Now with the Lord...

Mama Susan was a pioneer mother/caregiver at Rafiki Village Kenya.  She took care of 13 boys and raised them well.  Her oldest Rafiki son had many issues due to the fact that he was brought to Rafiki at the age of five.  To hear him speak about Mama Susan as the "best mother" who was "a kind woman, who loved us"; and his memories of "Mom singing lullabies for us to sleep" and how she "taught us to read the Bible and pray"; and to see him as a man carrying his mom's coffin to the grave, was a testimony to her work and prayers for her children at Rafiki.  

What I remember about Mama Susan was her love of singing and her method of doing devotions with her children.  On a devotion about how Elijah was fed by ravens during a famine, she told the children to imagine that the ravens were flying into the king's palace (where there was plenty of food) and taking the bread and meat off the king's table and carrying it to Elijah in the desert.  She asked the children if they could see the ravens doing that; and they could.

Mama Susan is resting in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom she loved.  She worked tirelessly for Him in her calling as a Rafiki Mom and we can begin to see the fruit of her labor even today.  Please pray for the boys who have lost the only mother they have ever known.

Just listening to the radio...

Heard about this on the radio this morning.  I thought how amazing it would be if we had this in the USA.  I wonder how many who claim to be lovers of Christ in the USA would be able to live Romans 1:16 in this way; "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God to salvation..."

Click here to learn more

So maybe you are not in Nairobi to join in the marathon, but you could support their projects to translate bibles into the mother tongues of unreached communities of Kenya.  In country claiming to be 80% Christian these tribes are mostly Islamic or Anamist and destined for eternal destruction.


From the radio program, I heard the following from people who hear and read the Bible in their own language:

"I can read Kiswahili and English, but it's not as if it's my mother tongue."

"Jesus speaks my language!"

"When I hear God's words in mother tongue, I can see it with my heart."


Let's not be ashamed!  Mark 8:38 "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Advertising Nairobi Style

I thought it might be interesting to do a variety of blogs based on a particular photographic subject matter.  Today's blog is on ad campaigns in and around the Nairobi area.  Most of the photos are taken with a camera phone as I'm riding around town in matatus and buses; (1) in an effort to appear more subtle with the picture taking and (2) so my camera won't get jacked.   So please excuse of the the quality of the photos and the watermarked windows.

So starting off there is the banner style of advertising:

Banners are strung across the road on somewhat shaky poles (note the left side).

These are small banners on the guard railing (just in case you missed one, there's at least 5 more to catch your eye).

Then we come to the billboard style, which used for products, specific campaigns, and supermarket hours :

Nakumatt on Ngong Road (pronounce "gong") aka Nakumatt Prestige, letting folks know they are open late.

Honestly, who is looking at the cell phone advertisement at the busy roundabout, anyway!

Deodorant products

Dettol, the body soap, the laundry disinfectant, the floor cleaner. 

They've come up with a slogan for women and children too; yoghurt for all.

Health campaign

Here we have the hand painted, wherever there is available space type of advertising:

On a wall

On a "strip mall" style row of shop.

On the odd shipping container turned phone service provider shop.

On a hotel building in town.

On a slum bar.

Lastly, there is the "lets stick an advertisement wherever people congregate" category:

Bus shelter.

Park bench.

Hopefully I've helped to expand your marketing skills.  Stay tuned for matatu (the Nissan mini buses) decorations and church names.

Fall Fun

Kenya is a beautiful country with many natural wonders and wildlife. The only downside to God's creation in Kenya is not having an autumn season. Fall is my favorite season. Leaves are changing from green to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows. A favorite family fall (how's that for alliteration!) activity is apple picking; so on my last Saturday in the US we trekked out to an apple farm to pick our own apples.  (Caption Contest on final photo.)

Fall Foliage

To save fuel, we all shoved into one car!  

At this apple farm there was a lot of stuff to choose from:

Pumpkins 

Indian Corn and Decorative Gourds

Apple Cider

We got two baskets and headed up to the orchard to pick our own apples.  My favorite type is Winesap, but that was not ready yet, so we went for Cortland Apples.  Before we started out, we took note of this sign:

I like to consider this a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.  As you will later observe!

