Hard, sad things

Two sad experiences:

We visited a wonderful, just darling young couple (new investigators) with a new baby and a 2 year old. They were just amazing, so interested in the Church. They had formed a close relationship with one of our branch presidents. The husband of this couple is a school teacher, and they are just thrilled with what they have learned about the Church. We were so excited when we met them, that when the mission president and his wife came to stay with us, we took them with us to visit the branch president and this cute couple.

They have not been out to church since that time—about 3 weeks ago so we asked the branch pres’ wife where they were. She was very sad as she told us that when the neighbors saw 4 muzungu’s (us white people) going into this couple’s rented house, they went immediately to the landlord and told him that he needed to kick the couple out of their home because devil worshippers were visiting them, and the neighbors were afraid the muzungu’s would come and eat their children. The landlord demanded that the couple no longer ever have muzungu devil worshippers come to the compound (very close neighbors) or they would immediately be evicted. So, they can no longer have any members of the Church come to visit them. We feel so badly about it all…

Another sad experience:

One of our sisters is going with another missionary couple and their group to the temple on Sunday. They are busing to Nairobi and then flying to Johannesburg for a week. Among the individuals who are going to South Africa, is a branch president and his wife and children (some of whom are teenagers). The branch president’s wife had a stroke two years ago. Her parents and siblings are not members and are not sympathetic to the church. Two days ago her parents and family kidnapped and have hidden the children because they were afraid their grandchildren would be taken to the temple and eaten. We are heartsick about this, and you can imagine what the couple feels. There are so many hard things here that the faithful people face.

New Experiences--birthing, African style

BIRTHING, AFRICAN STYLE

Today, December 30, 2010 we went to visit a sweet woman who has not been to Church for several months. We went with her branch president (who we do not understand very well—a visa versa, and two African elders. We walked around and through many people, sitting, standing, cooking in the dirt (chapatis, very good tasting African fry bread/pancakes…kind of a cross).

As we entered her mud house, we were immediately engulfed in darkness as is usually the case. She rose to greet us very warmly, holding her heavily bundled baby tightly in her arms. There was not enough room for all of us to sit, so we doubled up and began to visit.

We were shocked to learn that the baby is only 2 days old, the 6^th child of this mother, and further shocked as she explained that on the day of the birth, she was having some significant labor and had been told that this baby was going to be a difficult delivery, and she should go to the hospital rather than having it at home. She could not find any transport—no matatus or buses out there, and especially not during the holiday season, so she got on a motorcycle, traveled to the hospital, about 15 minute ride on terrible roads to deliver her breech birth baby (feet first) within 2 hours of arriving at the hospital.

She had her at 6PM and returned home the next morning. She said, “They had no pain medicine at the hospital and no trained people, only beginning students.” I can’t believe what these people endure here, stoically….there are no other options for them. I felt so sorry for her. Most of the women have no underclothing, so the milk just flows, and here she has company…I would be lying flat on my back complaining in her condition, but they just accept it as their lot.

The baby is absolutely beautiful with lots of long curly black hair, beautiful curly eyelashes, and long fingers. We told momma how beautiful the baby was, and she said, “Oh she’s as black as me.” The baby had on an undershirt (first I’ve seen), a pretty dress, a heavy brown towel, and a blue baby blanket. I was plenty hot with none of that. It is very common for babies to be heavily wrapped.

EXPECTATIONS, EXPECTATIONS:

One of the most difficult adjustments we are making, is to face the CONSTANT expectations required of us, of which we have not the slightest understanding. We were driving home from a very long day of teaching…we had had several visiting appointments, and then three classes in our most distant branch, about an hour away on very hard roads. As we neared Sikhendu (one of our branches ½ hour away from home) at the close of this day, about 4:30 PM, we received a phone call.

“Elder Beecher, you are coming to my house to take photos of all of my family and friends.” “We Are?” “Yes, right now! We are all waiting for you.” “You are? What is this for?” “You know, it is my son’s graduation from his circumcision 4 months ago. Everyone is here, my neighbors, and my family, and you must come. You come now!” We have learned from past experience that sometimes people invite us kind of like a trophy. They feel it adds to their prestige in the community if they have a muzungu attend their function. It has nothing to do with friendship or personal connection, but everything to do with their status in the community. As you will see under the next topic, in other cases, having a muzungu in your home has just the opposite effect as well.

We have to be so careful that we do not set a precedent in the actions we take. To agree to take family photos of one large community event for one family could lead to bad feelings as people compare and then have further expectations of what we should do. We have really had a difficult time meeting expectations which have been set before we came.

So, we were quite nervous as we changed directions and proceeded to the home of this family. When we arrived, the father stood out in the overgrown path to show us the direction to his compound. He gestured us in through the undergrowth to his house—a sod home. There were people everywhere, sitting on the ground, crowding around the truck, filling the three houses in the enclosure, circling the fires, and sitting in large and small groups talking and eating. They had been at this event all day long since early morning, and some had been there the night before.

