I am now in Kenya!!! It is the first day in country and I am beyond excited to be here. Almost three years ago I was in St. Petersburg, Russia, working with orphans and that is when God told me I would be going to Africa. And here I am!!!

After breakfast, we all jumped onto our bus with Kennedy our driver and headed out for a 2.5 - 3 hours drive out to an area called Kinangop. Within in Kinangop is an area called Karima, there we will be working with Tumaini (Too my ini) Children's Home. Tumaini is an orphanage and school and the name is translated to hope. My husband, Brian, visited Tumaini back in April and brought back songs and videos of the children there. I fell in love with these kids before I even met them!

Well our journey out to Karima was anything but uneventful. Let's start with the road situation...I have no right to complain about our roads here in American any more!!! In Kenya, you are lucky to travel on asphalt and if there is asphalt it has been laid out in such a way that it really isn't big enough for two lanes. Oh and speaking of lanes, they really don't exist. Kenyans drive on the left side of the road and the right side and down the middle. Basically wherever they can but typically on the left, as in England! About an hour into the trip we had the opportunity to stop at an elevation of 8.000 ft at a point that overlooks the Rift Valley...simply breath taking! Of course, while there we were swarmed by vendors trying to sell us trinkets. Back on the bus for a short while only to discover that one of the tires on the bus was going flat. So Kennedy had to pull over into a gas station and we waited while the bus's tire was repaired. Did I mention that the roads in Kenya are bad? Well, they got worse as our journey continued. We were now driving on dirt roads with really big wholes in them. As we drove over and in the wholes my mind took me back to when I was a kid and wanted to sit in the back of the school bus anticipated the bus hitting a pothole! Oh the sensation of my body becoming weightless for a second and the tingly stomach feeling that would cause me to giggle...well this is not how it felt in this bus! It was more like a violent jerking of my body, at times I wondered if my head would snap off!!!

Finally, after a while we pulled into Tumaini! All I can say is that the views from this home were absolutely breath taking! Green mountains, rolling hills and lots and lots of rocks!

Once arriving Tumaini was holding an awards ceremony for this was the last day of school for the children. As I mentioned before, Tumaini is a home for orphans as well as a school for the orphans and community children. There are 87 orphans and 40-50 students from the community. During the ceremony the teachers handed out small gifts to the top three achieving students in each grade level. When I say small gifts I am talking about an umbrella or coloring book. To these kids these gifts are GREAT!!! As an added surprise, my church had taken a collection and were able to present each of the teachers with a monetary gift for their time, sacrifice and service to the children. We were also able to donate a computer and printer so that the students can start to learn computers. Believe it or not this ceremony was an emotional one.

After the ceremony, our team was invited into a house that was on the premises for lunch. Some of the women prepared food for us. During lunch we discussed the afternoon's activities. On our team we had Sarah, who is a pediatric dentist in Atlanta. She brought over two thousand toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental floss to give out to the children as well as perform dental evaluations on each child. None of the children in this home have ever seen a dentist before! We were also introduced to Dr. James. Dr. James has a very interesting story, he grew up an orphan. Later in his youth a Korean woman sponsored him to go to school where he became a doctor. Now he takes his vacations to travel the country, orphanage to orphanage providing medical care for the children. My job after lunch was to assist Dr. James in triaging the children. Triaging turned out to be harder than I thought. I had forgotten that there was a bit of a language barrier. Most of the children knew English but there were some that only new kiswahili or Kikuyu. None the less it was an opportunity to interact with the children. Some of the smaller ones loved to be cuddled and hugged. Even the older ones wanted affection. I have to say my heart started to break as I found out that a good number of these children had illnesses.
The illnesses ranged from ear infections, swollen tonsils to malaria. What really struck me is how some of these children were clearly in pain, yet, they didn't let you know. They weren't whining or complaining or even asking for drugs. I know my own daughter has a low tolerance for pain and becomes quite cranky at times. It made me realize that these children have learned to endure suffering; emotional and physical. I am reduced to nothing and all I want to do is help out however I can.