This week so far...

Hello!

Our first week teaching has almost flown by so fast! Tomorrow will mark the end of our first official week teaching the Bible. The first week of our stay was to observe LDO/the orphans, start on projects, and attend KDPL. Our camp is a 15-day one, running over three weeks and not including the weekends.

KDPL was last weekend, and the team has decided to attend only Saturday’s events (with the exception of two who also attended Sunday’s affairs). I unfortunately was very sick the previous night, so I had to stay behind for the morning events. I decided to try and attend around lunchtime, but to find that I was still not well, and had to come back to LDO. Almost all of the team has been sick up to this point, except Alexa! Lance did warn us that we all WILL get sick and it’s from adapting to the food here. He explained it as American bacteria in our stomachs are fighting with new Kenyan bacteria. During that period, we all will have nausea, diarrhea, and even vomit. That being said, I had all symptoms and was confined to bed rest. Moises was hit with this earlier last week. But that being said, Moises still stayed at KDPL for their Saturday afternoon activities. From what I heard, it was enjoyable, and filled with singing and people sharing their stories.

Sam's Place, where KDPL was hosted

Moises having a chat with another missionary

Lots singing and dancing

The crowd at KDPL

Each of us has been assigned two Bible stories to teach on a certain day. Since one of my stories is Creation/Adam and Eve, it was only logical that I teach the first day, Monday. I taught all orphans at once in a classroom about what God did for us in the first seven days. Then discussed Adam and Eve’s story, including the Garden of Eden and the sneaky snake.

Sarah giving us a refresher course on Creation/Adam & Eve before the actual lesson.

Alexa taught about Noah’s Ark on Tuesday. Then Moises taught about the life of Moses (how ironic?) on Wednesday. The story included Moses as a baby, discovered in the river, his escape from Egypt, and how he became a savior among the slaves.

Today, Dallas taught about Daniel and the lions. After the each of us teaches our lesson, we have several predetermined activities that we can choose to do with the children. For example, the spider web was the first activity we did with these children on Monday. It was a very fun activity and the children definitely enjoyed it, like they did for all other activities. Ropes were set up between two posts to create a web, and all the orphans started on one side, sending one by one to the other side through one of the holes on the web. This was a teamwork activity that forced them to work together, discussing their next action.

Spider Web activity

Spider Web activity

Among other activities we have done are: create your own doll (stuff with scrap fabric, add eyes, and paint clothes) and Land Mines (teamwork activity that sent a blindfolded child through a maze of sort with wooden blocks as land mines and two individuals controlling the child’s direction via ropes). We also did Blind Walks, where we set up a course filled with barriers and objects, then sent a child to observe the course quickly then forced him/her to walk the course blindfolded. This was a very funny activity to watch, as some of them had no problem finding the end, but others took much longer, venturing into unmarked territory! Nevertheless, they all enjoyed it!

Mike

Felix

Fredrick

Japheth

Another fun activity we did earlier today was Trust Falls. It involved a person falling freely back into another person’s arms. Oh, the trust it took to fall THAT freely. Every single one of the orphans loved this activity.

Pauline and Sarah 

Erick

Christine

In the meantime, we have also been continuing our work on projects here. We have three of six benches and gutters completed on one set of buildings. We are grabbing every opportunity to work and improve conditions at LDO. We are also very excited to see when all projects are complete.

I hope you all enjoy following us on this blog and we look forward to keeping you all updated. Please continue to pray for our team during our time here in Kenya!

God bless.