Turkana: Part three

The last part of our Turkana trip...

Part THREE:

On our way back, we stopped in a little town center to meet Daniel’s family.  His grandmother and aunts were very welcoming of us.  His mom, not so much.  She was pretty stand offish but not because of us, but we think because when she split with Daniels dad and Dan ran away, she just cut that part of her life out of her memory.  

 The land we just drove out onto to get to Dan's family

Dan's moms house

Daniel with his mom and half siblings from the moms new husband

After some talking to, she ended up asking us to come out to where she lives and meet her kids from her new husband and also Daniels sister.  The sister was out collecting water so we have to plan to go back next time.  I was able to share how much we love Daniel as our own son.  I had to have Caleb translate what I was saying into swahili then someone else translated swahili to turkana.  We shared how much we love them too and how great the love of Jesus is for them.  How its by God’s will that we were led to find them and just talked on restoration a bit.  The mom warmed up some and shared how grateful she was we were caring for Daniel and welcomed us back again.  It was the start to many more visits.  

 Us with Dan and his extended family in the area

The neighbors and more family

We then headed back to camp or to Lomenai's house.  When we got there, we were told some of the pokot tribe had come and stolen cows from the neighbor where we were staying.  So around 10 men gathered and went after them.  That was pretty interesting to see first hand.  They came back a few hours later and had the cows.  I guess the pokot were about to cross the river and saw them and ran away, leaving the cows, since there was only a few of them.  While they were gone, we cooked some ramen noodles and ate.  Lomenai wanted me to try the bean leaves they made, they were actually pretty good, kinda like spinach again.  We finally met Lomanai’s husband (who was part of the group to get cows back) and hung out with him a bit.  He was being shy, not wanting to meet us but when he found out we were normal people, he was more talkative.  They especially enjoyed trying to get Jordan to speak Turkana words.  Its a bit more challenging to speak than swahili.  The boys pulled their mattresses out into the open and we sat on them to talk and look at stars.  The boys got into a wrestling match which was a show for the kids around us.  Caleb was going to sleep outside until he was told things would bite him in the night and could kill him.  Snakes?  Who knows, but he wasn't chancing it.  We crawled in our tents to sleep.  Well, most of us.  They were having a big dance thing down the street so the boys went to brush up on their jumping.  I woke up at midnight and could hear them still singing and dancing but slept soon after.  A good night of sleep again, which being pregnant and camping in the heat, you'd think not. God is good.  

Laying out on mattresses 

Boys will be boys

Eating what Lomenai brought me

Yikes.  Found these outside our tents the last day.  Guess this is one of the things that could have attacked Caleb in the night.

The next morning we got up, packed up everything and left.  Lomanai had asked the day before if she could come with us.  Of course!  But we wanted to make sure the husband was ok with it.  This was her first time to leave Turkana, kind of a big deal.  He was totally ok with it.  The mother in law was just sure to tell us she HAD to be back in a week and we ensured she would.  So the morning we left, Lomanai’s friend helped her take all her neck beads off.  That was interesting to watch.  I thought it was different pieces but they are all connected on one long strand.  Each color means something, not sure what.  There is one separate one from the beads and its just a metal ring around the neck, it means they are married.  They put some sort of pasty mixture on their neck before putting the beads so that it doesn’t cause blisters or pain.  Found out it has cow poo in the mixture.  No wonder they smell so, um, not girly.  I know this is lengthy, and really there’s a lot of details I decided to leave out.  People are people, not projects, and this tribe especially does not like to be exposed much so I left out details, if you can only imagine.  The trip couldn’t have been better though, it was a vision trip to just build relationships and ask Holy Spirit what next.  We have to do more research on getting a well put in there and having the right connections, so for now we keep getting to know those we’re directed to and sharing Jesus.  I think next time we’ll bring out the projector to show something.  I will for sure be bringing out things to interact more with the children, like jump ropes and balls.  Not wanting to impose our culture at all, just love ‘em where they’re at and keep honoring what Holy Spirit leads us to do and say. 

Last morning there, having some chai before hitting the road.  Let me just add how awesome my husband is at camping and making sure we're taken care of.  Wouldn't want to be on this adventure with anyone else!

Lomenai taking off her beads

A new friend.  She followed me around, played with my hair and tried to learn english.  I couldn't pronounce her name so she told me the name she got when she was baptized: Marvin.  Looking forward to seeing my friend Marvin again soon. 

Lomenai spent a few days with us last week and ended up having to leave earlier than planned.  It was a joy to have her in our home though.  She didn’t even know what a pineapple or bread was.  She didn’t take long to make herself at home though.  I was in the middle of crushing crackers to bread some chicken and she literally took some out of my hand and started eating it.  So funny but I’m glad she felt at home.  It was also my birthday while she was here so that was sweet to have her here.  She helped my friend Christy ice my cake and she enjoyed licking the bowl.  I’m missing her already and can’t wait to go back here pretty soon.  We are going to take Elisha and Claire this time too.  That’ll be quite the circus event!  Gotta start somewhere in getting our kids and the kids there used to each other.  I’m sure when Elisha sees kids run naked out there, we might have some issues on him wanting to join the trend.  Ha.  See you soon though Turkana and our new friends and family.

 To the far right is one of Ian's half sister.  I sure love that girl!