Day #4

Hello from Kenya! Today the blog is brought to you by Amy Austin and right now I'm sitting in the dining room at Heart Lodge, while Jameson, Nick and all the students sit with me playing "Straws." What is Straws, you ask?  Well, you see, when you're in Kenya, you sometimes have to adapt American traditions or games to fit the resources available to you. Back at home, this game is called Spoons. :) Here, we have to be respectful and use straws. Let me just tell you, it is quite entertaining...and a little distracting when you're supposed to be writing a blog about how our day has gone. But you know, this is part of it.

When we leave every morning to either work on the new property that will house Project Lucas, or spend treasured time with the children that we have come to love deeply, you need a little downtime. For most of us, this isn't our first trip to Kenya. Even though we have seen the circumstances that surround these children's lives, it still hits us all pretty hard.  It's hard emotionally. I hurt for them, wanting to take care of them and make all the extreme hardships disappear. I can't, though. I can't make bad things stop happening. I can't make sure that their little bellies are filled with nutritious food three times a day. I can't make sure they have a safe home to go to. I can't do a lot of things that I wish I could. Do you know what I can do? I can love them. I can make sure that when they are with me, they are loved so deeply and completely. I can make sure that I can do my part to ensure they have a safe place to come to morning and afternoon.

A place like the new property that will house Project Lucas. That's what we did today, ensured that the place they will spend so much time at will be clean and safe. The team worked so hard in the hot African sun. Sweeping out endless dust, washing out rooms, painting beams, gates and doors, digging out ditches, laying cement drain pipes and so much more. These things that seem so minute are not. They are huge. The kids in the program will benefit from it, along with the community. We are so excited about the possibilities this holds. The surrounding community is very poor so this is going to open so many doors!

So, when we end our nights playing Spoons, we are not forgetting the work we did today, or the children that we said goodbye to just a few hours ago. We are processing what it all means so that tomorrow, when we wake up to do it all over again, we're prepared for it. We aren't communicating to these beautiful Kenyan people that we pity them and the way they live. We want to communicate we are all human and in need of love, from each other and from God.

Love you Mallory and Ridge (it's Jameson)

Jameson & Amy