Friends, family, country men (and woman so we are not gender
specific),
Firstly I would like to say that Becca and I have been
blessed time and time again here in Kenya. This experience has not only
provided wonderful hands on training/experience in our calling to the mission
field, we have been blessed with wonderful relationships and amazing ministry
opportunities. There are not words to describe the awesome work that God had
done in our lives in the past eight weeks. I can only say that God is good, He
is great, He is amazing and He is so caring.
It is hard to believe that we only have five short weeks
left before we return back to the US. In the past eight our classes have gone
on great. Our student have responded well with msungu (after three blog posts I
finally got the spelling correct) teachers, learning what I pray is lots. I
cannot always tell because Kenyans pretty much will always tell you that you
are doing a good job. However, I do see improvements in writing in my students,
so something I’m telling them is sticking. No matter what, both Becca and I are
experiencing a lot in teaching cross-culturally. Learning not only from our teaching
experiences, but also from our students and various interactions with other
Kenyans.
Sunday marked our last CMIA (Christian Ministry in Action)
in which we accompanied two students at KIST to one of the local churches they
serve at. We had been contributing at the church in a number of ways. We taught
Sunday school (with translation help), Becca preached (with translation help),
and we did many prayers for various parts of different services. Upon our first
arrival at Musitinyi Church of God we were ushered into the responsibility of
lay pastors. I have to say it was different sitting in front of the entire
congregation for the duration of the service being watched like a goldfish in a
fishbowl. The experiences were great, the ministry was great and the
relationships that we formed at the church will go with us forever. Side note,
Ugali a corn flour tasteless mashed potato like concoction; the stable of the
Kenyan diet is in small part quite low on the yummy factor. However, through
Samuel’s (a student of mine and one of the students that we accompanied to the
church) pestering and encouragement has grown on Becca and I. I can proudly say
that we are now eating a respectable amount by Kenyan standards. It was a
little hairy at the start, (oh how Kenyans enjoy laughing at msungus) but we
have survived and the Ugali now goes down without any hitches. Oh and anyone
related to me back in the US (meaning Shrout’s and Hodges’) you will get to
partake in the white Kenyan sensation soon enough upon our first visit to
Oregon.
It was a sad day when we left the church for the last time.
I was told everyone was pleading for us to come back, although I speak little
Swahili and even less of the local tribal language so I cannot confirm this. We
said our goodbyes, left and are already missing the church staff, our students
and the congregation. I am just glad we did not have to say goodbye to Samuel
and Harriet (the other student we accompany) that day too. We will be savoring
our last few weeks with our students, the staff and especially our missionary
friends knowing that we will soon be leaving them.
With this writer about to shed a tear I am moving on and will
attempt to describe the major happening of day to day life for the past couple
weeks here at KIST. As I posted in the previous blog, February is the dry
season and as a result our house ran out of water. Thank you for all of your
prayers because I can report that we have been getting the occasional small
rainstorm. However, it was not until a few days ago that we were able to enjoy
the comforts of indoor plumbing within our own home. As part of the water tank
drying up, our water pump dried up and worked its self to death and well it
died. Due to this issue our home was without water for two and a half weeks. No
showers, no toilets, no nothing. However, such an inconvenience did not stop
the Hodges family from going on with life. No, we did not go that long without
a shower or using a working toilet, in case you were wondering. I definitely
got a little hairy in the face region from lack of shaving, but all the other
water needs were taken care of. Buckets of water were brought into our home to
flush the toilets with and to do the dishes. We walked over to the empty
mission house and showered, all and all it was really not a big deal. Although
inconvenient, lacking indoor plumbing in the house did not really faze Becca or
I. We take these things for granted back in the US, but truthfully one does not
have to have such things. Thank you Jeff and Jeremiah for all of the headaches
surrounding our water, Becca and I really appreciate everything that you did
and have done for us. It was truly wonderful to take a shower in our own home
for the first time in a while yesterday. In the coming weeks we will be leaving
the dry season for a wetter season in which rain should be much more prevalent,
so the water issue should be behind us.
While on the topic of broken household appliances, our refrigerator
has been another inconvenience that we have faced off and on for about a month
(3rd week of January-2nd week of February). This issue
was fixed about a few days after my last post, but is note worthy. Long story
short, our fridge died, we moved our food to another house and it worked again
so we moved everything back. It died a second time, and this time it found its
self in the refrigerator graveyard and we moved our food a second time. Another
fridge was moved to our place and we have had our food in our home ever since
then. Once again minor inconvenience, but I wanted to mention this because once
again we saw gracious help from Jeremiah and the missionaries here at KIST.
They are all wonderful people, and have made our time here great.
It has been a few posts since I last updated you all on the
war against the terrorist organization known as APP (Annoying Pest Population).
What I once labeled as an invasion force has since employed gorilla tactics,
hence their down grade to a terrorist cell. Although there forces have been
reduced because of timely release of chemical weapons, like many terrorist
organizations they have cells that pop up all over the place. Similar to Alkida
in the Afghanistan Mountains one such cell as created a tunnel network in our
front door covering. I say in, because they are wood burrowing bees (the size
of Voltzwagens) and at one point burrowed an extensive tunnel network through
the rafters and trusses. There are pictures of the tunnel openings and one of
the bees on Becca’s Facebook. To fight back the bees I was forced to use the
majority of an entire can of Doom. The sheer size of the little pests, and
their ability to hide and maneuver around in their tunnels made it quite a
tricky task to kill them. Upon multiple sprays into the holes most of them flew
out of the tunnels. All in all I think I only killed two of the seven that I
have seen at any one time. It was quite interesting however to hear them buzz
at one another during the process. I am completely convinced that buzz means, “Hey
there is a crazy giant coming to kill us, fly away!!!!!!!!!” I almost felt bad
for the two who died because I could here them stuck inside the wood buzzing in
agony as the poison slowly did its job. Since the “spraying of the bees,” a
have only seen one or two of them, however, I have no idea how many are left.
Until I sprayed I did not actually see that many at any one given time.
Well I have so much more to share, but must get on with
working on the faculty development that Becca and I will be leading this
Friday. As always thank you for your prayers for KIST and us. You have truly
blessed us here. I look forward to sharing many more stories with everyone
soon.
Love from your friends in Kenya,
Ryan (The Bug Assassin) Hodges and Rebecca who is teaching
right now
