Photos of Mary, Mercy, Anthony and Jeddiah

These four wonderful children who we have become friends with have been able to leave the hospital in Kijabe and move to a boarding school about 1 hour away.  The school is called Valley’s Lilly School.  The school is a beautiful place owned and managed by a Christian couple.  We went and visited the children at the school.

All of us together at the school

Anthony, Jeddiah, Hannah and Beatrice playing

Mary and Jeddiah

Mercy

Anthony

In front of the school - Mary with Hannah

The children have been given their own room so that they can stay together.  The other children in the school are boarded into rooms based on their grade.  The school grows all their own vegetables and fruits – in fact we were told that they grow so much that they are able to sell the extra food to add some income to the school.  As well they have animals such as cows to provide milk and meat for the children. 

Anthony was very proud to have his own bed

The school has their own cows for milk and meat

The school has their own gardens for food

Jeddiah and us taking a tour of the gardens

The children’s mothers have found a place to live about 5 minutes from the school.  They have small concrete rooms.  As the mothers have very little donations were taken from people in Kijabe, both from individuals from the school and the hospital, to provide them with matrices, blankets, food and other necessary items.

We brought many items for the mothers - who are living close by

Each mother has a small concrete room - this is Mama Mary

We went to Nairobi the other day.  As we approached one of the round-abouts Sue and I noticed that an accident had just occured.  It was a horrible sight – a truck had plowed into a van full of people as well as two cars.  The van’s engine was running out of control with black smoke pouring out the back. As we approached close enough to see, we saw a man fall out of the van with one leg crushed from the knee down.

Africa is a difficult place because you are instantly aware of the desparation.  You know that ambulances are few and far between, and I have yet to see a firetruck.  The infrastructure here is not in place to help when situations like this occur.  As a North American it makes me upset and scared to understand the problems.

Now here is where you look past the problems and see what is beautiful about Africa.  As soon as the accident happened everyone on the road, and every walking past stopped, and ran to the accident.  Instantly the round-about was full of people wanting to help.  Cars stopping to load the injured in to take them to the hospital.  Men pulling the cars apart to try to get the injured out.

People here have learned to care about eachother.  We have lots to learn about people, relationships and love for others from our brothers and sisters here.  What a wonderful place!

I taught piano lessons tonight, the first time I have seriously touched a piano in over 10 years – I guess it is about time. Please pray for the kids that I am teaching. It was fun – one of the guys showed up without his books, and told me “Oh well, I guess I don’t have to start playing piano yet”, the other girl told me she was on the first page of her book, until I looked at her previous teacher’s notes and realized she was almost done the book. She didn’t put a fast one over on me (yet).

Sue and I watch a grade 5-6 boys dorm every Tuesday night to allow the dorm parents to get out and watch a TV show at our house. Grade 5-6 boys can be exciting. Last week they had just got their band instruments so the house was loud until we settled them down. This week I was just walking into the dorm area to get them to come down for devotions when one of the boys came walking out the washroom and whispered something to two other guys. They immediately went running in to look at the toilet – when the boy yelled back “It’s too late I already flushed it”. I really hope they went running to look at a dead spider! I didn’t ask.

I would love to post some pictures of the dorm guys but we have been asked not to due to the number of missionary families at the school working in closed access nations. They are a wonderful bunch of guys and a pleasure to get to know.

I hope you like the new website – Thanks to AIM for hosting it for us.

Andrew

It looks like Sue is going to be very busy this term as they are short staffed in the Student Health Department. Her nursing schedule is going to be both during the day as well as over-night if their are students who need to stay in Student Health over night. My job is also going to be fun! Working on computers in the middle of rural Kenya is difficult. The town of Kijabe, where Rift Valley Academy is located, currently has a 1MB line into Nairobi on which their are about 800 computers (400 at the school, and 400 in the rest of the Kijabe station). That leads to very slow traffic. Over the next couple of months I have been asked to manage a financial application that they use for many of the services here, as well as look at some computer infrastructure build that they need to do.

