Newsletter, June - December 2010

*_JUNE 2010_*

Kate. One of our trustees and my friend arrives on the 15th June. I’m so happy to see her. She arrives with suitcases full of items for the children.

I have a very infected right leg. I am told unless I receive treatment my leg will turn systemic. I have 8 wounds on my leg where flies have laid eggs ugh!!! Better now but scarred for life!

Kate had a wonderful time learning more and more about running Rainbow House and meeting the 8 new children who had arrived in her absence.

It’s the rainy season now. Oh! How it pours and pours. We badly need guttering and water tanks at Rainbow but sadly we can’t afford these items. Each tank (we need 4) costs £300. I watch helplessly as free God given rain pours to the ground and is wasted.

*_JULY 2010_*

The Rains continue and the children are cold. It’s hard for Europeans to believe that at 68 degrees the children feel cold. So do I! We always need long sleeved jumpers and trousers for the low season. The children walk to school with our school walker Eunice who shelters the children with umbrellas. So many children arrive at school soaking wet and have to sit like this all day. Winter here means sickness and many of our children have colds and more seriously Malaria.

*_AUGUST 2010_*

School holidays start for 4 weeks. Our longest holiday is Christmas (8 weeks) we allow our children one weeks break from school work. However, they soon become bored and we open up the classroom again. Although many of our children are in standard 1 they are doing the work of standard 2/3.

I receive a call from a lady called Sada. She is Kenyan married to an Englishman. She wants to help with the children and we exchange ideas. Kenyan children who are too young to attend school just seem to sit on the ground doing nothing. Everyone in the family is busy with tasks such as chopping wood/fetching water etc that there is no time to stimulate a child. In the UK children are stimulated almost from birth. I discuss this idea with Sada. We are lacking materials, books, early learning toys. I make ‘play dough’ and we play with sand and water.

*_SEPTEMBER 2010_*

I receive a call ‘Can you make use of early learning toys?’ our shipping container has arrived and we have many items to donate!! What?! Amazing! Two people arrive with 5 boxes of early learning toys. Some need batteries but many are old fashioned puzzles and many musical toys.

Sada starts her class by getting the children to recognise colours, shapes and numbers. After 4 weeks 7 children who would have sat around unstimulated are running up to me pointing at my dress and saying ‘blue Auntie blue’ Sada is a qualified primary teacher.

We still have our volunteer helper ‘Randu’ he comes 3 times a week to wash clothes and clean.

We are now experiencing day 9 without fresh water. There is no water available from Malindi to Watamu. A distance of 30 kilometres. The reason? Reports say ‘There is a blockage at the filter plant.’ The blockage turned out to be two decomposed bodies! I sometimes think that Kenyans walk around with their eyes shut!

Oh! All that wasted free God given rain! We are all forced to carry buckets to wash, cook and clean. There is a large water tanker in the nearby town of Timboni selling water at three times the price. The queues are over a mile long! I have no water at home either and once again find myself sitting by the well. I can only use this water for flushing toilets as it’s very salty because my house is so close to the ocean.

Water returns after two weeks, hallelujah!I give you all a very stern warning. Use your water well. The world is drying up and you will soon be coming to Kenya begging to use my well water!!

*_OCTOBER 2010_*

I receive the news that the teacher of standard 1 at Gede primary School wants 5 of our children to be transferred to standard 2. She says ‘they are bored.’ This is fantastic news. Five of our standard 1 children have been automatically promoted and in December will take the standard 3 exams. If they pass the children will be promoted to standard 3. One of the children among this group is Mwangi. He was one of our first children and was always being picked up by the police for stealing food because he was starving. Mwangi was hard work to start with but soon learnt the joys of education.

He’s still very cheeky (bit like me, that’s why I like him!) So watch this space and see this boy go from prison to university. Stranger things have happened at Rainbow!

No water again. We get quite used to this because so many tourists arrive and all the water is pumped to the hotels and guest houses. The infrastructure of this area cannot cope with so many people. We also have many power shut downs.The outside tap gives us a small amount during night hours and we have make sure that every container is filled. We still have to carry it though! I’m becoming more Kenyan by the day and can carry 20 litres of water at a time, however, not on my head-yet!

*_NOVEMBER_*

I continue to write my book. Every missionary has one! The title? ‘There must be more than this Lord’ I decided on the title when I remember a time I was on cleaning duty at my home church, up a ladder dusting shelves. Thinking ‘I know someone must do this work but ‘THERE MUST BE MORE THAN THIS LORD’

The only advice I can offer anybody is to be careful what you pray for. I had a home, a comfortable job, a good church and good social life but I wanted more and God took me at my word. I won’t say it’s been easy but it’s certainly been challenging! I’m not telling you anymore about my book.

BUY A COPY! All royalties will go to Rainbow House.

I get my thumb caught in a rat trap, Ouch! We have to have traps in the storeroom. Jennifer is called to release my thumb. It hurts for weeks. Jennifer and I often pray for the more obscure things you couldn’t even imagine about. We pray that God takes the rats away. This country is over run because snakes eat rats and everyone kills snakes even though most of them are harmless. There are only 2 species in Kenya with really dangerous, The Puff Adder and The Black and Green Mamba, Two days after praying two very tiny kittens move themselves into the wash house. God has once again answered our prayers. We are feeding the kittens close to the store room. When they urinate the rats run away. Clever God!

*_December_*

Our children take their end of year exams. Yes! Once again Rainbow Has taken top marks.5 of our children who were promoted from standard 1 to standard 3 have passed with flying colours. These children are way ahead of many others and will miss out standard two. This is in part to due to Lucy, our teacher who ‘polishes them’.

As decreed by the children’s department any child who has a family must return ‘home’ during the Christmas holidays for 3 weeks. Schools break up on 30th November and a mass exodus of children takes place.

Rainbow is left with only 15 children who have absolutely no family. It’s so quiet! It is a good exercise for the children to return to their homes. They have all become very comfortable at Rainbow and need to remember where they have come from.

Now they will carry water, fetch fire wood and sleep on the ground on a mat. Children easily forget and it’s a good reminder for them how much better off they are now. The word ‘Appreciation’ does not feature in the Swahili language.

However, the children will return on the 23rd December to decorate Rainbow and enjoy Christmas day.

Schools open again on 3rd January and all children, especially the new ones must be ready to return to their studies. We hope to spend Boxing Day on the beach and soft drinks and biscuits afterwards. The transport costs of this trip are over £45. The cost are usually met by the E.A.W.L (East Africans Women’s League) of which I am secretary for the Watamu branch.

Temperatures are very high and we are still struggling for water.

*_THANKS TO;_*

·The U.K trustees, Mary, Tony, Kate, Jim & Janet

·Binscombe Church for their prayer

·Our Web Master George Johnson. Without you George Rainbow House would be hidden from public view.

·Eternity church for their prayer and financial support.

·All those who support Rainbow House with love, prayers & financial gifts. Without your help there would be no Rainbow House and 37 destitute kids onthe streets.

·Thank you to all who believed in me and my dream to achieve what many thought was impossible.


Lynda