Married Life

“So how’s married life?” That’s the question I hear almost everywhere I go. It really makes me laugh and make me think of all kinds of smart remarks that I really shouldn’t say out loud. I appreciate the intentions of the askers, just the frequency and phrasing of the question entertains me. How do I answer that?

The answer is that life is life. Married or not married, there are joys and challenges, hardships and happiness. In contrast to how I used to view marriage as a teenager, it hasn’t been this great earth-shattering , revolutionizing change of all things in life. I mean, it is a change, but not quite as dramatic a change as I expected. It’s been more subtle. It’s more like the change of the seasons from summer to fall. I don’t remember the exact day the seasons changed. I just remember one day looking around me and feeling a crisp coolness to the air, brightly colored leaves, and the sun disappearing sooner and I realized it was fall.

Marriage has been a process. It didn’t start or end on the wedding day. It started the day we met. From the first day we stayed up late discussing the history of Uganda to the beautiful day we said our wedding vows in front of all our family and friends, right up to this week’s Scrabble games and long walks, it’s been it’s been a journey, not a destination. It wasn’t like when we were “finally married” we had somehow “arrived”. It just meant we continued on our journey together. We will continue learning together until the day we finally go to our true home with our Father.

Our wedding was beautiful. I will always remember it as the most beautiful day of my life. The love and support of so many friends and family, the colors, the whole week leading up to it as friend after friend arrived in, it was a beautiful time. Afterwards, I was happy to have all over with though (all the work and planning and so on…the visitors on the other hand I wish could have stayed forever! Ivan and I want to have a wedding every six months just so we can visit with so many dear people again).

We celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those were the big three I’ve longed to celebrate in the U.S. again. It was a joy to be back with friends and family again. It was comforting to be back and fun to show Ivan “how we do things here,” only to find I miss “how we did things there” too. We miss Africa terribly.

I used to hear stories about how the “first year of marriage is the hardest” and “after the honeymoon phase is over” and so on. Honestly, the hardest parts of marriage thus far haven’t been learning to live with each other or learning to be married, it’s been learning to survive in the U.S. We can happily and harmoniously live together well. That’s no problem. But dealing with job searches, visa processes, momentous life decisions, family conflicts, culture shock, and learning to be responsible adults is enough to add stress into anyone’s life. Maybe that’s one goal of marriage though: learning to build a safe haven and refuge, one place to be safe from all the craziness of the outside world, where each person can be strengthened and encouraged to face the challenges.




I love the rocks and hills around Chatsworth. They are turning green now from all the rain. I realized that life is so similar to my hiking adventures. When I’m scrambling up and down rocky faces, I never can see the end of the trail I use, if it’s all a dead end, or if it leads somewhere. The only way to tell is to pick a trail, walk it till I can’t go anymore, and see where it ends up. If it’s a dead end, then I try over again. Usually though, one little trail leads into another and leads into another and before I know it I’ve reached somewhere. I just can never tell exactly where I’m going on how I’m getting there along the way. But when I finally arrive, the view is so worthwhile.

God has been providing for us. It’s been amazing. It’s always just enough, not more, not less, and I have to humbly learn dependence and trust the same way I always have had to learn. He is opening doors and creating trails where it looks impossible to keep going. I just can’t see how all things will work out or where all this will lead, but God knows. Tomorrow is in His hands. I never know what to expect, but He is good. That is my hope and my strength. In all parts of life, marriage or singleness, hardships or joys, God “works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose”.

T.I.A. (This is America)

I am sitting at the dining room table at my dad's house right now. I just finished cooking pilau and katchumbare (Kenyan spiced rice and meat with salsa on top). They wanted a good African meal and that was the easiest one I could do without having my stockpile of spices with me. Those are all at my mom's house. That seems to be how a lot of my life is right now...partly at my mom's house and partly at my dad's house. I'm back to life as a nomad and being in permanent transition.

Ivan has been adjusting well. As with everybody, he has his "good America days" and his "bad America days". It will take time for him to get through his culture shock and really adjust.

