Hey family and friends;
Happy December!!!!
The only clue that we’re in the Christmas season as far as the senses go is the Christmas songs the kids at school are learning for the program and the Christmas projects that I’ve been doing with all the classes for a month.
I miss the beautiful winter wonderland that is all lit up at this time of year where many of you are sitting. In fact, 2 nights ago I dreamt I was driving by field after field that was beautifully decked out with lights, and I was just mesmerized by the beauty, and was slowly making my way along. There were others around me that were rushing me and telling me to speed up. I gently told them that these were the first Christmas lights I’d seen for the year, and was enjoying the sight.
I encourage you to stop and really take in the beauty that surrounds you and not just rush from party to party and appt. to appt., without really pondering Whom and why we are celebrating.
So, I was supposed to go to Kigali, Rwanda last week Thursday morning till this past Monday for a women’s conference. I was very excited to go. Jabe Iglese Vivant blessed us so much when they volunteered to pay for all my expenses minus about $17.00 US. Around nine in the evening the night before we were to leave, Aime, the very helpful admin. from school that helps the expats with Visa’s, Passports, etc., called and said that he had just heard that the Rwandan border denied David Micklefield (Pastor Andrew’s brother that was visiting Buj. and wanted to go to Rwanda with a buddy) entry into Rwanda because he didn’t have a Visa.
Till 2 weeks ago Canadians did not need a Visa for entry into Rwanda, but we heard that Kagami - Rwanda’s president, slapped this on Canadians because Canada doesn’t give Rwanda enough aid!!!
To process the Visa takes between 24 - 48 hrs., so that meant I could not go. Pastor Ray’s wife, MaryAnne, and her guest from Vancouver were supposed to fly out the following evening to the conference, and they had to cancel their flight.
Oh well, this way I got to spend the weekend with my 2 boys, and we had a great weekend. Went to the beach on Saturday and Sunday with friends. Lake Tanganyika is perhaps 6-7 blocks from our house as the crow flies; we can see the lake from our kitchen window with the Congo mountains behind the lake.
On Sunday was our 18th anniversary for when we got engaged. Wow, that makes us sound old. God has so richly blessed me with the gift of my Isaac.
Today was so cool. On Wednesdays I do Christian Ed. with the year ones. Almost every week I reiterate what it means to be a Christian, what Jesus did for us on the cross, and why, etc. I do this because of all the Muslim/Hindu kids in all the classes, and because I have a passion to see them come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A number of these kids come with the religious signs painted on their faces day after day, and with their bracelets and necklaces that are supposed to protect them.
Let me start at the beginning….
Last year, there was this little boy (don’t know whether he’s Muslim or Hindu) in kindergarten that would worship the sun when outside. When his teacher saw this she would obviously stop him. We as staff prayed for this boy and his family, as it was pretty obvious that the parents are very devout followers of the religion, and as such could bring that spirit into the school when dropping off/collecting the son.
This boy is very intelligent and hangs on to every word I say as I tell them about Jesus. He repeats what I say almost verbatim when given the chance. He’s usually the first to raise his hand to answer questions, learns Bible verses well and easily, etc.
So this particular day I’m in their class again, he answers a question, and without a seconds warning, the Spirit comes over me in power and I instantly stretch out my hand to him and declare: “One day you will be a mighty man of God!” I immediately started crying and I quickly turned away so the kids wouldn’t be alarmed to see me cry. Luckily, sweet Olive, the teacher, happened to be in the class as well, and saw the whole thing unfold. She started asking questions about the lesson as I regained my composure.
Well, after this event, this boy was on my heart so much. I prayed for him often; during summer holidays, he continued to be in my prayers. In my spirit I knew what was said about him was not of me, but entirely of God, and I prayed into that. I would often think and wonder how much God would be glorified in and through this “mighty man of God.”
Well, that little boy started that journey as a mighty man of God this morning, praise Jesus!!!
After explaining again that Jesus was born so that He could die for our sins, that He is the Son of God, that God raised Him on the third day, and He is ALIVE, and if we invite Him into our hearts and lives and ask Him to forgive our sins, and we live for Him, then we are Christians and His children.
