Observations | Friday in the city, public speaking, and faculty family

MY APARTMENT – When one of your students goes up to the front of the church for Childrens’ Story and tells a story about a time she was “pissed off,” you know it’s an interesting church service.

It seemed like a fairly regular Sabbath, overall; wake up a little later, get dressed, head over to Sabbath School, and sit through a nice little church service. All went well until the kids’ time, when Mary*, one of my favorite little elementary students, told about a time when she was learning how to drive a motorcycle. “I kept trying over and over again, and I just got so pissed off, but I kept trying…” Ooooo, the building got pin-drop silent for that. People stopped talking, babies paused their crying; even the birds stopped whistling to say, “WHAT DID SHE SAY?” But the kid didn’t seem to notice, and she finished her story with a nice little “Jesus Slant” on it. By the time Doug Hartzell was finished with his sermon, we’d all forgotten what had happened.

That is, except for King Blogger. Mua-ha-ha-ha. Reporting live from Maxwell Adventist Academy, it’s the Daily Cowbell!

3 observations:

1. “Oh my gosh, do you smell that?” “Well, that’s the smell of desire, my lady.” “No, it smells like a dirty diaper filled with Indian food.” “Well, desire smells like that to some people…” –Anchorman. Well, I don’t know a lot about dirty diapers, but I did get to sniff Indian food yesterday. One of the boys that I had to discipline last week, Phil*, is from India, and we’d heard of a great place in town with some of his native food. Wanting to clear the air, we invited him to come with us to grab some lunch, and he gladly accepted.
   
   We hurried into Nairobi and found our way up to Ashiano’s, up near Sarit Center. Our first surprise was that the restaurant was a vegetarian-only place – a bit of a downer for Phil*, who was banking on eating some meat. We also found out that the restaurant, which we’d heard was all-you-can-eat for 300/-, was more like 380/- per plate. When Prem heard what the plate consisted of, he flipped out, insisting that we could get it much cheaper in India. Um, well we’re not in India, but ok.
   
   So Plan B was heading upstairs to a Taiwanese restaurant that looked, smelled, and ended up tasting incredible. It was nice to eat rice (something I’ve had every day I’ve been here) with a different topping, and Chinese cuisine was a welcomed change.
   
   Afterwards, we swung by Nakumatt Mega for a second to go check out the bootleg DVDs they offered outside the store. I managed to pick up The Godfather Trilogy and 5 Adam Sandler movies for just 650/-, around $9. It was great to finally get some new stuff to watch while ironing clothes, and I will undoubtedly use them, and often. Boo-yah.


2. Is the next step preaching a sermon? When I first got here, I was worried about talking in front of 50 guys every day. I had issues with just speaking in front of my peers – my friends – at academy or camp. I stuttered, I shook, and my nerves were constantly shot.
   
   Now, not two months since my arrival, I’ve mastered the 50-people audience, and for Vespers, attempted to hurdle my next obstacle: 100ish-people. I spoke to the whole school about my near-Kenya experience in high school, the testing of faith God had put me through, and about how I’d gotten here in the end. While I felt nervous inside me the whole talk, I was told afterwards that I spoke loudly, calmly, and added in appropriate pauses “for dramatic effect.”
   
   Ha, “dramatic effect.” If they only knew I’d paused because I was about to pee my pants in nervousness.


3. Taking care of the family. Faculty family, that is. Faculty Families are groups of students, teamed up with their choice of MAA staff. The “parents” keep tabs on their grades, feed them once a semester, pick the up groceries from Nairobi, and overall, just keep an eye on them. Elvin, Honey, and I are teamed up together with a great group of kids, and we’ve decided to be the best faculty family on campus by doing lots of stuff with our kids.
   
   A few weeks ago, Honey made brownies for our kids for Wednesday night study hall, and last week, we sent notes to them, telling them that they were awesome kids. Otherwise, we hadn’t done too much, so we decided to invite them over after Vespers and eat some ice cream.The students were so excited, they actually beat us over to the house. We sat around, eating ice cream and talking for a half-hour, until they had to head back to the dorms. It was a really nice, calm time, and a great chance to just hang out together. Hopefully we’ll get to do it more in the future.

Ok, I think I’m off for a nap. I’m going to go golfing with Doug Hartzell at 7am tomorrow morning, and tonight is a Saturday night (a.k.a. Night-to-stay-up) so I need to get some rest here soon. Talk to you soon!

-cw


*Names have been changed to protect the innocent... or presumed innocent.