Mango Mama

Miracles.  Goodness, I have a fun one or two to share and I hope it encourages you.  Earlier today I was looking through my pantry to find something to bring to our newest member of Jua, Josephine, for dinner tonight.  I am having some problems with my bank card and I didn’t have the cash I needed to bring food to Josephine this afternoon.

I had a brief conversation with my friend here that her mom had sent her some money for me to use for Jua Project ministry here and I was welcome to pick it up anytime.  I ran over to her home to pick it up and headed to the grocery store.  I was able to purchase food for the week for Josephine and the money I received covered the food bill-to the last cent (er….schilling).

As I left the grocery store, I wondered to myself how I was going to bring the food to her, as she lived far away and she didn’t have a cell phone, so I was unsure if she was home.  I called a piki (a motorcycle taxi) and was standing outside waiting to be picked up.

Up walks Josephine with her two beautiful babies, greeting me, as she happened to be in town.  I smiled and handed her the groceries and she safely arrived home with food for tonight and the rest of the week.

She told me that her food had run out completely and she was asking God where she was going to get more food.

Money for groceries.  Making contact at the exact moment of needing to find her. 

That is God working here, in a place where most people have nothing. Nothing.  This is the dependency on God that a lot of Kenyans have no choice but to depend on-because they struggle to make ends meet.

I am so thankful that I was able to experience gaining everything from nothing-miracles.  It puts me in a place that trusts God for big things.  It reassures me that He is GOOD and knows our needs-down to the last Schilling.

Have an awesome day!

It’s been a while since a post.  We’ve been busy with a lil’ family getaway to Nairobi and we were blessed by a visit with Grandparents the past 2 weeks.  It’s nice to just-take a break.  Being back in Kitale feels like home-it IS home and it’s nice to finally feel that way.

Our kids seem to be growing up way too fast.  Alayna is now RUNNING everywhere, Collin is now “a really cool man”, and Ben can take on his Dad in a fair wrestling match and almost win every time   Here are some photos to share with you what our family has been up to.

 We recently took a visit to Nairobi’s Elephant Orphanage where we were able to see beautiful baby elephants who had been rescued from the bush in Kenya because their mother’s had been killed by poachers and other horrible ways.  Does it get any cuter than baby elephants? 

 It gave the kids a great lesson on caring for our environment and how precious the animals in our world are.  Each elephant has a caretaker 24 hours a day.  They are released into a National Park in Kenya after up to 10 yrs of care here.

We took some time at a nice guest house in Nairobi and let the kids swim and swim and swim.  Alayna almost was too brave, making us nervous, as she happily plunged into the pool several times, going underwater and bouncing back to the surface with a big grin on her face.

   Food is always a hit in our family-especially when I am not cooking   Going to Java House in Nairobi is such a treat and having a nice burger, burrito, coffee or shake is always welcome!

Giraffes are pretty awesome out here.  There is a neat place to go and feed them here in Kenya.  The kids thought this was a big hit and enjoyed feeding them handfuls of food.

Almost too much….. 

All our photos with Grandparents seem to be on my other camera that is currently in the Massai Mara.    Thankfully, I have a few shots of the Great Rift Valley.  We can never get sick of this view!!

We are so thankful for your support of our family out here.   Whether that is notes in the mail, prayer, financial gifts, boxes of goodies, Skype calls…we are SO THANKFUL for your thoughtfulness and support. 

 It makes Kenya feel like….home.

For the past 2 days, my husband went on a whirlwind journey with a Kenyan man we are getting to know, Peter, to Marakwet, Kenya.  For your enjoyment, here is his story:

“The purpose of this trip was to scout out a very remote area of Kenya, just East of where our family lives.  Granted, there are not direct roads to take me there, so I had to travel an hour South(ish) and back North again to get to this place.  A direct road too and from Kitale would have made too much sense.  And nothing seems to make sense here.

First, for my transportation, I could have walked or taken public transportation.  To avoid becoming flattened, I boarded a ‘truck’ that looked like this.  I was told that the journey was “not long”.  This phrase can mean 5 minutes or 5 hours in Kenya.  My bag was on top, I was sitting in the middle of the crowd of 18 people with my nose shoved in an armpit of a man who was harassing me that I was ‘branded’.  People were on every side of me and above me as we bumped along the road.  2 1/2  hours later, I arrived in Marakwet, Kenya.

The scenery was breathtaking.  The scenery here never gets old.  The trek into the mountains was a steady up or down hike.  It was a couple of miles in and a couple of miles up.  We were so hungry when we arrived and lunch was served about an hour later.  The hospitality was amazing.  The food was …. traditional.    I ate substances that I had never eaten before and I was served milk straight from the cow in front of the house.  The people here had very little compared to American standards, but yet they were serving us-joyfully. 

I was the first white man that many of these folks had ever seen.  I heard kids from far away seeing me coming their direction and screaming at the top of their lungs, running away.  One time, some children were walking towards us.  When they saw me, the white man, their eyes bugged out and they ran away screaming, trampling over a smaller child, who struggled to get up, screaming and running away.  I even heard once someone yell “THERE IS AN ALBINO IN OUR VILLAGE”.  Albinos and white people are often associated with witchcraft here, so I understood what their anxiety was coming from.

To use the bathroom, we were provided with a ‘squatty potty’.  However the roof on this thing was about 4 feet high.  Thankfully there was a space in the boards in the roof, so while using the facilities, I could peep my head outside and enjoy the view.  There is nothing like looking over myh shoulder and seeing a man in a box with his head sticking out, smiling and notifying me that he is ‘dropping water’.

Sleeping.  Peter and I shared a small, mud hut.  The walls were made of mud and sticks and it had a grass roof.  I had a bed to sleep on, thankfully.  As the night wore on, chickens started coming to our door and we kept shooing them out.  There was a stubborn chicken in a box in the corner that would not move.  The hen would there and whine and peck at me when I was turned away.  As Peter and I were chasing chickens out of our hut, a woman came in the door, clearly uncomfortable and politely informed us that the chickens come inside at night.

So there I was, me, 25 chicks and 2 hens and Peter….in this mud hut.  Chickens squeak and mimic each other…all night long.  At 6:30am, they all got up together and headed for the door, pooping and waiting for us let them out.  The box hen stayed there, as she laid the eggs for breakfast.

I’ve never been more annoyed and amazed at the life of a chicken than now.

Back into the packed truck I went from Marakwet to Kitale.  Only this time, I had the pleasure of riding out of the forest on TOP of the matatu.

In Kenya we often see such gorgeous scenery juxtaposed with horrific poverty.  These couple days seemed to balance Kenya’s beauty of the scenery with the beauty of the Kenyan people’s hospitality and satisfaction in being content with what they have.

I am looking forward to helping a team from the USA come and experience the beauty of the people here and serve the people of Kenya.”

And as my husband and I continue to find our ‘compromise”, I still hold firm to: