Say goodBYE to teenhood!

So today i turned 20!
It was a very VERY good day! i woke up to an email from my mom that she had stealthily hidden birthday cards in the lining of my suitcase before i left, and it was a fab day ever since. Everyone i live with is AMAZING!
i got to pick a dinner (one of the other girls.. next door .. is an AMAZING COOK)
so they let be pick WHATEVER i wanted under the sun!
clearly i picked pancakes..
they didn't really seem to understand the logic but that's OK!
So school went great..
two people bought me two chapatis each so i had chapati coming out of my ears..
(i don't know if it was for my birthday.. they saw that i bought some yesterday and wanted to get me some?--Kenyans don't really celebrate birthdays.. some don't really know when theirs is.. but occasionally they will have cake) anyways it was a great day.
at night we had the feast.. NOT ONLY was there pancakes,
but homemade syrup (i had my doubts at first but i am not a homemade syrup BELIEVER [not to mention it was still hot])
pineapple (one my favorite fruits) coffee cake (yes for dinner..)
Cinnamon buns (how do they KNOW these things?)
and CAN YOU BELIEVE WE HAD DESSERT? apple crumble
yes it was absolutely amazing.. i d like to consider myself somewhat of a pancake connoisseur and THOSE were delicious pancakes i MUST SAY

well moving on from the pancakes (sorry they are hard to get over) almost all the simpacters from far and wide showed up for my birthday! there are many sleeping here overnight just so they could come! i got presents and the ones who couldn't make it sent me messages. so as you can see the people i live with are amazing.

In FACT I've decided almost everyone here that I'm working with is amazing. (on a more serious note)
We have the teachers and pastor at the school. they are such special people, they had me and Elise over to their home to eat lunch the other day. The faith of these people is INCREDIBLE and this is what he (the pastor) says to me : "white people have so much better faith then we do" ....
wow
i was basically speechless... and a little angry actually
all the Christians around here are amazing..
at the st.Nicholas school where Sarah teaches & stays (it is an orphanage as well) the girls get up at like 5 in the morning and go pray.. these are little girls.. no one is TELLING them to do anything they just get up before anyone else and go pray..
and I've heard so many things like this..
we were talking to Rose the other day.. (pastors wife / headmistress of the school)
and we were talking about our weekends..
"so what did you do Friday night?"
"oh we had a prayer night here "[joyspring school is also their church]
"oh.. so you had a meeting?"
(keep in mind she is saying this in a nonchalant way, it is completely normal to her and she would NEVER brag about anything like this, we wouldn't have known if we hadn't asked about her Friday night)
"oh no.. we stayed up praying all night"
"OK.. when you say all night.. you mean.. till 12?"
"no till morning"
"... wowza"(i may just have thought that in my head)
"[me again] so you must have slept in pretty good on Saturday"
"oh.. no we just wait till Saturday night to sleep.. we have things to do"
"uhhhhh" [a little bit in awe at this point]
there are many many more stories like this

ANYWAYS the girls and I (that's proper grammar for my mother)
were talking about how the faith of people here seems so incredibly strong even compared to most (including myself) back home, it seems to put some of us to shame!
We talked about it for awhile.. we realized that most people in kibera have almost nothing possessions wise. they rely on God for absolutely everything.. if they don't have enough money to eat or to pay rent they pray and expect/get results.
these people learn to rely on God every day for their most basic needs literally "give us this day our daily bread" and it has brought them to a place where they have seen Him work and give true incredibly heartfelt thanks because of it.
Sometimes in the big west, we say that God provides but we don't really believe it , i mean..
who goes to work everyday? me
who makes the money around here? me
i provide for myself
all i need is me
i count on me
many people don't intentionally think this way but I know for myself i have definitely been caught up in this way of thinking quite regularly.
I think the pastor said that because most of the video tapes, and on t.v. the people who are preaching are all white. It was very very frustrating for me to here. He had this "women of faith" tape with singing on it and the camera went to the crowd and he was like "LOOK how much they mean it!"
and then,( this was all while we were eating lunch at their house)
the classic Benny Hinn came on.
Now I'm not going to say if he is a fake or not a fake because i suppose ultimately i personally dont know.. but i do have my opinions, but its so easy to listen to all the words, because most of what he says is true.

We told him that is NOT true, and how we all saw how special their faith was.. we talked about it for awhile.. they were amazed at the idea that maybe the slum of kibera is a special type of blessing in and of itself, they were fascinated by the idea that maybe in North America we have TOO much,
"So what you are saying is, our trials and troubles bring us closer to God"

Forgive me if this blog is just a big jumble of words, it is kind of a mishmash of events and thoughts!

It MAY or may not be the after effects of delicious pancakes
I might be going to Nathan (missionary kid's) soccer tournament
and NO (this is for all my relatives) by KID i mean kid. aka child so don't get any crazy ideas.
so GOODNIGHT & Thanks for the comments so far!!

p.s that was an inadvertant hint that i like getting comments so i know that im not just
[as i once said..]"blasting this into the unknown world of cyberspace" ;)