I often have the children repeat after me core truths pertaining to Jesus and or God, because I know the power of hearing yourself speak words, whether positive or negative. Over the months when I would have them repeat some aspect of those truths, I would always look at this child as he loudly proclaimed those truths, and in my spirit I would rejoice. His mouth was speaking truth, it was only a matter of time before God would line up his heart/soul /spirit with his mouth.
Today was the eclipse of his heart and mouth. He raised his hand and said; “I want to be a Christian.”
Man, I’m telling you, inside I was just yelling and screaming and praising Jesus and doing flips…..
I asked him to come to me where I was sitting on the little kiddie chair. I put my arm around him and asked him if he believed who Jesus is and what He did for him, to which he answered yes after each question. He very clearly and succinctly said the sinners prayer after me.
I told him that the Bible says that the angels in heaven rejoice when one sinner repents, and that he had just caused that to happen. This child was absolutely beaming as I raised his hands with mine and rejoiced with him.
Meanwhile, the whole class quietly sat on the mat in front of us and observed the scene as it unfolded.
Now let me back track.
When ‘A’ raised his hand to say he wanted to become a Christian, ‘B’ was right on the heels as he raised his hand for the same reason. I wasn’t surprised by this, because I had sensed that God was really working in this little Muslim boys heart as well. So after ‘A’ prayed, I asked ‘B’ to come to me, and went through the same steps with this boy.
Wow, what an awesome time!!!
I ask you with great, great sincerity, please pray for these 2 boys very regularly. The opposition will be extreme, both from parents when they find out, and obviously from the enemy.
“The One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” 1 Jn 4:4b
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Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Remembering Ramona...
Remembering Ramona….
Today, November 27th marks the 1 year anniversary of when our sweet Ramona put on her heavenly dancing shoes…
There is so much that I could write…
Today, November 27th marks the 1 year anniversary of when our sweet Ramona put on her heavenly dancing shoes…
There is so much that I could write…
Friday, November 12, 2010
Colton's fleece is white....
Nov. 10 2010
Oh, I know, this is again so long overdue….
So, you know the song ‘Mary had a little lamb’ - it has a new version amongst Colton’s classmates. The last line goes; “it’s fleece was white as Colton.” Cracks me up!!
I had the fabulous opportunity to lead a year 6 girl to Jesus a few weeks ago. Her mom, she told me, is/was Muslim, so this is very exciting, but at the same time this girl, Karen, needs a lot of prayers because of the Muslim teaching. It’s very serious if Muslims convert to Christianity - in very extreme cases they can be killed. Karen’s mom and dad are currently separated with mom living in Tanzania, but she says they are getting back together again at Christmas.
I gave Karen a notebook on the day of her conversion in which I wrote some godly truths and encouraged her to use the notebook to write down prayers, meaningful Bible verses, journal, etc. About once a week now for the last three weeks she brings the book to me to read the things that are on her heart. Wow, what an incredible joy to read her confessions of her faith in Jesus Christ, and the love that she has for her new found Saviour!! Some of the things that she talks to God about are so sad, like her family situation. Please pray for this precious girl and her family.
The other Muslim girl that I was able to pray with last year has not yet returned to school. She informed me last year that they would likely stay in India for longer than just the 2 months of summer holidays. This is the case, and doubtlessly being in that predominantly Muslim culture must be hard for a year 6 girl to stay grounded in the Christian truths and values that she believed. Please lift her before the Lord in prayer as well.
Right from the start when we arrived God has put the Muslims in my heart and in my path. There is a Muslim couple from Kenya that live on the compound where we get some of our groceries, and they had us down a while ago and expressed a desire to form a friendship with us. They’re a lovely couple with a 2 year old daughter. Naima, the wife, wants to teach me how to make Indian samosa’s - yum. She makes them in the house and sells them at the shop on their property. Please pray for this relationship as well.
Isaac just got home now at 6:45 P.M. - doing work in one of the teachers houses again.
Colton is doing very well in school - so far his percentages are almost all mid 90’s to 100% (on 4 tests). Even French is a subject that he’s attacking with determination to do well in. In fact, at the parent/teacher meeting 2 days ago his French teacher said he’s top of the class in that as well, believe it or not!! Considering there are a number of first language French speakers, that’s quite a feat! We’re very proud of Colton.
