Saturday-

Wow! What a great Weekend here and such a nice way to end our work here.

Miriam and I had cooked enough food for everyone at church that everyone ate their fill. We fed between 50-60 people and it was nice to fellowship with the church members here for the last time. Yona preached the sermon and Barasa interpreted for us. He told of his life as a missionary for many years and the work that has happened here over the years. Chris recorded the entire message so that we could take it home.

The rains decided to pour down right after lunch was finished yesterday. So the Kirby family actually took an afternoon nap instead of going for a hike. We will all have a hard time leaving here and leaving the new friends that we have made. As Barasa put it; it is harder to be left than to leave. So we knew that they would be feeling very sad as well. We look forward and probably take for granted seeing our Swahili friends here everyday. It is such a joy to see them, work with them, spend time with them, and learn Swahili from them. I really can’t believe that we have been here for over a month and are leaving soon. I can see all the work that needs to happen here and all the goals that need to be reached and I wish we could have done more.

We finished off Saturday night in the usual custom that we had started of watching a Blue Planet or animal movie. All the locals and the fundis look forward to watching the shows and it was our last out here. Chris and I stayed over at the house because we were washing dishes and then Chris mentioned he didn’t feel the greatest again. He thinks he may have passed another stone sometime during last night and by this evening he is back to normal.

Sunday-

We were all up early this morning and got busy right away. First thing Memere had a lady show up here needing 3 teeth pulled so she helped her out. She numbed her mouth up but the lady still grasped and cried out. With as much numbing medicine that she used I would guess the lady doesn’t tolerate pain well at all. We didn’t allow the weak stomached folks to observe this time so that we did not have to worry about someone passing out on the concrete. Teresa held the flash light and I held the gauze and the supplied the empty gauze bags for the lady to spit her blood into. Memere managed to get 2 of them out and the lady refused to have the third one pulled out. Steve sent over 2 vicodin for the pain and we gave her a handful of Ibuprofen for the knee pain she was complaining about. She thanked us all before she left and I know she will feel better tomorrow.

I jumped in and made some biscuits for breakfast since we had no bread. They turned out very well and went together with the huge fruit salad that Vanessa and Steve had cut up. We had our delicious ugee (not really) again with granola so we all had plenty to eat.

Chris and I took the opportunity to go and visit with Shari and Brent for about 45 minutes because we feel that time is slipping away so fast and then we will be gone. They are such nice, good people and they really love the Lord.

The men and some of the kids worked at clearing the tall grass again while Jon gave Memere a pruning lesson. I observed some of the pruning lessons and found it to be quite interesting. Some of the girls were washing laundry earlier in the day but we were all in a hurry to get done. This was the day that Memere was driving us all over to Makete. So we were all excited to go!

I packed our rain coats, water, bandaids, tissue, dried fruit, and wipes. You never know what you will need when you are away from home. We all piled into Memere’s truck and took off for Makete and with the excitement the 13 of us packed into the bed of the truck hardly noticed our discomfort- but boy was it a different story coming back. The Last 15 minutes of the drive over it poured rain and we had to break out the rain coats. The market at Makete was huge compared to Ikonda. It was more of a traditional market that we would think about back home. I had a long list of produce to get for Shari so Chris and I started in filling her order to get that done with. I was able to get her everything except pineapple but I substituted with avocados. Then we all figured out what we would eat for lunch and almost everyone voted for chips (fried potatoes) instead of murage and wali (beans and rice). Well then we had a time finding a place to feed us all because our group was so big. Finally we split up and my family found a very nice and fairly clean little hole in the wall that served chips. She was such a nice lady and fed us all we wanted, we were just wondering how we could eat anymore when Jon, Jonah, & Sam came by and they were still looking for food. So we told them to come in because there was so much and they were able to eat all they wanted and the boys seemed extremely happy.

My family shared 2 orange sodas and my kids thought that was the biggest treat because we don’t usually drink those.

We had a lot of fun shopping around over there and everyone found something. There were so many duka’s to look in that we passed over many of them. I bought chiffon floral print head wraps for Miriam, Leah, and Lisungu. I bought some new sandles for Meto and a necklace for Deborah. Miriam and Leah put the wraps on right away when I gave it to them and they looked nice. I gave Lisungu her wrap and she took it and ran for home shrieking with delight to show her mother. Later she came back and told me thank you and she looked like she might cry. Meto was so proud of his new sandals that he kept trying to brush the dirt off every couple of steps and Debo loved her necklace.

We also gave Yona’s family and Barasa’s family a money gift from my family. They have worked so hard here and life is very rough and hard. They work 10 times harder just to live here and they a hardly receive much money. Both families were very emotional about the gift but were also very happy. We told them that God is blessing them and the work here and that we are praying for it all to continue and they will reach more souls for Christ.

Tomorrow will be clothing distribution in Lupalilo for a couple hours in the morning and then I will be hurrying around trying to get laundry done and packing for our trip out to Kibidula.Tuesday we will do distribution in Mago too. Tonight I gave Memere a whole bunch of stuff that I had brought for her and things that I didn’t want to pack home. I took several things down to Brent and Shari too.  The Waggoner’s spent most of their day building the raised garden beds and putting manure and compost to let the soil sit during the raining season and be ready for planting when the rains stop.

As I have been here typing Bella has been singing all kinds of bible songs in my ear while she is waiting to look at the pictures of our dogs that I have on my laptop. Hannah is already in bed and mat is over in front of the fire and Chris is out in the shower tent in the dark. I am getting tired and I need to dry my hair over by the fire so I can go to bed. I have to get up really early to do breakfast and then need to be at the school by 7:30am to give out clothes.

mat thoroughly enjoying himself on the day they went swimming in the creek! He said going down that water fall was worse than a spanking! I guess it hurt.

the day that we gave Barasa and Yona their bikes! Hannah was presenting Yona his bike!

Isabel holding Leila while she was sleeping on her lap!