The Shelf Life of Skipping

November 2, 2006

It was probably because we had boys before, but I don’t remember much skipping with the older kids. Then again, I was gone before they woke up and they were driven to school.

 

 

 

Nancy has a 7:45 class, so I get to take the twins to school which begins at 8. It isn’t five minutes away, but it is my favorite part of the day. Part of it is how much they love school, but most of it is the skipping. The shelf life of skipping can’t be too much longer, so I am savoring it while I can.

The new computer centers went up so fast that we couldn’t get computers here for awhile. They got to Kenya on Monday, and I delivered them to the schools yesterday and today. If you believe that all things work together for good, what happened because of the delay was that two very insecure new teachers had several months to work with experienced teachers, and it has transformed them into confident teachers who are eager to start training their kids.

We went to the first school, and the children starting running when they saw the car. It is rare enough that a car would go to the school that merely driving on the campus is an event, but they knew we had the computers and they were excited beyond excited. When I got out of the car, I was surrounded by students all cheering and yelling. It was almost scary, and all for ten laptop computers.

We are still struggling with the power and a few minor glitches, but by Monday we should be operational on four centers, with a fifth center underway. A friend from a bookstore donated MS Office textbooks, and another friend from Microsoft donated licenses, which will save a huge amount of money and allow us to put Magic School Bus and Encarta on all the machines. Solution Beacon, the company that paid for the first computer center, paid for all the new computers.  

I’m not a good enough communicator to explain how much this means to these children, and the expectation it provides not only them but their whole community. An old woman came up to me and told me that `these centers have returned my hope.’

As thrilling as all of this was, the headmaster of the secondary school told me that as important as the computers were, it was the food that had changed her school. So many children would wander off around lunch time in search of food and not return to school. She told me that now there were no truancies the entire year.

That is so important to me because there is nothing as obscene as a child having to beg for food.

 We stopped by Kenton on the way back.

Then I saw his shoes.

The only thing that could cheer me up was remembering that I am hosting the Chuck Baker Bachelor Party at my house on Sunday afternoon. If you don’t think that a bunch of missionaries can’t have a wild time at a bachelor party on a Sunday afternoon for a 69 year old missionary, you just don’t KNOW.

Your pal

 

Steve and Nancy Peifer

Rift Valley Academy PO Box 80 Kijabe, Kenya 00220

Stateside Address: AIM PO Box 178 Pearl River, NY 10965

Home Number: 011-254-20-3246-458

Office Number: 011-254-20-3246-170

Steve's Cell: 011-254-0734-124292

Nancy's Cell: 011-254-0734-124291

Website: http://peifer.kijabe.org/index.html?intro.html&1

Foundation: http://www.solutionbeaconfoundation.org/programs.htm

Webcam: http://www.kijabe.org/longocam/