Nov. 12
Yesterday Colton serenaded Isaac and myself at lunch time with ’Jesus loves me” in Swahili, Kirundi and French. He said that he had put the song together between classes while he was on his way to his math class.
Almost two weeks ago when we were at the lake Isaac and Colton swam out to a boat that was on the water, and as Isaac hoisted himself into the boat he seriously hurt his rib. The water was pretty choppy, so with the movement of the waves and the boat rocking, he slammed into the top side/edge of the boat. We believe that it was probably broken. He was in lots of pain, and it began to swell up; laughing hurt, moving, walking, everything hurt. It was hurting him a lot that night, and after really praying, it improved dramatically. He’s tried to down play the severity of it all, which is his nature, but he’s still not completely without pain.
On that note, my neck and shoulders have really been acting up in the last few months. At times, for a number of days at a time, it’s very painful to move my head to the left. We would appreciate your prayers in these matters as well.
I don’t know how much or how accurate the news coverage is about Burundi, but things continue to brew in this country. There are currently two rebel groups; one that is very active and has killed many people. The other one is called Al Shaabab; it is a subsidiary of Al Quida, and it is made up of mostly younger Muslims. They have made threats since well before the elections this past June, and in fact the whole block that occupies the president’s offices has been blocked off with huge concrete pillars since about mid June.
The beef that they have is that Burundi and Uganda both have peace keeping soldiers in Somalia, and they want them out so they can run amok with their ‘holy war’. During the soccer World Cup in the summer this group was responsible for a bomb blast in Uganda that killed 75 people.
Makes me shake my head - the unstable state that Burundi is in itself, and they send out peace keepers…. It’s pretty close to home though - one of the assistant teacher’s husband is slated to go to Somalia for the second time.
One of the assistant teachers just had an almost 10 pound baby with no drugs, and when she had started to scream during delivery the doctor had slapped her in the face and told her to shut up!!!!!
But that’s not an isolated incident - women out here apparently hardly make a sound during child birth, no matter how much pain they are in, and if they do, the doctor puts an end to that very abruptly. Yikes, if I would have ever been in that ‘position’, it would probably have been hard to not allow my foot to ‘slip’ into the doctors face. During a silent contraction of coarse!!
Wow - Calvary Chapel family - thank you so much for the wonderful distraction that we received at school yesterday!!
We had no idea that David Micklefield (for those that don’t know, that’s our lead pastor’s brother) was coming out here, and so that was a pleasant surprise. The letters and cards are a huge encouragement, and we treasure them.
If I may be so bold and say this: It only costs $1.70 CND to send a letter/card out here, and we have lots of space to put all you readers’ Christmas family picture cards up……
When I was a babe in Christ, Jesus put a deep desire and passion in my heart to do prison ministry. I spoke with different people that where involved in that over the years, but I guess it was never God’s timing. Well, it seems that it is His timing now.
There’s this little church (about 125 people) that we’ve been going to that’s called Trinity Tabernacle. The pastor couple are super - he’s from Uganda, she’s from Rwanda. This church has a pretty huge impact in the prison - in fact there are 9 ex-convicts in this tiny congregation. One of the guys, an interpreter, was on death row two times for murder. He served 9 years and was miraculously released!!!
Pastor Paddy has invited me to join a small team that goes to the prison every week to minister there. It’s really an awful place; it was built for about 1000 prisoners, but these walls contain 3000 inmates!! There are many women serving time who have their children with them, ranging in age from infant to pre-schoolers, criminals of every kind, high ranking government officials, etc., etc.
In this country you are guilty until proven innocent - honestly. But if you have enough money you can “buy” your innocence if indeed you are guilty. A person can serve years before their case is tried, and if you are innocent, that’s just too bad.
Pastor Ray said last week that Jabe is also very involved at this prison, and so he said he could set me up with the team that goes every 2 weeks. Please pray that Jesus will empower, anoint and equip me to minister to the people that He wants to reach through me, whether it’s salvation, an encouraging word, a plate of beans and rice handed to them with a loving smile, or whatever.
