A Call To Africa!

 "We're in St. Louis and need to see you now!"  The voice was husky and foreign. Bishop Samuel and Lady Theresa Thiong’o wanted to come over immediately. What a shock! I hadn't seen them for ten years when I had met them briefly in the home of friends. I'd written to them steadily over the years, encouraging them in their work, but we'd never sat down face to face. In less than an hour the two beautiful dark black people were seated in our living room drinking tea.

"Cheryl we need you to come to Kenya and speak in a women's conference this summer."

I told them I couldn't because plans were made to go to Israel that summer. "You can." They insisted. "You can and you will."

The four of us who were going to Israel added Kenya to the trip. We arrived in Nairobi at 1 in the morning and were met by NO ONE. We waited an hour and I said, "I'm calling them."  A horrified fellow traveler said, "You can't call anyone at this hour." Bishop answered the phone groggily and instantly was awake! "I thought you meant 1:00 in the afternoon!" Since then I never leave any room for doubt: 9:00 before lunch or 9:00 when it is dark at night!

They arrived in an hour and we were off, first to spend the night in a home in Nairobi then off to Kitale.

We got settled into the guest house where we were shown our accommodations and given instructions on washing the hair (using a Tupperware container) and how to flush the toilets using a bucket of water.

We arrived in the church where we saw written on the chalk board "Women with aVision Conference". Suddenly I felt a little squeamish. "Lady Theresa, what other women are speaking?" She told me that this was purely a Women with a Vision conference. There were no other speakers.  We sped into action. We had no idea we were IT presenting to the women for four days morning, noon, and night.

They started to arrive, beautiful women, all on foot, who had been traveling, some for days. Most had babies on their backs and many had sleeping mats on their head. Oh no! Oh God! We'd better be good. We'd better be worth it! The sacrifice these dear women were making.

Outside were men near cooking pots. Before them were mounds of peas and corn and rice....mounds that were waist-high. The men were preparing food for our conference!

The conference was wonderful! The women held us, wept and said, "We didn't know that women in America had troubles like we do!" It was an amazing four days that we have held in our hearts all these years.

It is time to go back. Would you like to go?

With love from Cheryl, the Thiongo’s and the orphans we support--all of whose parents died of AIDS