Kenya!

Well we headed to the neighboring country of Kenya a couple weeks ago and because I have LOADS of photos I decided to do this post as a "Travel through photos"!  This is our first photo on the road in the taxi from Malaba, Kenya to Kijabe, Kenya! Only 7 hours to go!! It was a very bumpy, and dusty ride! Sarah had a totally different skin color when we arrived....almost like a fake tanner from all the orange dirt!!

Photo of one of the many beautiful views along the way! Kenya was beautiful, they still haven't received rain yet so a bit dry but much greener than Uganda at the moment!

Ready for church! We arrived at Riff Valley Academy (RVA) it is the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) boarding school and were overwhelmed by the amazing campus and welcome we received! We are heading to church on campus!

This is where we stayed! I kept calling RVA a little drop of heaven! It is very westernized and overlooks the Riff Valley of Kenya...BEAUTIFUL! We were amazed at our hostess, Lauri Seymore! She is the RVA kindergarten teacher and has been there for 7 years! She did nothing but treat us like Queens! We ate like Queens and had a wonderful time at her home! Thank you Lauri!

Here we are heading to church, with our amazing hostess! LtoR: Me, Sarah, Holly, and Lauri!

This is the view just above the soccer field! Imagine playing there, awesome! It is a beautiful campus!

Evening sunset over the Riff Valley! Love how God paints this picture!

Taking a stroll on the guards trail at RVA...Holly had a mishap and broke her shoes so she proceeded the rest of the walk "Smile African Style" no shoes.

After RVA, we headed to Nairobi, Kenya! It is so great to be apart of AIM because they are all over Africa and we were able to stay at the guesthouse there! Our first full day in Nairobi we went to an elephant orphanage! This photo is of half of the elephants they take care of. They come down to this feeding/bathing area for 1 hour a day!

'Hey Elephant!'- these elephants (I believe) between the ages of 3 months and 3 years old! They are found by different people or animal protection organizations. Most of them become orphaned because of poaching:( They told us about how they care for them and because elephants develop much like humans they cannot live without family, they die from anxiety and stress. There are "Keepers", staff that are with the elephants 24/7, they rotate in shifts of course. 

This little guy I think is about 3 months old and he is teething. Like us, he wasn't feeling well so the "keepers" were bathing him. Poor guy he was SO CUTE!!

This one was having loads of fun! She seems to be the one that causes most of the mischief! She has just bathed in the mud water!

This one of the stalls the elephants sleep in and the bed you see is where the Keeper sleeps! Amazing! Love the way they take care of these elephants! I had no idea they developed so much like us!

We then headed to the Rothschild Giraffe Conservatory! They have a hut like building about the history of the conservatory and it is built so that you are face to face with the Giraffe, as you can tell! It was so funny to feed them! There tongues are long and slimy!

See how long that tongue is, gets right up in his own nose! Yuck! Loved being so close to them!

"I got an itch"! haha, I didn't realize until after I took this photo that they were both doing the same thing, haha!

"Out of Africa"- Saturday Holly, I, and our new friend Asun traveled to the Karen Blixen museum! If you have not seen the film "Out of Africa" I highly recommend it! Sarah is not with us because she got sick while in Nairobi :( We showed her our photos :)

Front of her house from 1914! It was really fun to see this home and the way they processed their coffee...she managed a 700 worker coffee farm in Kenya before Kenya was even a country. She was amazing, hunted for lions, etc. ya know...no big deal! haha

As we traveled back on taxi, or in Kenya they call them "Mutatus" I happened to see a herd of ZEBRAS out my window! It is really fun to see more than deer as I travel around Africa!

Crossed the Equator....TWICE! On the way and on the way back! I managed to capture this sign on our way home! So cool to have crossed the equator! The sign says "Jambo Kenya, Hakuna Matata, Equator Crossing" These are Swahili words meaning "Hello/Welcome to Kenya, Have no worries"

When we finally got back to Malaba Kenya we had to go through immigration to get stamped out of Kenya and back in to Uganda and then our amazing boda guys came to pick us up! This was the view we rode home in! These hills in the back are very close to our house! Amazing right?!

Package

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all of you who have sent cards, packages, emails of encouragement etc!! 

