Farm/Heavenly Treasures/Non-Safari Wrap-up!

Well, our mini-team (the non-safari goers) are having the 2nd annual Lion King viewing in the Hyodo living room :) And I'm writing my 2nd annual blog-post-while-watching-The-Lion-King-in-the-Hyodo-living-room! Yayy.

I thought that I should reflect on the last couple days of our ministry in Kenya... Starting with.. the Farm! It was really, really exciting for me to see familiar faces at the Farm. During our slum visits, I would get excited about seeing a kid I recognized-- but they probably didn't even remember me, and I probably only remembered them because I'd been looking back through pictures of them all year. But the kids at the Farm were ones that I'd made much deeper connections with during our visit last year, so the reunions were very happy :) We started out singing in a big circle with all the kids and as I was scanning the faces, I'd make eye contact with a couple kids on the opposite side of the circle and we'd both just get these huge smiles on our faces when we recognized each other. It was nice to see what felt like old friends :)

I spent a lot of time with a two girls, both named Mary, who I had spent time with last year. Sometime in the middle of the day they started singing a song they had tried to teach me last year and smiled at me. I was really touched that they even remembered that much about our time together! I learned it again this year and I think my Swahili learning rate has improved! :P I felt really special to be remembered by these kids and it made me really, really glad I was able to come back this year to further these relationships. One of the Mary's was eager to show me the MITS salon that she learns her trade in. It was really great to see how proud she was of what she's learning at the Farm.

Mary and me :)

I also enjoyed our time in small groups with the kids. John, Jesse, Tia, and Blake (+ Fatuma ;) were in my group and we asked the teens to share a bit about how they ended up at the Farm. A lot of them had run away from home.. and you could just tell that the lives they had led previously were pretty hopeless. One girl ended her sharing with "I know who I am now, and I know what I want to do." That was really, really awesome to hear.. especially the day after we'd seen so many hopeless young people in Eastleigh. I know that each of those kids on the streets, the ones zoned out and hooked on sniffing glue to numb their senses, has such potential to do amazing things with their life. But they need someone to believe in them and invest in that potential in order for them to also believe that they are worth something. The staff at the Farm is clearly doing that for these teens, and the results are very cool to see.

During some down time, Matt had introduced me to a girl who he'd been singing with and the three of us sang Trading My Sorrows together. Then after our Lighthouse-team-led worship time, Trenton opened up the time for the Farm kids to share their.. singing, dancing, and whatnot. That same girl signaled to me that she wanted to sing with me up there... so she, Matt and I sang Trading My Sorrows for everyone :) That was cool.

All in all, I was glad to reconnect with old friends at the Farm and encouraged to see the changed lives and joyful spirits of the kids.

A few highlights from my experience at Heavenly Treasures:

--Hanging out with some neighborhood kids on our first day there. I especially spent a lot of time with one 10-or-so-years-old girl who was carrying her baby brother on her back. I kept wanting to carry her little brother for her because I thought he must be getting really heavy and she kept having to re-hoist(?) him up, but he was scared of me :( Oh well. haha. Aaaanyway, the girl was very sweet and taught me a song she'd learned at school: "I've got my mind made up. I won't stand back. Because I want to see my Jesus someday. Born, born, born again. I'm glad I'm born again. Born, born, born again. Thank God I'm born again." :) I can still hear her sweet voice singing it in my head.. I really enjoyed my time with her.

--While the men were "being men," doing their manual labor or whatever :P... the girls stayed back to sit in on the Sisal sisters' service. Another team from the U.S. was doing some sharing and then the HT staff invited Cindy up to talk a little bit about our team. We didn't really have anything prepared, though.. Then Cindy asked us if we wanted to sing a song with the ladies. Caught off guard, I... didn't really want to. :P But at the same time I did, and some of the girls and I ended up going up there and singing Hakuna Mungu Kama Wewe, a Swahili song I first heard at Urbana :) It was such a cool experience to hear the women join in singing as soon as we sang the first few words. I was so happy to be able to worship with these women in their own language. It was just.. a really cool experience. I felt really blessed to get to witness and participate in this worship time.

During our non-safari-time, our mini-team has had some other cool experiences, like:

--spending much of yesterday at the Halfway House baby orphanage

--attending the Hyodos' regular church with them this morning

--visiting the Comido school in Kwa-Njenga to see progress on the well project

--visiting Mike's dental clinic in South C

We start our long journey home tomorrow! I really can't believe that the trip is just about over... It's been an amazing two weeks, though, and I know there is still much processing to do.. Thank you all for your support and prayers! See you at home :)

love, bekah