One Hard Week

This week has been one of the hardest weeks of our lives, but at the same time it has been great. We got to live with one of the best girls ever for three weeks. She came to Mattaw to help with School, her name was Courtney. When she taught, you could tell that she was given more than just a lesson for the day, but incorporated compassion into everyone she came in contact with. It was awesome to end each day, laughing and getting to know Courtney as if she was an old friend. She left early this morning to go back home.

But she is not the only one that we lost today. We talked about a girl in our last blog Esna. She passed almost an hour ago. It is good to know that she is not suffering anymore and gets to rest in the arms of Jesus. My heart hurts for all the suffering that she endured, but the last few weeks she was loved, and well taken care of.

For whoever who reads this, Esna is gone. But pray for all the other girls in the same situation. Pray for them to be rescued and healed, and for them to know that no matter how others might be treating them, there is One who loves them no matter what. And the most ultimate love, love that they have never been shown, true love. The love of Jesus.

Esna’s story goes on, in our hearts, and is a great reminder that there is more to be found and shown the love of Jesus. Esnas left something very special behind, Blessing her beautiful daughter. We are breaking her family curse of poverty and disease. She will be the new start to this family’s line of things that are passed down. Hope. Life. Love. She is a precious girl.

Blessing in her new dress and shoes

We also have been going to the district hospital. Hospitals here have doctors and nurses, but are still very different than what we have in the states. You have to provide someone to take care of your sick. You also have to pay in advance to get treatment sometimes. This was shocking to see babies, 3 months old to young children the last time we went to the hospital. They have been there for a couple of days, waiting for money to get treatment.

There was this grandmother with a 3 month old baby she lifted up his shirt and there was nothing but bones, and his skin was sagging off. She only needed like $3 to start getting treatment for her grandson, which the mother ran off and left with her. Then another women placed a baby in mine arms smaller than the first, this one was not as skinny, but was reaching its tiny little arms up at me and opening its mouth innocently like a helpless bird. Hunger. This brings up a whole different definition. We knew we were in the worst ward in the hospital, but it was not until our last visit we realized it was all malnourished children. Seeing all the different effects of malnourishment was heart breaking. So what did we do, we fed the hungry. Anna went and got some biscuits (Kenyan crackers or cookies) outside and was passing them around, to see the joy that we were given something so small but put smiles on faces that have not been happy for days.

So lets just say, people were just putting children in our arms, we loved on them and pray over them. I am just glad that Jesus sent us Holy Spirit so that we can go on continuing the wonderful work that Jesus started. 

Esnas

Sorry we haven’t updated in a while. Between no electricity, hugging kids, rescuing people, and just being tired we have not got a chance to sit and write. These past couple of weeks have been full of lots of laughter and some tears. We have been to a waterfall, which was absolutely gorgeous. We have played with lots and lots of children. But we have also seen evil and people near death.

                One day a Kenyan social worker called Kim and told her that there was a desperate case and that we needed to come get two girls. We loaded up and headed to a nearby slum. When we arrived se saw trash and lots of it. We go in our parade of white women all eight of us through the slum, needless to say we attracted a crowd. We arrive at a very small mud hut that we all squeeze inside. You cannot see much because it is dark but I could tell that there was someone laying in a bed. This was our first encounter with Esnas. Esnas is a 19 yr old girl that has been trying to take care of her siblings and her own daughter. But now she cannot even take care of herself. She is at the worst stage in AIDs and has many other sicknesses. It is the worst case of desperation that I have ever seen. We prayed over her and  asked God to heal her and took the two girls.          

                We heard again from the social worker that we needed to come get her baby. This baby or what we thought was a baby was found outside in the rain in her own waste. She was very distant and would only go to her 12yr old aunt. But God restores the broken. She is not laughing and playing. Her new family at Mattaw have been so great for her.

                The social worker calls us once more telling us that Esnas is extremely sick and needs to be taken to the hospital. Once again we head to the slums. When we pull up we see kids playing half naked in the ditches. We pass by a boy who can barely walk because he was beaten the night before. We walk by a group of men smoking weed. But this is nothing compared to what we were about to see. We go into the hut and there is this limp body just lying in the bed. The room has a feeling of darkness and sickness. We stand there and try to convince Esnas that she needs to go to the hospital. She had lost hope. We finally convince her. A couple of drunk mamas clean her up and dress her while we wait outside. While waiting a small boy, around 2, runs right into Keela we notice that this little boy is drunk. Oh man. It was so shocking, so much evil and darkness in this area. Esnas is finally ready to go. The drunk stumbling women try to make Esnas walk but with every step she is moaning. I decide just to pick her up and carry her. I was so surprised at how small she was. She weighed between 50-60 lbs! A 19yr old! Most 7 yr olds weigh that much. We put her in the car. Keela had to hold on to her so she wouldn’t bounce all over the car, she had absolutely no body control.

Esnas is now at the hospital where she is daily improving. God is definitely Healer. She has hope again. She can communicate some and she is starting to eat and keep her medicine down. The Lord is working and it amazing to see her improvement even if it is just a little. The kicker is her hospital bill is raising daily. She has to be on so much medicine. But the Lord will provide. If you feel led to help with Esnas and her medical bills let us know.