As for Trinity Tabernacle - we were going there for about 3 months. We met the pastor couple - Paddy and Joli - at a mutual friends’ engagement party. When they said that their church is in English our ears perked up. After a few months we decided to visit the church; we were at this point really struggling with the length (sometimes over 4 hrs.) at Jabe, the heat for that amount of time under a tin roof, the earphones for translation are not good so you have to push them against your head to hear, which gives us bad headaches after a few hrs., and the novelty of all these things had just totally and completely run dry.
And so that’s what brought us to Trinity. We prayed all along that God would show us which church He wanted us in. We didn’t have peace about making Trinity our home for some reason, we missed some aspects of Jabe, we had visited another church about 4 or 5 times where a lot of our friends go to…….
Anyways, we had talked to church leadership about it and they said to talk to Pastor Ray. Well, P. Ray said that because we are here serving under African Revival Ministries we should at least sometimes go to Jabe, as Jabe is an A.R.M. church.
So we went there again this last Sunday, and it felt like we were home. Praise Jesus. However, we will need extra measures of grace for the heat, length, earphones, etc. And we’re still probably going to visit other churches sometimes.
I’m about talked out!!
Oh, I know, this is again so long overdue….
So, you know the song ‘Mary had a little lamb’ - it has a new version amongst Colton’s classmates. The last line goes; “it’s fleece was white as Colton.” Cracks me up!!
I had the fabulous opportunity to lead a year 6 girl to Jesus a few weeks ago. Her mom, she told me, is/was Muslim, so this is very exciting, but at the same time this girl, Karen, needs a lot of prayers because of the Muslim teaching. It’s very serious if Muslims convert to Christianity - in very extreme cases they can be killed. Karen’s mom and dad are currently separated with mom living in Tanzania, but she says they are getting back together again at Christmas.
I gave Karen a notebook on the day of her conversion in which I wrote some godly truths and encouraged her to use the notebook to write down prayers, meaningful Bible verses, journal, etc. About once a week now for the last three weeks she brings the book to me to read the things that are on her heart. Wow, what an incredible joy to read her confessions of her faith in Jesus Christ, and the love that she has for her new found Saviour!! Some of the things that she talks to God about are so sad, like her family situation. Please pray for this precious girl and her family.
The other Muslim girl that I was able to pray with last year has not yet returned to school. She informed me last year that they would likely stay in India for longer than just the 2 months of summer holidays. This is the case, and doubtlessly being in that predominantly Muslim culture must be hard for a year 6 girl to stay grounded in the Christian truths and values that she believed. Please lift her before the Lord in prayer as well.
Right from the start when we arrived God has put the Muslims in my heart and in my path. There is a Muslim couple from Kenya that live on the compound where we get some of our groceries, and they had us down a while ago and expressed a desire to form a friendship with us. They’re a lovely couple with a 2 year old daughter. Naima, the wife, wants to teach me how to make Indian samosa’s - yum. She makes them in the house and sells them at the shop on their property. Please pray for this relationship as well.
Isaac just got home now at 6:45 P.M. - doing work in one of the teachers houses again.
Colton is doing very well in school - so far his percentages are almost all mid 90’s to 100% (on 4 tests). Even French is a subject that he’s attacking with determination to do well in. In fact, at the parent/teacher meeting 2 days ago his French teacher said he’s top of the class in that as well, believe it or not!! Considering there are a number of first language French speakers, that’s quite a feat! We’re very proud of Colton.
Nov. 12
Yesterday Colton serenaded Isaac and myself at lunch time with ’Jesus loves me” in Swahili, Kirundi and French. He said that he had put the song together between classes while he was on his way to his math class.
Almost two weeks ago when we were at the lake Isaac and Colton swam out to a boat that was on the water, and as Isaac hoisted himself into the boat he seriously hurt his rib. The water was pretty choppy, so with the movement of the waves and the boat rocking, he slammed into the top side/edge of the boat. We believe that it was probably broken. He was in lots of pain, and it began to swell up; laughing hurt, moving, walking, everything hurt. It was hurting him a lot that night, and after really praying, it improved dramatically. He’s tried to down play the severity of it all, which is his nature, but he’s still not completely without pain.
