as I was invited to preach that morning. I think the service went really well and my message was well received by everyone. It was a wonderful, sunny afternoon, as we, and the older children at the village, went on a hike down to the waterfall next to the village. We concluded the day with some wonderful dinner at the lodge as we prepared for another busy day on Monday.

As I post this blog on Monday night, we had another phenomenal day although not quite as busy as the medical camp days. We had a nice surpise this morning as two large, beautiful tucan birds (think of Tucan Sam), greeted us outside of our bedroom window this morning. We tried to get a photo but they flew off too soon. We got breakfast ready and then I went for a run, feeling like the pied piper as several children from Open Arms Academy followed me while I was running down the road.

Later in the morning we went to the Tumaini Drop-In Center. It was great to see the director of the center, after spending some time with him when we went with him to see the chief of police. After the drop in center, we had lunch at the Chinese Siam Restaurant (delicious!!) and said hi to Mr. Yu. The afternoon was phenomenal with 170 children allowing us to sing with them, perform a skit for them (I got to be Goliath with one of the kids on my shoulders), and at the end, 30 to 40 children received Christ. The team worked together so well as we did this presentation at the Remand Center (kind of like our Juvenile Hall). It was really good, but there was a conversation I had with two boys, one named Josie, and the other Paul, that really kind of haunts me, as they were begging me to get them out of the Remand Center.

It is getting late now, I am getting tired, and fading fast, but I hope to give you more interesting glimpses into our life here in my next posting.

Tuanane Kesho (See you tomorrow)

Matt and Cheryl Tallman

We have already had several busy days on site at Open Arms Village. We have a team of 13 Westerners here, mostly from Oregon, but a few from Texas. We went to the feeding program on Tuesday, and we were amazed at how large and developed the program has become, feeding 150 children 4 days a week, and meeting with 40 mothers weekly for mentoring and training programs.

On Wednesday we set up for the medical camp on some school grounds in an area called Kipkaren. Kipkaren is a slum area between Open Arms Village and the city of Eldoret. I have visited this area many times when Cheryl and I lived here, but this was the very first medical camp we have done here. It was interesting looking at the area, realizing that there were no shambas (farms) in the community on which people could do subsistence farming. This meant that most, if not everyone living in this community was living in extreme poverty, most of them not able to find jobs, and most of them not able to provide adequate nutrition for their families since they didn't have any farms nearby. Although many people did have chickens and a few people had some pretty fat pigs which we almost ran over with our bus.
We had a great turnout at medical camp for the first day. We saw about 500 people, mostly students at the Kipkaren Elementary School (not Open Arms Academy). It was definitely a worthwhile and busy first day and a wild burst of rain at the very end of the camp flooded the pharmacy tent - no damage, but a wet mucky tent and tomorrow morning we get to move the tent about 10 feet further North so we are not dispensing drugs at Lake Med. The prayer tent also got quite a bit of rain and especially mud.
We also were able to give out anti-worming pills and toothbrushes to about 700 other students at the Kipkaren School. Something tells me tomorrow we will be swamped, and I'm not just referring to the rain.

The first wave of Kenya team 2 just arrived in Kenya a few hours ago. Hopefully the rest of the team is through customs at the airport. We had a record fast trip going through customs (no wait at all) and we were able to disembark from our plane and arrive at the ACK Guest House in Nairobi in an hour (it usually takes that long just to get through customs). We are looking forward to God doing great things at our medical camps in Kipkaren. We will be doing some evangelistic crusades preceding the medical camp, but I think we are going to have a significant demad for our clinic since this is the first time we have been in this area. More to come soon.

Mungu Awabariki (God bless all of you),

Matt and Cheryl Tallman

Visiting a local farm, seeing the staff again, leading a prayer dedication service, interviewing new house parents, and much more

We had a long list of items to complete on our short visit to the village this summer. First, and most important, on our list of things to do, was to spend more time with the children at the village. We got to spend more nights in the homes of the children, and more days playing football in the field, or spending more time in the new playground with the younger children at the village.

It was also great seeing staff and old friends at the village as well. Some of them, like Meshack pictured above, we may not see again (at least working at the village, since he'll be retiring in a few months). Others, like Esther, seated next to Maureen, were new friends we got to meet and spend time with at the village. Of course, we also got to spend time with old friends like Ruth Major, from the UK, and new volunteers from the US like Karleigh Vroman and Rachel Gulden.

