Aaron's Blog Entry

It’s Friday the 29th and I think it’s safe to say that we are good at cooking in Kenya now. We popped out a few pans of Dutch babies in around an hour instead of three hours like earlier this week :) We are also pretty much experts at making Kenyan chai tea. Now we just need to learn how to do our meals without using a million extra dishes! I’m pretty sure I used the same pot at least five times within our three meals the other day!

It feels weird that we’ve been here for almost a week now. I was expecting to be doing full out evangelism but doing things around the house like cooking and cleaning (especially cleaning!) take up a large chunk of the day. I really like doing it though because it’s really fun doing it with the four of us kids. Also, because I think it really helps Dad out to be able to focus more on his patients and then have fun relaxing doing stuff with us later.

A lot of my time has also gone to playing with Hudson and Jude, Dr. Jones kids who are 4 and 2. I think that is making it easier on them. They are really funny kids and Hudson and I are pretty much best friends. He always comes over to the house to see if anyone of us can do anything with him. We’ve drawn giant chalk animals with him. I went over and watched a movie with him that he’s been wanting to show me since the first day. Two days ago I went to the children’s ward with him Jude and Lauren (who is staying with them) to visit their dad and meet all the kids and their moms. We brought a bunch of farm stickers and a big bag of Obama gum to give to the kids. They loved it!

We got to pray for two little premature babies who weighed 1.4 and 1.06 kilograms and their moms. Hudson’s prayer ended in asking Jesus to heal the babies faster than He has ever healed before :) Yesterday Tyler, Bethany, Hannah, Lauren and I went to the children’s ward and women’s ward with Pastor Margaret to sing songs. She explained the songs when we were done and my dad gave his testimony in the children’s ward. We’re going back on Monday and we are playing in chapel on Wednesday. Sometime next week we’re planning on painting the study room in the orphanage.

Pastor Margaret taught us a lot of Swahili and the different context that certain words are used in. It was kind of embarrassing today though because Sasa is a kind of slang word that the people here use when talking to younger people that means how are you, but I realized that (only today) I’ve been telling people “saba”. So everyone would see me wave at them and say “seven”. I was wondering why people where laughing.

Sharon (the girl who needed the wheelchair) is going home tomorrow so we brought over the chair for her. Amber is a Physical Therapist from Minnesota who is visiting for two months. She taught the mom how to use the wheelchair and how to take Sharon in and out of it. Amber, Hannah, Bethany, Tyler and I all took turns praying for them. The mom was so happy that she couldn’t stop crying. It was really neat and I think God is going to work in their lives even more than He has already!

Tyler and I just got done doing inventory on the sutures that where donated and sent with us so the doctors can keep track of what they have. Tyler and I also got to watch a c-section! The mom had already had two c-sections, but both of her children had died. Doctor Christina (an OB/GYN) prayed for her before starting and I was praying the whole time. It was a little freaky because they had some trouble while pulling the baby’s head out but they cut her stomach open a little more and the baby came out fine! Everyone started cheering and laughing :) It was weird watching after that because while Christina and my dad were clipping things and sewing different innards together Thomas (the Anesthetist) was having a conversation with the lady who was wide awake! It went a lot faster than I thought a c-section would take. Thank God that she has her first living baby!

So looking back I guess God has been using me more than I thought. It’s just that He’s been using me in different ways than I though.