On that note, my neck and shoulders have really been acting up in the last few months. At times, for a number of days at a time, it’s very painful to move my head to the left. We would appreciate your prayers in these matters as well.
I don’t know how much or how accurate the news coverage is about Burundi, but things continue to brew in this country. There are currently two rebel groups; one that is very active and has killed many people. The other one is called Al Shaabab; it is a subsidiary of Al Quida, and it is made up of mostly younger Muslims. They have made threats since well before the elections this past June, and in fact the whole block that occupies the president’s offices has been blocked off with huge concrete pillars since about mid June.
The beef that they have is that Burundi and Uganda both have peace keeping soldiers in Somalia, and they want them out so they can run amok with their ‘holy war’. During the soccer World Cup in the summer this group was responsible for a bomb blast in Uganda that killed 75 people.
Makes me shake my head - the unstable state that Burundi is in itself, and they send out peace keepers…. It’s pretty close to home though - one of the assistant teacher’s husband is slated to go to Somalia for the second time.
One of the assistant teachers just had an almost 10 pound baby with no drugs, and when she had started to scream during delivery the doctor had slapped her in the face and told her to shut up!!!!!
But that’s not an isolated incident - women out here apparently hardly make a sound during child birth, no matter how much pain they are in, and if they do, the doctor puts an end to that very abruptly. Yikes, if I would have ever been in that ‘position’, it would probably have been hard to not allow my foot to ‘slip’ into the doctors face. During a silent contraction of coarse!!
Wow - Calvary Chapel family - thank you so much for the wonderful distraction that we received at school yesterday!!
We had no idea that David Micklefield (for those that don’t know, that’s our lead pastor’s brother) was coming out here, and so that was a pleasant surprise. The letters and cards are a huge encouragement, and we treasure them.
If I may be so bold and say this: It only costs $1.70 CND to send a letter/card out here, and we have lots of space to put all you readers’ Christmas family picture cards up……
When I was a babe in Christ, Jesus put a deep desire and passion in my heart to do prison ministry. I spoke with different people that where involved in that over the years, but I guess it was never God’s timing. Well, it seems that it is His timing now.
There’s this little church (about 125 people) that we’ve been going to that’s called Trinity Tabernacle. The pastor couple are super - he’s from Uganda, she’s from Rwanda. This church has a pretty huge impact in the prison - in fact there are 9 ex-convicts in this tiny congregation. One of the guys, an interpreter, was on death row two times for murder. He served 9 years and was miraculously released!!!
Pastor Paddy has invited me to join a small team that goes to the prison every week to minister there. It’s really an awful place; it was built for about 1000 prisoners, but these walls contain 3000 inmates!! There are many women serving time who have their children with them, ranging in age from infant to pre-schoolers, criminals of every kind, high ranking government officials, etc., etc.
In this country you are guilty until proven innocent - honestly. But if you have enough money you can “buy” your innocence if indeed you are guilty. A person can serve years before their case is tried, and if you are innocent, that’s just too bad.
Pastor Ray said last week that Jabe is also very involved at this prison, and so he said he could set me up with the team that goes every 2 weeks. Please pray that Jesus will empower, anoint and equip me to minister to the people that He wants to reach through me, whether it’s salvation, an encouraging word, a plate of beans and rice handed to them with a loving smile, or whatever.
As for Trinity Tabernacle - we were going there for about 3 months. We met the pastor couple - Paddy and Joli - at a mutual friends’ engagement party. When they said that their church is in English our ears perked up. After a few months we decided to visit the church; we were at this point really struggling with the length (sometimes over 4 hrs.) at Jabe, the heat for that amount of time under a tin roof, the earphones for translation are not good so you have to push them against your head to hear, which gives us bad headaches after a few hrs., and the novelty of all these things had just totally and completely run dry.
And so that’s what brought us to Trinity. We prayed all along that God would show us which church He wanted us in. We didn’t have peace about making Trinity our home for some reason, we missed some aspects of Jabe, we had visited another church about 4 or 5 times where a lot of our friends go to…….
Anyways, we had talked to church leadership about it and they said to talk to Pastor Ray. Well, P. Ray said that because we are here serving under African Revival Ministries we should at least sometimes go to Jabe, as Jabe is an A.R.M. church.