I have definitely been beyond blessed with all the goodies and have thoroughly enjoyed my American Treats of good coffee, licorice, oatmeal, beef jerky, CANDY, chocolate, and more! It is such a blessing to receive some comforts of home and I have not been short of them at all! Its funny to think of what makes your day when you are so far from home! haha.

As I wrote yesterday the countdown has begun and with that I would say LAST CHANCE to send anything for the kids or me. Because it takes about 5-6 weeks for them to get here I'd say NO MORE PACKAGES AFTER APRIL 5!!! Thank you so much for all that you have done so far! I am truly blessed to have such an amazing group of supporters, prayer warriors, and encouragers!

Happy Thursday!!

p.s.
6 days til my parents are here!!!

Countdown Begins!

1 WEEK!!! And Dad and Mom will be here, in Uganda! I am so excited for them to arrive! It is such a blessing for them to come and see what I've been doing, meet the people I've been with for the past 6 months, and see the country!
I am excited to be home but my time here is very precious and I (trying) to cherish it every day. We went to Kenya for a week, a week ago, and since we have gotten back I feel like the countdown has begun to the end of my time here! Crazy, I can hardly believe it!

I can't believe I have been here nearly 6 months! The time has really flown and I thought it never would! It is hard to explain all the things I am going through, feeling, understanding, learning, etc. I feel like I am constantly trying to process what is going on in my heart and head, how life is here, and what life will be like when I get home again.

I apologize for the lack of blogs lately, its hard to get things down in words. There are several to come this week, as I countdown I will be busy blogging to help keep the excitement from exploding!!!

Hope in America.

 I listened to a sermon a few weeks ago and the title was called ‘Choosing Revival in America’- Mario Murillo, he was a guest speaker at Bethel church, in Redding California.  It was a great sermon and made me very hopeful for America, and I wanted to share with you what I thought! I hope this inspires you or at least makes you think a bit about this topic.

Prayer. It is very powerful. What do you pray for? Do you believe in your prayers? Do you believe that they will actually happen? If not, then why are you praying?

I have seen children pray, and they pray the most amazing prayers! Because they are pure in heart, and they have faith like God has called us to have. When I was attending The House Church in Burnsville, MN, family is a huge part of that church, and I loved it. They put a lot of effort and support into the children’s ministries. Why? Because they are our future and we need to teach them how God has called us to live! These kids would pray for each other, the church, or anything and they just had such faith, trust and belief in God and in what they were praying for because God has said ‘Ask and it shall be given to you’ and they trust that. So, why don’t we, as adults? I know there are so many things that hinder our thinking, that make us doubt but, trusting God should be this easy, it is as easy as kids do.

Mario Murillo talked about praying for our country, for me America (or whatever country you are from). Is it important? What do you think? Do we actually take time to pray for our country? Why not?

The day the case verdict declared that praying in school was against the law was a very sad day. Prior to this all the children across America were praying for our country, our leaders, teachers, families, etc. EVERYDAY with hearts so pure and faithful, trusting that God would fulfill their prayer. Wow, think about how many voices were declaring strength, courage, patience, wisdom, etc. over our leaders, families, teachers!!!! Awesome!

But when the government decided no more prayer in school. All of those prayers were no longer lifted up daily (at least not as many voices). I would have loved to do a survey to see how many families still had their children pray that prayer every morning...what do you think the percentage was? My guess is that is was little to none. So think about this if we don’t ask God for something will He just make it right? If we don’t pray for our country, our media, our families, our marriages, our friendships, our teachers, our leaders, will God just make it all ok? My opinion, no. He is a God of grace and second chances, Praise the Lord, but if we don’t ask for something, we aren’t acknowledging the problem and I think God needs us to realize that and go to Him for the answer.

With all this said, Do you Believe in what you are praying for? Do you Trust that God will fulfill your prayer? If not, then I would strongly suggest you rethink your thoughts about prayer and why you do pray. I believe that we need to have trust, and belief behind what we are asking of God, thanking of God, praising to God.

And no prayer goes unheard.

I would say that a lot of us, Americans, would say our country is in the hurt bag, going down hill, whatever "fun" phrase you’d like to put in there. I have said this as well, but my mind has changed and I am seeing the need to pray for these issues we face! Really pray specifically for the financial state of our country, for the specific decisions our leaders are making, specific details of what our education system needs to change or ideas for how to improve our children’s education. If we take a look at where we’ve come from and where we are as a country, we have come ALONG way, wow! But there is still a ways to go in improving our economy, families, marriages, education, budgeting, our faith, etc. Let us have HOPE IN OUR COUNTRY. Trusting that our prayers will be heard and that God will move in the areas that we pray for!

