Saying Goodbye and Hello: Beatrice and Winnie

You can't make up stuff like this, but how does it happen that the last two students that I saw on my last trip in 2011to say goodbye to end up being the first two students that I see and say hello to on my 2014 trip?

Three years ago on my first trip to Kenya, I ended up not being able to really say goodbye to my Bondeni students except for two girls who danced at the Farewell Ceremony. At the end of that trip while on safari, we were asked to write a reflection paper on something related to the trip. I wrote about saying goodbye to these two girls. You can read my reflection here: Saying Goodbye to the Mathare Valley with a Smile. You can also read it in the newly published book: These Things Remain: Gifts from the Mathare Valley.

On our first Sunday in Kenya, we headed out to the Joska boarding school for 6-12 graders from the Missions of Hope Schools in the Mathare Valley slums. We took a one hour bus ride from Nairobi to get the the schools, which are now separate boys and girls schools. I was most looking forward to getting to the boys school where I could see Anthony the boy my family sponsors, but we went to the girl's school first and ended up filing into the front three rows of their Sunday service. I was surveying the crowd of over 400 girls hoping to see some familiar faces from my time at Bondeni three years earlier. My fifth graders then, would be 8th graders now.

I soon realized that directly behind me were a bunch of Bondeni girls: I already wrote about Naomi here. During the singing, I was quickly greeting them and as the service went on, I handed them my family photo book that I brought with a few extra photos of my time at Bondeni thrown in. To my surprise, the extra photos were of the girls sitting just a few seats away from me. Boy, where they ever giggling and pointing at the photos, just like any 8th grade girl would. Two of these girls, I finally learned their names, were Beatrice and Winnie from the story I wrote about the Farewell Ceremony!

Here is the picture of Beatrice from the Farewell Ceremony in 2011
that I brought back to Kenya this year and was able to give her.

Here is another picture I brought that has Winnie in it sitting next to me.

Winnie is in this picture I brought of teacher Robert, one of the
grade 5 teachers I worked with at Bondeni three years ago.
He is now one of two head social workers for Bondeni and Area 2,
so we spent most of the week with him and he is now the proud
owner of my bow-tie!

When I put myself in their shoes, I can only imagine their day. First, another service to attend and then some folks from America show up and sit in front of them. Then they recognize me, their former teacher and I hand them a photo album and amazingly enough, this guy from three years earlier, whom they had thought that they might never see again, hands them photos of themselves! I think that is pretty cool for them.

After the service, we were quickly ushered out and I only had a short time to ask them to meet up in their classroom while we took a tour of the facilities. I was not that interested in the tour as I waited to talk with these girls. Finally, when we got to the classroom. I took out my camera to get photos and my camera no longer worked. I took out my spare camera and got a few shots and as we were talking, we were told it was time for us to go and get on the bus for the boy's school. I would have liked to talk more, but sadly there was no time.

Beatrice and Winnie helped setting up for our lunch.
The other girl is for another story.

Other former Bondeni girls

Winnie is to my left

As I was on the bus getting ready to leave the girl's school, a couple of the girl's said they would write me a letter. When the three of our teachers got back from Joska after a week of teaching, I received a nice letter from Beatrice. It was to me, my family, and Crossway.

No, you can't make this stuff up! I am sure there is some reason behind meeting these two girls. I am not sure what it is, but I know they have played a small part in my life and I have played a small part in there lives. Maybe it is just about praying for Beatrice's drug taking father?

Here is one of my favorite video clips that I took in 2011. After teaching one morning, a group of kids wanted me to join them for their "unsupervised" recess. They wanted me to dance. I decided to thwart that certain disaster with a video and got their names. When I got home and viewed it, I saw that Anthony, the boy who would later become my sponsor child that week was in it. You can see Winnie in it, too.



Here are the Bondeni girls dancing at the 2011 Farewell Celebration. Winnie and Beatrice were part of this group.




.