The Pinewood Derby was Saturday. After all the weeks of preparation, the time had come. On Friday night, the 1st through 3rd grades ran their races, or rather, their dashes, because they were not official. But Saturday, the 4th through 12th grade would race.

The track took almost the length of the gym. Because we have a Ph.D. in applied sciences, a masters in discrete mathematics and a masters in theater, the track was absolutely perfect, we had computer systems tracking the time, and the whole race broadcast on an overhead screen. First the fourth grade raced, and a winner was decided.

Then the fifth grade raced. JT had tried to make a car, which looked, like a Star Wars pod. It didn’t really look like that, and the paint job was crude at best. But he was as proud of his car as any boy is proud of his car (or girl, for that matter; girls won both the 4th and 6th grade) We just hoped he would finish one of the races and place.

He won his first race against 6 5th graders. And the next. And the next. And he was finally crowned the winner of the whole fifth grade. Then he beat the winners of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. Then he beat the winners of 8th through high school! Then he raced the staff, and came in second in the entire system. The guy who had beaten him was a staff member who had built a pretty high-tech car. It was a real thrill for JT and all of us.

Someone asked me if I had helped him with the car. This brought gales of laughter from my bride, who explained in her kindly way that if I had helped; the car would have exploded. Someone else asked `Didn’t you work in the shop helping the kids assembling the cars?’ I responded that I did three things in the shop:

1. Yell `Yes, you! Put the goggles on now!”
2. `Yes, yellow and orange paint really works for your car.’
3. `Ask Mr. Dempsey.’

He did it all on his own, and I think he tried to sleep with his trophy.

We have begun to receive toys from so many of you, and I went to the Crippled Children’s Hospital Sunday morning to begin to distribute some. (We need to wait until we have enough to give everyone at the orphanage, or there will be more tears than I can bear.) It was a sobering and exhilarating at the same time.

In much of African culture, deformed children are thought to be a curse and an embarrassment, and they are hidden from the community. One of the doctors told me `If only we could get to them earlier, we could correct so much of it easily. But so many wait and then it is too late.’ I saw a little guy named Martin who had a concave head; it’s the only way I can describe it.

There were many, many burn victims. In Africa, so much cooking is done over an open flame, and it is so easy for little one to wander where they shouldn’t. It again reminded me the blessing that our son Stephen was. He was so deformed that you had to look at the beauty within, because he did not have it on the outside. Because of my time with him, I could look at these children and not react to some of the horrible things that had happened to them.

There was a little girl named Ketisha, who had much of her left side of her face burned off. Her left eye was just horrible; she was covered with ugly deep burns, and walked with a painful limp.

But I promise you; I have never seen such a mischievous smile in my life. And everytime she walked by me, I would tickle her, and she would run away. If I missed her, she would run back to get her tickle. She is four, with more strikes against her than I could count, but she had so much life in her. It was the most amazing thing; with everything against her, she had more life in her than most people I know.

I played with them for an hour, and I finally pulled out a Magna Doodle for Emanuel. I never saw his face again. He drew and wrote for an hour; the entire Kenyan staff gathered around; none had ever seen anything like it. When I left, I told him `This is a gift from people in the United States who love you.’ And he cried. A nurse told me later `He has had three painful surgeries on his feet (he has a club foot) and never cried once; now he cries for this.’

But love is a good thing to cry for, isn’t it?

YOP

S