Life is all perspective, right? There is an old song that goes `One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.’ I have discovered the ultimate example of this.

Assuming that you are an adult who is reading this, I would also assume that if a large rat made its way into your bedroom, your response would probably not be `Sweet!’ However, this was the reaction of my oldest son when he discovered the rat. The rest of the dorm quickly sprung into action, and `Rat Wars’ began. They all got sticks, and invented many different traps to catch the rat. Nothing has worked yet, but I think this is the moral equivalent of a new video game in the states.

The battle is with six-month-old twins who act like they were abandoned at birth so bed is the ultimate enemy. The battle is getting them to sleep around the same time, and to sleep through the night. The best we have done so far is 5:30am, which I can live with because it is the time I get up anyway. Katie wakes up happy as soon as she is taken from the bed; Ben must be consoled for a period before he actually believes that he will be set free.

They are both good eaters; the first time I fed Ben, I thought after he drank the bottle, he would try to eat it. They have both settled down, and seem to understand they are no longer at an orphanage where there are 65 other babies and you get fed when they get to you, so it is no longer necessary to scream with such urgency. Don’t get me wrong; they are still babies and they cry when they are hungry, but the urgency is gone. But almost everything sounds like a crying baby right now; I was brushing my teeth with the electric toothbrush, and Nancy thought it sounded like a crying baby.

The biggest surprise to me is how dry African babies skin is. After you change diapers, you usually put some oil on their foreheads. After a bath, they get oiled down all over. I had lots of African American friends in the states, but I never remember this being discussed before. I guess that makes sense; if someone came up to me and said `Did you know our people suffer from dry skin’ that would be an unusual topic of conversation, even by my standards.

Matthew and I climbed Mt Longonot on New Year’s Day. I’m trying to do something special with each of the older boys so they don’t feel left out because of the twins. (It is actually so busy in our house that they probably long to feel left out, but they are enjoying helping out right now). As we got to the top, I thought of the usual resolutions: lose weight, exercise more, read Proust, but as I prayed, I felt like this was the goal I was to have this year:

Don’t make peace with the fact that there are hungry children.

We are behind on everything right now, including Christmas cards after I unashamedly begged for them recently. We will get them out; honest. But my heart for this year is a plan to go underground to provide lunches for schoolchildren. I will have more information about it soon, and hope you will consider it. But if 9/11 taught me anything, it was to put my cynicism away. I’m around hungry kids all the time, and I don’t want to be jaded to it.

I honestly think there is a way to make an impact. I don’t want to spend years of my life here and not try to effect a change.

If I don’t try, I’ve made peace with the fact that there are hungry children.

Your pal

Steve Peifer

Steve on Mount Longonot