Tumaini Tuesday - the flooded ravine

I've written about this ravine before. 

 It separates the school from the homes at the SIDP camp at Maai Mahiu.

 When the school was built, the ravine was nominal, nothing that couldn't be crossed year-round.

And it still can be crossed ten or more months out of the year. But during the rainy season it becomes a raging torrent. Our friend who works at the school posted a video of the flood on Facebook. Sorry that I am not tech-savvy enough to post it here, but please click on this link to see it on our Facebook page.

The ravine is just on the other side of that fence, within yards of the school yard.

Living in Darkness, waiting for the Light

 Now those people live in darkness.

    But they will see a great light.

They live in a place that is very dark.

    But a light will shine on them.

 God, you will cause the nation to grow.

    You will make the people happy.

And they will show their happiness to you.

    It will be like the joy during harvest time.

It will be like the joy of people

    taking what they have won in war.

(Isaiah 9:2-3 International Children’s Bible)

Last night I finished putting together our children’s Christmas program for church. This is the fourth year I’ve written the program. But saying I “wrote” it is misleading, I just put together the Bible passages and the songs that fit (I get a lot of help with the songs from our organist). I don’t pull the Bible verses out of my head, I Goggle things like “verses for Christmas programs”. It’s really not so hard.

After printing out the program, I still wanted to write this blog post. It dawned on me, why reinvent the wheel? Just take the three Bible readings you already researched for the program and use them for the next three weeks leading up to Christmas.

I went to bed before getting that done.

This morning, eating breakfast while reading the news on the internet, I thought that maybe instead I should write about the crisis our world is in. Between terrorist attacks, gun control, Syrian refugees, and the whole clash over religion, society seems to be spiraling towards the End Times.

But because God is good, even though there are many out there who disagree, He gave me the Bible verse above which I pulled off the internet several weeks ago to use in our Christmas program because the program’s theme is “Jesus is the Light”, not even thinking it has any further implications than that.

The verse is prophesying the coming of Jesus on the first Christmas. But isn’t it foretelling much more? What do you think?

Lord God, Heavenly Father, be with us during these turbulent times. Give us the wisdom to make the right decisions and the strength to act on them. Amen  

Flashback Friday - Christmas Cookies

I first posted this five years ago. I'm trying to figure out when I will make my roll-outs this year. It's not looking good.

Every year, without fail, when I was a kid growing up at home, the Friday after Thanksgiving was the day to make roll-out Christmas cookies. In the afternoon, Mom would roll-out and bake double batch after double batch. Then in the evening, after a leftover turkey supper, we would get to work decorating them, assembly line style.

Mom would frost them, always and only with white butter frosting. Then my sister Pat and I would trade off sprinkling them with the proper colored sugar, green for trees, red for poinsettias, yellow for bells. Whoever was not sugaring, would put on the accessories. A few mulitcolored sprinkles on the trees, three (no more, no less) silver non-pareils in the center of the poinsettias, two red cinnamon beads for berries on the holly. They were all beautiful - and all exactly the same. It never even crossed our young minds to be creative and try something new. We were too afraid of throwing Mom off. (I think she was menopausal my entire childhood.)

As each cookie sheet was filled with cookies, Dad would take them to the deep freeze in the basement. Once they were frozen they would be carefully and categorically stacked in a huge round Tupperware container to be returned to the freezer until Christmas.

When Christmas rolled around, as the Christmas cookie platter emptied every other day or so, we ventured into the freezer to fill it with Spritz, Peanut Blossoms, Christmas balls, and our beloved roll-outs. There were so many cookies down there and Mom was so stingy on dispursing them, that sometimes the Tupperware container didn't empty until February.

Luckily, Pat and I kept an eye on the situation and whenever we were playing with our toys in the basement, we would snitch a cookie or two. Mom pretended that she didn't know, but now that I'm a mother, I know better.

Tumaini Tuesday #1

After returning from Kenya the 18^th of October, I spent a month blogging about that trip, and have been sporadic and wandering aimlessly on this blog ever since. I decided it was time to get back on a schedule and bring back my focus. Which means that today is the first Tumaini Tuesday. (How corny, right?)

My plan is to spend just one night a week writing about Africa and promoting our nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. Even though I have so much to say on those topics, if I continue to share it all at one time, I may not only run out of material, I may bore you and lose your interest, if I haven’t already.

First, in case you have just stumbled upon this blog, or if you are a faithful reader who has forgotten some of what I ramble about, “tumaini” means hope in Swahili, the national language of Kenya. My daughter, Val, came up with the name after spending three months in Kenya in 2013 researching the logistics of starting her own nonprofit organization to bring hope to those living in dire situations.

It has been so much work and I cannot believe the hours she has spent on this. But this is where her passion lies and I couldn’t be more proud of her. I also never thought she would be hounding me this hard to keep up my end of the organization. I try not to let her down.

