Day 12 - A Sense of Relief

Good morning! Thank you for taking the time to check in and see how the group is doing. Today we began with our normal routine of breakfast, chapel with the students, and then off to class for the morning teachers. But as usual, a day here at ANU is never normal! There is always something that happens that makes us stop and say “wow, thank you God.” Let me start with my day in Mel’s class. Today was my birthday; I get to say I turned 21 in Kenya! The student’s knew it was my birthday so I had no idea what they had planned. After being in the class for about two minutes I sat down to begin the blog and they started singing “Happy Birthday” to me. It was the sweetest thing and their voices are so amazing! Then they proceeded with the “how old are you,” and “May the Lord bless you,” and one girl ended by singing, “we went to the zoo, we saw a monkey, was it you?” They love to joke around with me and the feeling is mutual, I told them that “yes” of course the monkey was me and they all laughed. Then throughout the class they continued to spoil me with gifts. Each time I got tears in my eyes, because I know how little some of the students have, and the sacrifices they have to make just to come to ANU. I couldn’t believe that they would be thinking of me, and what they could give to me! Even though I missed my family, I had never felt more loved than by the students in Mel’s class. Art and Diane had a special day as well. After Art taught his morning class and him and Diane ate a quick lunch, they left for the evening. They went to the Kenya National Theatre Conservatory of Music where Art had been invited to sing three songs, and then give a lecture on the care of the professional voice. His audience consisted of voice students, professional speakers, and 20 international students who were the children of the U.S. Embassy employees. At the end of it all he was applauded, asked many questions, and also asked for an encore. He also made some big contacts including the director of the Nairobi Chamber Choir, who is also the director of Cultural Affairs and Planning for the U.S. Embassy. Diane was of course along for the ride as she as always, beautifully plays, the piano to accompany Art’s songs. As for back in the classrooms here at ANU, Dave had a good day. He has one student who had been struggling for quite some time with the complicated math and yesterday it all seemed to just click for her and she is feeling comfortable about the exam. Dave also spoke with Mary Ooko who is the Department Head of Distance Education, she was a big help in our beginning confusion when we arrived and has been one of our “go to” people ever sense. She told Dave that she has had nothing but positive remarks about our team from the students and other faculty, and that they are so thankful we came. In Cliff’s computer class there is still some struggle with lack of resources. Unfortunately the class always seems to be one computer short, and with the frequent power outages, and slow network it is hard for them to finish the tasks he is trying to teach them. Please continue to uplift Cliff and his class, Cliff is worried for his students because he wants them to learn all they can about the computer but they keep running into conflicts. James and Brett as his assistants are feeling the same struggles. However Brett had a nice moment with one of his students today. He had been helping her type an email and he walked away to help another student, when he returned to check on that particular student she had emailed him saying “you have been such a great help to me over the past week, and have spent so much time helping me individually. I thank God for you.” This obviously made him feel very special and he knew that all of the frustrations were worth it. Daphni is still enjoying her time assisting in a variety of classes. Her bonds with the students continue to grow each day, saying goodbye will be hard. Ken’s class is going well also. He was so grateful today to finally feel a sense of relief. I know most of the teachers felt the same on this particular day because Thursday was going to be a day of review for the final exam and then Friday was exam day. All of the pressures were for the most part off of the teachers and all of the planning and organizing of lessons was at an end. Aside from helping their students prepare as best they could the hardest parts of the class were over. Ken also shared with us at devotion how he feels Africa needs more engineering programs. Some of the students are learning these complicated math skills along with other things but they have nowhere to apply them. He came up with the idea to help ANU create an engineering program so that in the future, students would be able to gain all of the skills of an engineer and have a use for them so that Africa can use these students to build up their technology and advance in many ways as other countries have. You can tell he has a big heart not only for ANU but for the country of Kenya and Africa itself. One more story I must share with you is from Melanie’s class, this is heartbreaking and it really opens your eyes to the struggles students here face. One of her students very cautiously pulled her aside on their break. Towards the beginning of the trip he had shared with her how where he and his family lives is a dangerous place and there is always lots of tribal violence going on. He proceeded to tell her that on Monday, the very first class of our two week session his family had been attacked in the night. As far as we know everyone was ok but it was very hard for him and his family, as you can imagine! Then he got really quiet, and he asked Mel if she remembered how after our safari she shared with the class how she was able to use something that allowed her to see the animals from a distance (her binoculars). The student said that you can’t always prevent the attacks but the two best things you can have to protect your family is a gun, and something to see them coming. Almost as if he couldn’t say it he asked Mel if she would just consider giving him her binoculars. All he wanted her to do was think about it, and she immediately took hold of his hands and told him she didn’t need to think about it, that they were his. This brought tears to our eyes. This particular student has been the leader for our class always helping the other students and explaining things so that they could understand them. Not once has he been late or missed a class, yet all of this was going on at home. Again this reminds us of the sacrifices these students make to come to school, and it blows our minds the things they have to deal with on top of these intense courses. Like I said there is never a normal or dull day for us here at ANU, we are awestruck by the people here and their love of God and determination to get an education. After dinner Art treated us with a devotion on having faith and it was one that fit perfectly in with our group. Our entire trip has been a learning experience where each day there were things we just didn’t know what to expect, but if we were to let our worry and fear take over we never would have had the outcomes we have had from this trip. Then to my request since I was still playing off being “birthday girl” I asked if we could all play a round of scoop scum and of course the group was up for it. This was another amazing day here at ANU and we again had that sense that God has had his hand in everything on this trip. Every bit of confusion, misunderstanding, and lack of communication was all a part of his plan and we couldn’t have asked for anything different!