So we went there again this last Sunday, and it felt like we were home. Praise Jesus. However, we will need extra measures of grace for the heat, length, earphones, etc. And we’re still probably going to visit other churches sometimes.
I’m about talked out!!
We have to move
October 14
One of the pastors at Iglise Vivant passed away last week Friday. He started feeling unwell on Wednesday, suffered a stroke, and on Friday died of a heart attack. He leaves behind his wife and 5 children, the youngest of which is in year 2. I teach 2 of them in Primary and one is in Colton’s class. The other 2 attend a public school. Please pray for this family. The funeral was on Tuesday, and the following day, Aaron, the son that’s in Colton’s class got hit by a motorbike while riding his bike. The only injuries on Aaron were some bumps and bruises and a few stitches on his foot, but the driver of the motorbike is not known if he will pull through.
So this Saturday my niece Ramona, who passed away last November, her brother is getting married. Another brother got married on August 7th. My heart and thoughts are again so much in MB…..
Things are again getting more uncertain in this country. There is a large rebel group that is pretty active, having killed many people already. For about 2 months after the elections at the end of June we didn’t hear many gunshots from our house, but in the last month or so they have increased drastically again. The worst ones are at night when you’re woken up by them, and they sound as if they are on our block; that has only happened twice that they are so close. Please pray for safety for us, and for peace in this country.
Colton is off to a great start in school, receiving a few tests back this week on which he scored 100%. Over lunch today he related how he had tried to swap his snack with the monkey that likes to hang out at school. The monkey was enjoying a nice ripe mango he picked off one of the trees next to Colton’s classroom and wasn’t about to hand over his mango for a bland tasting ‘Maria” cookie imitation. Smart monkey.
We still haven’t found a house; Aime is really looking for us. Some houses are just tiny, others are just plain not liveable, so the search continues. So far we haven’t seen any personally; we can’t be on the scene till the price is completely settled upon because if they see that we’re mzungu the rent automatically skyrockets. Please continue to pray for the right house, and remember to ask the Father to kick in that yard so Colton can continue to kick his soccer ball around.
Speaking of soccer, Colton has gone through about 10 or so balls in the 14 months we’ve been here. No, it’s not that he’s got a kick that flattens the ball like a pancake (though he’s really good), but the thorns etc. wreak havoc on them. We brought 3 balls from Canada, bought 3 in Kenya when we went in August, received on from Honda and Libby for his birthday and the rest we’ve bought here. And he gets them patched time and time again, so it’s not that as soon as one pops its garbage. Many times he’s playing with a half deflated ball, and the sound coming from the buddies he’s got over is an indicator that deflated or not, they are having fun.
Isaac is not so bombarded by requests for this and that to be done, asap, by so many people now. He’s more caught up, though still busy. Seems at the beginning of the school year is the best time for people to do repairs on their houses as well. Once people know that he is knowledgeable in many areas they are quite eager to have him come and fix this or that. Obviously, CRIB and school (and affiliates) are priorities.
Nov. 10
Wow - I wrote this close to a month ago when we didn’t have internet access for about 4 weeks. I will post it though, thankfully with a very wonderful house update!!
We don’t have to move - PRAISE the LORD!!!!! The landlord called Aime up and told him that his son and daughter-in-law don’t need the house now till August. Thank you to the many of you that prayed for us in this regard. The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective!
One of the pastors at Iglise Vivant passed away last week Friday. He started feeling unwell on Wednesday, suffered a stroke, and on Friday died of a heart attack. He leaves behind his wife and 5 children, the youngest of which is in year 2. I teach 2 of them in Primary and one is in Colton’s class. The other 2 attend a public school. Please pray for this family. The funeral was on Tuesday, and the following day, Aaron, the son that’s in Colton’s class got hit by a motorbike while riding his bike. The only injuries on Aaron were some bumps and bruises and a few stitches on his foot, but the driver of the motorbike is not known if he will pull through.
So this Saturday my niece Ramona, who passed away last November, her brother is getting married. Another brother got married on August 7th. My heart and thoughts are again so much in MB…..
