The work my team and I are doing this month is not a rigorous schedule of manual labor like I have become accustomed to; instead we are doing more laid back “fill the need” kind of work. So far I have done one on one talks or counseling with kids. I also assessed their drinking water situation and decided that I could do something to help the kids drink more water. In the first few days I was here I found out that the kids here do not really drink water. Drinking water is just not a part of their routine so I made it my goal to make drinking water readily available and educate and encourage the kids about drinking water.
(Above is the water filtration system that they use, it uses the sun to heat up the water to be safe to drink. On the right is a picture of the poster I made to hang in every classroom.)
I made posters for all the classrooms as a reminder to drink water and to remind them how important it is. We also had a school assembly where we went over keeping your body healthy and the role water plays in that. We have done hygiene education and question and answer times. If the kids do a good job drinking water consistently we are going to have a dance party with snacks at the end of the month which they are all super excited about!
Sometimes it feels like the need here is so great that we cannot even begin to meet it. My heart broke yesterday when a little girl came up to me after our prayer time complaining about her mouth hurting. Her cheek was so swollen on one side that it looked as if her face was lopsided. Her teeth were rotting and she clearly had an infection. I found out that she had lost her tooth brush so she hadn’t been brushing her teeth for who knows how long. These are the kind of gaps that sometimes go overlooked until a problem arises.
The staff here cares a lot about the kids but with so many children to look after there are times when needs go unmet. I have been trying to do what I can to find those areas that are lacking in these kids’ lives and meet those needs. We have done education classes on hygiene, health, and taking care of animals. We are also just playing with the kids, loving on them, and helping them in the classroom.
We had a movie night last Friday where all the kids gathered as we projected The Emperors New Groove on the wall, passed out snacks and had a fun evening together. Another highlight of my stay here has been going on daily runs with the kids. The kids here LOVE running and they are fast! They are always ready to go for a run and they usually run with flip flops or barefoot because many of them do not have adequate shoes. My team and I noticed how great the need is for more shoes here so we are doing what we can to raise money to purchase shoes for the kids who need them the most. If you are interested in helping please let me know! We are planning on purchasing these shoes on July 27th. One pair of school shoes costs around $20 and it would make a huge impact in a child’s life.
The needs here are countless but I know that I by myself can’t do enough to meet all these needs. More than anything the kids need to know they are loved and cared for- and that need I can meet!
I also had the opportunity to preach this past Sunday. It was my first time ever preaching on a Sunday morning and it was a cool opportunity to talk about God’s love for his children and how He believes each one of us are extremely special. After church I went on a 4 hour walk with the kids all around town and we visited the slums of Kitale. We went to the home of a man who is a father to a boy that lives at Great Mercy. We prayed for him and all the kids sang him a song. Many of the kids had tears in their eyes while we were there and I realized that a lot of the kids would be living in that slum if it were not for Great Mercy. This place full of trash, stray animals, and filth would be the place that they would call home if it were not for the refuge of Great Mercy.
Despite all the needs the kids still have they really have so much compared to other children who are living in desperate situations without a roof to sleep under or food to eat.
I am faced with the reality of the needs of the children here in Kenya every day and I am so thankful that I can be here to make a difference no matter how small it may seem.
