Chepkurbet Jiko Stove Project Continues (Part 3)

Hello readers and friends,

I began telling you about the Jiko Stove Project awhile back. If you would like to read more please look here and here.

You will remember perhaps that my friend Pastor Jonah hired two local women, Emily and Regina to make the jiko stoves. These women are so passionate about making the stoves and they do it with a lot of joy and gusto. They have to be strong to make these stoves but they are also very creative and I am so pleased and happy that they have been able to help us out in making this project come to life. 

Emily and Regina are working very hard on behalf of all the women in the villages.  They have worked so tirelessly and they have worked with gusto despite not being supervised. They have also taken it upon themselves to teach the other women how to care for these stoves. It is a true pleasure to have them working on this project and to see them take on the making of the stoves as their own project. The widow woman in the top photo wearing the blue t-shirt is Mrs. Irene Songony, the recipient of this particular stove.

Here you see the two ladies pounding the soil that will ultimately become the new stove.

Here the ladies are smoothing out what will become the bottom end of the new stove.

Here is a look at one of the new stoves. See how the ladies have made some decorative edges all around. they have also created shelves at the back of the stove.

A clearer view of the stove.

Here is a close up of the stove. You can see the spaces for the firewood and also see that the stove top has two holes for cooking pots. Both holes need to be covered even if you are only using one. Chances are you need two pots to boil water. One for tea and one for cooking the food.

The Jiko Stove project continues. We have a few stoves to make in a handful of villages but most of them will be made in Chepkurbet. I pray these stoves would be a wonderful blessing to the women and their families.  I praise God we can help widows through this project. May God abundantly bless them and help all the widows we are helping so that their life can be as God intended for them.  I hope to share some final pictures with you soon and a few words about the impact of this project on the husbands, in my next and final instalment in this series on the Jiko Stove Project.

I hope you are enjoying this project as much as I've enjoyed sharing about it. Please pray for these women who are building the stoves. Pray that they would be blessed beyond measure and that the recipients of the stoves will also feel a great blessing from God.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27

Chocolat on Hallowe'en

I wrote about this new Chocolaterie in my neighbourhood back in August 2009. You can read the post here.

Today, I managed to get there for my second visit. This time I bought truffles with 72% chocolate from Venezuela and other truffles made of 66% chocolate from Mexico. They were divine!

Here is the lovely shop owner. Serving me with a smile and with a lovely French accent. Oh la la. It is Hallowe'en tonight and the shop owner has dressed like Juliette Binoche's character in the movie Chocolat. Unfortunately, you can't see the pretty dress she has underneath the cape.

Below is a display of some of the chocolate that was on offer today; much of it from Mexico and Venezuela. I like this shop because the owner checks out her chocolate sources as best she can to ensure that the cocoa does not come from cocoa plantations that promote child slave labour. After hearing about "blood chocolate" in West Africa, and becoming involved in helping widows and orphans in Kenya, I am more mindful of where I get my chocolate fix.

The little shop is eagerly awaiting the children who will be out tonight looking for their treats and are open slightly later for that purpose.

Now let me share a chocolate truffle with you for dropping by *smile. :-)))

Next time you are in Vancouver, drop by the

Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France
198 E. 21st Ave.
Vancouver
604-566-1065

Break in Vegan Blogs

Hey everyone,

It's my fourth day of eating vegan today.

This is the point at which my vegan eating "coach" and encourager evaluates how I am doing so far and makes suggestions to help me. After showing her my menu for the last several days she said I am not eating enough. I can easily increase portion sizes and eat more in general of veggies and good snacks.

She also made an excellent point that I should not worry about the dairy slip I had the other day. Her point is that I've been doing without a lot more dairy over the past few days than I would normally eat and that is so true! In I week, I would generally have milk, yogurt or cottage cheese, maybe some ice cream products or cheese. Now I have none of that so indeed, I have cut waaaaaaaaay back. It took Naomi Rose to point that out for me and I thank her for it as I was feeling pretty bad about it all.

So today will be my last day of journelling what I have been eating on this vegan diet now that my new lifestyle is underway. I was only going to give this new way of eating a one week trial but I have noticed an increase in my energy levels and for the most part, I am feeling less hunger than in my regular way of eating. So I have decided to stick with the vegan eating for at least several weeks. By that time, my body will likely be so used to it that it might be hard to return to dairy and meat but we will see. My main purpose in going vegan is to improve my health. It isn't because I am against meat eating.

Even though I am not opposed to meat and dairy eating, the sad reality is that in most of the western world, the conditions for raising animals to supply meat, poultry and eggs is so disgusting that as time goes by I really have a harder and harder time to think about eating animals products. Most of the animals and chickens have been under distress before succumbing to slaughter for our food needs. I don't think that is good way to treat our animals before we eat them. I also don't think that that kind of animal distress can be good for our bodies once we consume the meat, poultry or eggs.

