VERBAL ABUSE:
Paul M. said, “we must have no roaring in the forest” meaning, we must be kind to our wives and not yell at them. When asked how many mosquito bites he endured each night, he rolled his eyes, laughed, and said, “Oh to many—too numerous to tell”
HUNGER:
Three people approached me at Inservice asking for plastic bags (like you would bring groceries or clothing home from the store in). They are so desperate for anything right now…people are so hungry and harvest won’t come until October.
MAIZE: We look at corn growing everywhere now, and it looks like it is so tall and in tassle. They eat field corn, and if they eat it now (when we would) it won’t keep. It will need to be consumed immediately. It must stand on the stalks until harvest in October when it is then dry and hard. It can them be harvested and stored to be broken up into flour.
The Church constructed a very popular spring right next to a busy farm road. We see people there constantly, in fact, although we pass there almost every day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it without lots of people. We’ve seen big white tents there (we thought it was a wedding or big party—found out the people who rent these big tents bring them to this spring to wash them. ) We laughed and laughed the other day to see a great big water truck parked there with a man perched on top. His partner on the ground was filling buckets and passing them up where the top guy was pouring their contents into the truck. On the side of the truck, the owners were advertising “CLEAN WATER”.
SHOCKING STEP: We were doing some training with a branch president in one of our most distant branches—very rural. The branch president asked us to take his counselor to the home of a widow whose 29 year old son had died earlier that morning. Our goal was to assess the situation and see how the Church could help.
The widow, Lorna, lives on government land right in the middle of the village, and has been served notice that she must move within just a couple of months and find another home. This is a desperate situation for her, because she has been ‘squatting” on this place for many years clear back to the time her husband was alive. He was from Uganda, and so they had no legal rights to live here in Kenya. She lives in a mud house with intricate designs painted all around the outside walls. I think I mentioned in an earlier entry, that she is not allowed to paint or decorate the house in any way now that he is dead because it would be an affront to his family and show that she was happy now that he was gone.
We entered the very dark house (no windows) with the only light coming from behind us in the half obscured doorway. I could barely make her out. She was squatting on a small rough stool and rose when I approached her. I put my arms around her to comfort her as she was crying. As we pulled apart, and my eyes adjusted to the dark, I looked down to see that I was nearly standing on the dead man’s face. He was stretched out on the mud floor with rags under his head, turned on his side facing her with his hands kind of clasped up by his face as if he were sleeping on his side.
I involuntarily lurched back, shocked that he was right there among us so intimately, and that I might have stepped on him. Two other women, Neal and the branch counselor were sitting in the darkness (the R.S. Pres and a neighbor). We all sat in silence as the mother silently wept. After some time, they all spoke in Swahili and later explained the great dilemma.
There has been no food in this house for sometime. Lorna went to a neighboring hut awhile ago to get her son, who has been ill for about one year with “neglected Malaria”. This means he has been sick and perhaps received some medicine, but the medicine was either not effective, or it was sham medicine. Consequently, he never got over his bout with Malaria, and just continued to be ill. For the recent time, his legs have swollen up to 3 times normal size, and he has been unable to walk.
He became very gravely ill the day before his death, so Lorna borrowed money from someone and bought medicine, but he was so hungry, he was not able to digest or take the medicine, and so, died this morning. The problem is compounded by the fact that in Kenya, people who die are buried at home in the yard. Lorna has no land of her own, and so she has nowhere to bury her son.
In their culture, the elders in a family make all big decisions, so Lorna’s brothers were called to come to make the decisions about the burial, the funeral, and the future. They, too, are hungry and live far away in Eldoret and other distant villages. They don’t have the money to come to help her. They will borrow the money and arrive in a few days. In the meantime, she will continue to sit over her son, waving a rag over his head to keep the flies away. It is Lorna’s brothers who will make the decisions. She has no say. Her husband’s family will not be involved because this son is not his son. This boy had a different father.
It was very sad as you may well imagine. So, we drove back to the Church to get some help from the branch president for food for a few days for her.
Banana Tithing
I visited YW in a branch on Sunday. Although this YW President (no active counselors) has held the position for about 4 years, I think this is probably one of the few times she has ever had an actual YW Sunday class. She was very nervous. She is a little older than I am. She immediately asked me to teach the class. I urged her to do it, and she did a good job. She read to the girls the first introductory pages of the PP book as the lesson. We turned to one of the goals, which mentioned tithing.
I had asked the teacher earlier during the class to share with the girls some of her experiences with faith in raising her large family. She is the wife of a polygamist. He is dead now.
I said, “You have raised a big family. I’m sure you’ve had some hard times during those years. What can you tell the girls about leaning on the Lord when times are hard.” She said, “Oh that is easy. I can tell them about right now. There is no food. We are all hungry. I pray that we won’t die. The Lord blesses us.” I bore testimony to Pres. Hinckley’s promise that if we will “pay our tithes and offerings, though they be meager, we will have rice in our bowls, a roof over our heads, and clothing on our backs.”
The teacher AND the kids got wide eyes, “You really mean it. The Lord will really bless us that way if we do that?” They were really dumbfounded…the teacher (who has been a member for a long time and had 2 boys serve missions in the past and one now preparing), said, “Do you really mean that. Will the Lord really do that?” I assured her He would and told her some of our personal experiences with tithing and how strongly I feel about it. The room got really quiet. Then I drew 10 ears of Maize on the board and then 10 apples, and taught what tithing was. The teacher really struggled mentally with that. You could see it in her eyes.