We also got to spend breakfast at the home of one of our newer staff members, Paula Magoi, visiting her family, and enjoying her hospitality. In addition, she invited us to a friends farm after the breakfast to get more of the local culture and flavor, and also get some new ideas for sustainability and farming at the village. The house was surrounded by 70 acres of fertile farming land including lots of pineapple bushes (I thought pineapples grew on trees until this visit), plenty of the usual maize fields, lots of dairy cows, banana trees, avocado trees, mango trees, sugar cane, and a few other assorted vegetables and fruits. We purchased plenty of avocado for the whopping price of 6 cents each, and pineapple for 25 cents a piece. In addition, the farmer gave us plenty of free sugar cane as a gift to the children at the village (Cheryl and I also tried chewing on a little sugar cane ourselves...very chewy but sweet). Of course, the time and the hospitality at the farm exceeded Western standards as we were fed and treated to lots of food and fellowship. We left the village at 9AM and expected to spend only about 5 to 6 hours visiting the farm, but we were not back until 6PM and we were thoroughly exhausted.

The next Sunday, we were asked to lead the Sunday service, and we were treated to some new dances and new songs at the village in addition to being given the opportunity to speak to the village children and staff. After the service, we had lunch with the families and then we organized a prayer dedication service for the village, the children and the staff. We began organizing this event several weeks before we arrived, as we decided to plan a day of prayer to provide healing, restoration, and dedication for the children at the village, especially those who have been abandoned, abused, neglected, battered, and broken before they came to the Open Arms Village. It was a wonderful time of prayer and healing for the village, that helped lay a foundation for the future.

We also got to visit a neighboring school in Eldoret to give us some fresh ideas for the future growth of the school at the Open Arms Village. In addition, we were able to spend a full day interviewing prospects for our next children's home, and also a children's counselor that is needed at the village. After a full day of interviews, we had to begin to say goodbye to all of our friends, and especially the children at the village as we prepared to have a little fun and relaxation at the end of our time in Africa. We'll share a little more about that in our next blog.

Matt and Cheryl Tallman

Back in Africa

It was a long trip to Kenya this time, but we had fun along the way. We stopped in London for an 8 hour layover, and hopped on the express train from Heathrow to downtown London. After going through security and immigration, it only left enough time to go see Buckhingham Palace, the changing of the guard, Trafalgar Square, lunch at Garfunkels with bangers and mash, mushy peas, a walk through St. James Park, and we could see Big Ben and the Eye (the millenium ferris wheel) from a distance.

We arrived in Nairobi early in the morning and barely had time to hop on a plane to Eldoret, but, after 35 hours of flying, it was great seeing familiar faces at the airport and even better, seeing the children greet us at the village when we arrived.

The flowers were in full bloom at the village, and a variety of beautiful and colorful birds greeted us at the village as well.
On the first full day at the village, we also got to try something new to us and to the children at the village...grilled rabbit. We have raised some rabbitts at the village for almost two years, but no one had tried to eat any until Melvin got out the grill and decided it was time to try something new. It was a huge hit. Good for the sustainability of the village, and the nutrition of the children...but probably bad for the rabbits. Just as big of a hit were the games we brought to play with the children at night. We tried to spend at least one evening in each of the homes while we stayed at the village. First we visited Amani house and handed out card games, matching games, and the most popular item of all, glow sticks. Things got pretty crazy when we turned off the lights and the children started dancing across the room.

After handing out licorice, and other forms of high energy, sugary food to the children we left them with the house parents. After leaving the children happy, energetic, and sleepless, we proceeded to plan the first project on our long list of things to do while we were at the village...a marriage retreat for the now sleep deprived house parents. The marriage retreat turned out to be a lot of fun and a learning experience for us as well as the house parents as we learned about different expectations, roles, and needs for men and women in African and Western society. We had a lot of laughs and a great time together.

We also got to spend some time with the babies at the new Open Arms baby house, an item high on Cheryl's priority list. Cheryl got to hold Dina and Diana (in the photo below on the right she's holding Dina and Diana is lying next to her) two of our newest babies at the village, twins that were abandoned and brought to the village. Dina is wrapped in a blanket made and donated by Rhonda Hobizal.

Two of our favorite babies at the village, Esther and Diana are no longer babies anymore. Esther (pictured above held by Cheryl) is growing quickly as a toddler, and enjoying the ability of walking and exploring everywhere she can around the village. Diana, almost unrecognizable in the photo to the right, has grown so fast, it is hard to believe. She is already in pre-school, which is customary here, at the age of 3. She is also at the top of her pre-school class, and learning quickly.

We will include more on the village, and what we have been doing in our next blog, soon to come out shortly.

Matt and Cheryl Tallman