O...nly in E...ipomek

This valley holds about 8-9 different villages with as many churches. The gospel has been there for nearly 50 years. The people are small, friendly, expressive and kind. It rains every day and everything is on an angle. Everywhere you walk is either up or down. The only flat area is the school playground and the airstrip. It is full of rocks, mud and water. There were more waterfalls that you could see then anywhere I have ever been. Like the Mbua it is nestled against a mountain so every day the weather rolls in and stays till it rains itself out. It grows great potatoes and has started growing coffee beans. When you walk anywhere you have company. There will be one or two holding your hand as long as you hold it back. Wherever you are there they are watching. I felt at times we were the circus in town and whatever we did was worth watching even if we were just watching back. They are tenacious tough workers and hands down can work harder then any of us would want to.
I know...I need to have some pictures but in my attempt to write while it is fresh I have yet to transfer them. Te-le-ve or telep is how you say hello, thank you, good morning and everything else that you can wrap up in a greeting. I had been so used to saying Wa in the Mbua that I kept saying Wa-Te-le-ve. I am sure this was confusing for them as it was for me. The sweet potatoes are the same as is the pig feast.
82 of us arrived and filled up the valley with hoopla. School stopped and kids watched every move we made. It became a bit disconcerting as we ate our meals on the porch of their school house as they watched us silently from the playground. When we had our services they would sit on the same porch and talk and listen and watch. I wish I knew what was going through their minds...we seemed a world apart singing the same gospel message that should have tied us together. Our cultures could not have been more different...I wonder what could have been our common ground.
There is one thing that we did in our Kids club that seemed to be the high light for them and scary painful for us. It was called the candy shirt. We had glued candy on a T-shirt and one brave highschooler would put it on and run for his life. Meanwhile every able bodied child, mother and eventually man would run after and attack. Pushing the poor soul down into the nearest mud pit and grab for every piece of candy. The battered student would get up with red scratch marks and a story to tell. Finally, we got the idea to put it on one of the national men...now that was a much better competition...he ran better, farther and they did not feel the need to push him down into the ground. He was also grabbing for as much candy as he could off his own shirt. It may have been our common ground but not one that was significant. Only in Eipomek.