Spring 2010
Mallory’s Blog
Mallory is a new friend to Oasis for Orphans, but I think you will be hearing a lot more from her in the future. She had an amazing opportunity to spend 6 weeks on The Hill in Kenya in March and April with her friend Katie living and serving among these 74 orphan kids and the community that cares for them. Below are some highlights from her blog. Sit back and enjoy her rich and engaging perspective.
Scott Hayward, Oasis for Orphans
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Ahhhh.... My first post from Kenya
Hello friends!
First of all let me apologize for not writing sooner and letting you know that I got here safely. It has been busy, but the main reason is that the internet connection up here in the hills of Kenya is not what you would call fast or dependable (I know shocking right?). So I will do my best to update when I can but if my entries are sparse between now and Tanzania you know why. Also, I sadly cannot add pictures yet because of the slower connection, but as soon as I can I will post pictures of life in Kenya. It is so beautiful here with the rolling green hills and wild animals .... but I actually am woken up every morning by either a rooster crowing or a burro making whatever noise a burro makes.
The main thing I want to send you pictures of though are these precious kids. I can't describe just how incredible these kids are, but I am just so humbled by being around them everyday. They are the cutest kids in the whole world, and once you know most of their stories you can't help but be in awe of them. The more fortunate kids come from homes where their mother and father passed away from a variety of things (AIDS being the most common) and their guardians just couldn't provide for them, but some of these stories are heartbreaking. Our newest orphan in the children's home was being severely abused for 14 months until a neighbor took the child to the police where the child lived in a cell with the inmates for 1 month until they called the children's home to come get her. Other stories involve rape, abuse, malnourishment, and neglect. Yet when you meet these kids they are so joyful and all they want to tell you is how lucky they are to be at the children's home and how God has blessed their lives, and they just laugh and smile all the time. You just realize how lucky and spoiled most of us are and it is just humbling (especially when I remember my biggest problem a few weeks ago was that we had regular coffee creamer and not French vanilla. The other day Katie said how she is just inspired by these kids and I couldn't have said it better. I will post pics as soon as I can of these kids so you can see just how precious they are.
So other than getting to know these kids better I will give you a quick update on life in the Trans Mara. We are living with a wonderful family next to the children's home. Joseph and his wife Annah have been so good to us and she is an amazing cook (so much for losing weight in Africa :-). Plus their 9 kids have been a lot of fun to get to know as well (only 3 of them live at home and they are all grown), and when they are all home it's a bit of a party. Katie and I share a room and it's not a mud hut or anything but it's not quite like home. The toilets are holes in the ground and the shower is the bucket of water they leave for us in the morning, but honestly it's not been bad and the simplicity has been a nice change (wearing no makeup and not washing you hair for a few days is pretty nice I must say). We start our day with breakfast made for us by Annah (God bless this woman) and then head to the children's home where we hang with the kids not in school and update info or take care of random needs. So far (with the staff doctor and Katie) I've been to the ENT to talk about one orphan who needs tubes in her ears, been to the clinic to get update health of our kids, done dental exams on all the kids, done HIV tests on our newest kids, began giving guitar lessons to a few kids, taken 2 kids to get teeth extracted (let me just say I will never take US dentist for granted again), gone to many community homes where we are honored guests and served much Chai tea (which I always have to double up on because Katie doesn't like the taste and we can't insult the hostess by refusing it), and we have been officially taken into the Maasai tribe and given a Maasai name in an official naming ceremony. My new name is Naasisho which means one who does much work (ha ha). I'm also doing physical therapy everyday with a kid name Noah who had surgery a year ago for his club foot and he needs to strengthen his leg and arm on his right side. This kid has an amazing spirit and I just pray he is healed quickly.
Ha that sounds like a lot but it has all been pretty incredible. We have been so welcomed into this community and they have accepted us and trusted us so quickly it is again humbling. I just can't believe how excited they have been to have us be here and how they constantly remind us how welcomed we are. It takes hospitality to a whole new level. There have definitely been times so far that have been hard because mainly I just want to fix any problem these kids have and you just can't. So I lean on my faith and Katie and my support team back home to know that this all happens for a reason and for now I am just really grateful to be here and to have the trust and opportunity that the Maasai community up here offers.
I know there is so much more to say but I think I'll stop there for now and send another update soon. Thanks for letting me rant and update. Hope all is well on the other side of the ocean. Goodnight!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Maasai Life
So I don’t have much to say right now except that I will be posting about 3 or 4 blogs all at once because I finally have a decent internet connection again. I want to tell you guys about all that has gone on in Kenya, but I just haven’t gotten to tell you enough about Kenya and how wonderful it is working at the Children’s Home.
