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

The end of my Kenya trip and back home

Matt at the feeding program in Kambi Teso Children's Home #6 is getting built

Right now I am sitting in the Nairobi airport where the air is hot and humid (sorry I didn't get this posted until two weeks after I wrote it). It always seems that way as I pass through here, but when you've been enjoying a much more temperate climate in Eldoret, Kenya, with highs in the low 80s year round, and you're flying to Portland, with a current high of about 45 to 50 degrees, the air in the Nairobi airport seems downright stiffling.

It has been a whirlwind tour the last twelve days in Africa and far too short. Nevertheless, it has been good as the Open Arms board has been able to map out a plan for the future of the Open Arms Village and how we can proceed as we add new children, new homes, and new ministry opportunities to the village. After a busy week with board meetings, the weekend seemed rather slow, as we were able to go swimming with the children in Upendo House on Saturday down at the river. Matt took on the role of a crocodile chasing after the children in the swimming hole as they giggled and screamed to get away. Sunday was a memorable day as the village participated in another guardian's day at the village where relatives, extended families, and friends of the children were invited to come and visit. Matt was asked to speat at the church service, as 53 children, about 35 staff members, and about 50 to 60 visitors and guardians from the community enjoyed the festivities. About a dozen adults responded to an invitation to become Christians, and all of the adults responded to a re-commitment to help oversee the welfare of the 53 children at the village.

The newest member of the Open Arms Village, Agnes, arrived just three days before Guardian's Day, less than 2 years old, living on the streets of Eldoret and all of her life thus far, and now a recent orphan. She is adjusting well to life at the village, but she is having a difficult time sleeping through the night. Nevertheless, she is smiling, happy, and eating well.

On Monday, Matt and David went into town to do a little shopping and get haircuts (a haircut in Eldoret is a much better deal - about $4 - and they do a good job). While we wre waiting at an appointment, Matt noticed the clock on the wall had a brand name of "Sicko". Must be a poor knockoff of Seiko but they didn't consider the awkward English translation (a quick Google search didn't reveal any web page that "Sicko" has for any clock manufacturers).

David also informed Matt of a few other strange and serious developments in Kenyan culture while they were admiring the Sicko clock on the wall. Recently, David recieved a letter from a pastor who called himself a "Minister to Road Carnage" (apparently the matatu drivers in Kenya have been getting worse and more lethal with their driving skills). On a much more serious note, David and Matt discussed the treatment of street children in Eldoret as a particular policeman in Eldoret has been on a recent rampage to eliminate the population of street children through any means possible, including shooting children, throwing battery acid in the faces of children, using whips, police dogs, and other means of intimadation and torture. Fortunately, a national journalistic team will feature an expose of the policemen's injustice hopefully ending his career as a policeman.

I just boarded the plane and the air conditioning feels wonderful. Looking forward to an uneventful flight and a warm hug from Cheryl when I get back to Portland.

