Sunday
We woke up Sunday morning with the light
and the chickens on the farm.
We feasted on (semi) tasty black coffee
with a heap of sugar in it and rice and beans for breakfast. When I got here I was SO excited about eating
rice and beans. Now that I eat it for
practically every meal, I’m not so excited anymore.
We returned from camping sleepy and
exhausted at 10:30 am. On our way home
we stopped at a 3rd grocery store in town, Nono grocery. We got an ice cream bar that tasted like the
milk had gotten warm, separated fat from ice, and then re-frozen. Not delicious, but we had already paid for it
and breakfast wasn’t super great either, so I ate it.
I showered and got ready for church at
11. The cafeteria at the Children’s Home
doubles as their Church too. Church
consisted of a lot of praise, then the “choir” got up (which was pretty much
all the girls) and sang some more praise.
Then one of the older girls read Psalms 1:1-2 in Swahili. People here talk a lot in Swahili, which I’m
trying to pick up, but as this is the 4th language I’ve been
expected to learn in 4 weeks, I’ve not quite gotten the hang of it yet.
Then there was more praise until about
noon and then church was over. The girls
were so beautiful praising the Lord, it was precious.
But my heart broke that they didn’t get any
preaching. Apparently, they used to go
to church in town but the pastor preached a bunch on the power of the devil and
very demonic things and wasn’t preaching from the Bible, so the orphanage as a
whole stopped going. They’re missing out
on good, solid teaching of God’s Word.
They have busses to take the girls into town, but that gets expensive
with gas money and they don’t even know if the churches in town preach from the
Bible either.
Please pray for a solution to that!
………………………………………………………………………..
After eating beans for breakfast, Julia,
Stephanie, and I weren’t exactly excited about another lunch of rice and beans
with the girls, so we decided to get creative in the kitchen.
I’m still too terrified to get creative
in the kitchen on my own because they have to light a gas burner with a match,
and that scares me, so I always use the kitchen with other people.
We decided to cook pasta, sauté zucchini
in olive oil garlic and spices, and throw in tomatoes at the end. Sounded delicious. The zucchini was bought fresh from the
market, and was on the verge of going bad, but it still looked pretty
good. Much better than more fried
beans. I started chopping the zucchini
and Julia started the flame and put the olive oil and garlic in the pan. I got to the second piece of zucchini and it
looked a bit funny when I cut into it.
So I cut a second slice farther into the
piece of Zucchini.
And almost died.
Instead of nice, white zucchini insides,
there were inch long brown worms crawling through the zucchini making holes.
I screamed, dropped the zucchini, and
almost vomited. Eeeewwww. I’ve never experienced worms in anything I
was about to eat and I wasn’t too thrilled about it.
Needless to say, Stephanie had to cut
into the remaining zucchini and make sure it wasn’t infested before I would
continue chopping it up. I took over
mango (dessert!) cutting for her and showed her a much simpler technique for
cutting. Fair trade off.
The remainder of our lunch went off
without a hitch. It was delicious, as
previously expected, but I wasn’t really too hungry anymore.
That afternoon we helped Chris and Kayci
pack for America. They were taking two
of the oldest kids with them for a month-long furlough/fundraising
adventure. None of the kids have ever
been to America before, so this was a BIG deal for them! We got old suitcases out of the attic and
were attacked by multiple lizards, lizard eggs, and even a bat before we got
everything cleaned off.
Not your typical attic clean out. Poor baby bat!
Julia and Stephanie have been here about
a month, so they know when we want to eat with the girls and when we
don’t. Sunday nights are a
must-eat! The matrons make rice pilou
(rice with carrots, garlic, ginger, and potatoes) and chicken (which tasted a
bit like rubber, but the sauce it was sitting in was fabulous!)
We each sat with a different table full
of girls and had a blast!
After dinner it was time for the girls to
show off their stellar dance moves!
There was more praise and worship music, in different groups of girls,
accompanied by some dance moves. The
girls were so cute and most of them were already marvelous singers! Then Julia and Stephanie got up to sing and
dance a number. The girls howled and
squealed and erupted with laughter!
They promised me next Sunday night I
could join in on the fun. I don’t think
they realize how abysmal my singing skills are…
We stayed and watched the girls until
about 9:30. The singing continued longer
but we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Being exposed to packs of hungry mosquitoes breeds new reflexes to squat
and squirm and swat at any kind of bug.
Which is harder to do with a precious 6
year old falling asleep on your lap.
We slept well that night thankful for
good food and precious blessings.
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