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| Carmen hugging the orphaned children at Bungoma. |
June 14
We love Jesus!
Yesterday we drove to see Kimalili and today we saw Bungoma. We are finding that all of the schools are located in Christian friendly communities, were started by a single individual with a heart for children, and are now owned by boards of directors with the same goals. It seems that someone in the community usually wants to help the orphans who are running around trying to survive. Once the school starts, the school social workers help to find the families of the orphans or will help to attach the children with a family. At the Bungoma school, there are 200 children of which 150 are orphans. About 50 of the orphans have no family ties at all and stay at the school even through holiday breaks. The common benefit to the communities is that the children are being taken care of and they are learning about Jesus.
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| Beans corn and onions being prepared over a wood fired stove for the children. |
Dining out in Africa!
On another topic, let me tell you a little about what it is like to have a dinner in a poor country. Last night we were told that the hotel restaurant would be open by 7:00 pm for dinner. We arrived promptly at 7:00 pm feeling very hungry from a long day and noticed a few other folks already having dinner. As in the USA, our drink orders were first taken. For the party of eight, this took about 45 minutes as it took a while to understand the options and what was really available off the menu. Once we were served basically soda and chai tea, our dinner orders were taken … over the next hour.
The menu was very long with many choices and everything sounded good. However, the restaurant did not have everything on the menu and the waitress could not tell us what the kitchen really had available. Because the culture is to please, she would rather hope that we would ask for something that they had than to just tell us they were only serving chicken, fish and fries. Soup sounded good to me and there were about six choices. Every time I asked for a certain soup, she would go away and come back several minutes later to tell me they did not have it. On my last try, she finally revealed that the store across the street did not carry the soup. Apparently, they buy many of their ingredients from the store across the street as the customer orders from the menu.
After about an hour and a half, Isaac decided it would be good to check on the progress. With a firm declaration he said he was going to find out what was happening and why the preparations were taking so long. As he got up from his chair with great confidence, he slowly walked toward the kitchen door. As he approached, he became more timid. Then a tall Kenyan lady appeared at the door with a great big smile and you could see Isaac crumble. Without a word spoken, he scrambled back to the table with no report. Greeted with a lot of laughter from our table, he sat back down and decided to be patient. So, after two hours in total we were finally served. We also learned that the main chef did not come in that evening, so the hotel staff was cooking our meal. When the meal was served you could see how proud they were to have accomplished it. We gave the staff a nice tip for their perseverance and teamwork!!
The menu was very long with many choices and everything sounded good. However, the restaurant did not have everything on the menu and the waitress could not tell us what the kitchen really had available. Because the culture is to please, she would rather hope that we would ask for something that they had than to just tell us they were only serving chicken, fish and fries. Soup sounded good to me and there were about six choices. Every time I asked for a certain soup, she would go away and come back several minutes later to tell me they did not have it. On my last try, she finally revealed that the store across the street did not carry the soup. Apparently, they buy many of their ingredients from the store across the street as the customer orders from the menu.
After about an hour and a half, Isaac decided it would be good to check on the progress. With a firm declaration he said he was going to find out what was happening and why the preparations were taking so long. As he got up from his chair with great confidence, he slowly walked toward the kitchen door. As he approached, he became more timid. Then a tall Kenyan lady appeared at the door with a great big smile and you could see Isaac crumble. Without a word spoken, he scrambled back to the table with no report. Greeted with a lot of laughter from our table, he sat back down and decided to be patient. So, after two hours in total we were finally served. We also learned that the main chef did not come in that evening, so the hotel staff was cooking our meal. When the meal was served you could see how proud they were to have accomplished it. We gave the staff a nice tip for their perseverance and teamwork!!
On the way back to Kampala, we made it through the border very easily. We are praising God every moment for His protection and Goodness to us!
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