We came back from home visits with the Deaconess” and I don’t know about the others, but I was tired. We had dinner at Deaconess Elizabeth’s house (I will show pictures later), and when we were done it was very dark. We had to walk about a 1/4 of a mile to get to the vehicle on a jungle track and it was dark – really dark.
Then in one of those strange moments when everyone seems to get the same idea at the same time, I viewed what has to be one of the most incongruous sights in my life – five white people walking on a jungle path using their cell phone flashlight app to see!
I was thinking that the deaconess ‘ probably go through this daily and I know that we drank a lot of water on that trip alone. So again imagine my surprise when I received an email from Roger Weinlader, one of the Project 24 guys with a response to an email tht he sent to Deaconess Eunita who goes to school in Boston. Roger told her that we were in country and had been close to where she lived. This is a portion of her email –
Roger, the deaconesses have expressed a lot of concern about water, especially this time that it is really dry and most of the seasonal rivers and ponds are no more.Given the parish work that they do and sometimes come back very late exhausted (The visitors may have the experience when they visited). This is an experience I had and could sometimes go to the ponds to fetch water at dusk.Can you imagine the situation?
I have been thinking about the issue and I don’t know how to go about it.
My proposal is to start plan for tanks for first 5 deaconess as a pilot project.They can provide some of the materials such as sand, conglomerates and Cement plus labor. Roger, I believe we make this a reality through concerted efforts.
I am glad to hear that the visitors reached well and visited three homes in Kandegwa Parish which is neighboring to my Parish. Can you remember when you came to Kenya and we visited and I carried the other two deaconesses on a motor cycle? That is where They did the visits. I believe they had a lot of experience that we the deaconesses and those whom we serve go through in our daily lives.
But I don’t regret that because it is God’s call for us to reach out and serve the needy in love in their distress.