Things are again getting more uncertain in this country. There is a large rebel group that is pretty active, having killed many people already. For about 2 months after the elections at the end of June we didn’t hear many gunshots from our house, but in the last month or so they have increased drastically again. The worst ones are at night when you’re woken up by them, and they sound as if they are on our block; that has only happened twice that they are so close. Please pray for safety for us, and for peace in this country.
Colton is off to a great start in school, receiving a few tests back this week on which he scored 100%. Over lunch today he related how he had tried to swap his snack with the monkey that likes to hang out at school. The monkey was enjoying a nice ripe mango he picked off one of the trees next to Colton’s classroom and wasn’t about to hand over his mango for a bland tasting ‘Maria” cookie imitation. Smart monkey.
We still haven’t found a house; Aime is really looking for us. Some houses are just tiny, others are just plain not liveable, so the search continues. So far we haven’t seen any personally; we can’t be on the scene till the price is completely settled upon because if they see that we’re mzungu the rent automatically skyrockets. Please continue to pray for the right house, and remember to ask the Father to kick in that yard so Colton can continue to kick his soccer ball around.
Speaking of soccer, Colton has gone through about 10 or so balls in the 14 months we’ve been here. No, it’s not that he’s got a kick that flattens the ball like a pancake (though he’s really good), but the thorns etc. wreak havoc on them. We brought 3 balls from Canada, bought 3 in Kenya when we went in August, received on from Honda and Libby for his birthday and the rest we’ve bought here. And he gets them patched time and time again, so it’s not that as soon as one pops its garbage. Many times he’s playing with a half deflated ball, and the sound coming from the buddies he’s got over is an indicator that deflated or not, they are having fun.
Isaac is not so bombarded by requests for this and that to be done, asap, by so many people now. He’s more caught up, though still busy. Seems at the beginning of the school year is the best time for people to do repairs on their houses as well. Once people know that he is knowledgeable in many areas they are quite eager to have him come and fix this or that. Obviously, CRIB and school (and affiliates) are priorities.
Nov. 10
Wow - I wrote this close to a month ago when we didn’t have internet access for about 4 weeks. I will post it though, thankfully with a very wonderful house update!!
We don’t have to move - PRAISE the LORD!!!!! The landlord called Aime up and told him that his son and daughter-in-law don’t need the house now till August. Thank you to the many of you that prayed for us in this regard. The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Colton is a teenager!!
Hey; Sept.16 2010
So we’ve settled back into the school routine. Colton is in year 8 and enjoying it. It was much more fun to start this year compared to last year when we didn’t know anyone.
Isaac is crazy busy from 7:00 AM till past dark many days, plus Saturdays. This should slow down soon once everything has been built/fixed for the schools, teachers’ houses, CRIB (ongoing), etc.
My teaching schedule is only a little fuller this year with the addition of one more class per week. It’s really busy, but it makes the time go by quicker.
So… Colton is a teenager!! I can hardly believe that we have a young man and not a little boy any more. He very much enjoys standing in front of me and measuring up to where he measures on me…. Not so long ago he was up to my mouth, then my nose, eyes… well, he’s got less than 1 and ½ inches to go and he’ll have sprouted past me!!
He had a good birthday, his second here in Burundi. He made a long list of friends that he wanted to invite to his party. I again made my boys’ favorite cake, and I’m telling you, the texture is sooo different here. It just wants to fall apart. So once I had inverted the top layer, it split down the center vertically and horizontally. We christened it “the Christian cake”, ‘cause of the cross that adorned it. ( In the past, the old perfectionist me would not have found this funny at all, but praise Jesus, He’s helping me to be a little softer around the edges.)
I want to publicly say a huge “thank you sweet Desirae!!!” This lovely lady (Colton’s cousin) spent a lot of time into a scrapbook that she put together of her life over the past year, and mailed it out for Colton’s birthday. He was so blessed to receive a package from our other home. Just the fact that he’s not “outta sight, outta mind”, is nice to know, with the huge added bonus of such a personal gift. Missing grandma’s, cousins and friends is sometimes hard for Colton.