Olupot! (Ollie Pot)

This is my little friend Olupot! Lately I have been working in the office most days working on the Smile Africa Ministries Education Sponsorship! There's lots of work to do but I am hoping we will have a good system and organization completed by the time I leave! Anyways, He came in one day really sweet and quiet (wanting a sweetie "candy") and I really didn't have any that day but I let him color a picture and then I said lets take some pictures! So we pulled up photo booth and this is the result! 

Olupot is the brother to a couple sweet twin girls at Smile, Apio and Adongo! He is a full-time child at smile, meaning he lives there. His mother lives in the area but doesn't have the means to take care of them so they live at Smile and get to see their mother every once in awhile when she comes by. He is a very sweet boy and sometimes can cause some mischief, haha! 

Enjoy!

Enhancement.

Earlier I posted about our 'Baby Room Remodel', well....Here is another enhancement! We had a shelf made and put bins in it with each child's name on it so that Ja Ja Grace could have more of a "dresser" than the cardboard boxes she was using for ALL 14 children's clothes!

She was very excited about the new shelf and organization! Now she doesn't spend all that time digging for clothes for each kid out of the boxes and the kids have a space for some small toys! It has been a great addition to the room! Thank the Lord for the provision he gave to make this happen!!!

Girl Time!

Photo Booth photo!

Girls painting their nails and eating candy "Sweeties"

Photo #1...Smile!

Photo #2.... Look at all those pretty nails!!

As I have mentioned we were blessed to move (shift) to a new home! It has been such a blessing and a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness! Because we have the space we are excited to host and be hospitable to other missionaries coming through the area, having our staff workers at Smile over for dinner, and inviting the kids that live at Smile to have some, hang out time!

So we invited the girls over for a ‘Girls Night’! We had Albert pick them up in the Smile van, get popcorn for everyone and bring them to our home! When they arrived I went out to open the gate! The girls were surprised to see us because all that Pastor had told them was that they were going to see visitors at True Vine! They all came in and we greeted them. We asked them if they’d like to watch a movie, they screamed with excitement! Then we said we have sweets, soda, and popcorn, again they screamed with excitement! Then we said we also have cutex (nail polish), another scream of excitement! We had such a great time hanging out with the girls!

We watched ‘Kung Fu Panda’, painted our nails, drank soda, ate popcorn, candy and cake! Then Albert came to pick them up and they went home. It was such a blessing to have them at our home, to share that space with them, and enjoy time together!

During lunch time is when the kids come back from school to eat. When the girls came back to Smile for lunch on Monday they greeted us with even bigger hugs than before. I definitely think that our time together over the weekend strengthened our relationship with them. We have also started a weekly bible study/story time with them and singing and praise during lenten season. I am excited

Faithfulness.

We traveled to Kampala  two weeks ago, to retrieve our passports because our work permits finally came through, Praise the Lord! We had a good time visiting our Central Region AIM office friends! We were even able to actually attend a Kampala Unit prayer meeting. We were able to rest, explore more of Kampala and enjoy the RAIN!!!

We got to experience, I think, the first large storm of the year in Kampala. It was amazing to watch. The wind was blowing so hard the sky was turning a burnt orange from all the dust being swept up off the ground. Then the dark sky behind the orange as the storm came through. We stayed with our Short Term Coordinator Cassandra and we had just made coconut curry so her and I sat on her balcony and even put SWEATSHIRTS on to enjoy the cool breeze and rain. It was such a blessing! My body is really heating up from all this warm weather and I am thoroughly looking forward to rainy season. Which who knows when it will come, the Ugandans keep telling me it will come, it will come. haha...that could mean April.

We arrived safely back in Tororo yesterday to dry, dry, grass and no rain:( But that’s alright we did get a little sprinkle. As I went to bed my mind was rolling over all the things I am waiting for. Waiting for: our trip to Kenya to visit the RVA school, Dad and Mom to come, find out if I made it into grad school, know what I will be doing when I get back, etc. I decided to read the Psalm of the day, Psalm 20. (I usually try to read a Psalm a day, they are so encouraging...I suggest doing this.) And among all the running thoughts and prayers this is what it said..

