New Ride

Our trip to Nairobi was mostly successful. We got our new ride,a 1991 Toyota Land Cruiser, but did not get our work permits. However, the work permits should be ready in 3 weeks…we’ll see about that. We are so excited about our new car though! What a relief to finally have a car that we can all fit in, has shocks, brakes, etc…and is a 4x4 =) YAY!

It's been a while...

I know, I know…it’s been forever since I’ve posted, sorry. We’ve been very busy, and sick this past month, so haven’t had a chance to write.

The first thing that kept us busy was that we had guests from Zimbabwe, Herbert and his son Oregonstaying with us for a month. Herbert is a friend through a Northwest Church member, and they are trying to assist him in moving out of Zimbabwe because the living situation has become so bad there. He is a headmaster so he came to help out at the primary school located on the Children’s Home property by advising them on their financial reporting system and overall school administration.

Then about 2 weeks ago, all four of us, and Herbert came down with malaria! Fortunately, Greg & I caught ours before the symptoms became too bad, but Kelly & Alita came down with it pretty bad. But we are all healed now and now are just trying to play catch up from the time we missed from work.

Greg and I just returned from another successful trip to Kisumu. We just love those guys down there so much, and they do such a great work for the orphans in their community.CRF is now supporting 177orphans in Kisumu, that’s so awesome! We had the opportunity to also help hand out the monthly food the CRF kids receive, so that was fun. But the best part was being able to witness 7 of the kids from the Lakeside Orphanage get baptized. Praise God!
We are heading to Nairobi again tomorrow to hopefully finalize our work permits, and pick up our new Land Cruiser. We are so excited to be getting a bigger and more reliable vehicle! Some missionary friends are moving to Tanzania and have offered to sell us their 1992 Land Cruiser for a great price. I will write more when we return to give you a full update on our trip.

By the way…today is Greg’s birthday. Happy Birthday 26th Birthday Greg!!!

EASTER

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE =)

We had a great day with the kids today. We went to the home early and shared our American tradition of coloring eggs with the kids.They loved it! During church we hid them, and had the Easter egg hunt when church was over.We had a great time, and I hope everyone’s Easter was as blessed as ours. After we church we headed out to one of our local friends college graduation party.The Miana’s have become good friends of ours, and it was an honor to be invited to such a significant event. They have dubbed themselves our African parents, so we’ve got some peep’s looking out for us☺

Uganda Girls

After a wonderful weekend of being completely sick with malaria…we had 2 of our friends from the Mbale, Uganda team come and visit us for the week. This was great because they also helped us do a major cleaning project. Thank you Jamie & Rebecca!!! On the Children’s Home compound there were 2 storerooms that were basically housing garbage.So we pulled our latex gloves on, and threw the garbage out.I love these kinds of projects, throwing away junk just brings a smile to my face. Now that all of the garbage is out, our next task will be to put new doors and windows on, and put them to proper use storing tools on one side, and food on the other.

Of course I had to show our guests around Kitale (I think I missed my calling as a tour guide), so I took them to Capt. Davies to feed the giraffes, and up to the caves on Mt. Elgon. As per usual for me, the car died on our way, but Kelly came to the rescue and showed me what the problem was and how to fix it if it happened again. It’s a good thing he showed me too, because I had to fix it about 8 times that day. We made it safe and sound to both destinations, and the girls loved it. Check out this picture inside the cave...yep, those are bat eyes. Creepy.

I also wanted to give an update on our newly renovated kitchen. It is such an amazing transformation! The kitchen staff will be able to move into the new facilities next week. They are so excited!I think the pictures speak for themselves, but basically we gave them a new stove, and re-did the whole building, inside and out.

