A New Epiphany...Or Not Quite....

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
The Walrus and The Carpenter, Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was, in my opinion, a literary genius. He had so many ideas crammed in his brain, some ridiculous and some just curious, and he somehow manged to get it all out on paper in a way that could captivate imaginations around the world and for generations to come. This poem, The Walrus and The Carpenter, has always caught my attention and I just came across it again as I was reading through Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking-Glass. I love the whole poem....it's so sad and so funny at the same time; this certain section that you see above is what always sticks in my mind though.
The reason it gets caught in my head is because I repeat it over and over and over again when I feel confused about what to do or say. It reminds me that I need to make a decision and, even if it's not the right one, it's still one that will be part of my life; it also reminds me to take a chance and I might just luck out- it may be eccentric and radical, but there's a good chance it will pay off.
I love taking steps like that, don't you?! Ones where you know they'll be life altering, for good or bad, and you don't know which yet. It leaves a bit of mystery to the whole decision! (Random epiphany for you all....)
God has a funny way of making things clear to people. Sometimes it's smack in front of your face...and sometimes it sneaks up behind you and smacks you in the back instead. 
I am so excited to see everything that this trip will hold for me, the good and the bad, no matter what. I can't wait to sit down and decipher what is useful to me later on once I'm home (and I know I'm jumping ahead here, but I'm excited for that!) 
These past few days have been pretty relaxing, but that's because they have been leading up to a few days of a lot of work. For the past week I've made three meals for Lary and Sheryl (or just Sheryl/Angel) and have helped a friend make pizza and played games with the family and watched movies with them. Pretty much just had a regular life. It's been enjoyable! Getting to know Lary and Sheryl on a basis that I'm a bit more accustomed to has been eye-opening and a bit more relaxing which helped to develop a bit more of a foundation in our friendship. 
It was so fun cooking here! I made a dinner of Tikka Masala and Naan, one of Spaghetti with a French loaf, and a dinner tonight of Chicken and potatoes baked int he oven to tender perfection and a dessert of Avocado Chocolate Pudding (delicious!). I love cooking! Sometimes I forget things that I love until I'm put in a position where I think about it a lot; the example here being food. haha. 
Did I mention it was all from scratch? Yeah. I'm a little proud of myself right now. :)
Ok, so I know you're all looking at that last food I stated and saying," What? Avocados in pudding? Sounds gross!" But I assure you.....this is the BEST chocolate pudding from scratch recipe I have EVER seen or tasted in my entire life!
The link for the recipe is here. Try it out! I promise, you can't make enough of this stuff. It goes quickly and your tastebuds will be in heaven.
Well, on Thursday morning the Streitzel's and I are heading out to spend a 5 day weekend with all of the other MAF families from Bunia on a family conference to do some MAF planning. I (and Angel who will be joining us from Kampala) will be in charge of babysitting all the kids. I can't wait! It should be a lot of fun playing with them all. :) And I also know that the parents will enjoy the short break. 
Please pray that no mishaps will happen (with children, there are always possibilities...) and also that God would allow the planning to run smoothly and a little relaxation to happen.
Thanks for the prayers! God Bless!

On our way back from Epulu

Maranatha.
-Kelly


P.S. All of my pictures from the past few weeks are up on my sister's facebook, so if you want to see them, check it out! otherwise, they should be up on mine soon (as soon as Kristen loads them....haha) I'll post a few here every now and then for you to see!

One Day At A Time....