We arrived at the end of the festivities for many, although many others would stay much longer. The husband pulled us from one group to another introducing us to all. He took us into one house where probably 9 men and 2 women sat in a circle eating rice, ugalli, and meat. He introduced us to many of his brothers (this is a polygamous home—in his father’s generation). One brother was the village elder, another was the circumciser, another was the oldest man in the village, and another a sub-chief of the tribe.

We met the boy guest of honor, dressed in his best…but his clothing was all smeared with food—a tradition in which his peers honor him by smearing his new clothes with their food.

We were asked for money twice in the 20 minutes or ½ hour we were there. The father took us to the spring that provides water for this large extended family and community. LDS Charities had put it in 10 years ago. It was still doing well, but the platform surrounding it was caving in, and the pipe had rotted away, and had been replaced by a plastic pipe, which was now broken. He wanted us to replace it.

On the way back from walking to the spring, three teenage girls kept giving Neal a paper, but he couldn’t understand what they were asking him. Finally, he realized they wanted money from us. This is so common. We are almost always asked for money or help of some kind no matter where we go.

PRE-CHRISTMAS FESTIITIES with the other 11 couples

We traveled to Lake Nakuru, famous for the thousands of beautiful flamingoes who frequent it. There are many lodges there—beautiful places which overlook the lake. We spent two and a half days driving through the game reserve. We saw baboons, water buffalo, lions, gazelles and impalas, rhinoceros’s , warthogs. It is a very large park, and the animals, of course, run wild. We did not hire safari vans, but just drove through with our cars. The animals were great, but our favorite part was being with the couples. We miss that association very much.

CHRISTMAS with the ELDERS: We spent Christmas Day with the 6 elders in our district. We did service at an orphanage run by members of the Church. The elders and Neal built up the sod bank of a tilapia pond) while I worked with the teenaged girls preparing African food for lunch for the children. There are usually 85 kids there, but this day we had about 30. We had purchased some balls for them to keep, so after the work, they played ball.

They elders ate ugalli, chicken and greens before we left to return home where we planned to have a big turkey dinner. They were full by then, so we postponed the dinner and played games like Christmas concentration, open the candy bar with gloves, etc….(we played games for about 2 hours—they loved that) Then they opened a DVD the mission had prepared with all of their pictures, ate our dinner, then they opened several gifts from us, then had a spiritual program with scriptures, music and candlelight, followed by a testimony meeting and “Finding Faith in Christ” video. Two of the elders wrote letters to us later, both saying it was the best Christmas of their lives, that they had never had a “family” kind of fun and spiritual Christmas. That was a bittersweet experience…sweet because they were so kind, but sad, too, that they have never had that. Many of them never receive any mail of any kind, so Christmas is just hard…particularly when there are muzungus in the district who get lots from the USA

Seminary and Institute Inservice

As you can tell, life has been a bit crazy with all this stuff going on. We just finished our second inservice meeting introducing the Doctrine & Covenants study for next year. I’ve learned so much just preparing for these meetings. Those D&C training materials are really comprehensive. We did a big overview of the D&C giving the history of the Church in brief and then presenting a detailed lesson on the Plan of Happiness so they have some ideas about how to present these things. We also handed out all of the manuals we could to the new teachers.. This next week will be spent trying to get all of their names entered into the internet Seminary/Institute Program to track their attendance for next year.

Possible change in the wind

We presently have 12 couples in the mission, including the president and wife. Every month for the next six months, we will have another couple leave and no one to replace them. This will make it very difficult to keep the programs going. We presently work with two couples: one in Eldoret and another in Kisumu. They do a lot to keep the Seminary and Institutes going and the Perpetual Education Fund functioning. The Eldoret couple will move to Nairobe Jan 28, and the Kisumu couple goes home at the end of spring. We will have to assume their responsibilities when they leave. We are unsure how we will do that because they live 2 hours rough road to Eldoret and then another 2-3 hours on to Kisumu. So, it should be interesting to see how that works out.

Bunny Hop for First Time-Seminary Activity

Kazuri Beads-women's coop-Primary song aprons I had made for the sisters

Karen Blixen's home "Out of Africa", National Park rig

A huge park right in Nairobe--Great Hunter--and de-maggoted a day later

Maggots in the soil, then Neal's foot. Akorino Religion, Protestant group wear headdress from birth in bead factory

Seminary Activity

We have been heavily involved trying to prepare for a once in a lifetime experience for many of our young people. We decided to put on a 4-branch Seminary Activity. Most of our attendees had never seen so many Mormon kids before. We had about 135 to 145 come. One busload of over 60 kids came from Misikhu. But they traveled further than that--from Naitiri, Sikhendu, and of course, Kitale.

