Thursday 7/29
In the morning Ryana and I went to the Church to help out in the preschool and primary children’s classrooms. When we arrived the children were sitting in class “taking tea” aka “drinking” chocolate and a snack. It was their last day of school for the break and after they finished we all went outside to play games. The teachers announced that we were going to lead them in games. Which we hadn’t planned to do, but we quickly came up with a few games and started teaching them. Suddenly we noticed that the teachers had disappeared and 2 hours later we were still outside with the children struggling to think of games to play with them. The older boys all wanted to play soccer which they call football and the younger kids just wanted to hang out with Ryana! It was a great morning!
In the late afternoon we met with Bishop Kamau and Pastor Amos and made plans to visit an orphanage in Nakuru on Friday. We were supposed to visit the baby elephant sanctuary, but we chose to visit baby humans instead ;)
I spent the afternoon preparing my materials for the parenting seminar I am leading on Saturday and the girls just chilled. It was a relaxing afternoon.
Friday 7/30
Visit to Nakuru – St. Ann’s Baby and Children Home.
Jimmy picked us up for our 2 hour drive to Nakuru. We stopped at the supermarket to buy some things to take to the orphanage; tea, drinking chocolate, sugar, biscuits and cooking oil; basic food staples.
Ten minutes away from Nakuru all traffic stopped. Several cars in front of us had stopped in the road because there had just been an accident right in front of us. A matatu (a taxi van) and a pickup truck had a head on collision and several people were dead and many others were trapped in the vehicles. They had to pry the car doors off to get the injured people out. It was horrible. As Jimmy got out to see what he could do, we prayed for the injured and the families of the dead. We were so thankful for God’s protection; it could so easily have been our car in that accident.
It took quite a while to clear a path for traffic and we finally arrived at the orphanage as the children were finishing their lunch of rice and beans. They were so excited to see us. Our heavy hearts from the accident scene lightened with the sight of the children. After a quick tour of the house we ended up in the playroom with the children. They all wanted to be held and cuddled and they pulled out books for reading. We enjoyed a crazy hour with about 20 children from age 2 to 4 years old. They are so adorable! After a while it must have been nap time because some of the children started crying and would not be consoled. So the staff took them all outside to work off a little energy before nap time.
We sat down to talk with Irene, the founder of the 3 year old orphanage. I asked her to share her story of how the orphanage got started. She was living in London with her family and had never worked with children except her own, but felt God’s call to return to Kenya and care for the abandoned children in Nakuru. Her orphanage takes newborn abandoned children and nurses them to health. The stories are amazing and heart wrenching; brand new babies rescued from pit toilets (can you imagine a newborn baby surviving that?!), from the bush, from dumpsters, from the river bank (they named that boy Moses ;) I can only imagine the desperation of the mothers who abandon their children to the elements and certain death. These are all miracle babies; each one should have died of exposure, disease, drowning in the latrine. Yet here they play, beautiful, healthy precious toddlers and pre school children.
When Irene told us the story of how she started the orphanage and that she named it after her youngest daughter Ann because it was an extension of her family, I was done in. My heart was captured by the children and the love of this woman and the tremendous need for these adorable little ones to be placed into real families. Ryana has been aggressively petitioning me to adopt 2 or 3 or all 20 and take them home, but I think God has other plans for my involvement.
We returned to our hotel thoughtful and hungry. As we sat down to dinner, we discussed our day. Each of us felt the same heart beat; to raise funds to support this orphanage, these children and the Kenyan families willing to foster or adopt them. Kenya makes it virtually impossible for international adoption. They require both parents to spend 3 months in Kenya bonding with the child before the adoption process even begins. So our united thoughts are to sponsor Kenyan families to adopt the children. Each child fostered or adopted will not only provide them a family, but will free up room at St. Ann’s for another rescued newborn requiring round the clock care to be nursed to health.
In the morning Ryana and I went to the Church to help out in the preschool and primary children’s classrooms. When we arrived the children were sitting in class “taking tea” aka “drinking” chocolate and a snack. It was their last day of school for the break and after they finished we all went outside to play games. The teachers announced that we were going to lead them in games. Which we hadn’t planned to do, but we quickly came up with a few games and started teaching them. Suddenly we noticed that the teachers had disappeared and 2 hours later we were still outside with the children struggling to think of games to play with them. The older boys all wanted to play soccer which they call football and the younger kids just wanted to hang out with Ryana! It was a great morning!
In the late afternoon we met with Bishop Kamau and Pastor Amos and made plans to visit an orphanage in Nakuru on Friday. We were supposed to visit the baby elephant sanctuary, but we chose to visit baby humans instead ;)
I spent the afternoon preparing my materials for the parenting seminar I am leading on Saturday and the girls just chilled. It was a relaxing afternoon.
Friday 7/30
Visit to Nakuru – St. Ann’s Baby and Children Home.
Jimmy picked us up for our 2 hour drive to Nakuru. We stopped at the supermarket to buy some things to take to the orphanage; tea, drinking chocolate, sugar, biscuits and cooking oil; basic food staples.
Ten minutes away from Nakuru all traffic stopped. Several cars in front of us had stopped in the road because there had just been an accident right in front of us. A matatu (a taxi van) and a pickup truck had a head on collision and several people were dead and many others were trapped in the vehicles. They had to pry the car doors off to get the injured people out. It was horrible. As Jimmy got out to see what he could do, we prayed for the injured and the families of the dead. We were so thankful for God’s protection; it could so easily have been our car in that accident.
It took quite a while to clear a path for traffic and we finally arrived at the orphanage as the children were finishing their lunch of rice and beans. They were so excited to see us. Our heavy hearts from the accident scene lightened with the sight of the children. After a quick tour of the house we ended up in the playroom with the children. They all wanted to be held and cuddled and they pulled out books for reading. We enjoyed a crazy hour with about 20 children from age 2 to 4 years old. They are so adorable! After a while it must have been nap time because some of the children started crying and would not be consoled. So the staff took them all outside to work off a little energy before nap time.
We sat down to talk with Irene, the founder of the 3 year old orphanage. I asked her to share her story of how the orphanage got started. She was living in London with her family and had never worked with children except her own, but felt God’s call to return to Kenya and care for the abandoned children in Nakuru. Her orphanage takes newborn abandoned children and nurses them to health. The stories are amazing and heart wrenching; brand new babies rescued from pit toilets (can you imagine a newborn baby surviving that?!), from the bush, from dumpsters, from the river bank (they named that boy Moses ;) I can only imagine the desperation of the mothers who abandon their children to the elements and certain death. These are all miracle babies; each one should have died of exposure, disease, drowning in the latrine. Yet here they play, beautiful, healthy precious toddlers and pre school children.
When Irene told us the story of how she started the orphanage and that she named it after her youngest daughter Ann because it was an extension of her family, I was done in. My heart was captured by the children and the love of this woman and the tremendous need for these adorable little ones to be placed into real families. Ryana has been aggressively petitioning me to adopt 2 or 3 or all 20 and take them home, but I think God has other plans for my involvement.
We returned to our hotel thoughtful and hungry. As we sat down to dinner, we discussed our day. Each of us felt the same heart beat; to raise funds to support this orphanage, these children and the Kenyan families willing to foster or adopt them. Kenya makes it virtually impossible for international adoption. They require both parents to spend 3 months in Kenya bonding with the child before the adoption process even begins. So our united thoughts are to sponsor Kenyan families to adopt the children. Each child fostered or adopted will not only provide them a family, but will free up room at St. Ann’s for another rescued newborn requiring round the clock care to be nursed to health.
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