Ivan has worked with Americans for nearly four years. He's lived with them, worked with them and spent countless hours hearing their incessant talk about life at home (especially about food). Yet none of that completely prepared him for life in America. Some stories he heard about really are just as good as people proclaimed (In N Out and free soda refills, for example). Others he has discovered were tall tales and exaggerations (on the drive home from the airport he excitedly yelled out "litter! There is litter in America!" and later on he found a pothole...hence crashing forever all the stories he's heard about how "in America" there is no litter or potholes.

Ivan gives an interesting perspective on U.S. life. It gives me a chance to reexamine my culture through fresh eyes. I never noticed how things here are "too" organized or "too" regulated. Ivan's first walk around outside, I told him about crosswalks and pushing the button to cross, and he looked at me in disbelief "you mean I have to ask permission to cross the street?"

We've both had a lot to adjust to. We've gone from living in houses full of other people back into quiet family homes with just a few people. Even out on the streets and in the neighborhoods, it's very empty and too quiet. We just don't see other people out and walking around. Food is different. The weather is different. Everything is just different. Even in places I was familiar with before, things change. Businesses come and go. People move, get married, or change careers. It's a very different situation than I am used to and will take time to get really accustomed again.

So, on top of adjusting and reuniting with family and friends, we've also been planning a wedding and trying to figure out our future. Thank God, we have found part time jobs teaching traffic safety in schools around L.A. This really helps us out a lot. We've also been doing odd jobs around to bring in a bit of money. Thank God, He provided us with a car so we are able to travel around to see people. Having parents in to seperate cities about an hour and a half away means life is kinda split between different cities too. Now we are just praying that God shows us what to do after we are married. We need to find a place to live and ways to support ourselves.

Inevitably, people always ask us the same questions: "How long are you here for?" "What are you going to do while you're here?" What are you going to do when you go back?" Those are all difficult questions to answer cause we don't really know for sure. We know it will be about three years before Ivan can apply for citizenship so we will be around for about three years. We need to work and save money and adjust to married life for at least the first couple of years. When we go back to Africa? We have lots of ideas for ministry opportunities in Ivan's village but it will take time to really set the foundations for it. I would like to do more school so I can eventually teach anthropology at a university level in Uganda, but school will have to wait a year or two while we get settled.

People keep asking me if I miss Africa. It's a fair question. Usually whenever I come back by the next day I miss it again. This time it's a little different though. I genuinely miss some things (like the food, the markets, seeing people around, things I'm used to, etc) but I know I need to be here now. Honestly I've been so swamped with the details of the past few weeks that I haven't had time to miss a lot. It will come, but first I have to survive right now, and that takes enough energy.

It's not an easy season, but then again, what season ever is? I realized that in life, usually whenever seasons change, you are only trading in one set of challenges for another. It's nice to trade in the challenges of running EAC Kenya and the challenges of life in Africa...but then I have to deal with the challenges of learning to be an adult in America and the challenges of life in America. It's a different context, but as much as ever, I need to continue to persevere and trust that God knows what He's doing and will provide.

Letter of Appreciation

12/08/2011
My name is Mohammed. I am in class eight. I am sixteen years old. My hobbies are as follows: playing football, reading storybooks and swimming. My father died before I was born and my mother died in 2004 when I was nine years old. Since then I have been staying with my grandmother. Life was good to me when my grandmother took me to school. I started engaging into a bad company. We use to smoke bhang and stole people’s property at night and daytime. It was a very dangerous life.

Sometimes we were beaten by mob justice, sometimes we were caught by police officers and taken to court, sometimes we were taken to hospital because of injuries or illness. What a life I had been living. Since I came to this rehabilitation school I have become a changed and responsible person. Ooh! I forgot to tell you what I would like to be when I grow up. In my future I always dream of becoming an author. I would like to be an author because when I read books they encouraged me and give me hope. I once had been reading a book written by an author known as John Kiriamiti entitled “my life in crime”.

