From: Dustin Johnson - Kenya Team, 7/19 12:00pm

Today was an interesting day. The whole team went to the Raila School to interact with the children. We went into one of the classrooms which had around 50 kids in it and were inundated with all sorts of questions. They were drilling us with questions from the materials they were studying and making me realize that it's been a long time since I was in the 5th grade. It was fun to share with them about what my family is like and what California is like. I actually had a boy ask if I surf everyday. It was really neat to see how much they are learning given the conditions they live in and the hardships they face daily.

We then went with Ann and Lucky (two ladies from the woman's center) into the slums to see some of the houses where these ladies and the children from the school live. We ran into Elizabeth (also from the center), and she wanted to take us to her house. After ten minutes of walking down steep narrow corridors, over open sewer streams, we came to the row of houses where she lives. I don't think I could find my way back there if I had to. I can't imagine how hard it would be to get around after dark or when it is raining.

Her 10'x10' house consisted of a couple of chairs, a bench, a small table with a few pots, and that's about all. She was so happy that we had chosen to see her home. She told us a little about her life and we shared some about ours. We were only there about 15 minutes, but I think it meant more to her than we realize.

We went back to the school, where I took apart some old bunk beds. I will use the wood to make some display racks for the items the ladies have been making from the center.
It is very encouraging to me to see how selfless a lot of the people are that we have been meeting. For example, I think of Miriam (from the earlier blogs) who has dreams of opening another child care in different slum. How can a person in her situation think or care about others? I am finding that I have much to learn from the people here and I'm looking forward to the next six days to see what lessons God has for me.

Dustin