Boys' Talk - by Jared Kreutzer, Intern

This past week was hunting week on the west wing. The boys over there, since they do not have many normal toys, make their own out of whatever they find lying around. Well, they started making bows and arrows, so we spent a day making bows for all the boys. They were climbing in trees and tearing out branches, I guess I should have told them first to not do that. By the end of the day, every boy had his own bow. Even the smaller ones, they had little twigs with string, a miniature bow.

I could tell quickly that I would need to teach them some safety rules, for they were finding nails and making sharp arrows and just walking around shooting them straight up in the sky. So we had a hunters' safety session, which concluded with target practice on a Spiderman doll. The next few days were spent hunting rats around the kitchen. Whenever the boys would see a rat, they would all get so excited and take their bows and sticks and rocks and whatever they could find to throw at them. It was so funny the fist time they killed a mouse, they had it trapped in a bucket and brought it out to the field. They all stood around it, tall like warriors, ready to kill their prey. However, when they let the mouse out to kill it, the warriors turned frantic and they all ran away and were screaming. The mouse in the meantime was running through all of their legs as they tried to step on it. It was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. I was on the ground laughing the whole time.

Also, big news around the west side. Nelson and Dorcas had their baby on June 20, at 3:05 am. He is Victor Kiprop Rotich, named Victor to signify the victory which we have in Christ, and Kiprop, which means “it rained” to signify that it was raining when Victor was born. The girls had been praying for a girl, and even thanking God that it would be a girl, but all the kids were excited to have a new baby brother. Later that evening, I let the Rotich kids call Nelson and Dorcas on my cell phone and all the kids got to talk to their parents, who have been away for 3 weeks. Each child, after talking to their parents, would run around the room so excited, jumping around. It was precious.

Happy Birthday
The same day Victor was born, it was also Margaret Asinyen’s birthday. So I bought a watermelon and we had a birthday party. Many of the children forget when their birthday is here, so a lot of them will come up to their parents and ask, “When is my happy birthday?” So we celebrated all the “happy birthdays” in June. The children were so excited about the watermelon. The kept running around saying, “so sweet, it’s so sweet.” All the boys saved the seeds after they were finished. I think they are planning on trying to grow their own watermelon patch.

Let's Play Ball!
There is a big construction project underway at the children’s home. It is a basketball court, The last week was spent digging an area 20 X 12 meters to allow a marum (clay) basketball court to be built. The children have been so excited and many of the boys have been helping everyday with the digging. All that is left now is to spread and compact the clay for the court and then get the goals up. I’m sure that by this time next year, we’ll have NBA scouts coming to check out our players!