Psalm 20
May the Lord answer you when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.

May he remember all of your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.

We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.

May the Lord grant all your requests.

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven with the
saving power of his right hand.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.

O Lord, save the king!
Answer us when we call!

This was such a reassuring message. God will continue to take care of me, he will give me the desires of my heart, he will grant all of my requests, and basically he will be FAITHFUL to all of his promises.

Amen.


Readers, be Encouraged today!

Lately...

 I have been very ‘sketchy’ with my posts lately and I feel like I haven’t told you anything about Smile! There really isn’t anything new going on but that school has started and the structure of the day is in full swing, which I am enjoying!

I have also been lacking on my photo taking but here are several pics of kids and staff around Smile! Enjoy!!

Cuddly sleepers! Esther and Alwu! So sweet!

These accessories were made by the prison women so the Smile Staff Ladies wanted to show them off! L to R: Freeda, Jacita, Grace, and Salima.

Little Gloria was playing dress up!

Olupot, Amos, Juma, and Abe having fun in the baby room!

Jose, Boy, Andrew, boy, Joshua, and Emma Being boys!!!

Blessing with a blank face, he always looks at me like this! He is Teacher Budesta's son!

Sweet Helpers!

Jose struggling to stay standing while carrying my bag!

Amos!

Ochieng carrying Sarah's bag :)

Christine, Maria and Ruthie all eating sweeties!

The kids at Smile continually amaze me. Knowing where they come from yet every morning I see a multitude of smiles and receive an abundance of hugs.

One act of kindness I have received several times from kids, is cleaning my feet. I obviously am in Africa and I am not sure if you've noticed from my photos but the dirt here is a reddish color and sometimes I think that's why I look so tan, haha! But anyways, my feet are constantly dirty.  Several times when I've been sitting with kids a child has washed off my feet either with their hands, water, or their clothing. What a humbling moment they have been for me.  It reminds me of the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet every time. I only sit back and go wow God!

The above photos are of kids that LOVE to help us out! The first is of Jose, my buddy, I put my back pack on him because he really wanted to carry it across the field to the gate for me. When I put it on he almost fell over backwards! haha, it was really funny.  I helped him walk to the gate and we made it!
The next one is of our sweet little Amos! Amos is 5! He was brought to Smile Africa Ministries (SAM) as an infant but they weren't able to take him at the time. Pastor Ruth found a different orphanage he could go to in Jinja. Because he turned 5 and has not found a family, he had to leave that orphanage because children can only stay until they are 5. They called Pastor Ruth and she welcomed him back!! We are so glad he came to Smile! We can't imagine Smile without him yet, he has only been at Smile for a little over a month! He is such a delight! He is intelligent, friendly, and has such a servants heart already! He LOVES to laugh, play, help us in the baby room, fetch water for us, bring lunch to the baby room for us! He is always willing, which is rare in a 5 year old!

The next photo is of Ochieng (O-cheng)! He is quite a crazy kid! He loves to sing, jump, dance, laugh and play. He is a lovely kid but gets into quite a bit of mischief! For instance, I was sitting with some kids by the clinic one day and he brought over a bottle with 'Maji' (water) in it. He asked me if I wanted a drink but I said no thank you and he asked, Itebet another girl sitting by me. She took a drink and instantly spit it out! Ochieng ran away and as he was running away she was yelling, 'Ochieng, su su!' Meaning, Ochieng peed in the bottle! Let's just say he got in trouble for that. Not going to lie, it was quite funny. One of the songs I taught him is 'Trading My Sorrows' and now he comes to me everyday and sings a phrase, meaning I want to sing this song! haha. He is a very precious child in need of much love!

The last photo is of 3 very sweet ladies! Christine, Maria and Ruthie. Ruthie's little brother Richard is in the baby room so I have gotten to know him quite well and he is growing so fast, and his personality is starting to come out. He has quite the sense of humor! These three came over to me one morning after they had eaten breakfast and wanted to wash the clothes of our day babies. I was not about to turn that offer down, ha! So they willingly washed all the clothes and hung them up. I brought them inside and gave them each a piece of candy cane! They LOVE SWEETS! It was such a blessing!