This past week has actually been quite relaxing. Aside from the departure of my sister, visitors coming and going, and a constant running of my mind I've soent the week just prepping my English lessons for the school!
Since I last blogged the day after my sister left and yet  failed to tell you anything about our last day together, I'll tell you all about that eventful day!
Last week, Thursday, my sister was scheduled to fly out from Entebbe, Uganda at 10:45 p.m. We had discussed some plans about the day with Lary Streitzel to figure out what we could still manage to do with the little time we had left and decided to fly out to Epulu, a village West of Bunia, to visit 2 pygmy villages and see practically the coolest animal on the face of the planet.....the Okapi. I know, I know.....you're saying to yourself right now "What in the world is an Okapi? I've never heard of that..." We'll it is most likely true that you've never heard of it because they are extremely rare. Okapi are only found in one place in the world.....Can you guess it? CONGO! Good job! They are in the giraffe family and are so cute and fuzzy! Kristen and I agreed that they look like a cross between a really cute anteater, a giraffe, and a zebra. Check out a picture of one here.
Well, there is a place in Epulu where you can go and take pictures of the Okapi and even pet them! We were able to do both and had a ton of fun. :)
After we did that, we headed down the road to visit the pygmy village. Kristen, Lary, and I sat in the bed of the truck and as we drove down the road so many little kids came out of their homes shouting "Muzungu!" (foreigner!) and running after the vehicle smiling. There was one little girl I remember specifically. As we were driving, I saw a little girl of maybe 3 or 4 playing by the side of the road outside her house. As we drove past her, she got this huge smile on her face and her eyes got really wide; she started jumping up and down and shouted loudly," MUUUZUUNGUUUUUU!" She was freaking out just at the fact she got to see us. To know that we were able to completely make her day just by smiling and waving at her, actually, just by visiting......that made me so happy. I didn't realize how much these people appreciate us coming and just visitng until we got to the pygmy villages. We pulled up to a brush line and had to walk back into the bushes to get to the village. When we got there, we were greeted by the chief and invited to come sit down. They even tried to set Kristen up with one of them! It was so fun to see the way they live and just to visit and see them so happy to visit with us. Sometimes, you don't have to be bringing anything or doing anything for a person to minister to them. Just by giving of your time and taking the time to see the way they live and hear about them is enough to show you care.
Epiphany for the week. :)
Kristen left later that evening and I was very sad to see her go. I miss having her here, but am glad she made it home safely. If you have the luck of seeing her, ask her for a story! She has plenty, I promise....;)
I'm thankful every day for the prayers I receive and for the blessing God has provided me with by allowing me to come here. I see new things every day and am very excited to see what new things are in store for the rest of this time!

Maranatha.
-Kelly

Baraka Academy's Promotion Ceremony

Saturday, Saturday, such a busy day.
I just wanted to take a minute and tell you all about the awesome thing we did last Saturday morning.
We got invited by Furaha, the woman who helped plant Baraka Academy, to attend their "promotion" ceremony at 10 a.m. on Saturday. So, Kristen, Sheryl, and I all got ready to go and headed off to the school.
We made it there by 9:55. Expecting the ceremony to begin right away, we grabbed some seats and waited. and waited. and waited! We waited until 10:45. There were lots and lots of parents/family/grandparents sitting around us and coming and going and the kids were all filing in roughly.
As a little bit of a side note right here, I had been recommended to read a book called "Foreign to Familiar" before I came (Thank you Kara Moran and the Kettlebrook Esperanza Group!) and I took that chance and read it cover to cover. Twice. There's one chapter that really stood out among the many to me; it's a chapter all about Hot cultures versus Cold cultures. A hot culture is one where the people are very relaxed: the people take their time, talk with everyone, meet and greet, and are always expecting people to make time for them...and they reciprocate that as well. You never know when a hot culture person may show up at your door! On the reverse, a cold culture is one where the people are ON THE GO. Non-stop. These people are very time oriented, respectful of others,and usually have a rather large...how should we call it....personal bubble. haha. Congolese culture is a HOT CULTURE. And where I come from....well.....we are most definitely on the colder side. There isn't a right or wrong to hot or cold, just different. But getting used to jumping from one to the other is quite difficult!
Back to my story now.
Like with Baraka Academy. We were told "the ceremony starts at 10 a.m." so we came at 10. Unfortunately, we didn't weigh in the fact that it's a hot culture! In a hot culture, saying that something starts at 10 a.m. means you start getting ready at 10. You stop whatever you were doing, get dressed, eat, get in the car, drive to the place and find your seat....at 10:30 or so. The same goes for the people putting on the ceremony. You start setting up at 10. So we arrived at 10 and there were about 8 benches set up. less than half. We found our seats and watched as people came in and out bringing benches, desks, speakers, sound equipment, cameras, kids, parents, all piling into this little outdoor auditorium style room.
When the ceremony finally got started (phew!) we we're all excited. These adorable little kids and very proud older ones, filed in wearing their little caps and gowns singing and clapping and dancing to the drums that some unseen person was playing.....I wish my graduation had been that exciting!
After all of the kids had entered, everyone started pressing in to see. There were so many people there! I finally stood up so I could get some good pictures. The classes came up one by one and each sang a song, danced, and the younger ones answered questions to show what they had learned that year. SO ADORABLE.
Did I mention the entire thing was in Swahili? Well, it was. Which was very cool as well. :) I love listening to people converse in other languages.....even when I can't understand them (which is nearly always.). I love the way it sounds! Especially Swahili. The whole language is very fast and methodical. A lot of rhythm to it.
Well, at about 12:20, we got up to take our leave because, as hot cultures tend to do, we knew the ceremony would go on for at least another 3 ish hours. That is completely normal and if you have ever been to church in the inner-city before (shout out...I love Christ Bible! :D) you can attest to this fact, church services and any important event tend to go much longer than what you expect, so you learn to expect them to be longer!
All in all, we took our leave, went home, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with volleyball and just general hanging out time.
What a lovely day. :)
Please pray that God would continue to show me new things and reveal to me how to establish deeper connections with the people around me. :) Also that I could continue to see the difference between hot and cold cultures and deal with them personally.
 God Bless!
Maranatha.
-Kelly