Yesterday we took a trip to Nairobi for the day. A wonderful family who has been here for many years (Todd and Kylie Dubber) has been helping us setup and get organized. Food like meat, cheese and milk can only be purchased in Nairobi and takes about 1 hour to get to. We have been told that the opportunities to get into Nairobi is difficult during the term so we should stock up now. Sue and Beatrice went with Kylie to do lots of grocery shopping. Todd and I went with Hannah and the Dubber kids to visit AIM Internation Services in Nairobi. On the way we went through several very very poor towns. It was incredible to see (and reminded me of a World Vision commercial!) We drove down muddy, bumpy roads with hundreds of people walking around the few cars on the roads. Hannah asked my why it smelled so bad. The difference here between the very poor and the wealthy is night and day. These are areas where AIM missionaries don’t go near when their are any problems in the country.

At International Services the kids go to go inside the airplanes they have (AIM Air provides air freight and evacuation services in East Africa to many missionary organizations). They had a great time. After shopping we met up with the women and all went swimming at a Nairobi hotel.

Well, that is all for now – I’ll post some pictures next time.

These past few days I must admit I’ve been exhausted to the point of despair – lots of new changes and a huge check list as we count the days before we leave. To add to the excitement, my parents John and Jane just told us that they bought a new house and are selling their home and at the same time we are packing and leaving our home – hard to describe all the feelings I have! Yesterday Hannah was crying about leaving and I started crying too..
Anyways, this morning I woke up and read my daily devotional which I recieve by Joel Olsteen and this one was particularly helpful for me today. I realize that I need an attitude reversal!
Sue
The devotional below..
_____________________Do you ever feel like every time you try to move forward in something, you hit a roadblock? Something happens that throws you off course. Be encouraged today because right now in your life, God is going before you. He’s preparing a way. He’s making your crooked places straight. He’s making your rough places smooth. You may be going through a difficult time right now, but it’s not the end. It’s only the beginning. God has equipped you for this journey. You may feel like you’re in a dry season, but don’t look at your circumstances. Look at the promise of God today! If you’ll keep speaking words of faith, God promises that He’ll anoint your head with oil and your cup will run over. That means you’ll be refreshed and anointed to do what He’s called you to do. God is preparing your path and equipping you for the journey. What do you need today to keep moving forward? Start by checking your attitude. Don’t go around complaining and focused on the negative side of things. Put on an attitude of praise and thanksgiving. Thank Him for making your crooked places straight! As you do, you’ll move forward in joy and gladness in the blessed future He has prepared for you!

Today was an exciting day because we found out that there is a two page article about our family in our local newspaper called The Oakville Beaver. They put our picture on the top of the front cover and then another picture of the four of us in the article itself. What a boost and an encouragement! I must say reading the article put a big smile on my face – the past few weeks have been difficult and somewhat overwhelming so this was something to remind us of God’s goodness as we move forward in this process.Thanks to David Lea for taking an interest in our story and writing such a great article.Time continues to tick away..we have 5 weeks before we move out of the house and then another 6 weeks after that before we leave. Today we spent the day packing up the contents of our cupboards and drawers, winter clothing etc… the boxes are piling up in our garage.

That’s all for now! A link to the article is posted in our “links” section off our homepage on the left.

It’s been such a long time since we’ve written down our thoughts and as I’m sure you experience yourself -time flies swiftly by. These past couple months have almost been a blur – from writing our prayer letter and the little booklet, mailing them out, sharing our story with our church and other groups. I remember when we were given the go-ahead with AIM back in early March – the personnel director said to us:

‘..Andrew and Sue, this isn’t much time to raise the funds you will need to go to Kenya three months from now..it is humanly impossible. Normally missionaries need at least one year to raise the kind of support that you guys need to raise. If God wants you to go to Kenya in July, He’ll open the doors and provide in miraculous ways, it’ll be Him that makes this happen.’

When we heard that, we had mixed feelings..that overwhelming feeling of lack of control over the outcome and wondering in our minds..is this what God really wants..will this come together? I have to admit it’s been nervewracking wondering if we will have the financial support we need to go and yet we so clearly have felt God’s hand leading us forward and clearly having us trust in Him.

Anyways, today, April 15th was our target date for raising 50% of our monthly requirements and outgoing costs. 3 days ago we were still sitting at 39 % of our monthly support raised and we were wondering, how is this going to happen..and then God intervened once again in miraculous and unexpected ways – we are now at 50% of the monthly funds we need and over 50% of our outgoing funds!

We are so humbled and thankful by the incredible generosity and sacrifice of so many people who are excited about our journey and desire to partner with us through prayer and financial support..thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.