Here it is, Month 11. Scary, huh? Didn't I just start the World Race yesterday? Didn't I just get to good ole' Zion's Gate Ministries and freeze up every time some prepubescent Honduran boy ran towards me? Wasn't it just Month 3 in Nicaragua when my team and I awkwardly fumbled through house-to-house evangelism, fueled by performance anxiety and constant bathroom runs? It seems like I might have dreamed up all these ministries, all these children, all these tender and heart-breaking moments with the Lord. Yet, dreamlike or not, here it is: Month 11 at Challenge Farm in Kitale, Kenya.
Stephanie's team and Rebecca's team (11 women total) were paired up together for this month. We lived at the guesthouse, which cost $35/night to live inside or . . . $3/night for all of us to live in an in-law unit (5 sets of bunk beds, my mattress was on the floor).
The guest house, with our white 'tent of reconciliation' peeking out from the back. Our room was behind the garage.
When 11 women's things in the 11th month of the World Race get shoved into a teeny, tiny living space.
Bunkmates.
This was our eating, hanging out, team time, and prayer hut. Behind it is the showers and toilets, pumped with fresh (cold) well water. Since our contact this month was American we always had toilet paper! Sometimes it takes an American to truly understand why having these things on hand are important.
Challenge Farm was an orphanage for street kids from the surrounding Kitale region. Most of them used to be addicted to sniffing glue (gets you high and suppresses hunger at the same time). While we stayed there, their head count was 135 children from ages 4 up through 20. The Farm had a Posho Mill (to grind maize into flour for ugali), a farm (complete with cows, chickens, rabbits, and more), a primary school (secondary students walked to nearby schools and a few young adults were in university), a playground, cafeteria, kitchen, girls' and boys' dormitories, chapel, library, and staff offices.
Children's playground.
Staff room.
Chapel with adjacent library.
Kitchen.
Cafeteria. We ate lunch and dinner with the children every day. I sat at the youngest boys' table!
My little ones for the month.Sometimes we would throw food at each other (occasionally, they're really well-behaved), other times they would make me sing to them during meal times, and any time a camera was out they'd go a little nuts.
The ministry this month was varied for the entire group. Some ladies painted murals in the chapel, others did fix-it jobs around the guesthouse property. Rebecca and I were tasked to helping type up files and organize general paperwork in the Social Work office, and we spent a good week plus organizing, alphabetizing, and electronically recording the Challenge Farm library. I got to read a lot of the backgrounds of the kids at the Farm while typing up their records and it was at once heartbreaking from circumstance and uplifting from hope.
My little visitors, Mercy and Dino, during work.
Spirit ROAR after our last Kenyan church service.
I learned from these kids this month that there is always hope, because our hope ultimately rests in God.
I dreamed earlier this month that I was filling out prophecy cards for a ministry contact and I wrote 'The word for the month is . . . peace' and I scratched out peace (because that was last month's theme) and instead wrote 'joy'. And in reality, that's exactly what this month was.
