And I Don’t NEED Sun Screen
Our kids are all changing. I have this conversation with Katie almost
every day:
Katie: Daddy, what color skin do you have?
Me: I have white skin.
Katie: What color skin do I have?
Me: You have beautiful black skin.
Katie: And I don’t NEED sun
screen!
Whenever
In the picture, Ben is wearing a coat that JT wore, Matthew wore, and
his cousin Douglas wore. It is remarkable how clothing can evoke emotion, but
it really did when I put on his jacket for the first time.
Matthew is becoming a young man, and recently wrote a piece of music
that was just beautiful. The sixth graders go on a special safari at the end of
the year, and he is thrilled about becoming a member of the polar club, which
involves jumping in an ice fed lake. Traditions are IMPORTANT here, even weird
ones.
JT is now 15, and has gone on three dates. The first girl asked him to
a Sadie Hawkins movie night. She is an absolutely beautiful white young lady.
The second young lady who asked him out to a Sadie Hawkins luncheon is an
absolutely beautiful Kenyan woman. On his third date, he asked out a beautiful
Korean woman. For more excitement, he got invited to
The computer lab is operational, and that is a story in itself. I went
to a guy named Walter who I met during our orientation school for coming to
I told him that I wanted a computer lab. Several weeks later, he came
up with an idea, a design, and a budget. Because our budget was limited and
because thievery is such an issue here, he took an old metal shipping
container, and
When we got the used computers, they had a ground plug, which is not
compatible with any converter plugs here, and I panicked. Walter just pulled
them out; he is a guy who knows what to do, and he does it.
But what you might not know about Walter is that after he delivered the
Computer Center, he lived in it for three nights to do all the work that needed
to be done and protect the special tools he would need to make it function.
While we were doing finishing touches today, he got out a can of paint and did
touch up work. I had to walk off and cry over that; he has just done it all for
this project, and done it with excellence and care that inspire me when they
don’t put me to shame.
(Walter)
But it is working perfectly. We have a teacher, and for this month, she
is just going to be teaching the teachers, while the children are on break. No
one at this school besides the teacher has ever seen a computer in real life,
so we are starting from ground zero. I was instructing the head master about
using his baby finger to type the letter A, and I told him so many times that
he greets me with a wave from that finger. They are excited beyond excited.
(Rachel is the computer teacher)
(Headmaster with special attention to his little
finger and the A.)
A young man came up to me last week and told me `When you told me that
you would build a computer center, I did not believe you. When the computer
center came, I still did not believe it.’ I invited him in and let him
write his name. `Now I believe’ he said with a face full of tears.
This is going to get weirdly personal, so feel free to skip through the
next few paragraphs. I so desperately believe in the feeding program we do, and
I pray that it can continue in May. But like much we have done in
I’ve been in Kenya for four years, and this is the first time
I’ve felt like I have took a stab at the beast that has robbed and raped
and stolen from this country. It is a small center, and it will only serve a
few hundred children, but it is a start, and a real way out of the poverty that
consumes this land.
Besides the super important and obvious best days of my life (
When Stephen was born, he had such a cleft lip that he couldn’t
drink from
I asked if I could try, and the nurses reminded me that they were
neo-natal intensive care nurses and two of the best nurses had been unsuccessful.
I asked again, and they sighed the heavy sighs that
only nurses can sigh.
And he took the whole bottle from me. And he would only eat from Nancy
and me, like he knew he didn’t have much time, so why waste it on someone
else? And that still stands as the greatest day of my life.
The other day, which has nothing to do with the previous one, was over
30 years ago. It was a summer evening, and I was in the car with Tom and
Charlie and Chopper and Rocky Mountain High came on, and I loved that song and
I loved my friends and I knew that they loved me and I just felt so alive and
so happy.
I don’t know why I thought of those two events, but as I watched
Walter put on the touch up paint and I cried, those thoughts came pouring into
my mind. And I realized what a gift it is to do what you all have allowed us to
do in Kenya, and I would have to say thank you for giving me one of the
greatest days of my life.
The Passion movie hasn’t reached
I’m so grateful for the second chance you have given these kids.
I hope you have the greatest Easter celebration ever. And don’t forget
the sun screen; some of us need it.
Your pal
Steve
Steve
and Nancy Peifer
Stateside
Address:
Phone:
011-254-20-32046-252
http://peifer.kijabe.org