It talks about a man who started pick-pocketing and engage in big crimes like carbreaking, robbery with violence and at last bank robbery. However he was arrested and sentenced to prison for 27 years. That book really touched my heart and it encouraged me a lot. That is the reason I wanted to be an author. Thank you Martin together with your organization “Empower the Child” which you come with every Wednesday. I really appreciate your crew and well pleased for the work you are doing to this young generation. “May God bless you.” Once you have told me in your English lesson every evening on Wednesday and write it on my book that I am the best student in your class.

I really felt happy and good that day since you gave me hope and determination in my life. Since you started coming every Wednesday and told us about God loving us and protecting us, I felt so touched by your teachings and class lessons in the evening. Guess what? I think an angel has been sent to me by God, and Martin to tell you the truth I think you are the one. I will never forget your motto “Your life is in your hands”. You are the best teacher I have ever seen. You keep reminding me of my mother who always use to gave me importance and good advices on how to live a good and prosperous life. I again say a big thank you to you and this organization together with the whole of its crew for the work you are doing in this world. May God bless the work of your hands and have a good holiday. Wish you all the best for you and pray to me for my KCPE examination.

Yours affectionately,

Mohammed alias Mr. Bean.
Keep the good work. Forever yours.

VBS in Kibera

We finished our most challenging week of VBS. This was the week that had the largest and most unpredictable numbers as well as the largest age range of children.

When we were planning for VBS at the primary school in Kibera, we assumed we would have our 115 school kids come every day-aged preschool through seventh grade. We planned everything accordingly.

When we arrived our first morning, we wondered if we would even hit 75 at first. The classroom was sparcely populated with around thirty kids. We sent a few kids to tell some of their classmates that we would start soon and they should come. Kids started trickling in. Some came carrying little brothers and sisters who we hadn’t met before. Since schools were closed and it was time for the holidays, they were responsible for looking after the younger ones.

We started our program with the kids. The school, situated deep in a valley in Kibera, could be seen from far away on the ridge where the train tracks run. Not only so, but the sound of the kids yelling and singing also carried. Soon kids in the neighborhood and from other areas came by out of curiosity to see what was going on. Some shyly stood outside, watching from windows and doors, running away as soon as a staff member saw them, only to creep back to see what was going on. We started inviting those ones in too. By the time we separated into classes, we had well over a hundred kids.

Lunch was the one part of the day that was really sensitive to time and numbers. Kids in the neighborhood who didn’t want to attend Bible lessons were very ready to attend lunch time so we had to come up with a system to make sure all our kids ate first. We cooked the food to feed the kids who were there to learn, not just every hungry kid in Kibera (cause that could be thousands and thousands of little hungry kids). To remedy this problem, I walked from classroom to classroom, counting kids, and marking their hands to show they attended class. After they were served food, they were marked again so they couldn’t keep circulating the line.

It worked well, but having planned to feed 115 kids plus our team of 15, we ran out of food after feeding the 140 kids that showed up. The teachers, watchmen, and our team had to scramble to buy food from out to make up the difference.

We all debated our dilemma in our debrief after we had finished our program and the workshops.

“Do we send away the kids that aren’t of the school or add more food or what?” we debated. Our conclusion: “Let them all come. That is why we are here. We will add money to the budget for food and pray that God doesn’t send us more kids than we can bear.”

The next day, when we arrived in the morning, we started off with over a hundred kids in the morning. They had multiplied, but only the little ones. We had doubled our number of preschool through second graders while the older kids remained the same. We even obtained a high number of pre-preschool kids, tiny kids who were carried on their sister’s backs or held on brother’s laps or came toddling around the school.

One baby, maybe two years old, brought herself there. We don’t know from where or where she ended up. When asked who brought her, she said nothing. When asked where she came from, she still said nothing. During game time, she obstinately followed Beth around as her little shadow while Beth tried to give directions. If Beth walked to the middle, so did the baby. If Beth walked out, so did the baby, and she would grab Beth’s leg and look up expectantly. Later in the day, Shelby picked her up, only to discover she had peed on the floor and so also dampened Shelby’s shirt. Shelby decided to carry a plastic bag with her the next day and use it to pick up kids, just in case.

