Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday! He is raised from the dead and He is Lord! “My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long.” Psalms 35:28 Spent the morning in church and the youth pastor spoke today. He is very kind and does some English so we can keep involved. It was great to see all the youth recite their memory verses and hear the choir sing on this glorious Easter morning. After church we went shopping for a birthday cake for Ruth (today was her 38th birthday) and a special meal for the kids. We took the cake, milk, goat meat and flour for chapattis (it’s like a tortilla) to the school and while Ann and Faith were preparing the meal the kids danced and sang for us using a jug for a drum! I loved this kid’s creativity with making a hat out of leaves and sticks!

Before heading to Nairobi on Monday morning I visited Mr. Muindi, a neighbor at the school and the one making our new gate. He’s almost finished with it but here it is in progress. Then in Nairobi we found a coffee house so I was excited, but the main thing was finding more items that were needed at the school. Tala is much smaller than Nairobi so we can’t always find the items we need in Tala. But though Nairobi is bigger you have to know where to find the items you need. So we were lucky in finding a mall with a “circuit city/home depot” type store to get some tools, hair cutting set and possibly a generator (it was getting late so we’ll check around Tala for one and if we can’t find one we’ll pick this one up next time we’re in Nairobi). On the way home from Nairobi it was around 7:30pm and dark. We saw children, about 8 years old, walking along the side of the road by themselves. It was very sad to see.

Update – on Tuesday Chuck and Gideon found a generator in Tala. They ordered it and will have the electrician set it up. We told Ruth about it and she said that would be great because whenever the electricity goes out they have to feel around to find anything – they don’t have any torches (flashlights) or candles to use. I can testify to how dark it gets around here in a blackout. We came home one night to a blackout and parked the car about 20 feet from our door. When the lights went off in the car you couldn’t see the house! So with the kids in the dorm area, which is shaped like a rectangle with a courtyard in the middle of it, it gets very dark with no light and the walls around the courtyard.

A few updates for you on the van: 1) the van is jumping out of reverse now and the driver has to hold the gear shift in place to go backwards 2) the seat next to the sliding door is almost off its bracket – you have to balance yourself on it 3) the sliding door can’t be opened from the outside – you have to reach in through the window and while you are using the handle you have to bang on the other end of the door to get it to move. So keep those donations coming in for the van – remember they are being matched for another week.

I thought this picture was great! My back was aching just watching these women pick through the avocados!

Here are grass-thatched houses that squatters are living in still today. Pauline grew up in this type of house.

I was interviewing the nursery students today and that is like pulling teeth! We had the teacher in with us but still they don’t want to talk! But they are cute!!