Super Saturdays

Today was a national holiday celebrating Kenya's first president, so we took advantage of the day off and went to the beach with Tito's family. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time at the beach, which reminded me that we needed to post this blog entry... we are finding it a little hard to limit our internet time to keep the cost resonable and also keep up with what we want to share with you all!

I mentioned the Super Saturday trips on twitter/Facebook, but it’s time we shared some of the details.

We have been so blessed by these opportunities to join others who also have a heart for reaching out and helping communities around this area. God has been at work in these interactions all along the way: It began when we wanted to go visit Crossroads Fellowship as described here a month or so ago, and began our new friendship with Kristin (from Waukesha, Wisconsin!) We joined her another weekend to visit an orphanage called Tumaini (too-my-ee-nee – “Hope”) House, and hike and bike through a nature reserve.

She told us about the Super Saturdays coming up, and the first one fit our schedule (most things do, but even Chris’s futbol game was Sunday evening instead of Saturday that weekend). That Super Saturday was up the coast from Nyali/Mombasa in a village called Vipingo, at a school supported by Fox River Church in Waukesha – Kristen’s connection, and our slightly looser tie to all of this. It was awesome to help lead groups of roughly 30 village children ages 5 to 12 through art and game activities (including a parachute!), as well as a snack time and bible lesson. They also learned a couple songs with hand motions to perform in church the next morning. After church on Sunday, Kristen came back to Ribe with us to see the incredible views and experience a slightly different part of Kenya. Tito’s family was here, so she got to meet them, and we all watched the futbol game. Kristen also met Sophie and Nesta, and invited them to Nyali. It may have been a casual invite, but they wanted to take her up on it, so we looked into it and it was indeed possible!

We skipped the second Super Saturday at another Fox River location in Bomani, but the head teacher there also works at another school nearby and asked Kristen to do a third event there. So, this past weekend, we went to help with the third Super Saturday in another coastal village called Injili (what fun names to say, aren’t they?), and Sophie and Nesta came along with us. Sophie helped lead a group of kids Nesta’s age, and he joined the fun and games. Afterwards, we went to the pool at the missionaries’ house where Kristen has been staying, then beach nearby, and Sophie and Nesta swam in the ocean for the first time! After church and a long relaxing lunch on Sunday, we prepared to come home to Ribe. Nesta had so much fun that he didn’t want to come home! For us, these trips have been such great refreshment and seeing the children enjoy the events so much is so replenishing from working in a school setting and kind of “behind the scenes” in the community in Ribe. Seeing and learning the activities and schedule of those events has been great to possibly do something like them in Ribe too (let us know if it sounds like something you’d like to help support!)

Perhaps the most incredible “God thing” is that before Kristen got a mosquito net when she arrived, she wrote in her blog about the mosquito bites she was suffering and something to the effect of “imagine what the children who do not have nets are like.” Then, some of her friends at home had a fundraiser for nets for the kids and let her know afterwards as a surprise! The past week, Kristen had received the funds and purchased about 85 nets to distribute. Well, with the nets was a promotion of “FREE! Geometrical set! with every purchase of a PermaNet® mosquito net.” Lesley had been lamenting that the geometry lessons are much abbreviated and parts even cut completely due to lack of supplies. She had mentioned it to Kristen, so when Kristen told her and began showing her the sets, Lesley was shocked and told her, “You are such a liar about them being free,” but had to believe Kristen when the promotion labels were still on the geometrical sets. The number of sets is pretty much the exact same number of students in Lesley’s maths class too! It is so many that there would have been no way that we could have brought them all back to Ribe if it were not for Kristen coming to Ribe, meeting Sophie and Nesta, and them coming with us to Nyali! God has truly provided in many ways through this chain of events!