October 8, 2009
Yesterday I went on a long journey to Tala to visit my 14 year old sponsored child, Dancan. It felt like a National Geographic adventure. The Christian Childrens Fund picked me up at our resort, as they call it and I was off to an adveture of a life time! I was gone a total of 10 and a half hours. First I visited the Kenya office and had tea with the head official and then it was off to the mail room to see all the sponsors letters being placed in envelopes and sent. Next I visted the Tala office and was warmly greeted by Dancans family in song and dance. It was a welcome I shall never forget. As a matter of fact I may need a tissue now just thinking about it.
We made our way to Dancans school to meet him and his younger brother, \kennedy. The drive was about a half an hour through what I would call cow paths at best in the middle of nowhere. Their school was just a humble limestone block building without electricity. I first visited a special needs class. They were playing with soda bottle caps and some old blocks. That is all I saw for toys. They were very happy to see me and I hugged each and everyone of them.
I spent time with the principle and the teachers. They told me the children usually walk about an hour or more to the school. It starts at 8am and ends at 5pm. The children of the states do not know how lucky they are.
The time had arrived for meeting Dancan. I was brought to his room and was asked to pick him out from about 30 children. Oh Lord help me! I had only little pictures of him and all these children looked younger than I thought. Over in the corner was one boy with a smirk on his face so I picked him. Well, the room exploded with laughter and singing. I had chosen correctly praise God. Dancan was in good health, good looking, beautiful teeth (dental hygienists look at those types of things) and the biggest smile I probably have ever seen.
I had brought my goat puppet and shaggy sheepdog puppet and the group of us all went to the various classes. There was sooooo much laughter by the children, all of us and the teachers. We just had the greatest time. Dancan even started to use the goat puppet and was great at it. He was beaming from ear to ear. I could go on and on about my visit but if you want to know more I guess you will just have to talk to me!
Today we had our last VBS. We went over the lesson of Jesus birth that we did a few days ago and talked about Christmas here. Of course we had to talk about New England winters that Pastor Ron loves so much. I showed them pictures of snow and brought Insta Snow for the children to see and touch. We also did a gospel illusion about feeding of the 5000. Ask about the chicken song when you see us.
I have to get off now but I want you all to know that we passed out all of your presents, took lots of pictures and now the children now have new shoes!!!
Blessings from Kenya,
Melissa Roth