You are not young; Celebrating birthdays in Kenya

May 29, 2003

Nancy and I had the opportunity to visit Empuet Nursery School, which is to our knowledge the only pre-school serving the Masai tribe. This is significant because the Masai are herdsmen, and do not believe in educating their children.

They do believe in free food, and because of this, many of their children are allowed to attend this school. It is special to us, because the church it is held in was built by one of our heroes, Jim Hoeksema, and four years later it is still serving the community.

There is no good way to get to the school. It is in the middle of nowhere, and there are no good roads to it. After some of the roughest ride we've had, we arrived at the school.

Masai children have an interesting way of greeting an adult. They walk up to you and extend the top of their heads to you; your response is to place your hand on their head. It is endearing and sweet, unless they have been amusing themselves by throwing cow manure at each other. Several of the heads seemed to be fairly well coated, but we just grinned and greeted.

It's easy to look at where the children live, and what they wear, and how little they eat, and tend to despair, but as we left, I felt like I was at the beginning of a revolution. Ultimately, education is such a key to lifting this country to a different place. Tradition is a hard beast to kill, but as a saw those eager faces, I had a hope I hadn't had before.

As we drove, I told Pastor Jeffery that Nancy's birthday was tomorrow. It is a standing joke among all the pastors that I am very old. I explained to him that although I was very old, my wife was very young. He looked at her and said `You are not young.' In fact, he repeated it several times, which got funnier every time. Finally, because we were laughing so much, he explained in Africa that when you call someone young, you are calling them immature, so he was trying to compliment her. Remember that the next time someone calls you old.

(Katie getting braided)

We have, as all families have, some odd traditions in celebrating birthdays. Perhaps the oddest started several years ago. Although Nancy is two years younger than me, there is a two week period where she is only a year behind me. We composed a song to her that goes like this:

Only One

Twas not two

Only ONE

It's so true

Only ONE ONE ONEEEEEEEE

The song is best sung earnestly and very out of tune, which is a challenge on a song without much of a tune, but we have managed quite well. But a new dimension has been added with the dynamic duo joining in. Katie learned the song when the second time she had heard it, and often joins in.

But Ben doesn't join in. He takes control of the song. The only words he knows are `One' but when it comes to that part of the song, he sings as if his very life depended on maximizing the volume.

I think every birthday should be celebrated at full volume.

And I hope you will join me in celebrating someone who is the most special, especially because she is so young.

Your Pal,

Steve

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