As we entered the apple orchards, there was row upon row of juicy apples.

Some of the varieties included Rome, Cortland, Jonagold, and Red Delicious.

We all jumped in with full force to get the best apples in the orchard.  We chose Cortland's because they tasted really good!

Dad tasted more than he picked for the buckets, I think!

Here Glory is pointing out the features of the apple she just selected.

Mom and Annette work as a team.

As you can see, the best apples were at the tops of the trees, completely out of reach.  

Red, crisp, and just waiting to be picked.

What to do?  We came up with several of solutions:

Mike shows off his husbandly skills.

Annette and Glory demonstrate the Shabouk Girls tenacity.

What is this person doing CLIMBING THE TREE??

At the end of it all, we had a fun time together.

Thanks Dad & Mom.

CONTEST - CAPTION THIS PHOTO:

?

In the comments below, please caption this photo.  I just don't know what to say!

Learning Chicken

Despite the fact that I descend from poultry farmers; I do not now, or ever have, or ever wish to become a poultry farmer.  In fact, I never really knew much about live chickens until arriving in Kenya.  Live chickens are given as a sign of respect to a person.  Chickens are eaten when important people come to dinner.  Chickens are REALLY dirty and stinky.  Chickens will run fast when you are trying to catch them, because somehow they know they are ending up in the pot (unless they are tied up, then they are easy to catch.)  Chicken happens to be the favorite food of the Luhya tribe of Western Kenya (my tribe by adoption).  Luckily, it happens to be one of my favorite foods too (no wonder they adopted me.) My prior experience with chicken basically looks like this: pull frozen meat from freezer, defrost, season, grill or fry or bake, and eat.  I now have a whole new level of appreciation for my ancestors of the poultry farmer persuasion.  Follow the story of chicken preparation (or how to become a vegetarian in 20 photos or less.)

The designated chicken was tied up, pecking away at bugs and stuff all day long.  Sadly, I do not have any photos of this part of the story.  The chicken was reeled in by the rope attached to its leg and handed over to .... ME.  So I got the bird into position on the banana leaf (so its easy to clean up later.)

Correct position is standing on the feet (so it can't run) and on its wings (so it can't flap around). 

I'm sure, based on the other components in the photo, you can tell what is about to happen (note the knife that is being handed to me).

FYI: Correct blade position is the neck portion by the jugular and aortic vessels.

If you don't like blood, skip the next few photos.

The deed is done, the chicken is no more.

The experts make sure I've done things correctly; didn't I mention the blood of poultry farmers runs in my veins?

A bit more hacking, a bit more blood.

The chicken is hung upside down to ensure as much blood as possible comes out.

At this point, the chicken is put into a pot of boiling water, again I sadly do not have any photos of this part of the process.  This is done to soften the place where the feathers are in the skin and it makes the feathers easier to pull out (as demonstrated in the next few photos.)

This takes less than two minutes.

Note how its all done on the banana leaves for easy clean up.

All clean.

Into the kitchen with the plucked bird.  Have you ever eaten a piece of chicken and seen a little piece of the quill still in the skin?  Well this next step takes care of that problem.

Over the stove (yes that is the stove) the skin is singed so that those quilly things are burnt away.

Now, to remove the innards.  The biologist in me cheers.

Not the usual dissecting knife.

If you ever wanted to know, this is what it looks like inside a chicken.

It's all coming out!

There it all is.

After the innards are removed, the chicken is cut up into pieces, rubbed with salt and left for about ten minutes.  The salt cleans the insides of the chicken.

Rubbing salt in.  Don't worry, it gets washed off.

The chicken is seasoned nicely and cooked.  If I recall correctly, stewed chicken.  No photos of the eating part, but it was yummy.


PS.  The mess was pretty .... well, messy.  Good thing we had those banana leaves, we just rolled them up and; all clean.

Center: Large Intestine, Left: Liver and Heart.  FYI.

Special thanks to PQB, photographer.