So for this blog I just wanted to show you my Kenyan mother Annah and my Kenyan father Joseph. Katie and I have been living with them for 6 weeks and they really do treat us like their own kids and we love them. Joseph has our back and makes sure that everyone in the Maasai community here knows us and he also keeps us safe (I mean check out the spear). Annah is amazing and completely takes care of us. She cooks us the most incredible meals and has taught us Kenyan washing too (this by the way gets clothes very clean but also takes 2-3 hours). Plus they are hilarious and just tell such entertaining stories and Annah is feisty and keeps Joseph on his toes. 
They have 8 kids and now they have 10 with us, but they don’t seem to mind. They always have kids living at their home who aren’t theirs because they are the house that always has an open door. When a kid doesn’t have a place to go they can live with Joseph and Annah…. Seriously. Right now there is a girl living with them who isn’t theirs but her living situation isn’t good at home with her guardians, so she helps Annah cook, and she lives there. They are the most loving couple and they really believe that they are there to take care of the community around them, and being related by blood is just a technicality. They just say God loves everyone so they want to as well. It's pretty inspiring and humbling…. So so humbling. We loved living there and it really does feel like home now.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Cutest Kids in the World
Ok here they are! Some of the cutest children that have ever walked the planet. Can you believe how cute these kids are?!?! And when you think that most of them came from such rough situations it's pretty amazing how much joy is in their faces. I just love these guys and can't really say enough about them. I have some kids that I am closer to than others, but it really just feels like one big family out here. I now have 76 brothers and sisters. 
Some of these kids we have been able to help in big ways with some medical issues and that has been cool, and others we have just been able to hang out with and play some soccer or guitar or dance…. And oh man can these kids dance. We are busy here, I think busier than I have ever been, but the sense of purpose is so much greater here with these kids. Plus, they are just so loving, like that other worldly kind of loving, and who wouldn’t want to be around that? So I just wanted to share some pics of them.
Tuesday March 30th, 2010
Did You Know The Human Brain Stops Growing At 26???
I turned 26 last week. So yes its official…. I am the most intelligent I will ever be right now, in this very moment. Thank you Donald Miller for that lovely piece of information. If I hadn’t just read the newest Donald Miller book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” I would not have this lovely little nugget of truth (awesome), except that I also would not have just finished one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. I actually think the timing was perfect to read this book, right at my quarter-life crisis. The book is all about making your life a story worth telling. He talks about how most Americans don’t tell good stories with their lives; they tell fine stories but not the type of stories that people would want to watch on the movie screen. He talks about how, “No one wants to watch the story about a guy who works a desk job to save up for that Volvo and then in the end he gets the Volvo and drives off the lot because it's just boring”. Nothing wrong with a desk job or a Volvo, but if that’s all we have it's not much. He also talks about how if we make better stories for ourselves then we stop looking to movies or other things to tell stories for us, and our lives just have more meaning (and I like movies, but he’s right). He says it more much eloquently and also in a much funnier way, but that’s the gist. It's just good, really good so read it.
All this to say, I am now on this side of 30 and I hope I am starting to take some steps to tell a good story with my life. I just celebrated what might have been my favorite birthday yet. Your early twenties are a lot, I mean A LOT, of fun, but they are also filled with a lot of growing pains. Graduating college and leaving some friends, first heartbreak, first real-job, first apartment, first car that I own, being broke, and realizing that all of the things you thought you wanted or would get are not at all working out like you thought they would. But they are all good things to learn. And time passes and I become more aware everyday of the things that I don’t know, but I have to say I like this side of my twenties. It kind of feels good and it doesn’t feel like my youth is ending or anything dramatic, but it feels like I actually have “lived” a bit and learned some things and survived some others.
I spent my 26th birthday with one of my best friends Katie in an orphanage in Kenya. For birthday presents I got a 2 liter bottle of warm coke, 4 Cadbury chocolate bars, and the funniest birthday card I have ever read from the kids in the Children's Home (best quote was when one of the girls told me she wish me to be like Noah and reach 600 years old). All the kids sang to me and gave a little speech, and then they prayed for me. And we all laughed and danced a little, and I think I had a smile on my face most of the day. It was a good birthday.
