Clothes, nurture and nutrition. What do you want for Christmas?

There are snakes, scorpions, spiders, and lack of water. We are surrounded by profound poverty and filth, yet there is nowhere on earth we would rather be.  Karen had a good cry today, the tears were tears of happiness, tears of sorrow and tears of gratefulness to be here in Taita Hills with the children and such incredible people.  What an honour to be able to live among these people in this place.

 Karen was talking to one of the children today about Christmas and he said he would love a pair of socks and shoes and he said he would look so smart (this is their word for sharp).  Many of the children have torn dresses, pants without crotches, no underwear, some of them don't have footwear at all.  Our Christmas wish would be a special meal for the these little treasures and one set of nice clothes each.  Most of them wear flip flops(or slippers as they call them) some too big and some too small because with flip flops it doesn't matter so much. Socks and shoes he  said, with a dreamy look in his eye, socks and shoes. To him this was something he could wish for, a Christmas miracle.  So we cry. We cry in disbelief, in amazement, in wonder really, that we could be so ignorant of things that should be treasured.  A simple pair of shoes here can be purchased for around $10 but for some of these people that is more then they earn in a week. Minimum wage here in Kenya is less than $75/month and unemployment here is well over 50%, some say 65% others say nearer 80%, lets just say it is really high.

Karen was feeling guilty the other day because of the tight budget that we are on here and with Christmas coming was worried about how Chelsey would feel, with the lack of presents under our tree. (figuratively speaking, of course. There will be no tree.)  Chelsey with wisdom beyond her years and a blossoming maturity of someone much older responded simply with, " It doesn't matter Mom". You know she is right of course, it doesn't matter. We will undoubtedly have the richest Christmas that we have ever celebrated just being here with these kids.

We have been watching the daily routine and the women that care for these 40+ orphans are busy cooking and cleaning from sun up to sun down. The children have tea for breakfast, then simple meals of starches and vegetables for lunch( between 1 & 2pm ) and supper between 7 & 8pm. Chores, bathing and laundry are things that get fit in between the rest. The nurturing is mostly done by the older children to the younger, so the time they get with Karen and Chelsey is highly treasured. One of our visions right now is to see how we can increase their nutrition level and immunity by implementing a breakfast shake/smoothie made from greens(kale) and fruit. So we need some commercial sized hand powered blenders and with the gardens we are planting we can begin to implement a breakfast drink for these children. Who would think that our main focus would simply be clothes, nurture and breakfast?( and a stable water supply, but I've covered that thoroughly)

On the water front, we have managed to contact some well specialists that have helped us diagnose some of the problems with our well. We have also had some energetic and generous hearted people come forward and offer to raise some money toward this project. We are very hopeful on this front, so keep praying.