Happy Birthday

I sit at the dining room table of Chayah this Tuesday morning.  In too few days, the last 3 of this team will be packing up a few possessions to take back with us to our homes in the US.  Our suitcases will be light, but our hearts can be described as both so light in the experience God has allowed us, carried on the wings of mighty Angels, and the so heavy with the leaving and the separation in body from these we have now come to know face to face. 

Can you see I am getting sappy and so flowery in my words, it’s that time in trip, so I’ll try to regroup and return to giving you a picture of life at Chayah on a Monday.

Dot, Micah and I arrived to Chayah about 9:30, Janet and the older girls had gone to the market place as Mondays and Thursdays are lower price days.  We were asked to stay away this time so that they could pay the local rate, rather than Muzungu rates.  We were given the job of walking 18 little ones to the school to fit them for uniforms. I was just a little concerned we would not arrive at Good Shepherd with all of them, so we lined them up shortest to tallest, and counted them.  I so wanted to Muzungu-ize them by giving them a number and making them count themselves at each transition, but most of the youngest ones don’t understand a bit of English, so the instructions alone protected them from my type A behavior.  

Now I don’t know what you are picturing but organized chaos in a small room with dresses, sweaters, shorts, skirts, dress shirts, stockings and t-shirts were the doled out for trying on.  Not one was marked with a size, just passed along until it fit someone, with plenty of room to spare for growing. Chayah means to cause to grow and I believe that with the food they’ve been getting and vitamins, medical care they have needed, Mommy Janet’s prediction of filling out a loose fitting garment will be right on the money.  It took about 45 minutes to fit them all with two sets of uniforms, one for sports, one for the classroom.  It was on this occasion that we realized that squeals and giggles reveal a need for a few more undergarments for the little girls. 

Micah explored the school grounds and was alarmingly warned that the septic tank might be best explained rather than investigated.  We will be forever grateful for a watchful headmaster.  We headed home and arrived with 18.  You can’t even imagine my surprise and relief,
God is good and we are grateful.  Arriving home, we spent some time with the children, and then got a call from Janet to meet them in town.  School shoes for 18 was the order of the afternoon.  Now Janet told us previously that we would not be taking the children to town to have them fitted, but would measure their feet with a piece of twine or stick and label that with the child’s name.  Strings were placed on the ruler there and 18 pairs of black school shoes, tins of polish and brushes were purchased to bring home.  Do you know that if you don’t have the right size shoe to sell, it is ok to just change the number on the box?  So tomorrow, we get to do some exchanging.  School notebooks, pens, 2 calculators for the secondary school students and rulers.  A few mosquito net hoops, a few more plastic dishes, some smaller saucepans, a case of water and we were on to some scheming for another first.

Today was Jesca’s birthday, never previously celebrated, and we needed to plan the first Chayah birthday celebration.  Careful not to set the bar so high that it could not be repeated each month, our only January birthday, a day chosen for her since she had no idea, no birth record.  A 6” cake, individual ice cream cups and a set of candles to be kept and used throughout the year.  Jesca had no idea anything was up.  If she did know she would have no way of guessing what was ahead.   

We arrived back, shoes fitted, play clothes from the market handed out.  Then I don’t know what happened, but we were told it is the way of children every evening.  From 5 to 8, everything broke loose and there was more energy, yelling, running and just plain chaos, or so it seemed to me.  Janet is not the least bit concerned, or bothered by it.  When I asked her what she was hearing she said “children who are very happy.”  Ok, then, me too…in a “could we maybe just color or read a book kind of way.” But then…devotion time.  

Without notice, while I was outside helping to wash dishes, I began to hear singing from inside. In tune and out, soft voices and loud, English alternating with native tongue…beauty so strong and loud I’m sure neighbors far away were being serenaded.  Then praying, all at the same time, walking the room, two by two or solo, weaving back and forth, standing faces to the walls and praising, thanking and asking.  

Sharon then had them all sit down on the rug, and she shared from the Psalms with them.  When they were beginning to doze off, they would get themselves up, walk quietly to the sink and splash cold water on their faces and return to the carpet.  No complaining, only the youngest getting just a tiny bit restless.  

About 9:00pm dinner was served and then each was ushered off to their bedrooms.  But Janet was excitedly rallying the older girls to set a table with a lace curtain, the 6”cake with one single candle, 3 places of biscuit cookies and 24 ice cream cups.  We had tiny colored flashlights that each one strapped to their finger.  The whole family surrounded the table with such excitement as we stayed with a blindfolded Jesca in her room.  When the moment arrived, we walked her to the table, lit the candle, removed her blindfold and under the African darkness and tiny waving lights, Miss Jesca listened, face beaming, and watched as her new family gave her her very first birthday party.   

Whether Jan 21^st is even close to the date she was born, doesn’t matter anymore.  She has a new birthday now and reasons to believe she is significant, valuable, and noticed in this world. 

She herself served everyone a morsel of the cake, passed out cookies and served each ice cream, before she had one bite herself.

 “What is this we are eating now?” one asked.  When questioned, we counted at least 7 who marked today their first experience with the frozen treat.  

Everyone pitched in to clean up and headed to bed.  Marking another first, we had decided to spend the night at the house.  Micah and Kristen chose the sitting room, resulting in 80+ mosquito bites on Micah alone.  If I told you I slept on the floor in Janet’s room it would only be a ½ truth as we were up until 3am talking, then up at 5am with everyone else for devotion time. 

I don’t really know how to attach any one word or feeling to Jan 21^st, 2013…Chayah’s key scripture is Psalm 118:14-17 and says it best “The LORD is my strength and defense, He has become my salvation. Shouts of joy and victory, resound in the tents of the righteous.  The LORD’s right hand has done mighty things.  The LORD’s right hand has done mighty things.  I will not die, but live and proclaim what the LORD has done.”