Until next time,

Matt

Back in Kenya

Hi everyone, It has been awhile since my last post. I apologize, but I thought I would take a hiatus since I was back in the US, but I got the chance to come back to Kenya for some meetings this month, and Cheryl and I get to come back for a longer stay in July. Hopefully, I will interject a few blogs over the next few months as we continue our adventures in Africa. I also have to apologize for the lack of photos. They are on my camera, but I have not downloaded the program for my camera to my new computer yet. I will add some photos at a later time. I arrived back in Kenya on the evening of March 31 after an uneventful flight across the Atlantic with one layover in Amsterdam. I was feeling a little sleep deprived, but it helped that I had plenty of reading material and movies to watch on the plane. After I arrived in Nairobi, I was ready to go to bed. I woke up the next morning, and it seemed like I had never left Kenya. The weather was wonderful, about 80 degrees and sunny, the matatu drivers are still crazy, and the streets of Nairobi are still bustling full of people. I spent the morning and afternoon running a few errands in Nairobi for Open Arms, and then got to the airport early for my flight to Eldoret. They didn't know what to do with me at the check in counter. Even though they complemented me for showing up early (3 hours before the flight departed), they wouldn't let me check in my luggage until 2 hours before flight departure. I got to Eldoret safely, and we went out for dinner at one of our favorite places, Mamma Mias. It was good to see our old friend Ricki managing the restaurant, and to say hello to some of the waiters who recognized me from frequenting the place so often. We hopped back in the van and took some luggage over to one of the children's homes, and got to say hi to all the children in Upendo. It was so good to hear them say "Daddy Matt" and greet me with open arms. So many of the children have been growing, and I saw several new faces. Upendo House is bursting at the seams, beyond capacity, with 18 children, but soon the next children's home will be opened to help with the always growing demand for more children to come to the village. The next day we had church at the village, and afterwards, we got to go swimming with the children in the river. It was so cute to see Esther and Belle swim in the river for the first time. With the dry season, the river is very low, but there are some shallow pools that the smaller children can safely swim in. It was a great time seeing the children have so much fun. On Monday, our meetings got started with introductions, and from there we had four very busy days, with some marathon planning sessions that will help bring direction for the future of Open Arms over the next several years. It was great to actually see all the board members together from the three separate boards in the US, UK, and Kenya, get a chance to know some new people, and reacquaint myself with some old friends. It seemed like after some exhausting meetings every day I went to bed early every night. The only excitement was on Tuesday night seeing an Atlas Moth fly into the guest house which caused quite a bit of excitement. For those of you who don't know, the Atlas Moth, so I've been told, is the largest moth in the word, and this particular moth had a wing span of about 6 or 7 inches, although Cheryl and I saw one at Mt. Elgon, Kenya that had a wing span of about 8 inches. Some people thought it was a bat when it first flew in, but we managed to shut off the lights, and safely lead it outside, where it flew around one of our outside lights for awhile. Now the meetings are over, and I actually have a little time to blog. I will try and send another blog this weekend. Until then, Matt (and Cheryl the next time we come to Kenya)

Busy in Africa, back in America

The last few months have been both amazing and familiar, wonderful and bittersweet, full of change, goodbyes, hellos, tears, and smiles. In early Jul

y we moved out to the village and began to enjoy more time with the children and more sleep at night (there were no dogs barking, no car horns honking, no Islamic call to prayer at 5AM from the local mosque, and even the roosters crowing were far enough away so not to be heard until after we were awake.

Shortly after we moved to the village, a team of 23 volunteers from the UK and the US came to stay at the village to help volunteer with a medical camp that Open Arms was sponsoring in the Kambi Teso slum of Eldoret. One of them brought a gift for the chief welfare officer at the village, Meshack via one of our volunteers Anna, who had heard that Meshack was a trombone player who had lost his instrument 10 years ago. When

Meshack picked up his trombone and began to play, it brought tears to the staff and volunteers who began to hear his rendition of Amazing Grace.

One of the first projects Matt began to work on when he moved to the village was to start a small convenience store or kiosk where the staff and construction workers at the village could buy our excess eggs, milk, and chickens, and where the local villagers could buy their local supplies. Meshack was the general manager, and Matt helped get the store stocked and got a lesson in what sells in Kenya (Matt spent 10 years working in the grocery business in the U.S. so he thought he knew). What sold the most in our little convenience store? Candy, soda (no surprise there), phone cards (to add minutes), bracelets and necklaces that the children at the village make and sell for the Western guests, kerosene (for lamps since most of our neighbors aren't hooked up to electricity yet), cooking fat (at a convenience store?), eggs, flour, sugar, and bar soap (for washing your clothes by hand). Anyway, the convenience store is doing well now, plenty of customers, and some happy neighbors who don't have to walk so far now to get their sugar, flour, kerosene, and bar soap.

After getting the store started, Matt and Cheryl got busy with setting up the medical camp along with the 23 other volunteers. Soon people started lining up at medical camp. It was five days of long hard work, helping with crowd control, praying with people, playing with children, helping the doctors and nurses, and distributing medicine from the prescriptions. We treated over 1800 people during the medical camp, prayed with hundreds of people, saw people with everything from cataracts to worms, and we even saw God heal some of them. 95 people decided to become Christians.

