Where the babies live...Crawler Fence and Toddler Playground

Posted on Missionary April Hershberger's blog today:

     Last week we had a group here who did an amazing job on putting up a fence for our Wing B kids. It is a beautiful area for the kids to play in, and is now even more safe since so many of the kids are walking and crawling all over the place. We are so thankful for the teams' hard work on getting this project finished.

 The group also helped to repaint some of the children's outdoor playground equipment. They painted their slide, the swing sets and the monkey bars that were put in a few months ago.

 

2012 04 Team Picture

October 2011 Team Picture

Update from Kenya Team

Things are going well here in Kenya. We are enjoying our time with the kids. As always, they are such a joy to be around. We have 9.75 beds built and boards for shelves are cut and painted. We are hoping to have the shelves put together tomorrow...or I guess I should say Floyd is hoping to have the shelves put together tomorrow.
We went to Salgaa today. We visited several homes. Such a meaningful time! We listened to their stories, laughed, cried, and prayed. Awesome! Then we went to the group meeting. The meeting started with singing by the Kenyan women....very cool to listen to! Then I shared and then Judy gave her testimony. Several of the Kenyan women shared afterwards how Judy's testimony ministered to them. A few of the women have started making jewelry, baskets, decorated gourds, beaded doilies, etc so we had a chance to purchase their things. On our way home, we stopped at the Baby Centre well and farm to take a look around. A great day for us!

We have arrived!

We made it! Our flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi was delayed by 2 hours, but other than that everything went well. All of our luggage arrived, too. They dedicated 36 babies at Ngata AGC this morning so we were able to be a part of that. Was awesome! Everyone is doing well...a little tired...but very excited to be here. We'll try to post pictures tomorrow.

The October Team left this morning for Kenya. They were excited to start the journey and looked forward to getting there so they could begin to love on those babies!

June 2011 Team Picture

Sunday - One in the Spirit

We headed out to the church on the Salgaa plot today to help with Sunday School. We joined the congregation in the church for a time of prayer and worship. The children were all singing when we came in and that was so awesome to hear! The worship team then lead us in singing. Some songs were in English and others in Swahili. But even though we could not understand all of the words, we enjoyed praising God together. One of the songs we sang had the phrase "We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord". And we truly felt that way! The Kenyans again made us feel very welcome. After that we went with the children out to their Sunday School Class. The ages of the children were from infant to around 13 years old. The team shared their skit about forgiveness and then Coach Ummel summed up the skit telling the kids about God's forgiveness and because He forgave us we need to forgive each other. Ally Jenkins and Brittany Lengacher each shared their testimonies and did a great job! Then we passed out the same coloring pages we used at the slum orphanage. Again the kids spent a lot of time making their pictures look perfect. We had planned to play Duck, Duck, Goose with the kids, but the skit involved using soccer balls so several children requested we play "football" instead. We soon realized we needed to have an older kids and a younger kids game. Still some of the younger ones of the older kids got knocked down trying to kick the ball. It was such a joy to see the kids running around, smiling and laughing. Many of them rarely if ever touched the ball, yet they still enjoyed the game. Some of the older girls just wanted to talk, so they stood in the middle of the field and asked questions while the game went on around them. It was a very enjoyable morning for both the Kenyans and the Americans.

June 2011 - Saturday (con't.) - "Baby Abraham"

When we got home everyone was anxious to get downstairs again to see the babies. Baby Abraham, who had just returned from Tenwek, was awake and alert. He is looking really good after his illness and we were so thankful!
It was easier for the team this time to remember names and to start to form attachments to all of the babies. Already some are thinking about how hard it will be to leave on Friday!

June 2011 - Saturday - "Beautiful Lake Nakuru"

We headed to Nakuru Game Park early this morning. Well really not too early but it felt like it because we were all still tired from the journey. It is good for the teams to see the magnificent beauty God has blessed Kenya with. Many of the girls had already expressed surprise over the beautiful trees (especially the acacia) and all of the gorgeous flowers. And they were really excited to see the giraffes, flamingos, cape buffalo, warthogs, zebras and rhino all roaming freely in the park with no fences or cages like the zoos at home. The biggest find of the day was a male lion resting in the shade of a tree right by the road. We were also fortunate to see a black rhino momma and child. They aren't seen often because they like to stay hidden in the bushes. The funniest moment of the day was at the gate while we were waiting to get our tickets. Some little vervet monkeys kept trying to get into our vans. The one was peeking down thru from the open top and scared Ally, Inger, Brooklyn, Cassie and Danae. Many of the people around were looking to see what all the screaming was about. Not long after that another monkey scurried over the top of Brittany, Hillary, Taylor and Kiersten's van. At one point it was right behind Kiersten looking thru the open sliding door. We were truly blessed to be able to go on an African Safari!

June 2011 - Friday (con't.) - "Meet the Babies"

We then headed to the Baby Centre. It was about a three hour trip, but to most of the team members it seemed much shorter because they slept most of the way! Everyone woke up very quickly though with the prospect of meeting the babies. After quickly settling into their rooms, the team headed downstairs to play with the babies. There were two new babies (Michael Moses and Natasha) that just came today. It was fun to ber here on the the day they arrived. They are a little anxious and fussy today, but we pray they will quickly settle into their new surroundings and feel loved and comforted. There were also 50 other babies to get to know, so it was a little overwhelming, but very exciting as they are the main reason we took this long journey!