It Not Working

November 5, 2003

We have been through the toilet training routine before, but I promise it is different with twins. For that matter, everything is different with twins. Nancy once mentioned something that was harder with twins, and it made me think hard about anything that was EASIER with twins. Anyway, I put Katie down on the potty seat, and after sitting a spell, she looked up at me and said `It not working.’

The whole idea of explaining the process to a two year old is exhausting, and I’m not sure the words exist, but if you have ideas on how to clarify this to Kate, I would appreciate it.

(If I put the more obvious picture, my sweet girl would kill me when she was old enough to know)

We will begin construction on the first computer center soon. It is in a very remote area, with no power nearby, so we will use solar power. Karima has 800 students in the primary school, and 100 students in the secondary school. We just added food for the older students at the secondary school, and it was my first visit there. If there were a word to describe the students, it was that they were without hope.

They are older, and they have seen all that Africa has to offer, and it has made them afraid to hope, because anytime they have hoped, Africa has thrown it back in their face. When I told them we were going to build a computer center at their school, no one believed me.

(This is where we will put the computer center)

I ran over to the primary school, and the children haven’t given up The poverty is just as bad, but they are little kids, and they still believe things can get better.

But this has been a week of reminding me that the unheralded is the most important. Nancy runs the library for the first through six grades, and they recently moved buildings. It was a huge amount of work and time, and it isn’t a glamorous job. You aren’t going to get a lot of attention for remodeling a library.

But they worked so hard on it. And it is such an improvement on what was here before, and it will mean so much for the parents leaving their children at the school; that they will be cared for and nourished while they are away from their parents. It’s a little thing that is so big.

The guy that does all the construction is a man named Jerry Rebert, one of the great people of the planet. He just works and works and works; never a complaint, always a joke, but always great care to make sure the work is done with excellence. That can be a challenge in Africa; the right tools, the right lumber, knowledgeable labor are all huge obstacles here.

But the library is beautiful. And one of the things that is so great about this place is that they asked the hero to cut the ribbon; usually that is the big shot, but really, this time, they did pick the big shot.

(Jerry cutting the ribbon)

I’ve been accused of having too many coincidences for my own good, but this one is too good to not share. I went to my 30^th high school reunion this summer, and on the way home, I noticed in the information they gave us that one of my classmates worked for Hope College in Michigan. I hadn’t even seen Molly at the reunion; she was pretty popular and pretty busy.

But one of our Kenyan students had been accepted to Hope, and she got to go. Her parents make very very very little a year, so extra money is rare for them. She didn’t have any warm clothes, and didn’t know what to do.

I emailed my classmate, and she is taking Josephine shopping. Someone I haven’t seen in 30 years is going to clothe this young girl. It’s a little thing, I suppose, unless you don’t have warm clothes. But like the library, I’m reminded that there are no little things; that if we give ourselves to what we’ve been called to do, it’s always big.

Molly and I went to school in Illinois. She ended up in Michigan; I’m in Kenya, and one of the students ends up at Hope, and I find out that Molly is at Hope because someone sends me a ticket to go back for my 30^th reunion and I find out she is there and is willing to help out a kid without a warm coat.

I mean, you just got to love these coincidences. Or the One who created them.

Your pal

Steve

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Steve and Nancy Peifer

Kenya Address: PO Box 80 Kijabe Kenya 00220

Stateside Address: PO Box 178 Pearl River, NY 10965

Phone: 011-254-20-32046-252

peifer@kijabe.net

http://peifer.kijabe.org