We are still missing two pieces of our luggage which contained two days of our ministry materials for the school. We have been having to make some changes to our planned presentations for the kids. This is one reason we continually stress FLEXIBILITY when we go on mission trips. Things never go as planned and you learn to expect the unexpected and just go with it. Today was one of those days as we made changes hour by hour and the kids and teachers loved whatever we did as we made it up as we went along. We brought story books and coloring pages and each of us took a class and read a story. They absolutely love coloring and can be quiet for an hour just coloring. The colors are always bright and upbeat, and you see their personalities in the pictures.
We were also to visit about 6 families, but because the person we had hoped to come and interpret was unable, so we decided to just visit two families close by. Teacher Rachel (Baby Class) was asked to accompany Arlene and Suzan to do the visits. Cindy and Erin took Racheal’s class while we were gone for the visits. Cindy, Erin and Paul have some delightful stories of their experience trying to “herd butterflies” in the Baby Class of 14 kids. How can 14 three year olds outwit two trained professional teachers and a gray haired man.
The first family visit was the saddest as it was the young mother and her siblings who had just lost her small 3 yr. old daughter. Her daughter, little Mary, was a one of the children that had died the week before we arrived. Mary was in our Baby Class. I don’t want to go into all the details only to say she had drowned in the little river that runs the bottom of Huruma where the women wash. Along with her was her 2-1/2 yr. friend Francis who also drowned. It was a hard visit. We brought a food basket for the family and a framed picture of little Mary and prayed with the mother. The family is being surrounded by so many in the community.
Our next visit was with another young mother who has 2 children at the school and now has a 4-month-old son. She asked that we pray for her to get a job to care for her three children.
As we walked back through the narrow passages crowded in by rusted homes and climbed the steep rugged hill back up to the school we were overcome by the awareness of the need of these children to have a safe and loving place for them to go to school and have a chance of a life better than the one they are now surrounded by.