Friday, April 9, 2010
I Don't Want to Leave
Anyway, one of the tasks that Katie and I had at the Children's Home was to update the biographies on the kids in the program. During that process we found that some of the kids who don’t live in the home yet, because there aren’t enough beds there, don’t have the best living situations. Some of them walk very far to get home, often in the rain this time of year, and some do not have the best home situations, especially for studying. So we began to work with the staff there and figured out a way to get more bunk beds into the home and the cost and which kids could move in next. A huge blessing was that The Chapel Children’s Ministry (TGA) had already raised a bunch of money for the bunk beds for Dorm 2 over Christmas and it was just sitting there waiting to be used for when Dorm 2 opened. So since Dorm 2 is not opening quite yet, Oasis said we could buy a few of the beds early with that money. We then went on the find vendors, do some bartering (so glad I was with Kenyans for this), and figure out all that was needed. After a couple weeks of planning and finding trustworthy vendors and talking to the guardians of all the kids we wanted to move in, the big moving day arrived. With the money sent for the beds, and after some negotiating, we were not only able to buy bunk beds but some other much needed items for the kids currently living in the home. We were able to buy 4 bunk beds, 32 new mattresses, 35 new sheet sets, 26 blankets, 70 wash tubs, 60 plates, 50 cups, 73 spoons, and some sodas to celebrate the occasion. And man oh man did we celebrate. There was dancing and sodas and singing and the happiest kids you’ve ever seen. 
Our last few days in Kenya were some of the craziest and best days of my life. It's not often that we are given the opportunity in life to see amazing things happen and lives truly change, at least not in my everyday life, and it's always when you don't really expect it. And that's what happened in our last days in Kenya and it was incredible and blessed and other words that are beyond my limited vocabulary.
So Katie and I spent our final day in Kenya picking up, delivering, and then giving, (thanks to a lot of generous donations), 70 orphans new bedding and other goods (you would have thought we gave them a bar of gold when we told them they each got their own wash tubs). The most miraculous and humbling thing we got to experience though was watching 9 new kids move into that precious home. I wish I could describe the look on these kids’ faces when they came into that home, and for the first time knew that it was now their home. It was a type of joy I have never seen in anyone before. And then to see that they were welcomed with such prayer and celebration by their friends, and now their brothers and sisters, gave me the type of joy I’ve never had before. I know I sound like a big sap but it was one of those other-wordly God moments that you never forget. We take for granted so much, like light to study by at night or being close to our schools/work, and when you see people who don’t have those things suddenly be blessed with them, it's just amazing. It was crazy, stressful, exciting, and overall incredible being a part of that community during this time, and honestly that day before we left Kenya was one of the best of my life.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Maasai culture
I love the Maasai! I have heard a mixed bag of things said about the Maasai stateside and in Africa, but I’ve lived with these people for a little while now and they are just incredible people. I’ve talked about their intentional community and hospitality before, and this is still one of the best things about them. Not living in community is not even an option for them because they know that’s how we were created to live. They know that life is richer with honest, vulnerable, loving friendships, and it's also necessary for their survival at times to live in community. I just wonder what it would be like in America if we lived with a more intentional community. I think it would completely revolutionize the nation and issues that divide us and the intolerance we have would seem just stupid. They also treat everyone as family and you always feel welcome. I now have about 4 sets of parents and 80 brothers and sisters, and it always feels like the best family reunion you’ve ever been to. Not the type of family reunion that you fear because that crazy aunt is going to kiss you right on the lips and your second cousin will tell embarrassing stories and your grandma will make you eat that green jello whether or not you want to. No, it’s the type of family reunion that you look forward to all year because you know that there will be an insurmountable amount of love and laughter there with your favorite people.
So yes the Maasai are incredibly loving and kind, but the truly astounding part about this tribe is their rock solid faith. If I didn’t have any of the amenities I was used to in life I think I could find a hundred reasons to doubt God (I say this because I have everything I need and still find reasons to doubt God). If I struggled for food, had major health issues, struggled to keep my family safe from other tribes and animals, etc, I would probably think that God had left me and I was on my own. But these people don’t think that at all. In fact they praise God for the little that they have and have faith that God can do anything and is not limited by this world at all. I think it's because of this faith too that they see more miracles happen in their tribe than I have ever seen in America. I do think that miracles happen, but I don’t see them often and honestly I don’t really have faith that they will happen most of the time. I pray for things, but I pray like “Hey, God that’s a million miles away, if you wouldn’t mind helping with this that would be cool”. The Maasai pray for things like God is right in front of them and they are desperate for Him to answer their prayers. Sometimes we pray for things and God says no, but for the Maasai that doesn’t stop them from asking because they have faith that anything is possible. It's just really incredible.