And I Don’t NEED Sun Screen
Our kids are all changing. I have this conversation with Katie almost every day:
Katie: Daddy, what color skin do you have?
Me: I have white skin.
Katie: What color skin do I have?
Me: You have beautiful black skin.
Katie: And I don’t NEED sun screen!
Whenever Nancy works on Katie’s hair, as soon as she is done, she races to the mirror to see what it looks like. That is funny in itself, because Katie’s run might remind you of Groucho Marx’s sloping walk, but she is the only child we’ve had who has CARED what she looks like.
In the picture, Ben is wearing a coat that JT wore, Matthew wore, and his cousin Douglas wore. It is remarkable how clothing can evoke emotion, but it really did when I put on his jacket for the first time.
Matthew is becoming a young man, and recently wrote a piece of music that was just beautiful. The sixth graders go on a special safari at the end of the year, and he is thrilled about becoming a member of the polar club, which involves jumping in an ice fed lake. Traditions are IMPORTANT here, even weird ones.
JT is now 15, and has gone on three dates. The first girl asked him to a Sadie Hawkins movie night. She is an absolutely beautiful white young lady. The second young lady who asked him out to a Sadie Hawkins luncheon is an absolutely beautiful Kenyan woman. On his third date, he asked out a beautiful Korean woman. For more excitement, he got invited to Uganda (just a day’s drive) and spent a day white water rafting on the Nile River. He asked at one point if he could get out and swim, and was told it wasn’t a good idea, because the crocodiles would be too appreciative.
The computer lab is operational, and that is a story in itself. I went to a guy named Walter who I met during our orientation school for coming to Africa. He is with the technical part of our mission, the part that does the building and creating.
I told him that I wanted a computer lab. Several weeks later, he came up with an idea, a design, and a budget. Because our budget was limited and because thievery is such an issue here, he took an old metal shipping container, and Ft. Knox would probably be easier to get into than this container. Solar is gold, and he figured out how to install the solar in a way that the only way you could steal it would be to break it, which sort of negates the point.
But what you might not know about Walter is that after he delivered the Computer Center, he lived in it for three nights to do all the work that needed to be done and protect the special tools he would need to make it function. While we were doing finishing touches today, he got out a can of paint and did touch up work. I had to walk off and cry over that; he has just done it all for this project, and done it with excellence and care that inspire me when they don’t put me to shame.
Walter
(Rachel is the computer teacher)
Headmaster with special attention to his little finger and the A.A young man came up to me last week and told me `When you told me that you would build a computer center, I did not believe you. When the computer center came, I still did not believe it.’ I invited him in and let him write his name. `Now I believe’ he said with a face full of tears.
This is going to get weirdly personal, so feel free to skip through the next few paragraphs. I so desperately believe in the feeding program we do, and I pray that it can continue in May. But like much we have done in Kenya, it is reactive.
I’ve been in Kenya for four years, and this is the first time I’ve felt like I have took a stab at the beast that has robbed and raped and stolen from this country. It is a small center, and it will only serve a few hundred children, but it is a start, and a real way out of the poverty that consumes this land.
Besides the super important and obvious best days of my life (Nancy saying yes, birth of the boys and adoption of the twins) there are two other days that stand out as my top days of living.
When Stephen was born, he had such a cleft lip that he couldn’t drink from Nancy or a regular bottle because he couldn’t create a sucking motion. It took a special bottle, and none of the nurses were able to get him to take any milk. They said that they would need to insert a feeding tube in him.
I asked if I could try, and the nurses reminded me that they were neo-natal intensive care nurses and two of the best nurses had been unsuccessful. I asked again, and they sighed the heavy sighs that only nurses can sigh.
And he took the whole bottle from me. And he would only eat from Nancy and me, like he knew he didn’t have much time, so why waste it on someone else? And that still stands as the greatest day of my life.
The other day, which has nothing to do with the previous one, was over 30 years ago. It was a summer evening, and I was in the car with Tom and Charlie and Chopper and Rocky Mountain High came on, and I loved that song and I loved my friends and I knew that they loved me and I just felt so alive and so happy.
I don’t know why I thought of those two events, but as I watched Walter put on the touch up paint and I cried, those thoughts came pouring into my mind. And I realized what a gift it is to do what you all have allowed us to do in Kenya, and I would have to say thank you for giving me one of the greatest days of my life.
The Passion movie hasn’t reached Africa yet, but from what I’ve read, the impact of the movie is the realization of the sacrifice that Jesus went through to give us a second chance. When that young boy told me `Now I believe’ I realized something for the first time: part of the reason we are given a second chance is to offer it to someone else.
I’m so grateful for the second chance you have given these kids. I hope you have the greatest Easter celebration ever. And don’t forget the sun screen; some of us need it.
Your pal
Steve