Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings to each of you from rain soaked Maua. We are praying hard that the rainy season has really started. About one month ago we began to have rains but they have not been sufficient. Most of the farmers planted their crops, usually corn and beans, and they grew some but then we didn't get any rain for days and then not sufficient rain so that crop has died and the farmers are starting over again. The last two nights we have had incredible rains which is what we desperately need. There is much praying for this as throughout Kenya the drought is causing starvation and illness. This past week we had a young infant admitted with marasmus (starvation)who died. She was the first of this season. Without sufficient rains and a good harvest we will see many, many more.

Speaking of rain, with the rain comes flying termites. I'm not certain if I have told you about them before. They come by the thousands during the first few rains. They gather where ever there is light, drop their wings and die in large piles. Some of the local people do eat them. Bill and I ate some while in Nigeria. We had been told that when fried they tasted much like peanuts. The only similarity I could find to peanuts was that they crunched.

Well, we have had many, many termites in our house since the rains have begun. To clean up all the dead termites we have also had army ants, which we have actually welcomed. Today, however, we awoke to a house full of termites, mostly dead but with a few hundred flying around the house. We had even put towels down so they couldn't come in but by sheer number they moved the towels and were stacked 3 - 4 inches high by our doors, in our living room and kitchen window sills, and in our corners. I spent the first hour trying to sweep them out. Bill filled one bucket totally full with them and we left a few on our front porch for the birds.

This past Monday, Bill was invited to attend the "Coming Out Ceremony" of the street boy that circumcised himself, Kiriyanai. Kiriyanai spent one month alone in a small house (room) learning from his tutor and assistant tutor about what it was to be a man in this society and was now ready to be presented to his family and community as a man. The ceremony was to begin at 3:00pm. It began around 4pm. Kiriyanai was brought in with his two tutors and they sat at the head table with Kiriyanai's mother, who carried a baby on her back. (The boy's mother is a single mother). The Assistant Chief of the village made a speech followed by a local woman who supports the children's ministries and pledged to pay for school uniforms for the street boys. Then Abraham Kimuyu, the director of the Street Children's Program, gave a speech outlining the program. Bill was asked to speak and shared that the most important responsibility for Kiriyanai was to share God's love with the members of his community.

Following those speeches, the tutors congratulated the Kiriyanai on becoming a man and released him to his mother and to the Assistant Chief, who represented the community. A Methodist pastor, involved in street ministry in Meru, welcomed Kiriyanai, the man, to the community. The ceremony ended with refreshments, warm soft drinks.

Once a boy becomes a man it is no longer acceptable for him to live on the streets. He is now ready to find work and take care of himself. Please join Bill and I as we pray for Kiriyanai. With no education and the difficult financial times in Kenya, it is almost impossible to find work.

This past Thursday, I attended our monthly senior nurses meeting. One of the agenda items was to discuss the giving of vaccines to newborns on the weekend. Two nurses from our Maternal and Child Health Department come to work Saturday and Sunday mornings to vaccinate the newborns. However, those two nurses are then given a day off during the week to make up for the time spent here on the weekend. This is causing a staff shortage in MCH. We had tried to see if other nurses that are working on the weekend could do this rather than the MCH nurses, but found it extremely difficult. I asked why two nurses were needed since there are relatively few babies to vaccinate. The answer was one nurse carried all the supplies (the cold box with the vaccines and syringes.) I remembered that one of the recent shipments of medical supplies had several trolleys with wheels and recommended that one be given to MCH for carrying the supplies and thus reducing the number of nurses needed on Sat. and Sun. Everyone thought that was a great idea and today it will be tried for the first time. It seems like such a simple solution, but only because we now have trolleys with wheels. Daily the medical supplies we have received in the past months are making a difference.

Bill and I are planning to come home for Christmas. We are most anxious to be with my mother, daughter and all our family again. This is not our home assignment but rather our holiday time. We are most excited about this. We will fly into Chicago, where our daughter, Corrie, and her husband, Brent, live. We will spend sometime there and my mother will fly up to be with us. Then we will all (except Brent as he is a computer person and must be in Chicago before and after Jan. 1, 2000) will travel by car to Santa Fe, NM with stops in Oklahoma City to see Bill's brother and family, Irving, Texas, and Portales, NM to see my brother. We will return to Chicago for our flight back to Kenya.

Needless to say, there are so many of you that we would love to see, so many churches we would love to visit. Our home assignment will begin in Oct. or Nov. of 2000. We look forward to seeing all of you then.

Thank you for your love, support, and prayers.

Grateful to God,

Jerri and Bill

You can answer this letter at savuto@MAF.org

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