A few other neighborhood kids arrived with baby babies. Both “guardians” were in either first or second grade and they came carrying six month old babies who happily slept on the floor during class time and rode on their sisters’ backs during games.

One baby was kidnapped by the team. The little boy was so malnourished he immediately broke our hearts. The bones in his body stood out too much and he was too tiny. Beth kidnapped him and held him during class time, feeding him bananas and rice, which he devoured. We tried to get his sister to bring their mother the next day so we could find out what the family situation was, but they never came back.

Victor had bought two more kilograms of rice than the previous day…two kilograms is about what it would take to feed thirty more people than the previous day. It came to serving food. I prayed, “God, like the loaves and the fishes, make this food be enough!” and then got down to checking numbers and marks and making sure our kids got fed first. We had 190 kids, not including the neighborhood kids who didn’t come to class and just showed for food.

The kids all lined up by classes and we had to really struggle to keep order. We served plate after plate. At some point, we looked up and realized we had finished feeding all our kids, our team, the teachers, the watchman, and we still had half a pot of rice left. It didn’t make any sense. We kept feeding kids…this time we let the neighborhood kids come and get a share and we let some of our little ones get seconds…the rice just kept going. It got to the point where we realized we needed to serve larger portions so we could finally finish lunch and get onto workshops.
“God heard your prayer,” Victor said during our meeting later. That food shouldn’t have fed that many kids.

The rest of the week, food was enough. By God’s grace, even as the kids increased, we managed to feed them all. Our last day, day four, we had around 250 kids, but everyone still ate. The kitchen team did an amazing job cooking over firewood and feeding those masses.

Our next challenge was in managing our increased number of little people. On day two, out of 190 kids, only 60 kids were 3rd-7th grade. The other 130 were all 3rd grade and below. Emma’s class of preschool and pre-preschool kids alone had 80 kids…80 kids with three teachers…only one of whom spoke Swahili. Their small attention spans only compounded the situation. By the time lunch was finally ready, they were running crazy, peeing on the floor, ninja kicking each other’s heads from desks, etc. We realized we had to do something and fast.

The next day, we split the kids differently so all 60 of the 3rd-7th grade kids were together, leaving 50 little ones in all the other classes…it was good we split or else Emma would have had 100 tiny kids in her classroom. This setup worked much better throughout the week. The little ones were so excited to color and be loved on. During our workshops in the afternoon, all the little ones came into our class to do beads and that made them sit quietly for a whole hour, their hands very busy putting beads on strings. If they finished bracelets, they had to bring them to us so we could admire how good of a job they did and then their faces would just glow.

Our workshops all went well: drama, games, science, and art. Science was by far the coolest workshop. They built volcanoes and exploded them, made blue goo and paper airplanes. The kids all came out of that class saying “I love science!” and showing all their creations.

Our last day of VBS ended with every kid getting a gift. Beth did a big fundraiser before she came where people made bears, monkeys and elephants for her to bring. She brought around 150 stuffed animals. We gave out a bunch to the children of the children’s home where we make chapati one week. The rest we saved for the school in Kibera. All the little kids got their own stuffed animal and they were very excited.

When we finished VBS, we were tired. Seriously tired, but in a good way. God never gave us more kids than we could bear and we were able to reach out to so many more kids than we had originally planned on. We were truly blessed.

VBS with the Street Boys

I could hear the shouts and songs from down the street. The boys were yelling so loud that all the shopkeepers around must have heard that something was going on at the center for street boys this week. After my errands in the morning, I came as soon as I could to help wherever I was needed. It was a good sign that I wasn’t really needed. Besides my spiritual gift of chopping tomatoes, the morning I had to step in for Martin’s small group in his absence, and helping come up with silly theater games for the drama workshop, I really had no other responsibilities. That’s a huge contrast from last year’s crazy two weeks of VBS where I was overworked, overstretched, and had yet learn to delegate. This year, the team had VBS planned, delegated, organized, and running like a machine. It was just another sign that they are ready to take over now.

