Odds & Ends

 Let me warn you that this blog is not for the faint hearted or those who embarrass easily when matters of personal hygiene are discussed. 

Thread of Hope has another project in mind that could change the lives of many Kenyan young women.  It has been statistically shown that poor women in Kenya often drop out of school at the age of 13 or 14.  Why would you imagine that this would happen?   I thought that perhaps they become pregnant and that is sometimes true, but there is another more common reason.  It is the age that menstruation begins and they have no way of controlling the flow at school. They are too poor to afford pads or tampax.   I was shocked that something as simple, at least in our minds, as this could so profoundly affect women’s lives.   One of the new projects at Thread of Hope is to sew pads from cloth, much like our grandmothers did, and make them available to poor women.  The idea is to make up kits composed of 5 pads and three pair of underwear.   This could be life changing for Kenyan women and also provide business for Thread of Hope.  Currently the missionary wives are researching suitable material (cloth) in Kenya as they would like it to be a Kenyan project; not something imported from the US.   So this gives you an idea of the poverty and one of   the problems it creates.  It will be interesting to follow this project as it gets underway, hopefully soon.

Sunday was a beautiful day here and we started by going to early church at the African Inland Church or AIC as it is called.  There were 600 high school students there for a rally at the neighboring secondary school and they were all in church!  When they lifted their young voices in praise it was truly awe inspiring!   Then we walked over to RVA and went to the 11 o’clock service there.  The services are very different and so it is fun to go to both. 

Dad was on call this weekend with the usual cesarean deliveries.  We did have a chance to Skype our Sunday school class at First Presbyterian.   It was good to see familiar faces and give them a live first-hand report of what our day to day life is like here as well as what marvelous things the Lord is doing at Kijabe!   Even on the other side of the world, we feel connected in ways that a few years ago were impossible.

It is now Monday afternoon and I have done my wash, hung it on the line and gone up to RVA to listen to 5^th graders read!  This afternoon I took Carolyn Boeve, a new arrival, down to the dukas to shop. It is funny that I am now helping others after only being here for two weeks!  Carolyn and her husband Norm, an orthopedic surgeon, are from Michigan and he and Dad are fraternity brothers from years and years ago! Small world again!  Tonight we are hosting an “ice cream social” for   everyone in this building to meet each other.

That is all for now,

Love to all,

Mom and Dad, Nana and Poppy, Micki and Marv