Adventures With Barbie

The following is a guest blog from my wife, Barbie, as she travels through Kenya helping children.

Hello, Gang!

Amy, Elaine and I took the shuttle from Nairobi to Kitale today.  That was definitely an African experience.

We had great visits in Mombasa and Malindi.  We have been SO busy.  We flew in from Nairobi to Mombasa, went to the school, and saw most of the children, all in one day.  We did some home visits too.  On our way to the home visits we took two siblings with us to drop them off at their home.  We arrived to find that the landlord had decided to evict them, so all their meager belongings were out in the dirt… all the neighbors were there for the excitement.    Their mother is very thin and sick, and can hardly walk. Mike Mutai convinced the landlord to let them stay a few days longer.   I talked with Mike about the church helping them find a better place to live and helping them pay their rent (he was already planning it, I learned), and gave him some back rent money to make sure they could stay in this house until then.

The two homes we visited were one room “apartments” – dark, miserable concrete rooms about 10×10, with no kitchen or bathroom, behind a butchery. There was a small common area about 12×20 for several of these rooms, where the residents cooke their meals on what is more or less like little habachi. The bed that one of the families slept on( three people on one bed) was dilapidated, and the foam mattress was rotten.  It pretty much filled the room except for one bureau and two side chairs.  The chairs were rotten, so they stored stuff under the seats so that you could sit on them.  On the wall was a sign that said “With God, all things are possible.”

The next day Tim & Rebecca Talley drove us to our hotel in Malindi and we were off to a running start.  We visited 5 – 6 schools a day, for 5 days.  The schools were out in the country, and each required a long, bumpy, dusty, very hot and humid drive. The children are healthy and happy.  We talked to them about the importance of writing letters to their sponsors, and about how special each child is to God.  Amy Beagle gave a tremendous talk at every location about how they need to be working hard in school now to become what God wants them to be.  Dama Gona, the HIV positive girl, looks wonderful and was very happy to see us.  We also got to visit her house.  Nyale Charo, the boy with the cancer on his neck, is healthy also.  And Priscilla Kalua, the girl who swallowed the caustic soda and had a stomach tube for over a year, is very healthy now too.  Amy took child photos at every site and they are BEAUTIFUL.  We saw about 3/4ths of the Malindi children.  The drought here is really bad.  We passed one lake that is totally dry.  I looked like a sunken dirt baseball field.

This program is being run beautifully. Mike is a wise steward of the money and cares deeply for the children.

Yesterday afternoon, after visiting 4 schools, Amy and I flew back to Nairobi, met Elaine Nesbitt at the airport, and ovenighted at a guest house.  Today was the shuttle…9 people, lots of luggage, and us 2 mzungus bouncing for 7 hours across Kenya.  The drive from Nairobi to Eldoret was smooth, but crowded and somewhat like the Indiana Jones ride at DisneyLand: tailgating slow diesel trucks pumping our black smoke,passing slow vehicles with inches, it seemed, to spare,  dodging children playing ball in the road, as well as bicycles and scooters.  I sat beside the driver  – RIGHT beside him, on the raised ”seat” that covered the hump.  There was a man on the other side of me and I had to make sure I didn’t fall in his lap while keeping my leg as far away from the stick shift so that the driver wouldn’t be embarrassed while shifting gears.  Oh, and baboons on the roadside, as well as zebras in the fields of Rift Valley!

Once we got to Eldoret, the road deteriorated badly.  Start with a good road for about 3 miles.  Then no road, just red dirt, or mud, because it was raining.  Then an awful pavement full of pot holes, so both directions of traffic are weaving back and forth to avoid them, and then sometimes just giving up and driving along the side of the “road” in the muddy red clay at a dangerous incline.  I was SO glad to see Kitale!.

Jason had dinner ready for us here at their house.  Tomorrow Elaine and I will go to the children’s home, take photos of the kids and talk to them.  We will get to see the Kitale kids.  It would take several days to see all the kids here, and we only have one day here before we take the shuttle (oh joy) back to Eldoret.

Wish you were here!   Ha ha, as miserable as I describe it, we have laughed SO much.  We are having a blast.

For the children,

Barbie Jones

Christian Relief Fund Child Sponsorship

800-858-4038