I haven’t spent much time with the street boys the past few months. Organizing the sponsorship office and running ministry errands has taken up most of the time I would have spent with the boys there. I truly learned to love them this week though. Those dear, crazy, messy children.

We had about thirty boys at the streetboys’ center during the week. The week before we had fifteen. It was like God decided we needed to minister to more street boys this week and He doubled the number just before we started VBS. We gladly accepted them. Our boys ranged from these tiny little boys who looked barely over six years old all the way up to near men, aged 16, 18, even 20.

We recognized a few of them. They had been to the center before. One boy, who we called “the fluffy kid” (because he was a little meatier than the rest) had run back to the streets and then got returned to the center. Another boy had returned to his village way up in the north of Kenya. Then he decided he would be better off at the street boys’ center and willingly returned. That’s unusual. Most of the boys run from that place first chance they get. I don’t blame them.

A few times we’ve run into the runaways in town. They were back on the streets begging again. They knew us though. They ran up to us very excited, “teacher, teacher, do you remember me?” they asked. It’s sad to see them back on the streets.

These kids aren’t “normal” kids. Almost all of them are seasoned veterans of the streets. They are not innocent children who need to be taken care of. They are survivors who know how to look out for themselves. A guard one day almost lost his wallet to one of the really tiny ones. He looked innocent, but he knew how to pickpocket and he was small enough to be really sly at it.

Then there were the boys who didn’t look a day over eight years old telling us the benefits of being high.

“The bhang (marijuana) you buy for 50 bob (about 50 cents) is enough to make you so high you can walk across the street without even fearing cars hitting you. You can fight and not fear getting punched,” one boy said in Swahili. Emma finally got him to admit he was high that day as well. He was barely four feet tall in a huge purple shirt.

I see a lot of the streetboys around Nairobi sniffing glue. They can be seen passed out on top of trash piles, clutching a bottle of yellow glue, or seen tottering with uneasy steps and sniffing it.

I asked one of the older boys why he came to Nairobi. He was a handsome boy with good English and he intently listened during messages. “I left my village because I liked sniffing glue and in my village they didn’t like that, so I came to Nairobi,” he told me. I guess in Nairobi it’s ok. His eyes were clear and bright now and he seemed sober enough. “I want to be an engineer when I grow up,” he said.

The boys were grubby as usual. A few changed their clothes once or twice throughout the week. That was nice to see. Once they were very clean and had shoes. Someone had come and donated them. The next day, the littlest ones still had shoes, but all the others didn’t. It was anyone’s guess what had happened to them. Either the boys had sold them or the “guardians” of the facility had stolen them from the boys to sell them. Maybe next month more will be donated. It will be the same story again. It’s been nice to see that some of the clothes we donated at Christmas time are still around. The kids come and go a lot but some have been around that long.

When the city council brought the new batch of 15 boys to the center, they first circumcised all of them. The government has been pushing hard for circumcision since it tends to lower men’s rates of catching STDs. It was pretty entertaining to see the boys walking funny and disappearing behind the kitchen from time to time to disinfect themselves. The day we played football we were told not to have all the boys play cause they were “still healing” and they didn’t want them to “bleed again”. The boys didn’t care. Try getting boys to refrain from a football match. Near impossible, even when newly circumcised.

Each day we taught our theme “The Promises of God”. The MSTs came up with our own theme song on how “God is my helper”, “God is my Guide,” “God is my Warrior”, “God is my Forgiver”. Each day different team members gave testimonies on their particular promise of God, followed by small group discussions in each corner of the room. A team member shares their testimony every day focusing on a particular theme and them the kids are split into groups or classes to discuss the theme in questions. It’s been working pretty well. The kids are able to really relate with the testimonies in various ways and it’s different than our past few months’ methods of teaching using skits and puppet shows.




