Thankful.

I am so sorry that I haven't updated in 4 entire days! I have been sick for the last two and haven't had much energy to 1)blog and 2)do anything worth blogging about! But I will start with Thursday night(the 9th)

Thursday we arrived in Nanyuki at our missionaries house, Andrew and Abby Lettsome! They have lived in Nanyuki for 6 months and been married for almost two years. We had a few minutes at their house until we were going to head to the orphanage. We were going to head out to Naibor orphanage which is about 45 minutes outside of Nanyuki. We were going to stay the night. I had some ideas of what an orphanage in Kenya would look like since I had been to some in Mexico, Jamaica and Uganda but once we got there, I realized that I had no idea what to expect. When we arrived there all of the buildings were literally made out of mud and wood with tin roofs. We played some games with the kids, most of which spoke only swahili. It was a lot of fun but pretty heartbreaking because even though these kids are better off than they would be on their own, flies covered their feet and most parts of their heads. They also have snot running out of their nose, and very few of them(especially the babies) have any shoes. It was a lot to take in and still makes my stomach sick to think about it. After a little bit of games we decided to go get water with them for the day. We had to walk a little less than a 1/4th of the river to collect water for day and night. This was very....hard to understand I guess. Americans have water ready at any given moment, coming out of a sink or a dishwasher or water hose. These children have to travel every single day to the river and fill up huge jugs with water...water that isnt even clean. What a blessed life I lead. After water, it was getting dark so we headed back and the kids decided to sing and dance for us. They presented a lot of really fun songs and then asked us to do the same! SCARY! We had not prepared anything so it was very interesting...but we just sang hillsong and I hope that it was good enough! :) At this time it was about 8 pm and time for dinner. Because electricity is not really out in Naibor, we ate dinner in basically the dark. There was one lantern in the room for all of us to eat by...what a crazy we thing that we take for granted! I never even realized that I get to eat dinner in the LIGHT! I get to do everything at nightime IN THE LIGHT! What a simple blessing that they dont even enjoy...After dinner we were all extremely exhausted and decided to head in for the night. Me, Megan and Morgan slept in the babies room and it was precious. One twin bed was split between 4 toddlers. Once again, this is a better life than they would lead without their parents but still makes me want to scoop them up and give them something more.

I woke up the next day to the sound of sloshing water, which was the head mom in the room washing the little girls and boys! It was basically a tub of water and soap and each kid got in there and washed off their arms, legs and head. This is absolutely better than no bath at all but I'm sure doesn't clean the areas that little children need the most. When we were up and around the next day, most of the children were still wearing the same clothes that they wore the day before.

I spent most of Friday(the 10th) being sick and not being involved. But we went to a school in Naibor and it was humbling to say the least. It was definitely the worst of the schools we had seen so far, but the teachers were still hungry with tons of questions! What a blessing to know that they were still hungry for education! Friday night me and Morgan slept our entire lives away because we both didn't feel good!

In grace, thankfulness and abounding peace,
Crissy