A MUCH better day! :)

Dear Friends,

How thankful I am for each one of you! I can't tell you how much it has meant to me to hear from so many of you today. Each email brought encouragement and blessed things I needed to hear and remember. It was like so many of you were helping me carry a very heavy load, and I am so grateful for your help.

Today was a MUCH better day. The women were already gathered when I arrived this morning and had opened with some songs and a prayer, which they do every day. The eldest quilter was telling them a Bible story and relating it to our quilting project. So when I arrived, we got straight to work, hand sewing our bindings. I LOVE sewing bindings, and once the ladies got the hang of the new stitch, they settled down and began enjoying it too. And how proud they were went it was finished! You should have seen all the beaming faces! They are so excited that today when they return home, they will carry their completed project with them to show their family and friends.

I thanked the women for so graciously inviting Jill into their homes yesterday. After our hard day, she walked to the Mashaka Village (probably a couple of miles) and visited 15 homes. She didn't arrive back at Rose's until after 6pm! Needless to say, she was exhausted. She was impressed with how orderly some of the homes were. Some of the women had even changed into a fresh dress to greet her. The houses are tiny. Some of the homes have the kitchen out in the yard where all the cooking is done. Jill said all the kitchens were smokey and she came home with a sore throat because of breathing it all in. In one of the homes in a tiny room, was one small bed, where the mom and three children slept, and the eldest son, slept on the rocky floor beside. In the living room of the same house, was a small couch with a coffee table pulled right up to it, with no room for your legs, because the room wasn't big enough to pull the table out. The entire house was not as big as Rose's kitchen.

So today, Jill is visiting the last 8 homes. While she did that Jesse took me in to Meru so I could get some cash from the ATM. Jill will be leaving for Nairobi tomorrow afternoon, so I wanted to be sure to have some money when she left. She will spend one day in Nairobi, and then take a night flight to London, where she will overnight before her flight to Seattle the next day. By the time she gets home, she will have been gone for three weeks. The time has passed very quickly, and I'm so thankful she has been here with me. We have enjoyed our time together and sharing this amazing experience. She has been incredibly helpful to me plus doing most of the filming for the video she hopes to put together, and interviewing the women. I will miss her when she leaves.

Thank you again, for "being there" for me! It means more to me than I can say.

Love and a big hug,
Kitty