At the end of the week, we were pretty exhausted and tired, but still elated and excited to see what God did during the week. On the last day, we were tearing down the camp, and it started to rain as we were packing up to leave (it was the rainy season in Kenya) We hurried to get out of the area because we had already been stuck in the mud once on the way back to the village, and we made it past the area we got stuck in a few days earlier only to get stuck again further down the road, and this time we couldn't get out. We pushed and pushed the bus, only to get stuck even more. Finally after an hour we gave up since it was getting dark and decided to try again in the morning. We told the office that we were stuck and they sent out the truck to pick up as many of us as they could. We managed to fit 7 in the cab, and 20 in the back, and the rest of us began to walk back to town. Cheryl stood with 20 other girls in the back of the pickup in the driving rain while Matt began to walk the 7 miles back to the office with about 8 other guys. On the way back, the pickup truck got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams and Matt and the guys wound up beating the girls to the office. They were all cold and wet, and it was a good thing that electricity finally came to the village that night so everyone could take hot showers.

After all the hard work, Matt and Cheryl settled back at the village and Cheryl got her hair braided by the children. She also got to spend some time in the traditional village kitchen learning how to make chipatis and drinking chai. Matt and Cheryl watched Meshack play the trombone and church a few more times, and we had another team of volunteers from Portland come and help paint the children's homes and the school. We had a great time painting with them and playing with the children. As they enjoyed one of their last sunsets in Kenya, we were also preparing to leave Africa.

The toughest part of leaving was all of the goodbyes. We said goodbye to members of our volunteer team who were heading back to America before us. We also had to do some last minute shopping in town so we said goodbye to the Nakumatt where we did all of our shopping (we also said goodbye to our favorite taxi driver, Douglas, standing with Matt in front of the Nakumatt store). We ran into our friend George at the Eagle Hardware Store in Eldoret and said goodbye to him. We said goodbye to Elizabeth at our favorite souvenier shop in Eldoret. We said goodbye to a random lady in a phone charging station (where you go to give your phone an electrical charge when you live without electricity but with a cell phone) and goodbye to downtown Eldoret.

The hardest part of course was saying goodbye to the children and the babies. We got to spend some time playing with Diana and Esther before we left. We even got to celebrate Esther's first birthday and watch her take her first steps in life. We also spoke at out last Sunday morning service at the village while wearing some traditional African clothing. There was a going away campfire for us at the village a few nights before we left, and some kind words were said, but the hardest part was watching our last sunset in Eldoret and a goodbye party at one of the children's homes the night before we left. We said some goodbyes to the children and the houseparents, but as we left we had a lot of mixed emotions about saying goodbye to some lifelong friends, some children, and babies and getting ready to say hello to friends and family in Portland.

Before we left Kenya, we spent two days in Nairobi accompanying our friend Ruth from the UK and saying goodbye to her as we visited the Giraffe Sanctuary where Cheryl got kissed by a giraffe. We also visited the Kozuri Bead shop in Nairobi where hundreds of mothers are employed to help provide for their families. We helped support them as Cheryl spent most of our remaining money on souveniers. We also went to the National Museum in Nairobi and got a little culture before we got on the plane ride home to America

In Portland, friends and family were waiting for us as more tears, tears of happiness, were shed, and lots more hugs were given. It was great to get back to familiar faces, foods, sounds, and scenery, but occasionally something or someone triggers our memories of things, people, and life in Kenya. We have adjusted fairly well, moved back into our house, and back to work, but there are still some things that are difficult to become acclimated to. The driving in Portland is actually kind of boring now after driving on potted roads with constant obstacles. The food in Portland is more familiar and we have no complaints except for the few pounds that we've put back on in the past few weeks. We actually found ourselves craving Mexican food when we got back since there are no Mexican restaurants in Kenya.

We thought of a lot of things we haven't had for the past year (mostly very minor things). No flavored creamer for our coffee. No television (they have television in Kenya, but almost exclusively soap operas in Swahili). No reliable internet. No good ice cream (mostly stuff that tasted like ice milk and is more expensive). I am sure I can make this list a lot longer and maybe include some more in our next blog.

Of course there are also things we will miss now that we're back in Portland. Most of all the children at the village and the life-long friends that we have made over the past year. We look forward to seeing them again when we got to Africa again next year.

Until then,

Matt and Cheryl