The mission of Tumaini Volunteers is to assist developing communities in Kenya to thrive by providing sustainable projects to help make them self-sufficient. We hope to achieve this by taking groups of volunteers to Kenya to implement these projects. In Val’s own words, many charities throw money at the problem instead of getting on the ground and really making a difference. It is like the story of giving a man a fish and you feed him for one day, or teach him to fish and you feed him for life. Right? The thing to know about that story is that many Kenyans don’t like fish. Which is why we have to do our research.

I hope this has helped you understand a little more about us. Come back next Tuesday to learn more about how we plan to get these projects going, or maybe I will just share a new story from previous trips. You never know where I will take you next. 

Always Next Year

We had our annual Thanksgiving dinner, yesterday, Saturday, instead of Thursday, as Hubby had to work. I always enjoy getting everything ready, practicing my OCD, making sure the table is perfect. My daughter has inherited some of that disorder – lucky for me but not for her. 

So there is a little bit of mismatch at the table. As long as it is organized mismatch I am happy. 

I try telling myself that it just may be more important that my guests are happy – they get to sit where they want and if they grab the wrong glass so that now the mismatch glasses aren’t every other one around the table, who cares. I try to let it go, and it lasts for at least a little bit. And actually, by the time the meat goes on the table (one plate white meat, one plate dark, because even Hubby can’t help himself sometimes), I have almost given up. 

Almost.

Maybe next year, I will learn to truly let go. Randomly place on the table whatever odd-ball glasses and plates and silverware I have. Let the tablecloths be crooked and uneven.  And just be thankful for the things that matter like family and food. And at least having matched napkins. 

Have an Outstanding Day

I’ve been thinking all week of something original I could write about on Thanksgiving. Of course we should remember all the things that we are thankful for – our families, our homes, our jobs, our freedom, and of course, God. Or the specific things that I personally am thankful for – Dino the wonder dog (who had diarrhea for four days leaving me worried about his health), the beautiful backyard that I sometimes feel I don’t enjoy nearly enough, having had the chance to return to Kenya for the third time, and despite all of my worsening aches and pains, I still enjoy basically good health. Or the really obscure things we all take for granted such as the internet and our cellphones and GPS (which I still am not sold on).

Next I could extrapolate on that list. Or add more obscure items. Or take another tact all together and share the history of the first Thanksgiving (as if you have never heard that before). There is of course the history of making Thanksgiving a national holiday, which occurred during the height of the Civil War when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that all Americans should ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” That doesn’t sound like we were expected to be so thankful.

We also sometimes think that we Americans are the only ones to recognize a national day of Thanksgiving, but other countries have similar observances. Though our Thanksgiving is traced back to 1621, the Canadian Thanksgiving is believed to have its roots in 1578, when the explorer Martin Frobisher gave thanks for the safe journey from England.  

Germany celebrates Erntedankfest or the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival and Japan has a Labor Thanksgiving Day which has its roots dating back thousands of years ago to a harvest festival but which was officially established following World War II and is not only for giving thanks but to commemorate the labor force.  And there are many more such stories from around the world.

Which leaves me where? I’m not quite sure. But in addition to all of this, I am also thankful that I get to share these random thoughts with all of you, whether you are thankful back or not, however, is hard to tell.

In any case, have an outstanding day. 

Lake Superior in Michigan's UP, one of the places I am most thankful for. 

Have I Inspired Anyone?

Somehow I lost all of my Sunday devotions from the last year. Actually, they aren’t lost; I somehow deleted them. When I left for Kenya, I deleted most of my files off of my laptop so that there would be enough memory to hold all the pictures I was going to take. I thought my devotions were saved on that jump drive which was clearly marked “devotional blogs”, but I hadn’t updated that jump drive since August 2014. How is that even possible?

I got a little frustrated, but quickly remembered that all of those posts were on my blog, on the internet, where they say things will stay forever, or at least until they replace the internet with a newer technology (microchips in our brains?).

When I realized all that inspiration was at my fingertips, a light bulb went on in my head. I could copy them back into my computer. Luckily I quickly came to my senses. I am not copying them anywhere. Let the hackers and the thieves do that.

Maybe I’m being irresponsible, turning my written thoughts loose like that. Maybe someone will steal them, then shut down my blog site, then compile a book under their own name and sell many copies and get their own TV show. And some day I will run across that show while I am channel-surfing and I will think I am losing my mind because I can swear I have seen somewhere those words they are speaking. Coz, yea, sure that will happen.

Thanksgiving is a few days away and I want to thank God right now for giving me the inspirational words that I have shared here. And if anyone feels compelled to share those words with others, in any form, I would only ask that if I don’t get the credit, that God does. After all they were His words and not mine.