Back in the City!

So...its been a few days since We've written anything. We just got back today to Nairobi. It was a six hour car ride from Eldoret...another town in Kenya. We traveled to three different places this week. We went to Kericho, Shirut/Koitabut, and Eldoret. I had said that Kericho was the place of Tea feilds. In Kericho we did the childrens program and met with the widows. It was fun to watch the kids do their traditional african dance. We left Kericho to go to Shirut and Koitabut. They are much smaller than Kericho and they have no electricity. hmmm...yes you are thinking the same thing I am, ha. No showers, tv, or toilet...ha. We stayed in a mud hut/house. The house reminded us of a Hobbit house!! It had several rooms, but the house was short...like I was as tall as the door ways! Ha...we'll try to put up some pics of it. Betsye and I shared a room here. It was so dark at night...so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face. We journaled by lantern at night. In the morning we took a bucket bath....mmm...my favorite. You were in a little wooden shack outback, and you had a bucket full of cold water and a bucket full of hot water. You were to mix the two buckets to make warm water and then you poured it on yourself. It wasn't too bad...just different and I don't think I could do that forever. Then the potty (out house) was interesting. It was a clean out house at least. Except...everytime I went out to use it...there would be a ton of lizards in there! ah! it freaked me out. Once again there was no variety in the food...we had just killed the chicken and cooked it...some rice and pumpkin leaves...it was good...I was just a bit bored with it. We were both really really exhausted by this point. We had done a lot of traveling...and meeting new people does wear you out.
So....out here in the village there are some kids who have never seen a Mzungu (white person) before, and the others ahve only seen a Mzungu a few times. So...everywhere we went we drew a crowd of children. There was one time Betsye and I were sitting at a table filling out some papers and we looked up to see about 15 kids just standing there staring at us. Yup, they had been there for about 2o minutes just looking at us...they never said a word. Then the pastor came out and told them to all leave. When were driving to a ladies house, I saw a little girl that we passed and I could see her and she just mouthed the word, WOW! ha it was funny because they all yell Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu! and point. It was kinda hard for us to just get used to people just standing around staring at us.
I am tired of eating so much!!! We are guests in everyones house and so they feel like they have to make us some food..we have to eat it or we offend them...but guess what we are doing all day? visiting peoples houses!!! so we just get to eat a lot. We met with the widows again in Shirut. Betsye and I had to talk in front of them. We were to give them some encouraging words or a story of how God has been faithful to us etc. I was a bit nervous...but they told me I did fine. We had a translator with us. There were about 21 widows there. We then drove to koitabut and spoke to the widows there. There were about 95 widows with a few single mothers there!! now...thats a lot. Betsye and I had to talk in front of them again! this time I was a bit more nervous because there were a lot of them. But we did fine...they liked what I had to say. The superintendent of the church, James, told me I did a good job, and that they were surprised when I got up there and began to TEACH. He said I had a lot of wisdom that they weren't expecting because I am young still. So that was encouraging...that they liked it so much. It was still sad hearing all the widows stories, but it is also very cool to hear how they have persevered and grown closer to God. This group of widows meets everynow and then to pray and encourage one another. They also raise money as a group and give it each month to the widow who is in need the most, which is cool because they don't have money to begin with.
While in koitabut we stayed at Mama Evelyns house. She is a widow that lives with several of her grandchildren. Mama Evelyn wanted me to tell all ya'll hello. We exchanged addresses because she wants us to send her a post card sometimes :) It is sad to hear how society here treats widows. They treat widows as outcasts...they no longer get respect. Relatives are very hard on them and a lot of the times disown them even though their husbands died and they couldn't do anythign about it.
We went to church yesterday morning and church went for three hours! Shoot...if church went that long in the states people would complain so much. We had communion. Church is a lot more charasmatic here. We had to sing a song with Vickie in church today! I was nervous..because I can't sing! but it went alright, ha...and now I can't get it out of my head. Its a song in Swahili. After church a widow gave me a necklace that her and some orphans had made and she told me that everytime I wear it I need to remember them.
Well, I am very happy to be back in Nairobi. I took a nice hot shower! I ate some ice cubes! ha...while in the villages..I just kept wanting a coke so bad!! Tomorrow is going to be an easy day for us...so we can rest up. We watched finding nemo tonight, ha...because we had been quoting it so much this past week.
Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!