VBS!!!

Wow what a day! We are just getting back to our hotel now (10pm in Kenya) after a busy day at Bondeni. Today was our last day with the children at the school.

We did a VBS for the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and it was a blast!! These kids were simply amazing (And no, even though I LOVE middle schoolers, I'm not biased 😆)

We had four stations: games, craft, bible, and worship. They were spread between the seven floors of the school (which means I probably walked close to 100 flights today)

I was lucky enough to visit with every rotation in every station so I saw the amazing work our team did with these students and got to play around with the students in each area!

The craft was drawstring backpacks that they could color. We provided stencils and then the embellished on the designs and added their own flairs! One thing that I loved was a conversation I overheard between two students: they were talking about which stencil they were going to pick and one boy said that he was going to get the lion one because his God is the God of lions.

The Bible team did a wonderful job telling the story of Shaderack, Meshack, and Abed-nego in the fiery furnace. Some of the kids acted out the story and I remember one girl passionately played the part of Nebuchadnezzar — saying her parts of the story with no prompting and all her conviction :)

(different kid)

Games was such a fun time — we played "musical stickers" where there were tape marks on the floor instead of chairs. It was really funny to watch them try to make it to the next tape mark before the music stopped. Some of them were better about it than others ;)

Finally worship, my personal favorite. Crystal tirelessly led the kids in some VBS songs for four hours straight!!! She is so appreciated! I was interested to see how these older kids would do with something like worship, and they absolutely blew me out of the water! They were so engaged and having a lot of fun too!!

(I LOVE the young man in the front with the green sweater!!!! He was a hoot all day long!)

We then visited the community surrounding Bondini and it was quite different from the first day. I think the best way to explain the difference was it was darker and heavier. So there were a lot of poorer folks in the area and Bondini (the community, not the school) is known for its alcoholism. They were brewing it in big batches on the side of the road and it smelled so awful! I feel like the stench is still in my hair.

There were also a lot more looks and comments directed at us, which encouraged us to not stay long, but we did visit with a mother of some of the children at the school. Her oldest at the school was actually in our VBS today and I screened the youngest on our health day! She was so excited to hear that I helped with the medical stuff for her youngest. Sadly, her husband does not have a job right now so their eldest's high school education is at risk for being terminated. Prayers for her and her family's financial situation are greatly appreciated. She also is not a Christian, which I found interesting because MOHI is very loudly a Christian school. She said her children tell her about Jesus when they get home from school. My prayer for her is that the Light that her children bring home from school every day penetrates her and her husband's hearts.

Since today was our last day with our children, they threw us a surprise program with singing and dancing! There were many things about that which were simply wonderful but I will stick with my top three:

1. A young girl gave us a speech about how thankful and greatful they all were for our visit and listed specific things that made an impact like the health screenings and how they now feel better after being seen and told how to stay healthy, and the fun times they had at VBS learning about God.

2. The kindergarteners performed a dance for us in which they "dance-mimicked" (idk what it's called) different schoolyard games that they love

3. At the very end, they all came into the crowd and grabbed us to dance together. These two girls picked me and they showed me all their moves and laughed at my poor attempts to copy :) then they sang a farewell song that they wrote. Both girls grabbed onto me and one of them, Esther I think, just looked up at me and sang to me for the whole song.

There were some tears as we said goodbye and LOTS of hugs — so much so that our bus driver got annoyed :)

Finally, we wrapped up the day with a visit to Mary, the founder of MOHI who welcomed us into her home to share a meal and do life. We got "Ken-Mex" (the Kenyan interpretation of Mexican foox) which was delicious as is all the food!

Then we sat down for some chai to chat with Mary about her life story and her heart and mission. I cannot do her story justice, but MOHI has shared it before, so I'm sure you could find it if you go digging.

Bird's eye view of her though is that God is using her greatly all over Kenya and even spreading to other countries in Africa! She does amazing work with an amazing team and they serve something like 29,000 students every day in their schools. Even though she has made incredible accomplishments that put other entrepreneurs to shame, she does not take any credit. She praises God for the work He is doing in Kenya and is exceedingly grateful that He chose to use her to accomplish some of it.

God is so alive in Kenya. He is the God of the people in the richest neighborhoods, He is the God of the people in the poorest of slums, and He is the God of the lions ;)

Blessings,

Shawna