Nairobi

Our team made our first trip to Nairobi this past week. We went to check on our work permits, but unfortunately, they were not finished. Our intention was also to purchase either a washer and dryer, or a couch while we were there too, so Kelly and I drove the pickup truck, and Alita and Greg took the bus. We were very fortunate to find a great deal on a used washer and dyer, so we are very thankful for that with the rainy season beginning this month.
Of course Kelly and I couldn’t just drive straight to Nairobi…we just had to take advantage of the opportunity to stop and visit Lake Nakuru on the way. Lake Nakuru is most famous for the 1 million pink flamingos that live there, but we also saw zebra, giraffe, water buffalo, antelope, baboons, and my favorite, rhinos! By far this was the best game viewing experience we have had so far.
The first part of our trip we had the privilege to stay with long time friends of my parents, Larry and Judy Niemeyer. Larry was actually the best man in my parents wedding. This was really great for me to spend time with these friends that I have heard so much about during my life. We had a great time getting to know them, and they were very helpful with getting us to the places we needed to go to accomplish all of our errands. One night they took us to a restaurant called Carnivores, which is famous for their all you can eat BBQ of wild game. However, due to recent laws for animal conservation, the only exotic meat they served was ostrich and alligator. The food was excellent, but although I am by no means a vegetarian, my body is not used to eating sooooo much meat, and I had a stomachache after that experience.
Nairobi is very much like being in the states. It’s a large city with skyscrapers, movie theaters, malls, and coffee shops. So as I’m sure most of you can imagine, I was VERY excited about having my latte everydayJ. After running all of our errands – going to the US Embassy, getting vaccinations, checking on our work permits, and shopping for furniture, we spent our free time drinking coffee, watching movies, eating good food, and even went bowling (I lost).
The second half of our trip we stayed with Jamie and Ginger Swift, who work with Good News Productions. Again this was a great time getting to know them and their 3 daughters. While visiting Jamie at Good News, we met the first Christian hip-hop band in Kenya, Cubanotics. Good News is helping them with their CD and publicity, so they were there for a photo shoot. When Jamie learned that I had a nice Canon camera with me, he nominated me to be the photographer. This was so fun! The guys in the band were super nice, and have such a passion to reach the youth of Kenya through their music. It was a real treat to spend the afternoon with these guys.
On our way home, we made it about 20 miles away from home and then our truck died…of course, could Kelly and I really take a trip without incident or adventure? I think not, that would be way too boring. Although a car breaking down sounds bad, we had fun with it. One thing you have to understand about Africa is that everyone is very friendly and helpful, especially if you’re white. We had a crowd of about 30 kids within minutes, and several guys assisting in trying to repair the car. So while they guys tried to fix the car, I took pictures of the kids with my digital camera, showing them the instant photo, which they loved. The older guys said those kids wouldn’t sleep that night because they were so excited about seeing and talking to the white people, hilarious. I’m glad I could make their day. The repair was unsuccessful, but Greg came to the rescue with our faithful Daihatsu and towed us home. The problem turned out to be something with our new battery (only 2 months old) and the alarm, we are still waiting to hear the final diagnosis, but we should have it repaired and back by this weekend.

Renovations

Renovations at the home have been moving right along. Over the past two weeks we’ve begun, and almost completed three projects – a new road, roof, and stove. We are so excited that God has provided the resources to complete these projects before the rainy season begins next month. Here are some pictures of the progress so far.

Another Monday Adventure

Not sure why this always happens to us, but for some reason every time Kelly and I go somewhere together, some type of “adventure” follows us. We decided to head up north and check out the South Turkana National Reserve. After you pass through the Cherangani Hills, you leave the lush tropical climate of Kitale behind, and enter into the dry, desolate desert.After about 2.5 hours of driving on the bumpy roads of Kenya, we finally reached our destination only to find out that the elephants we were trying to see had migrated due to the drought. We were disappointed, but not discouraged. We were determined to make our trip worthwhile. We decided to head farther into the park in search for some hot springs. I know this seems ironic due to the heat, but it was a destination, so we were going for it. The game warden had warned us that we would need a 4x4 to get there, but we decided to see how far we could get anyway. We made it about 4 miles before the truck got stuck in the sand…ooops, guess we should of listened to the game warden. Fortunately, Kelly and I love these types of situations, and found the whole thing pretty funny, and were not bothered by the circumstances at all. Kelly, my hero, spent about 2 hours trying to get us out before we decided to walk back and face the game warden.Fortunately, he didn’t rub in the fact that he told us we needed a 4x4 too much. The soldiers stationed there hopped into their truck, pulled us out, and we were on our way in about 30 minutes. After getting completely hot, dirty, & sweaty dealing with the truck, we decided to take a dip in the river on the way home.This experience made the whole trip worthwhile. The water was just cool enough to be refreshing, but warm enough to make swimming for a while tolerable. The perfect end to a fantastic day!