On Saturday, July 3rd, Rachel, Ricky and I, along with Jeremiah, Pastor John and his wife Maria, traveled to the small community of Iyarat for a women's literacy graduation. This was actually one of the first classes we launched this year, but the teacher took a job and left without telling us, so for three weeks, these ladies were without a teacher. That break in their class time resulted in basically starting over when we located another teacher for them. Now, 20 weeks later, they are excited about what they've learned and we had a wonderful day.

This beautiful lady is one of the first Maasai I became acquainted with 7 years ago when my ministry here started. Her name is Peninah. She has a son, Josphat, who is in Bible School. My ministry, Starfish Charities, has supported him financially by paying for his fees every quarter. When his wife gave birth to their first daughter, they named her "Rhoda" after me!

This lady came to graduation even though everyone feared she would give birth before the day was finished. I knew she was pregnant, but I had no idea it was time! She was very quiet throughout and it was only afterwards that I learned how close to delivery she really was.

These are our proud students, along with their teacher (pictures on the left). We started with 10 and ended with 9.
Passing out gifts to them is one of my favorite things to do. The beautiful wraps they wear get very worn out in a short period of time, so our gift to them was a Starfish bag, a wrap and a handkerchief. To them it was better than Christmas!

Happy faces while they display their new wraps.
You can't outgive a Maasai. They had gifts of earrings and necklaces for me and Rachel and even a necklace for Ricky.


Rachel and Ricky all decked out in their gifts.
We went outside for a group photo session. What a glorious day.