Boxing Day in Kiminnini

The day after Christmas we headed out of Kitale to Kiminini, where the children’s home is located. We had been out once before to visit, meet the kids and check to see Todd’s progress on the new home. Yancy bought a couple of bags of lollipops to hand out to kids on the side of the roads along the way. A couple other people from another missionary group who work with the same group of kids wanted to come out plus the Kenyan child living in the house we were staying at, so the six of us loaded in the car with the kids Christmas presents and took off for the next village over.

The kids along the side of the road noramlly wave, stick out their hand or yell “muzungo” (white person) as we drive past. But when Yancy started tossing out lollipops there were some squeals of excitement and running towards their candies as they dropped on the road. It was a little frustrating that sometimes the adults who were around would take them instead so he became a bit pickier about the groups he tossed to but they were very excited to have some candy.

The kids come running when Todd’s green car shows up and this time was the same except for one girl, Jackie. They had tied Jackie to the tree and she was moving her feet and lunging at the car but still stuck to that tree.

When we go there, and when we played with the kids at the Christmas party there is a lot of sitting on laps and cuddling with the kids. Trying to talk to them with their little English and the tiny bit of Swahili some knew wasn’t too successful but everyone seems to have a good time. The kids are all about being on someone’s lap or playing, being chased so it is fun to visit with them. On this visit I played with a bunch of the kids but Johnston decided to sit on my lap and cuddle then collect the used lollipop sticks, for what I will never know, but it seemed important so that was what we did.

The women from Todd’s parent’s church in Libby, MT had made each of the kids kitted winter hats and tied fleece blankets and enclosed a card wishing them a Merry Christmas. We had the fun job of playing Santa and passing out the gifts, helping a few of them read the cards and convincing a few it was more fun to rip the packages open rather then carefully unwrap the gifts. Each of the kids loved them and even though it was 80F that day the kids put on their hats and wrapped themselves in their new blankets. It was pretty adorable!

About then a few kids came to the fence to look over and see what the children were getting and they were so dirty and small and sad looking so Yancy went over to give them a lollipop each and they took them and popped them into their mouths, wrappers and all. Yancy helped them out by opening the wrapper and trying again, they really liked the candy!!!