Tea Party - AKA - Prince and Princess Day

I’ve spoken much about the tea party we had last year for the girls when they dressed up in prom attire. This year some very generous stores in America donated many suits and tuxes for the boys of Challenge Farm. On Friday, November 28th, we had our first ever Prince and Princess Day. Last year the girls nicknamed the day Princess Day because they felt like a princess all dressed up, so we ran with the new title. I have to stop and find my breath as it gets swept away often here in Africa and this day was yet another breathtaking day.

On the morning of the 28th, I was helping the girls dress in their dorm. In days before, we visitors had organized the boys’ clothes in a large room of the office building and had directed the staff that would be helping them. I was preoccupied getting the girls ready and the dining hall set for juice and cookies when the boys came out of the main office building. Watching from across the compound through the dining window, I began to see the boys filing out of the building and just had to stop and stare. Even from that far away, I could tell by the way they were walking that they too were on top of the world feeling very special and handsome. The attire was anything from coattails, bowties, vests, jackets, ties, pinstriped pants, tuxedo white or black pants, beanie hats, camouflaged hats, and sunglasses.

I choked back tears, wishing Mama Cheri could have been with us for this moment. I know our Heavenly Father was smiling down upon his children this day. Whether they are in street clothes resembling rags or in the finest suits, I believe God sees His children in their very best so it was as though, on this day, I was seeing what He sees each day. I say this often, but I am truly blessed to be a part of the lives of these unbelievably special kids. At a moment like this, I don’t know what I’ve done to be given this chance to stand with them and share this day.

The boys lined up after group photos and began escorting the girls into the dining hall. As they are not used to seeing each other in these clothes, we had to battle the ever so cute girls running away from the boys at first. Since we have twice as many boys as we do girls, there was one boy on each side of the girl as they got their picture taken and walked in to be seated. Tea and cookies were followed with dancing. The whole experience was unforgettable for everyone. I am sharing a few of the many great pictures. Since I’ve posted many of the girls before, I chose to post more of the boys this time. I hope you enjoy the pictures and get a tiny glimpse into the 1st Annual Prince and Princess Day.

Ultimate shopping - day two

Since yesterday took a bit longer than we expected, the plans were changed and, I thought, improved. We arrived at Challenge about 8:30 am to get an early start. This being Thanksgiving, we planned to finish earlier and come home for some relaxing cooking time in the afternoon. We dropped off the first group and took care of some shopping we needed to do.

The teachers were assigned to five kids each since these are the newest and youngest kids. Would you believe that they were the most well behaved out of the whole Challenge Farm? They were so mature. Many of the street kids tried to poke fun at them or get their attention. Each one handled it a little differently but they were all kind in dealing with the situation. On many occasions, one of Challenge kids would be seen giving away some of the food they’d bought with their Christmas money. Now that was a touching moment for me. One child in particular was all ready in the van to head back and stuck his arm out the window with a whole muffin and handed it to a little boy. This was a WHOLE muffin. Our kids don’t get bread often as any bread product is quite expensive. This was a sacrifice and yet the child didn’t hesitate giving it away. Now I’ve gotten carried away and left out a big part of the day.

Two and a half hours passed and we drivers were ready to take group one back and get group two. The kids were all in the meeting place and we were close to loading up the vehicles when Lynn leaned over to ask me, “What are those people doing by the van?” I didn’t see them at first since it was parked across the street but something caught my eye down by the tire. I had not seen this before but had heard stories. I immediately dashed across the street to find three parking attendants locking the van tire! Without thinking, I begin barking at them for what they were doing. They tried to tell me we were parked illegally. Well, yes, we had parked the van temporarily in front of a gas station entrance but, to our defense, the gas station was closed and the entrance was blocked with tires and rope so that no one could enter. This was part of my major argument with the attendants. No there is more to the story, but it gets a bit embarrassing that I was not able to control my frustration better than I did so I will conclude the story and leave out the part where my patience was not in tact. The parking attendants wanted 500 shillings to take the lock off, but one of our staff that was present knew a lady who worked in the office. She made us pay only 200 shillings. Neither amount was a lot in dollars, but I was speaking on principle here; 500 shillings is about $6.50. ☺ The whole fiasco took about 40 minutes so we were running a bit past schedule again.

I had sent Lynn back to get part of group two since I did not know when the van would be released. When I arrived back to the Farm, she had all 18 of the remaining boys crammed into the trooper (7 passenger vehicle). They were happy to see us coming. We evened out the boys and began our last shopping trek to town. This time, after we dropped off the group, we went to a nearby coffee house for a scrumptious lunch energizer. This was some much needed down time. The pickup time for the last group was 3 o’clock, well past the time we’d spent yesterday. How does this happen?

