Outreach.

Last Saturday was one of RVA’s once-a-term outreach activities.  During the day, about 75% of our approximately five hundred students participate in various outreach projects surrounding Kijabe ranging from playing soccer at a maximum security prison, to building fuel-efficient rocket stoves for widows or, like Faith did, making a lunch for the campus security guards.

Seedlings waiting to be planted. 

I always end up on the same sort of project.  It’s like being a preacher visiting someone’s house – somehow you’re always the one praying for the meal.   I’m a biology teacher, so I always end up on the ‘environmental option.’  This time was probably one of my favorites.  About one year ago, we helped build a fence for Care of Creation – a Christian organization trying to help educate people throughout Africa about environmental concerns and what it means to be good stewards of natural resources and how to get good crop yields without destroying the environment.

This time I joined Care of Creation with close to twenty RVA high schoolers.  We drove down to Old Kijabe Primary School, about 20 minutes down a four-wheel drive road under deforested hills and across dried-up streams.  This was probably my favorite trip so far.  We met up with around twenty students from Kijabe Primary and planted around 200 trees.  The kids were excited about what they were doing and had a great attitude about working to restore the forest.

The best part? Watching Kenyan primary students teach RVA kids about stewardship.

Hauling water to give each seedling a good start was the hardest part.