During small group discussions we were able to find out a lot about the boys. One day the discussion question was “tell about a time you were forsaken”. One boy told about how his father took him to town and said he was going to buy him chips (French fries). His father never came back and the little guy was left to fend for himself. Another told how his parents left him, his aunt rejected him, and so he ended up on the streets.

Then there was the tall Maasai boy. Everyone just calls him “Maasai.” That’s the funny thing with the Maasai. They are the only tribe I know where people call them by their tribe. No one walks around calling someone “Kikuyu” or “Luo”, but I have met at least three boys/men who everyone calls “Maasai” to the extent that I don’t even know their real names. Anyhow, this boy seemed a little different from the others. He was helpful, kind, and very sober. When I asked him why he came, he told about the “war at home”. He is more of a refugee than a street boy. The various tribes in his home in Samburu went to war with each other over cattle and he fled to Nairobi three months ago.

Then there are the other boys…nothing really happened to them. They came from good families which were well off. They weren’t rejected or chased away. They weren’t struggling for money at home. They just woke up one day and decided to run away. Emma thinks it’s some kind of spirit that makes them wake up and just run like that. Other boys ran away from home because their families didn’t like the lives they were getting themselves into. Their desire for autonomy, drug use, money, etc. brought them to the streets where they can live as they please and do as they please. Those ones are quite the characters.

It’s a different dynamic working with the various kinds of boys. There are the boys who are stubborn and don’t want to listen to anything (or are too high to pick up much) and then there are the boys who intently listen and soak up every word we say. With those, you can see an impact being made.




The boys loved the week. They made beaded lizards, paper airplanes, and played theater games. The last day, we crowned the week with an epic football game against our team, in which they dominated. While they outnumbered us slightly, we were still bigger and had spiffy jerseys that the girls made. They managed to beat us without shoes and being half our sizes and many being newly circumcised…they are just that good.

They really liked the food. That’s an understatement. Since it’s a government institution, sometimes the boys go with one meal a day, sometimes two, sometimes three, they never know. (You can also never tell if they miss on food because the city council forgot them or if their caretakers “ate” the money/supplies.) This particular week, the cook was very glad to have us because the city council never brought them firewood. Since we cooked lunch, we had a balance of firewood left over that the cook could use for dinner. At least the boys ate well that week.

It is no small feat to feed street boys. Those kids can eat! Even the tiny ones can demolish a heaping plate, three times more than I could eat, and still ask for seconds. I’m pretty sure their stomachs are bottomless pits. One boy waited till we left to run away. He had been sick all week but said the food we were giving him was making him well. I guess he must have really gotten well because he disappeared the next day.

Our last day with the boys, we shared the gospel. Someone asked me this week what our long term goals are with the street boys. I didn’t know what to answer at the time. I tend to be bad at long term goals in general, but especially here. What can be done? What can be done to correct a rotten system and a sinful world? Thinking about it now, I realized that the message we shared on the last day is our long term goal with the boys. Maybe one or two lives will change or seeds will be planted. If one boy is genuinely changed, we have succeeded. If not, at least we have tried. We came, we loved them and we will keep coming and loving them. We will keep doing what we can do, keep praying for the boys and for the administration, and pray that God opens doors for us to do more.

We had to say goodbye to the boys. “When are you coming back?” a boy asked Beth.

“I don’t know. I’m going back to Canada this month,” she said. Then the boy broke down in tears. Imagine a big, tough 16 year old boy in tears.

“God bless you all so much for coming,” he said, as he rubbed his eyes. By that, we know, some kind of impact was made. At least to that one, he listened.

Transitions

Our new ministry computer is up and running. I started the process of transferring documents from my computer to the new ministry computer. There is still a lot more to sort, mainly sponsorship documents, but at least my computer can retire and the new computer can take over in its stead.

Tara Skarin, the former Kenya team leader, is also in the process of retiring. I have been stepping down more and more from my responsibilities and letting Nancy and Martin take over.

