Last Day

Our last day was a great day, we traveled from Nyeri to Bernard and Robert’s home area.   We visited three OVC homes in the Thigathi area.  We had lunch with Bernard’s mom and visited with her.   Then, we headed for the airport with stops along the way to pick up coffee, gifts, and say goodbye.  

The first house that we visited was home to Maureen and Michael.   The mother is a widow with six children.   She is in the process of moving because the house see lives in is not on her former husband’s property.   But the brother (who property it is on) and their church, are helping to build them a new home on her husband’s property.   In many ways this is very gracious and caring of the brother.

Maureen and her brother are doing very good in school.   They have been helped by the OVC ministry with rabbits and educational support.   When we arrived on the property, Michael was coming up from the spring with a container of water.   We decided to go down to the spring and while there to bring up more water.   The spring serves surrounding houses.   

The spring was a good distance straight down.  There is no way to capture the steepness of the water path in pictures.   Everyone was pretty exhausted with we got back to the top.  

The house was made of mud bricks, wood poles, and tin roof.  The floor was dirt.  The roof was tin.   Tom closed our time there with a prayer for the family

The second OVC family was Anna (mother), Mercy (senior in high school) and Emma (8 grade).  Both of them will be taking exams this year.   Mercy’s score determines if and where she can go to  college.  Emma’s score determines, if and where she can to to High School.   Both girls are working hard to have as high a score as possible.  

The last house was a Grandmother’s house who is raising her son’s two children.   The son and his wife died.   The Grandmother is raising the children.   She was short in stature but a strong and beautiful in spirit woman.   She laughed freely.   When Bernard tried to tell her we could not have tea, she ignored and made the tea.    Grandmother led us in prayer before the tea.   She has also been helped by the goat project.  Her house was a little different than the other two.  Her’s had a pink color to it.   The walls were made of a specific type of sand, cow dung, and local clay.   

Our last stop was Bernard’s mom’s place for lunch.   Being with her is always a blessing.   She was an infectious laugh and she is great cook.   We ate spinach, mukimo, her famous chicken, and mixed salad.   Shirley and Carol helped out with serving the meal.   Mary and Mom seemed to have a good time laughing about several things.  Since they spoke in Kikyuyu, we were not always sure what or who they were laughing about.    In the picture, you see Mom with Tom’s Ipad looking at family pictures.   Beranrd was explaining everything to her.   What a great picture!  

We made it back in the Nairobi suburbs.   After a few purchases, we headed for the airport.  The past seven days have been a series of unbelievable moments of beauty, awesomeness of God’s creation, the challenges of human need, the transforming power of Jesus Christ, the amazing way that God brings people together to accomplish His purpose, and the opportunity to join Him in transforming all of life.    What a blessing the past seven days have been and what an encouragement to with hope and confidence into the future.