By 4:30 we were back at the Farm with all the kids but not without a near wreck in town, another car losing his brake and ending up in the trooper grill, a drunk man running into the front of the van, and almost thinking we had lost one child back to the street. What a Thanksgiving day to remember.

We Americans were able to make it home by 5:00 and begin our relaxing cooking evening we’d been looking forward to. Dinner was served by 6:45 and included homemade southern dressing with chicken, sweet corn, a sweet potato marshmallow dish, and pumpkin pie - all in an African day's work.

The Ultimate Shopping Experience

I firmly believe that no one has experienced ‘shop until you drop’ unless they've piled 100 kids in two vehicles over two days and given them the equivalent of about $15 for their Christmas money. This last Wednesday and Thursday, I was one of the two privileged drivers to take part in this activity at Challenge Farm. Almost half of these kids have not ever been given money to go shopping and about 40 of them have not been back in to Kitale town since they left the streets back in February. It was quite different than I had envisioned and of course took about 4 hours longer than I’d planned….welcome back to Kenya! For some reason I can’t get it through my head that time really does not matter here.

The first group was all girls. We crammed 12 into the 7 passenger SUV I was driving and 17 plus a few staff into Lynn’s 9 passenger van. Off we went to town. My girls were singing every song they knew and when they ran out of Christian and Swahili songs, they busted right on in to happy birthday Rhonda. My birthday isn’t until March, but they sure had fun celebrating it right now through song. The drop off of the kids went well, and then Lynn and I headed back to the Farm to pick up the next group which was to be the remaining 6 girls plus all class eight boys and secondary boys. We chose to take them next because they were so responsible. All the while we were slightly dreading the next day when we were to take the ‘new kids’ as we still call them even though they’ve been with us since February 08.

Now understand we had no clue as to how long the kids would shop. They were buying in the town market, which is rather large and full of anything and everything. We did, however, think that the 5 staff members we dropped off with the kids would be able to round them up when time came to leave. This, along with the Kenyan time, was quite misjudged by Lynn and myself. I believe we sat with the cars parked in a very busy spot on the street for an hour at the least while kids kept walking around and staff looking as though they had no clue what to do to get the students back in the car. Remember now, we are dealing with the supposed responsible group.

After lots of chaos and confusion on where the purchased bags of ‘stuff’ were, we took off back to school with the first group. Whewww, at least we had half of the kids back. All we needed now was one last trip to town to pick up the remaining group. Luckily it had begun to sprinkle so the boys where ready to jump in the car and go. I had previously threatened them that if they were not ready to leave when we returned, they would be paying their own way home on a matatu.

The day was a success and a shopping experience to go down in the books. We got all 55 students back home with purchases. Now we just needed to rest up for day two.

Back in Kitale

I have just gone through two 8-9 hour flights, a night's stay in Nairobi, a bit of souvenir shopping, and an hour and a half puddle jumper flight to Kitale but I've made it back. I love Kitale very much, but I surely do wish it were a lot closer to home.

All the flights were very smooth, and I got as much rest as anticipated. Upon arrival to Kitale I was able to look out the window and see the top of Challenge Farm. I've flown into Kitale several times, but this was the first time I spotted the orphanage. My excitement really began to build as realization set in that I am back. I have been gone about 3 months, the longest I've been away from the kids since I met them October 1, 2007.

When we landed, I saw a glimpse of purple uniforms. I thought to myself, "Challenge Farm has purple uniforms." I looked out the window again and there was my friend Whitney with a camera in her hands. She had brought about 15 students and two staff down to greet me at the airstrip. My excitement quadrupled. I couldn’t wait to see the kids. As I walked down the steps, I was greated with many smiling faces. Immediately tears filled my eyes as pure joy had overtaken me. All the kids had handshakes and great big hugs to pass out to Lynn and me. (Lynn is a friend I connected with in Amsterdam; she lives in Alabama. This is her first time back since she came last October with the Alabama team I talked so much about on my first blogs.)

After greeting a few of the kids and taking in the situation, I looked past the two homemade signs and saw Sammy. Many of you know his story but do not know that with our new sponsorship program starting, I chose to sponsor him. We made eye contact and I enthusiastically waved him over. He had the biggest smile that I'd ever seen on him. I gave him a HUGE hug and told him how great it was to see him. I had received word a couple months ago that he was very unhappy and wanted to run away, so I'm very thankful he's doing well. It’s good to be back!