The team went to Kirinyaga and have a fully successful mission week with the 100 or so children at the orphanage there. The team brought our VBS program to the children, teaching the promises of God, and doing various workshops, games and crafts with the kids. The kids learned how to make beaded lizards, baking soda/vinegar volcanoes, slime, and finger painting. Evenings were filled with campfires, talent shows, songs, and roasting marshmallows. The MSTs learned to fetch water from the river, bathe in a bucket, and how to live on githare (beans and maize…or in this case, a whole lot of boiled maize and a few beans). They held baby bunnies and caught baby hedgehogs. At the end of the week, both MSTs and children said their goodbyes in tears.

It was the first big event planned and executed entirely by the team. If they can manage five days in the village with a hundred kids, organizing transport, food, and the program, they are ready to take over the ministry.

They brought home a whole bag of red, ripe apple mangoes. They were sweet and wonderful. The MSTs spent the weekend at Martin’s family home in the village, getting a taste of village life, and they came home with lots of stories of the cows, goats, and the macadamia nut tree.

In the meantime, Ivan came to Nairobi to work on visa stuff and wedding plans. It took the whole week to do the medical appointments, gather the paperwork, and look up all the information on the internet necessary. He had his interview with the U.S. consulate on the 20th. The months of work, paperwork, research, and waiting culminated in a three minute interview and an easy granting of his visa.

He’s still in Nairobi up till now, but not by choice. The embassy kidnapped his passport while they process his visa. It’s a week long process and Ivan is more than ready to run back to Uganda to make his preparations to come to the U.S. for an indefinite period of time.

We bought our plane tickets to come to the states. August 15th I will travel to Uganda and then August 20th Ivan and I will depart from Uganda and start an entirely new season of life. While it’s exciting and we are looking forward to it, it’s never easy to leave home. Ivan has spent his entire life in a ten mile radius in Kampala. I’ve spent the past three years living in Africa. It’s always a challenge to start something new.

We praise God for the support of our family and friends. God has provided us with the visa, the plane tickets, and we even bought a car from an old friend of ours. Things are coming together and that is a wonderful blessing. We know that God will continue to guide our path into His plans for us.

There is a lot to do to prepare to leave. Figuring out how to condense three years worth of books, clothes, and supplies into two suitcases will be a feat in itself. So will getting the sponsorship program department trained in the next three weeks. Then there is saying goodbye to my dear friends here. That is the hardest of all.

It’s starting to thunder and lightning and threatens to storm outside. It poured yesterday, forcing Ivan and I to stay at Java House and drink hot chocolate until it lessened enough to walk home in. The monkeys hide when it rains. I fell in a mud puddle and walked through mud that suction-cupped my shoes and threatened to steal my sandals from my feet. Even in the rain, the lady on the corner was still roasting maize under her umbrella and selling it to passersby. She had my respect.

The whole team is spending the night tonight. We are going to take some time to pray for our upcoming week of VBS with the street boys. I love our worship nights as a team. They are always a beautiful time of connecting with God as a team, not to mention all the fun we have hanging out after our time of prayer.

We had our last regular week of ministry this week. We played football with the street boys and tied them, a first ever victory for our little EAC team. We helped the juvenile boys’ teachers correct their end of term exams. We made porridge for the kids at the primary school and closed their term with a teaching from the story of Elisha. Saturday, we made 133 chapati at the children’s home and warned the administration that we can’t make any more chapati until September.

The end of August will see the four Floridians leave. Beth will leave. I will leave. The beginning of September, Athena leaves too. She’s been with us a year…almost as long as I’ve been with the Kenyan team and just as important a part of a team. It will be quite the month of transition.

Until I leave, my goal is to continue to love every day I am blessed to be here and make the most of every opportunity. I guess that should be my goal no matter where I am though…no matter what country. So, here’s to a life well lived and making every day a great one to the glory of God! I guess that’s what really makes life worth living no matter the circumstances, location, or context.

