Day 4: Sunday, January 15, 2006 (cont.)

After church on Sunday, we went to fellowship hall and were served lunch (buffet style) which consisted of rice; arrow root; a dish made of mashed potatoes and bananas; a dish made of mashed potatoes, peas, maize, and greens; and fresh fruit (watermelon, bananas and melon).

After lunch, we took a brief walking tour of the grounds surrounding the church to see both the parsonage and a children’s classroom building well under construction.

Both of these buildings are being constructed of stone; while the first inclination is that this construction would be cost prohibitive in the States, the stone comes from a nearby quarry and is the most easily accessible material here. Very little wood is used here at all; these buildings, however, do have a roof structure made of wood supporting a metal roof (unlike the new library in which we were told that they could not get the wood in a timely manner). The parsonage appears to have a living area, kitchen, 3 bedrooms (the master one with a bath), as well as a guest bedroom with bath. The children’s classroom building has 3 large classrooms.

We then met briefly with multiple people involved with the Sunday School component of the local church. Like the worship service, they offer Sunday School in both English and Kimeru languages. There is not sufficient enclosed meeting space currently; and the majority of the classes are held outside on the grass. However, the new childhood classroom will provide 3 additional rooms for this function.

Each Sunday School has 2 teachers; and like in the States, teachers are hard to come by.
We discussed the idea of using a rotating schedule for the children where one teacher teaches the same course 4 times to 4 different groups of children and each week the children change instructors. The Methodist Church provides the basic program for the teachers; they are asked to come up with ideas on how to teach the courses. There is not a lot of visual material to use (nor is their the easy ability to hang a poster on a tree either). There is a desire to have moveable partitions within the fellowship hall to create even more classrooms in the future.
There is also a desire to have sufficient teachers and space to provide teaching to the children based on age rather than language. Sometimes, there are 400 – 500 children present.

We then drove (a very short drive, but quicker than “cutting through” by way of walking) to the Meru Methodist Children’s Home which currently accommodates 32 children and 15 workers. We were welcomed by several choruses sung by the children and then given tea, a brief history of the home, and a walking tour of the grounds. The home was a beautiful home and run by an administrator, Reverend David Riungu. The organizational structure appeared to be comparable to a Boys Ranch or Girls Ranch at home.

The home was begun in 1996 as a feeding program for children who were living on the streets of Meru on their way to school. These children were orphaned children living on their own who often found minimal shelter under the large trucks (called lorries here); but they were also often picked up by the police and treated as thieves.

The program then expanded to try and get these students more active in school and then went on to providing them more than one meal a day.

Currently, there are two very nice houses on the property; each is divided into a pod for 8 children and a housemother. Each has a living / kitchenette area, 2 bedrooms (with 2 sets of bunkbeds in each room), and then a bedroom for the housemother, and a bath. There are 3 additional buildings under construction so that they can not only care for 20 more children but also to provide some better separation between infants (which they currently do not have) and older youth.

There are more boys than girls living here, but all are welcomed. There are 3 boys who are currently in secondary school (high school); of these, one is at the top of his class and hopes to go to the university.

After the tour, we met briefly again with all of the students and gave them each a small bag of gifts. The whistles appeared to be a very popular item. Each also contained a hacky sack; Drew showed them how to play with this and there were a couple of boys who seemed to be figuring this out very quickly. We – and the Kenyans in particular since they have been experiencing a drought – were then blessed with rain and we stayed a little longer than intended as it was literally pouring outside. The children sang another couple of songs for us and blessed us on our departure.

From here, we went to dinner at the Mubichi’s home where we were once again served a feast: goat, roasted chicken, another kind of chicken, rice, a mashed potato dish (this one with black beans and green), greens, chapatti, fruit, and ice cream for dessert. We had a very good time of fellowship and ended the day with devotions.

During devotions tonight, some of the following “God sightings” were noted:

The blessing of the rain today
Being hugged by the older ladies in the reception line at the church
Hearing the stories at the children’s home, seeing how far the kids have come, and being able to see Jesus in the hearts of the children
The overall sharing of people as they share the love of God through their actions
The fact that “time” is not a commodity in Africa; and the Kenyan thought that this has helped them become more spiritual since they take time to talk and develop relationships.
The question posed by many people, “How are YOU?” with a desire to really know rather than ask just to be polite.

Submitted by Kellye J