Most had never registered for any kind of an event like this, so one of our biggest obstacles when they arrived, was to get them to give us their "last name". They each have many names. They didn't know what we meant. Then they had never lined up according to an alphabetized selection process, viz. A-K, L-M, etc. So that was a new experience. Many of the kids spoke no English.

We tried a "get acquainted" game where you have a sheet and go around asking people to sign it if they have a quality that matches the statement on the sheet, like "find someone who is wearing a red shirt". That was a new experience for almost all of the kids.

We also had them color some paper puppets in preparation for a service project for today giving a puppet show to the primary kids in their respective branches.

We had a wonderful couple, President & Sister Kandawala, speak in the Keynote Addresses about how difficult it was for them to join the Church and withstand the fierce persecution they have had over the years to remain active. They introduced the theme I N 3:7 and emphasized the idea to look in the mirror each day and commit to go and do as the Lord commands. At the end of the day, we gave each student a mirror with the theme on the back.

We believe none of the kids had ever participated in a competitive quiz, or a play/skit. We spent much time before the event (we had a 2 hour rehearsal the day before) practicing and explaining these new concepts to our native leaders. We chose 4 young men (2 elders and 2 others of similar age, who spoke English fairly well) and practiced with them several times explaining these activities. We dressed them up in costumes of 4 colors and called them Moroni's. They carried flags (the Title of Liberty) in their individual colors. As the Seminary students arrived at registration, they were greeted by the Moroni's and their branch presidents and were given a neckerchief in one of the 4 colors and instructed to follow their colored flag-bearing leader all day. That part of the activity day worked wonderfully well. We lost not one kid. The teams sat together, competed together, bore testimony together, played together. It was great.

We also practiced with our teachers (we have about 28) the week before, going through the entire activity and having them pretend to be the students. It was good because it showed us where we needed to work. They had never been in a play or a skit or performed charades before either.

We placed a color-coded basket with 10 one-page scripts, props and costume parts for a story from the Book of Mormon in each of 4 color-coded rooms (to match the Moroni's). On signal, they ran to their rooms, and in 15 minutes were supposed to put together a play acting out what their script said. They performed (12 minutes each) BEAUTIFULLY. They had a ball doing it. Our biggest challenge was to keep reminding them to FACE the audience--but that is the case working with drama groups in the states too.

The team competition answering questions from the Book of Mormon worked really well too. We were going to ban all Moroni's from helping their teams, but we finally relented and allowed them to coach them if they got stuck! Everyone one on a winning team got two pieces of candy, everyone one on a losing team got one piece. Everyone was happy with that!

Each new activity was introduced by a BELL signal. We practiced ahead of time with the Moroni's to move from activity to activity so the transitions worked really well. The bell rang after the dramas, and we all went to lunch, which lasted 1/2 hour and consisted of a pop, a loaf of bread, and a banana for each student. They loved it, and we loved it, because it was so quick and easy!

Then we went on to the outdoor games. We had 4 activities going at once. Each team moved in sequence from activity to activity for 15-minute segments--each begun with the bell. They had never moved in rotating activities like this before, but they just followed their colored flag, and it worked great! They played volleyball (two nets, two balls, 4 teams each rotation), relay races---sack & back to back, "How do you Like your Neighbor", and the dance sequence...which turned out to be the all-time favorite for everyone---"Chicken Dance, Hokey Pokey, and the Bunny Hop" all of which were completely new activities for the participants.

Then the bell rang, and we returned to the chapel where they had stand in place to give their testimonies because we were so crammed in there they couldn't move if they wanted to. We finally had to cut it off because so many of them bore their testimonies. It was so neat. During the day, we sang, "Nephi's Courage", "The Books of the Book of Mormon" and finally, "The Armies of Helaman," all of which they had practiced in their branches before the event. We sang the last one through twice...ending standing. The spirit was so high by that time, we could have flown out of the building!

It turned out to be a WONDERFUL DAY for all of us. We were so grateful for all the help we received from so many people. A wonderful couple, the Foxes, came up from Kisumu, a 4 hour horrible road ride to help us. We were so grateful. She is going to write up the event and hopefully submit it to the "Liahona".

Serving with members--rhinos in center of Nairobe--tea plantations--Arrival day

More Seminary Activity

OOps I had 2 more wedding pictures to add here in the middle of the Seminary Activity!

The WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENT-Kenya Style

We were invited to two wedding events for the same couple. We attended the Engagement Announcement. This was a very, very prosperous LDS family. There were 300-400 people in attendance sitting under tents and milling around when we arrived. The announcement said the party was to begin at 10:00 AM. We had four different couples ask if we could take them to the party because it was very far away, and it would be very expensive for them to travel. They volunteered to ride in the back of our metal truck. We demurred at that, and finally agreed to take 2 couples squished in the back seat. It was a 1 hour very bumpy, bangy trip out in the buikid.