VBS Preparations

We spent days preparing for VBS. I went through Toi market and bought old bedsheets to make our banner. I spent all of Monday carefully sketching, cutting, tracing and gluing all the letters. After finishing Tangled, Prince of Persia, Mean Girls, and Fireproof, I finally finished all the banners. There is polkadot letters on a black background read “Promises of God” and “God is my Warrior”, “God is my Help,” “God is my Forgiver” and “God is my Giude”. I was supposed to write “Guide” but no, I wrote “giude” and the next day had to shamefacedly cut and patch fragments of fabric together to correct my mistake. Apparently I can’t spell any more once the clock strikes midnight.

Yesterday the whole team worked in preparations for VBS. One team went to town to buy all the beads, paint, string and craft supplies necessary for our crafts with the kids. Another team bought flour, borax, bottles, etc. for their science experiments workshop (they are making lava lamps, volcanoes, slime and kites). Another team bought all the candy and toys to give away to the kids to make them feel special. The final team worked at the house carefully writing out each day’s memory verses four times on posters for each day’s four classes. We started at 10am and didn’t finish until midnight. We thought the stencils would make it go faster. It didn’t. One side of each poster had the English version of the verse. The other side had the Swahili version, just so kids can memorize it in whatever language will be easiest for them. While the first few posters were truly works of art, the later ones got simpler and simpler as the art team got more and more worn out.

Our first run of this year’s VBS program is going to be in the village of Kirinyaga with the 100 kids at an orphanage there. The team is going to be camping out in the village with the kids doing the VBS teachings in the morning, workshops (crafts, sports, science and drama) in the afternoon, and campfires and talent shows in the evenings. They are very excited for their adventure in the village and to get to spend time with all the sweet kids at the orphanage.

Our second week of VBS will be with the street boys we visit every week. The third week will be with the kids from the primary school in the slum and the fourth and final week will be with the juvenile boys. It will be a long and tiring few weeks but also wonderful as we get to really invest in and spend time with these precious children. It makes an impression on them. The juvenile boys still remember last year’s VBS theme and it turns up every now and then in their pictures they have made during reading program. That’s the whole goal…to make it a week they will remember all their lives.

While the team goes to the mission this week, I am in charge of “guarding” the house. Originally I was staying back so that someone would be around the house to housesit. Yet it worked out that Ivan has to come to Nairobi for his medical examination and visa interview and it conveniently has worked out that we can spend the week working on wedding/visa stuff while the team is away. It will be nice to have a break from EAC work to work on other things for awhile.

We had our last week of reading program at the juvenile home this week. With VBS coming up and then my up and coming departure from Africa soon afterwards, I realized it was our last day. We finished Prince Caspian and then spent the whole morning watching the movie. It was a great ending. I’m so thankful to have had the chance to spend time with the boys during the reading program this year. Seeing them so excited about the stories and seeing their drawings has really been a blessing to me and helped us get to know some of the boys better.

We have started a new program at the primary school in the slum. On Thursdays we split the team in half and while one team went to do evangelism in the slum and then to teach the street boys, the other team went to the primary school to teach the kids the entire day. First we were blessed by a donation to make the kids’ porridge every week. The kids were more than happy this week when we came and cooked them porridge. Then we taught the kids English in the morning followed by teaching Christian Religious Education (CRE) in the afternoon. The school is an informal school and is often lacking teachers. I spent the day with the fifth graders and Jane realized that they are only on their second lesson of CRE. They have been in school this year since January and have only had two lessons in a subject that they will be tested on in the mandatory government exams in future. This week we taught the kids the Ten Commandments (and contrary to popular belief, “love thy neighbor as yourself” is not one of them!)

An old friend from our 2004 AIM team came into Kenya last night. Lauren, her husband, and adorable three year old son are here to work with a ministry in Kitale for two weeks to help out with their tech/video stuff. They came to Nairobi for a few days before heading to Kitale, giving us a very full and happy household. It makes me happy that I’ve been blessed to see so many old AIM team friends this year.

Please keep the team in prayer as they go on mission this week. Pray for everyone’s health! We keep having people with stomach upsets that won’t go away. Also pray for upcoming VBS for it to be impactful and relevant for these kids’ lives.