Yvonne Nekesa, of Lynsi Love Center Orphanage

Dear Friends,

Not wanting to place my fellow missionaries under further condemnation, and purely out of love for them, I decided to enjoy a warm-water rather than a cold-water bucket bath this morning. It was wonderful. (If the truth be told, I took a cold-water bucket bath the day before only because I didn’t know there was another option.)

This morning all four of our team headed in different directions to share at four different Sunday morning services. Two of us taught the Word at pew-and-building churches, and two of us participated in house churches. I was selected for a house church, and it was loads of fun. We worshipped without a worship leader and with a little African dancing, sat in one big circle, and enjoyed testimonies and exhortations from many of the saints. Suzanne, the widow we visited yesterday in the 8′ x 9′ tin “house,” was there with her three children. She testified how God loved her so much that he sent our team all the way from America to help her. It was hard not to cry. And the homeless woman for whom Suzanne has opened up her “house” was also in the gathering. She is a precious lady who founded a free Christian school in one of Nairobi’s worst slums, where she teaches eighty children every day. I felt like melting into the floor. We’re going to try to help her, too.

Teryl, Danny, John and I met back at our guest house mid-afternoon for lunch and shared our stories. The Lord really used each one of them at the Sunday church gatherings where they ministered.

After lunch I headed back to Peter Kingoro’s orphanage to take portraits of all sixty-three children—as we always do of orphans for whom we hope to find monthly sponsors via the Orphan’s Tear website. That took several hours.

When I would sit down for a few minutes to rest between photo sessions, little children would surround me and feel my skin and run their hands over the hair on my head. They would talk among themselves in Swahili about the “musungu,” which I happen to know is the Swahili word for “white man.” No matter where I’ve gone in East Africa, when children see me they always make the excited public announcement, “MUSUNGU!”

Most of the children at Peter’s orphanage have rarely or never seen a person with white skin, so they made me feel pretty special. Those who could speak some English kept telling me how soft my hair is! One asked me if I used chemicals on it! You really haven’t lived until you’ve had fifteen little African children standing around you running their hands through your hair and beard, whispering in Swahili and giggling.

I started playing a little game with them, one-by-one placing each child’s hand facing down on top of my face-down hand. I would point out how their skin was dark and mine was light. Then I would turn their hand over so their palm was facing up on top of my hand, and point out how the color of the skin on their palm was very close to the same color as my skin. Then I would point at them with a smile and loudly say, “MUSUNGU!” They thought that was funny no matter how many times I did it.

Below are the portraits of a few of those children.

Musungu John Carey was as bold as a lion tonight as he once again preached the gospel in the same vacant slum lot as last night, and tonight, mostly children responded to his altar call. I reminded him afterwards of the story of Dwight Moody who was once asked how many had been saved at his revival service the night before. He responded, “Two-and-a-half.” To that he was asked, “Do you mean two adults and one child?” and he replied, “No, two children and one adult. The adult’s life is half over, but the children have their full lives ahead of them to live for Christ.”

After dinner tonight we sat down for some theological debate and discussion and solved most of the problems in modern Christianity. I cut out after two hours to compose this blog entry. Thanks for reading again. — David

Kelvin Kadanya

Melody Wambulwa

Linet Aluoch

Slaviou Riabede

Norbert Esolio

Vivian Asuga