Kisumu Yoder's: Of Snails and Dholuo....

Bible Study at Helen's

Greetings on this rainy Sunday afternoon. The rains seem to be coming earlier this year they say. Its been raining almost every afternoon. Its a nice break from heat and dust but the down side is that the power often goes off for a while. I think we are kind of used to it now... and thankfully we still have water when its off. We have a big gas lantern that lights the place up pretty well. Last eve. when the power went off Tony sent a text that said... "another night with the Amish." :) I don't have much time to write this afternoon so I guess I will keep this short and mostly send the pics. Tonys are in charge of planning the Sun. eve. activity for the compound so they asked Wayne to preach the message he preached at home just before we left... titled "Hope for the Journey." Wayne also has something planned for the children. We will have food afterward so we are making 2 pans of breadsticks. The folks here hardly ever hear an English message without an interpreter so that is why Tony planned this. We hope and pray that people can be encouraged and strengthened in our journey here in Kenya. We need lots of support from each other here. I don't know how we'd make it without these dear people all around us!
Rejoice with us!!!!! Our 3 wks. of formal language school are over!! They were very intense weeks and now we look forward to a change of pace this week. Wednesday during language Wayne saw something strange hanging from the porch rafters. Upon investigating we discovered the huge snail (pictured below). This old fellow was probably 5 or 6 inches long! Our language teacher almost became unglued for fear it would drop down. :) Learning a new language makes us feel rather snail like... It's a slow, hard process. We have off Mon. and Tues. On Wed. Wayne will be out and about with Jim Harries who plans to help us understand culture and language. I will probably go along on Thurs. We also plan to spend time with Rosemary, a member of the CBF church here who teaches language. We plan to go out to her house for classes and I think she will also introduce us to cultural things.
On Thurs. eve. we hosted the prayer meeting at our house. It made for a busy day but thanks to help from Clarissa and Rachel the house got cleaned and we enjoyed the eve. Becky made yummy donuts for everyone in honor of Jake and Janice's arrival. I think she had help from Judith and Rachel.
On Sat. we were invited to the home of one of our church members at Lela. Her name is Silpa. She is a fine Christian widow who has a celebration every year on the Anniversary of the day she was anointed with oil when she was very sick and nigh unto death. She wants to remember that special day and give thanks to God for another year of life that he has granted her. She invited Jasons family, our family, Marlin and Lavina, and Carolyn Rodes. We had a feast! Potatoes, beans, ugali, cooked cabbage, beef, and chapatis. Cynthia worked long and hard to make 36 chapatis over a small giko. It took hours and it was very warm. We enjoyed the food and fellowship in spite of the heat. Sometimes days like that feel like a "test of endurance" for me since I'm still a "soft" American I guess. Hopefully I can toughen up soon and long days in the heat won't bother me so much. By the way... please pray for Wayne. He has been struggling with migraine headaches almost every day this past week. Hopefully that will get better now that we have a small break from stressful language classes. We miss ya'll so much! Thanks to all who encourage us with phone calls and e-mails! God bless you!!