Dogs do go to Heaven

Last weekend was my little brother's official visiting day. Everyone from Nairobi came home and we drove to the school together. For two days we cooked and cooked preparing Mathew's favorite foods. We made beef pilau (indian dish with rice, and beef), fish, chicken, mukimo (mashed bananas and potatoes), chocolate cake, chapatis (indian flat bread) hamburgers, and much more. We arrived at 11:00 and stayed until 5:00. Mathews is now in class 7 (7th grade) and for about half the year they learn new things and the rest of the year they review for their KCPS, class 8 exams. These exams are a very big deal. they determine what high school you get into and then that determines if you get entry to university. So he is starting to feel the pressure. This is another reason that he was sent away to boarding school at this time in his life, so that he can really focus and learn as much as he can. I can't imagine what a difference it would make if all the schools were equal. Of course in the US there are better schools then others, but in general all schools provide a pretty decent education. What a different country this would be.

Once you start educating everyone they inevitably want to escape the village and farm life. Which again i think has happened in the US. Farming in the US has become big business, you cannot survive farming 5 acres of land. But here all the land gets passed down generation to generation, so all they have is 5 acres or less of land, but they supply the country. Of course there is some food imported, i don't know the statistics, but in expensive grocery stores you can buy peaches from South Africa and oranges from the middle east.  Who will grow the food? Farming is considered poor people work. When i tell people proudly that i come from farming on both sides of my family, they give me funny looks. It is so expected that kids will have something to do with farming that animal husbandry and agriculture is part of the curriculum. In some ways is it almost counter productive to give everyone equal education? 

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These past couple of weeks i have not been teaching so much but I have been working at the community center a lot. Everyday has been shopping, and not fun shopping. Buying 10 kilos of rice, 50 bananas, 5 loaves of bread, on and on. it is exhausting. But at least i am helping out in some way. 

Last night my dog got hit my a car. I have had this dog, Ben, since he was a puppy and was very close to him. He would come in and take naps in the house with me, and walk me back and forth to the center late at night. I am very sad to see him go. He was so loyal and loving, but also really protective. We have about 20 guinea pigs on our farm and he always wanted to get his little paws on  couple of them. also the baby chicks, they drove him wild. I know that he is in heaven chasing guinea pigs, baby chicks and fetching all the stones he can manage. 

i hate when people say that animals don't go to heaven. How do they know? Just because you have read the Bible doesn't mean you know all of God's plan. The Bible wasn't written for animals, God's not stupid he knows they can't read. animals are just pure creatures, they do what they must to survive. They don't have all these annoying conflicts with greed, fear, selfishness, they are who they are, which is what makes them so lovely. So in answer to you question, yes, they do go to heaven.