A few times a week we go to someone's home for dinner and last night I am almost sure we had dinner with Jesus. We had dinner with a lady who works at the center named Josephine and she is the head of the social work department. She and her 6 year old daughter had a beautiful Bible study with us where we talked about God being clothed in a robe seated on the throne and how he sits on the throne of our lives. It was very touching to listen as a 6 year old read scripture and talked about God with her mother. After that we had chai (tea) and Tim asked how she ended up at the center. She began to speak and the 5 of us who were there were literally enthralled by what she was saying. She talked about how even the smallest things like smiling at a child or greeting someone is ministry and it warms the heart of Jesus. She talekd about how she tries to be encouraging in every encounter she has with parents and students as she may be the only Jesus they see that day and she may be the only one who speaks hope to them. She talked about not being a good Christian because many people were good by their own standards but she wants to be a contagious christian and to draw others to God with her life. She also said many of the prayers in Mathare Valley are not always prayed to the LIving God and God does not respond to the prayers of the hopeless he responds to the prayers of the faithful. The whole time she was tlaking it was so encouraging not because she said it but because you knew she believe what she was saying and most importantly she lives out that faith. Have you even felt like when you spent time with someone that you had been in the presence of God? That is how we felt and I loved it so much because it helped me see what is must have been like for the disciples to sit at the feet of Jesus and just listen to him speak wisdom and hope into their lives.
I know I mentioned awhile ago that our accomodations were really nice but I forgot to mention that there is a washer and dryer in every room. Yes you read that correctly a washer and dryer in every room. The washer is a red bucket in the shower and the dryer is any place we can find to hang out wet and probably not really clean clothes. I generally do the laundry while I am in the shower and then we hang it out the window during the day. Washing clothes by hand is certainly a daunting task and to make it worse our clothes our absolutely filthy bu the end of the day so it is a challenge to even get them somewhat clean. I dont always try to hard as cleanliness only lasts about 10 minutes after we walk out the door. I should also mention that the toilet is in the shower as well. There is a thin curtain separating the 2 areas, but you are basically in the toliet while in the shower. I guess its super convenient.
So we have been eating a great deal of Kenyan food at the center each day. Ugali is the national dish and it is basically corn meal and flour and there is not much taste unless you put something over it. We like it enough but we eat it alot. We have 2 girls on our team who are from Mexico and as it turns out they use corn meal and water as paste for pinatas! You can imgaine how disgusted they were when they found out that we were eating paste-ALOT!! I guess one man's staple food is anothers pinata paste.
Today was good we met with some people who had been resettled after the violence and then went to someones house and had some goodies-like passion fruit, good chai, and roasted corn. We also watched home videos followed by a collection of music videos of Celene Dion. Dos life really get any better?!
Tim is feeling better. My mom and them made it home from Uganda. Tim's family is all doing well. Thanks for the prayers.
Much love