If I lived on a farm and could ensure everything was hormone free and stress free for the animals, I could eat in good conscience. There is also the issue of the rapidly disappearing rain forest to be able to support livestock needs. Another distressing issue for me is all the hormones and junk that animals are fed. Have you heard what they feed to pigs? I have always like pork but I have a hard time to eat when I think of what they might have eaten themselves.

Well, I'll stop there as I am certainly no expert on the rationale for going vegan. But all these things trouble me when I permit myself to think of them and also they all contribute to a poor diet devoid of the necessary nutrients I need to function properly. Now here is my menu for the day.

Breakfast
Porridge with cashews, figs, brown sugar and soy milk.
Half a banana
Lunch
Large portion of Butternut Squash Lasagna
Snacks: 1 square of chocolate and a few small mandarin oranges.

Dinner (pictured above)
Corn, Red Potato & Onion Chowder with pureed garbanzo beans as a thickening agent. Perhaps I should have added flour to properly bind the soup but I omitted it on purpose. I added salt for seasoning and a few crumbs of falafel mix left over from the other day. I found the falafel gave it a bit of a spicy flavour which was good.
Pitta bread was the accompaniement as I have no bread/buns.
Snacks....I will likely have some cantaloupe and other fruit later. Perhaps a choco square.

This weekend I hope to make some muffins, cookies and/or banana bread Vegan style of course so that I have some snacks on hand for next week. I will also start cooking more veggies as side dishes. That way I will ensure I get a broader spectrum of greens, and nutrients etc. I may let you all know in a few weeks how things are going with me and the "vegan way".

Very soon I hope to be blogging here about some exciting projects I am hoping to move forward to aid widows and orphans in Kericho, Kenya. I hope you will come back again soon and let me know what you think when I write about them. I would dearly love to hear from you all and I hope to see you again real soon.

God bless.

Friends & Clutter

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:21

Yesterday I met a friend I haven't seen in a very long time for lunch. It took us three, almost four weeks of telephone tag to organize a luncheon date. Normally, I would give up after two phone calls due to low energy levels. But this time my friend was good at her own follow up, so we managed to get together.

I tried an organic green and beef salad with blue cheese. This is the second time I've tried it. The first time was absolutely pleasing to the eye and delicious to the palate. This second time was not nearly as aesthetically pleasing. Can one use the word "aesthetic" when it comes to food presentation? I'm not sure. But oh well, I just did! The salad plate was missing the eye catching red grape tomatoes I'd had the first time around. Sadly too, the organic spring greens mix looked as if they were wilted by the hot sun we've been having.

I did request, and receive, some grape tomatoes which made the salad look more appealing and I found that the taste wasn't too far off the mark. My friend had a veggie and cheese omelet with multi-grain toast. She didn't complain or comment so I guess it was fine. I didn't get photos because we were both a little hungry by the time lunch was ready.

Besides eating, it was simply nice to see my old friend again. As always when we haven't gotten together for awhile, we have a lot to catch up. But our luncheon and conversation did not seem rushed which was nice. She had to come downtown today for an appointment not too far from where I am staying. She was taking some kind of course for diabetics at the hospital in the neighbourhood so it was easy to schedule a get together once we finally did connect by phone. She later reported that her regimen of diet seems to be keeping the diabetes in check and that was wonderful news!

It seems that she and I are both at the stage of down-sizing and decluttering for potential moves. In her case, she needs to start thinking about the long term future as a senior citizen and is looking for a place with medical care on site and an elevator rather than stairs. In my case, I simply want to simplify for two reasons. Firstly, to make any future moves easier. Secondly, I just have too much accumulated in my small apartment, especially books and clothing.

My involvement with Kenyan missions made me realize how much "stuff" I have accumulated and how much I used to spend weekly or even daily; most of which was totally unnecessary. What I spend on one meal out can be translated to a set of bedding sheets or a mattress for a villager or school supplies for an orphan child, even medicine for a sick child or widow.

[Victor receives school supplies]

[Mercy, another child who needs your help]

I'm learning to be more frugal, do with less and send more to the mission field. I'm not feeling guilty about it. I've just come to realize that material things and accumulating more of them, holds little value in the big scheme of life. I've always realized this, but these past few years I have a much deeper appreciation for what this really means.

By consuming less, I save more of the green stuff. Both green money to send to Kenya and the green earth which we inhabit. Involvement in Kenyan missions has prompted me to examine my spending habits very carefully and make some adjustments. What I learned in the process about the kind of steward I am was quite eye opening.

I've always tried to be a good steward but I think there is always room for improvement. For the last two and a half years, I've been embarked on a continuous quest for improvement in this area. May I challenge you to look at your own spending and see if you can do more to help the Kenyans? There are really so many more needs at several missions. Much more than I can meet on my own. If you want to do something and see the results first hand, let me know.