"Sunday"

Today, when I arrived at work I found out that my oldest sister is having a baby girl!! It was so exciting to find out that news and it was cool to be able to share it with Lucy and Emily. They were both so excited for her  We didn’t have any electricity today, but it actually worked out well because we had a lot of work to do that wasn’t on the computer. We were able to separate all the receipts for each MGEF student to make the financials simpler. Faith, the treasurer, also stopped by and we spent some time talking with her. She is getting her degree in commerce and she was telling us interesting things that she learned in her classes.

Emily and Lucy taught me some Maasai and Swahili words. They also walked me back home and I gave Lucy my copy of “I am Nujood: Age 10 and Divorced.” It was awesome to talk to Lucy about this book and realize that she feels just as passionately about the issue as I do. Lucy has devoted her life to fighting for the rights of women. I also was able to show Lucy and Emily my room and all of my pictures from home. It was nice to have guests come and visit!

I played soccer and monkey in the middle with some of the children. I also taught Mary and Milka how to play concentration. It is so wonderful to just laugh and smile with them. They asked to see pictures of my family and they were so interested to learn about everyone in my life. We all then went to a church service that night.

That church service (which I thought would be like an hour) lasted for about 5 hours. It was crazy, wonderful, and healing all at the same time. I don’t know if I have explained this already, but church here is so different. There is singing, screaming, jumping, dancing…you can’t just passively sit at one of these services. At first it scared the crap out of me. I didn’t know what to do or how to act. But after a few hours, I got the hang of it haha. I think the highlight of the night was around midnight when I was jumping up and down, holding hands with a beautiful young girl named Sunday, and screaming “I see the hand of the Lord” in Swahili at the top of my lungs!! It was crazy, but it brought me so much peace. There was something about being in a room full of children who have lost everything and seeing them have so much faith in God. It was truly inspiring. And I will always remember the feel of Sunday’s hand in mine as I let loose and just started dancing with hope for the future.