This is Esnas with Ruthie, the wonderful woman this is helping nurse her back to health. Please pray for provision and continual healing.

Birthdays

Who knew that we would be back in Kitale with the parts of our hearts that we left here. We have already experienced so many things. This past week we have ran around like crazies and loved on beautiful kids. We were not sure what our summer was going to look like but we were completely okay with that. A team of five girls came in to work with Mattaw so we served alongside them this week. It was cool to work with people from different backgrounds but with the same heart to love on the broken. We also got to be a part of rescuing three girls and see them start to heal. We cleaned and organized. We worked hard and played hard. The Lord does amazing things! That’s all.

We also got to throw a birthday party for four of the kids at Mattaw. Their smiles and gratefulness could warm anyone’s heart. The plan is to have a birthday party every week celebrating the lives of four different  kids each week. This may seem strange to most people. Are their birthdays really all that close?No, but Kenyans do not actually know their birthdays. Kim decided that these kids should be celebrated so she likes to throw birthday parties. So part of our summer will consist of making five cakes and decorating every week.

A few of our decorations

Iube opening his gifts

Christine looking at her new dress

Jose looking at his new clothes

Dan smiling so big

Christine in her new clothes

After a long week of snugglin, playing, cooking, and tons of adventures we are a bit tired. So we have taken a true day of rest with watched a chick flick and lying around.  Now we are rested up and ready to run full speed into what the Lord has for us!

We got some really good news this past week. We leave for Kenya May 15^th! We knew that we were going back but it was a bit surreal. But it is soo real now. The plans are in the working and things are started to get nailed down.

When we left Kenya last summer we left part of our hearts and we are so excited and anxious to be reunited with the people that stole them! There are really no words for how excited we are to be back serving and doing the Lord’s work.

So we are going to need your help! Mainly with prayer! For Mattaw, for our hearts, for finances, for Kenya, for guidance.  Also we need to raise around $6,000. Any contribution would  get us closer to serving the broken.

In the next couple months we also will be having “parties” to sell our African crafts and tie dye shirts. But if you want to buy anything before then you can contact us through Facebook or email.

Much Love

Fruit Loop our Yard

We are now in our first full week back in school. But God has really changed our lives totally from this last year. We have a house this year, well of course we are renting a house. We are living with a new roommate this year Rachel Sims. She is a senior at UCA this year, and has been a blessing to live with. We all have our own room this year which is real nice, and for anybody who knows me, my room has been clean this year and I have made my bed everyday (we will just have to see how long this lasts). Klife, a youth ministry that we all volunteer at, has already started and yesterday was the second time having club. We have already got up at 6:30 to go have breakfast with our girls. We are really looking forward to what all this year holds for us, and how God can use all that we learned and experienced in Kenya to better our walk here, and as we keep preparing to go back next summer. Before we came back to school we tie dyed even more t-shirts, so now we have a good variety in every size. We did a couple of things different this time though we did not get to start as early as usual because when we were rolling our shirts Anna's Grandma calls us and needs our help. Of course a job that could have gotten done in thirty minutes or so ended up lasting a couple of hours, so it is a good thing that we are used to Kenyan time. It was suppose to rain that night so after sitting in the sun for what little time they had we finally got to use those useful Wal-mart bags we have been keeping, and I cannot think of a better use for them. The next day my mom and I hung up the shirts and some were still drying by night, and when I went to go grab the last load to wash, the mosquitoes must have thought it was Thanksgiving how they attacked me, but at least I can say that I did not have to worry about these giving me Malaria again. So, if there is anyone in Conway wanting to buy a shirt, candle, or African goodies let us know, well anywhere else, too. We will be updating soon and letting you know how everything has been going.

I forgot to mention why the title is called Fruit Loop our yard. Well, when we were making our last load of shirts and we had opened them all up in my front yard I felt like I was in a bowl of cereal with all the colors, it was like Christmas lights during the day with all the colors shining so bright.  

Mustache Picture

 

Day 1 of Tie Dying

This morning we got an early start on making our shirts. Tie dying is something that both of us really enjoy as everyone should know by now! But today we knew we had our work cut out for us. So we had to upgrade from our plastic cups to ketchup bottles! I know that sounds lame but you try to spoon out all that dye on that many shirts. The two of us were set up in Keela's front yard with our ketchup bottles, dye, tarp, rubber bands, shirts, and music. Every person that drove by almost wrecked because they couldn't stop staring, but who wouldn't in this town. Two girls singing at the top of their lungs with more dye on them than half the shirts is a site to see! One of the best parts was when the furniture moving guys came to the house. They were so amuzed at how the yard had turned into waves of colorful shirts! And they were secretly wishing it was the wrong house. They were laughing when they got out of the truck but again who wouldn't be! After all the laughing and singing and dying we ended up with 80 shirts. All and all a great day. And to top it off we got to see the sunset as we took the shirts off the clothes line. God is good!!

Not the normal set of clothes on the line

These are all for sale

Last step in the process

We are selling these for $12 for adults and $10 for kid sizes. We have all sizes and several designs!