The home is the nicest we've seen since being here--a brick one in a lovely setting with a smaller home (for the boys) some distance from the big house. In between was a small building with two stalls for ladies and two for men--African toilets, and two African baths...small cubicles with a tiny hole in the floor.

We thought we should leave about 9:00 AM, but we were told quickly that we would only be bored if we arrived that early. We should pick up our passengers at noon because the festivities would go on until 2-3:00 AM the next day. When we arrived, we could hear chanting and see a large group of matronly women--many of whom were dressed alike in lovely African dresses, swinging their arms and singing. They were leaving the home. They made several trips out and back in again during the time we were there. We were told they were the aunts of the groom, going into the house to "dress" the bride. This was part of the acceptance ceremony.

After about an hour of this dancing in and out, the women formed a large cluster, and came out one last time, this time with the bride, who was dressed in a red sequined dress. She looked lovely. The groom had been sitting in his tent with his family. He was identified by the silver & pink tinsel streamers he had around his neck.

Then the guests were served by caterers on both sides of the large open space. They gave us boiled potatoes, chicken, and a tomato-type sauce and a chapati. It must have been very expensive to serve all of those people. It was very nice.

Following the meal, the Master of Ceremonies got up and announced that he would turn the time over to the "Mormons". There were probably 30 of us there among all of those throngs of people. The Branch President spoke, we sang two songs, and then they announced that Elder Beecher would speak. He had been informed about 3 minutes before the announcement that he was going to give the talk. He did a good job. His was the only speech I understood.

Later, during the day, cakes were brought out (one for the bride and one for the circumcised brother). The children took turns feeding their parents the cake. Then the bride fed the groom and then she took pieces of the take to all of his many, many relatives.

Then a ceremony of introduction was performed where both sides of both families formed lines and shook hands, signifying a turning over of the bride to the groom's family. By then it was about 4-4:30 and we needed to leave to be home before dark. They made a lovely couple. They will be married (actually today) and leave for the temple tomorrow or Monday. We don't know what happened after that. It was neat to see, and we were fortunate to be able to attend.

The boys were happy to greet us & get their "snaps" taken

Circumcision rites

This is the season for circumcision. From what we can gather, the rites vary from tribe to tribe, but we have yet to meet a family, which does not practice this ritual. One tribe who practice the event in a traditional manner, live near our home. They perform the ceremony in the following way: The boys, usually between 8-14 are preceded running through town or on the highway by adult family and friends who carry sticks, singing and chanting as they run. The boys follow as they proceed from house to house announcing the impending ceremony. Neighbors join the procession. They usually end up at an uncle's home. The uncle kills a calf in honor of the boy. The intestines of the cow are draped around the boy's neck and then a big hunk of meat is also draped around his neck. He runs, leading the group, back to his mother's home, where the meat is cooked in a feast for all attendees.

The ceremony is then performed in a public gathering. The boy is then taken to a hut away from his mother's home. He remains there for 2 months with an older boy, who takes care of him. His mother may not feed him during this time nor have anything to do with him. His parents are not supposed to have conjugal relations during this time or the boy's wounds will not heal properly. The boy is chalked with white to show his rite of passage.

Last week, we attended a very elaborate wedding announcement party, beautifully presented. About 300-400 people were in attendance at the outdoor event. The brides' father is a Veterinary doctor, so they live on a large shamba (farm) in a brick house. The party began at 10:00 and was still going very strong when we left about 5:00PM. The bride's brother (14 yrs old) had been circumcised 2 months earlier, and his "coming out" party was combined with the bride's announcement party. During the day, he was honored (as was she) with separate cakes, songs, dances, and chants. This circumcision was performed in a hospital, but the boy still returned home to be cared for by an older boy in his own hut way out in the field. After the party, the boy would begin his life in a small mud home on the property away from his mother's home, living with his older brother. This was an active LDS family who had the party.

Two days before this party, we were visiting in another branch. There were three women sitting talking with me. All three had sons who had been circumcised within the last month. One was performed at home, one in the hospital, and one in a clinic. The mother, who had it done at home was very worried because something had gone wrong, and her son (9 yrs old) was having problems. She was asking advice of the mission president's wife (who was a nurse in her former life) because of the leakage. When I asked these sisters why they circumcised their boys--was it a health issue, or tradition, or cultural acceptance--to be like others. They all said their reasons were the last...because it is what is done. Circumcision is performed only on certain years and at certain times of the year. That is why so many are being done now---it is the year for many tribes.

R.S. Pres' HOME storage-maize, member visit, Nairobi traffic, Barter system, Beautiful Jaquaranda Trees-Nairobi