New Update.....With Pictures!

Hello everyone!
Another week has passed and it has almost come to being 3 full weeks overseas for my sister and I. We are both very excited for what has been happening and for what is to come.
Our week started off with a wonderful visit to the school, on Monday, that I will be teaching at. Furaja, a woman who helps run the school and founded it with her husband Bisoke, picked us up from the Strietzel's home here in Bunia and took us out to Baraka Academy, which is about 5 kilometers away. We arrived at the school and Kristen and I were very excited to see what was happening! Unfortunately, there were only maybe a handful of students there as this was their last week of school and they had just finished all their testing; only the kids who wanted to play in the school grounds were there (and a few studious older students.). The school is beautiful! It has quite a few classrooms, a kitchen with open fire cooking, a meeting place where we will be attending their "promotion" ceremony tomorrow,  a playground, and even a clinic. The school specifically is geared towards orphan children; orphan children are able to attend for free and use the clinic for free, but other children come to the school as well. Furaja informed us that there are about 1300 students, 600 of which are orphans! I was very surprised at this number considering the size of the grounds and the size of the high school I attended (a meager 200 with about double the space). They truly care for these children and are trying to give them a better education than what they would be receiving. I'm so excited to be able to teach there!
Wednesday was a fun day. We had two visitors, on in the morning and one in the evening. The morning consisted of hanging out with Valerie, a student from Nyankunde who came to Bunia for her schooling. She came over and played games with us, had tea, and tried to converse. :) It was fun getting to know someone our age and being able to just enjoy spending time with her!
In the evening, a woman from MedAir came over for dinner. Her name is Wendy and it was really fun talking to her as well. She told us all about her life and the clinic she works at here in Bunia, and she even invited us to come and see what she does (although she warned us to have steel stomachs)! I'm hoping to take her up on that offer sometime.
Thursday wasCongolese Independence Day and we celebrated with a party at our house! All of the fellow MAFfers came over and we had Mexican food (funny, not Congolese.....), played Sequence, and had a great time. I got to play with all of their adorable kids and we also enjoyed homemade ginger cookies, ice cream, and hot fudge! YUMMMM.
That brings us to today! Kristen and I have spent the morning just enjoying the nice weather and reading and such, I've been writing this blog post :) and we are unsure as to our plans for the rest of the day. It seems that around here, the times when you find yourself most busy are the times when you have nothing planned....
Enjoy these few pictures from the past week! Sorry I can't give you more....:)


Maranatha.
-Kelly

Kristen and I at Murchison Falls Park...Pointing at Congo.

Sunset over the Nile 

Elephant on our Nile Boat Tour

Fruits and Veggies from the Market: Carrots, Cucumbers, Mangoes, Green Peppers, Pineapple, Tomatoes, Avocadoes, Passion Fruit, Blood Fruit, and Papaya.