She said, “You mean I raise my bananas, and then I take one to the market or to the Church?” I explained she sells the 10 bananas and then takes 1/10 of the money to the branch pres. It was just like something clicked. You know we have such a language barrier. We teach and teach as missionaries, but often, most often, they understand only some of what we teach, and we understand only a little of what they say. It was profound for me to watch that transformation. Many people here are so faithful, so humble, and have such hard lives.
Home Teaching
One of the branch president’s counselors was talking about the importance of Home Teaching. He said, you know many of the pastors here visit their members every day because they live so near. We need to be visiting much better than we are doing.
Speaking of visiting. Remember the woman we visited in the school (tilapia farm project) where she is a prominent teacher that I mentioned in our last blog. She came to Church after 5 years the next week after our visit. Her husband came the next week. He spoke in testimony meeting (last Sunday) and said, “Even though I haven’t come to Church in 5 years, I kept my white Sunday clothes and I’ve never attended another Church in all that time because I know this Church is true.” They live so far away. It is nearly impossible for them to come.
Toothaches and banged knees
One of the young men we teach in the Missionary Prep class really wants to go on a mission. He is without parents or guardians and is 24 yrs old. He walked 2 ½ hours one time to come to class, and then 2 ½ hours back. We help him with the cost of the transport. We have a rule for this class. We will pay transport if they arrive BEFORE the opening prayer. They’ve been really good. He came this week and was a little early. He kept holding his face and moving gingerly. We asked about it. He said he had come on a picky picky (motor cycle you pay to take you somewhere). It was very rainy, and we are into mud again—particularly where he comes from. The picky picky driver went too fast and hit some slippery mud, and both of them went down. He was hurt and showed it. After class, he told us he had broken his tooth, and it was really hurting him.
He has absolutely no money, doesn’t eat much I don’t think. He said he would have to go to Eldoret to find a dentist. That is about 1 ½ hours on a vehicle from his place. We felt so badly for him. We told him to contact the branch president (we are trying to be obedient and not giving people money as we have in the past, but having them go through priesthood line). Oh, I felt so badly for him. It is so hard not to just give them money, but we know the damage that does by undermining the priesthood line. We just love him.
Bites
Well, I had 29 bites until today. Now I have 31. They are like welts. I thought they were hives, but they are localized in specific spots. Another couple told us to use Diazonon, that that is the only thing that will kill the bugs. I really don’t think they are in our bed. We use nets, and I get the bites in the middle of the day. I never see bugs or mosquitoes, but boy do I itch! Anyone know anything about Diazonon? I’ve tried every cream the pharmacy can muster.
Blessings
We had three wonderful experiences with patriarchal blessings last week. That has become one of the spiritual highlights of our mission. We feel so fortunate and blessed to be able to participate with the wonderful people who come. They bring tremendous spiritual blessings to us in our meetings with them.
Luxuries
One of the branch presidents was talking with us about the importance of food storage and living providently. He said “Our people are so hungry now. This will continue until October. Then they will harvest their crops and live extravagantly, buying luxuries.” We asked, “What is a luxury. What are they buying?” He said, “Oh, things like fish and meat.”
African Homeland
At the training in So Africa, Brother Haws (from Utah) spoke about arriving in Africa for the first time and being greeted by Brother Khumliani with the words, “Welcome to the homeland.” Brother Haws went around the room in our meeting and asked each of the participants from where their ancestors came. The 40 or so African couples all said places in Africa. The 10 Western couples mostly said Europe. He then asked us how many were from the tribe of Ephraim. Almost everyone in the room raised his/her hand. He asked us to turn to Gen 41:45 and read it. Joseph and Asenath had their children in Africa. We are ALL from Africa!
NEWBORN
Pres Kadaji and his wife, Esther had a surprise last Sunday. She started into labor. They thought the baby would be due in July. They made their way to a doctor…quite a distance from their home. The doctor did not examine her, but Esther’s water had broken, so he said, “go home. You will have this baby today. Come again, when you are ready.” They went back home, and about 1:00 AM, she knew she was going to deliver. They live way, way out in the hills. It is about 1 mile from their house on the mountain, just down to the road. There are no streetlights, and it was raining and muddy. Remember, muddy here has a whole different connotation than it does at home.
So, Pres and Esther and her sister-in-law made their way down off the mountain. We asked if they had any light. He flicked on his phone to show us the light they used. They finally got down to the road to wait for a motorcycle they could hire. None came, so they finally called a taxi. I have no idea where they got a taxi out there. I’m sure it wasn’t like any taxi we’ve ever known.
They finally got to the clinic to find that the doctor was asleep. President waited outside and was sent back home. He called sometime later to find he had a baby boy. He went to Church to conduct his first meetings in his new calling, and then hired a motorcycle to go out to the clinic---a long, long way to get her. She brought her newborn son home on a motorcycle at that time. The baby’s name is “Goodluck”.
They live very, very humbly…almost no furniture..only wooden benches, dirt floor, no door, only a piece of fabric separating the parlor from where they all sleep. I don’t think there is food there. I’ve never seen any at least. We took a small gift. But, they are very excited to have this sweet little boy. His cord came off at 4 days, which she says is normal. She said they don’t have a cord protruding like our babies do and don’t tie it off like we do.
The baby was 3.5 kilo, which is normal. If a baby comes any earlier than 7 months, it usually dies. They have no incubators or modern equipment where she delivered.
I am just amazed at these people and the things they endure. Life is sooo very hard for them. There are three other little children in the home—darling little kids. Malcom, Trinity(1 ½) and Athaiya. The baby, Trinity, was terrified when Neal picked her brother, Malcom, up. She cried and cried. Those white Muzungu’s are scairy you know. Grandma was there. She is 72 and a very active Salvation Army member. She was delightful.
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