Thursday June 21 and each day there after began around 6 a.m. [we had an alarm but the local Roosters would have worked too as they did crow before daylight.] Breakfast was at 6:45 – consisted of scrambled eggs and toast – and yes, I brought my French Press and Starbucks – don’t laugh – there were many on the Team that were very happy about that.

Around 7:15 we began our trek up the hill [dirt and rocks] out of Safari Village to the main road [yes dirt] and then up another hill [more dirt and rocks might as well know now there is no pavement] to arrive for morning Staff devotions at 7:30 a.m. – often we were accompanied on our walk by students arriving at school as well. At 8 a.m. the students had assembly and then they were off to their classes. Since the majority of our Team are teachers, they were each assigned a teacher from grade 1 – 4 and then a couple of the teachers who work with upper end students floated between grades 5-8. One Team member is a librarian and she helped to organize the school library. My main role was to be Orphan Overseer Lillian’s shadow as well as offer some help regarding classroom discipline and that is where all my prayers were answered! Will get into that in a moment, but first allow me to explain our weekends.

On Saturday June 23rd we had ‘in service’ for the teachers – I was up first and as those of you who have been through our classes or read any of our books, the first place to start is who we are in relation to who God is – sharing about how precious we are as demonstrated through the Cross – we are not the product of evolutionary chance etc. Even though the school is Christian and the teachers have all made professions of faith – the history of the Loa tribe and still practiced by some, allows for more than ‘one wife’ and she can be ‘purchased’ for cows etc. so women are not necessarily held in high regard as a person and because of the high infant/child mortality rate it – well let’s say it is different than what most of us know. In addition when you understand that the majority of the children at CGA are orphans or at least one of their parents has died – children do not start school at the same developmental place as most of our children start. Anyway, I had about 90 min. to cover a lot of ground and because of your prayers, believe that goal was accomplished. Aside from our “Chai” break [yes I brought my press] and lunch, it was pretty much non-stop workshops until mid day. On Sunday we were each assigned a teacher to attend church with – I went with Lillian. Her husband Ezekiel is a pastor – the service was in both English & Loa and went for 3+ hrs. with children in attendance as well – will be the last time you complain when your Pastor goes over an hour or hour and a half. :-) After the service we went to ‘our’ teacher’s home for lunch. Where there some stories to share that night when we regrouped!

Kenya Report – Part IV