Our three fish ponds
became the local hotspot when we announced to our neighbors that we’d be
selling fish. The community came out in
droves with buckets, baskets, and cooking pots eager to purchase their evening
meal. All told, it was ordered chaos as
the locals bargained for better prices and some even requested that they be
given fish for free. While no one got
free fish, everyone went home happy—except, of course, the fish.
We hosted our first
annual Jungle Jog 5K. Children from Kenya Relief Orphanage joined in the fun
with juice, cookies, and awards following the race. The day wound up with a soccer game and lunch
of rice and beans to feed over 100.
In the spring, we held
our annual Staff Appreciation Dinner.
This was a fancy event with a big dinner of fish, chips, chicken, tomato
salad, chapatti (fried flat bread), rice, and sodas. We had a raffle and door prizes in the dining
hall, which was decked out in Island decorations and boasted tropical
music. Our island-themed party was thanks
to Life Way’s donation of leftover Aloha VBS materials, complete with a 6-foot
blowup pineapple. The oversized
pineapple was a crowd favorite and much-envied door prize.
Temple of Christ, Opasi
built a widow’s home out of mud and corrugated tin. Sherwood helped with the construction and I
visited with some of the local teenagers.
Everybody had a job, from the men who built the frame and put on the
roof; to the grandmothers who cooked lunch and dinner; to the women who mixed
manure, dirt, and water to make mud for the walls; to the teenage girls who
fetched water for cooking and to make the mud.
We think it’s important
to teach young people the value of serving others. As a starting place, we enlisted several 8th
graders to lead the children’s Sunday school class. It’s been rewarding to watch these kids, some
of whom are generally quite shy, blossom into capable leaders and examples to
the younger children.
International Sports
Fellowship sent a team to us for two weeks this summer. They did sports evangelism in the local
schools, encouraged teachers, passed out Bibles and prayed with people at the
hospital, shared with the women’s Bible study group, Ran a VBS for kids in the
village, and spent lots of time pouring into the lives of our children. This outstanding group of young people had
more energy and passion than is typical, and we were all grateful for, and
encouraged by, their visit.
After receiving a
sizeable donation of clothing from a Kenyan family of six sisters, our children
who received clothes experienced the joy of giving when they went through their
old clothes and selected items to donate to the children at Bright Future
Children’s Home, a needier Kenyan-supported orphanage with no western support. (No pic)
Our friends, Reverends
Sonji and Sonia, conducted an HIV/AIDS and abstinence interactive workshop with
our kids in the fall. I’ve never seen so
many creative and engaging activities that afford the opportunity for hands-on
learning in such a condensed period of time, but our friends kept the kids
active and engaged for hours at a time. Later in the weekend when the reverends shared
with the youth Sunday school class at church, over a dozen youth prayed to
accept Christ.
We sponsored our 3rd
annual Flip-Flop 5K in Migori with Carol’s House and Bright Future Children’s
Homes joining us for the race, soccer game, and lunch.
A medical team through
Vision of Hope came to our village and stayed at The Hope Center while they treated
many individuals in our community. This
team also loved interacting with our kids and spent invaluable time investing
in them.
Sherwood’s family came
for their second visit. While they were
with us, among other activities, they helped construct a church building on
land they purchased so they won’t have to keep renting space for Temple of
Christ, Opasi. They also built a widow’s
home.
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