Remember my blog from a number of months ago about this tiny little cat - Belle - that was in dire straits that we spoon fed for 5 days, it died in my hands while feeding it, Jesus raised it from the dead, and it permanently died the following day? Well, our friends Travis and Astrid’s cat had 5 black babies ( Colton and I witnessed the births of the first 4), and the momma cat stopped feeding the babies on the fifth day and died on the sixth. Knowing about our very limited knowledge about feeding an orphaned kitten, they asked if we wanted to take one. Long story short, we’ve had Zima for over two weeks, and he’s doing great. Colton is the best at feeding him out of the three of us. ‘Zima’ is short for ubuzima, which means ‘life’ in Kirundi; speaking positively into the little critters life. Colton is pretty confident that Zima will get to stay in the house permanently; “after all,” he stated, “ he’s worked his way into your heart already, next it’s into the house.” Even Isaac enjoys holding the little guy, listening to Zima’s “motor running” - Isaac’s terminology for purring. I thought cats have an aversion to water, but this feline seems to enjoy his two plus baths per day.
All three of us are in this awesome Bible study. We started about two months ago, and we meet every Tuesday; we’re doing an audio series by Bill Johnson and Chris Vallotton. There’s a couple from South Africa, Tim and Jeannette (he teaches pastors here), three Korean ladies that are starting a local NGO, Olivia, who’s from Denver Colorado, manager of King’s Conference Center combined with lots of different ministry involvements, Marieke, part of Travis and Astrid’s team, but currently working with CRIB kids, and Travis and Astrid. These people are very near and dear to our hearts. We have wonderful and deep personal ministry and prayer times together; we feel so blessed to have these friends. If Jesus is done with us here in Buj. after our two years, it will be very hard to say bye to these wonderful friends….. I don’t even want to go there just now.
We have to move out of our house by the end of December; our land lord wants it back so his son and daughter-in-law can move in. This is a pretty huge prayer concern as rental houses are very hard to find in this area. And it has to be furnished which makes it even harder to find. So please pray that we will find a house that is suitable, and that God will kick in the added blessing of a yard that allows Colton to play soccer in the back yard. For example, often yards are not even big enough for a trampoline.
Our fridge hasn’t worked in months - at least 5 months. There are brief times when it cools so much that it freezes the food, the odd time it cools a little, but for the most part it just doesn’t cool at all. We’ve told the land lord a number of times, to no avail. So moving will bring a stop to me attempting (and failing) to keep the fridge cold with frozen water bottles. (The freezer section works fine.) It used to be that if we put food in the fridge it was the one place that the ants couldn’t get to - this is no longer the case.
Man, animal and land is greatly looking forward to the rainy season. Since April we’ve had one light sprinkle on June 29th (the day after elections; kinda’ symbolic of the Father cleansing the country). The temperature is consistently hot, hot, and hot - low to mid 30’s. Nights are a few degrees cooler than day time. However, last week Sunday we had a gentle shower, as well as a few more times during that week. Two of those mornings it was so cold; the temperature dipped down to an all time low that we have witnessed - both mornings it was a mere 23.8 degrees!!! We sat at the breakfast table covered in goose bumps. Colton put his long PJ bottoms on under his school uniform. This cold yet wonderful respite from the heat dissipated after about an hour. (Till last week the lowest we’ve experienced is 24.8.)
The same thing happened last year; we had a few “teaser” showers beginning of September, followed by another few months of harsh, dry heat. But hopefully we won’t have to wait that long this year, as last year there was a ‘mini famine’ up country because of the delayed rains.
With the dry season come the unpleasant and very unwelcome electricity and water cuts. The novelty?? tolerance?? of not having hydro and water wears off after months and it just gets old and very frustrating. Try as we might to have and maintain a godly attitude about it, we just simply fail sometimes. It really wreaks havoc with the fridge situation if I can’t freeze water to somewhat keep the fridge cool. And in this country of sweat and dust and filth, water is even more essential than just for cooking/drinking. We’ve had a lot more water cuts this year than last; for washing we store water in pails and for drinking in jugs.
When you are aware of incredible govt. corruption it makes it pretty hard to just ‘live with it’, when you know that things could be drastically different; but the public, it seems, isn’t important enough to supply them with basic necessities, as long as some of their pockets are thickly lined… Televised promises by top govn. personnel to make a complete stop to cuts go unfulfilled.
What’s especially annoying is when water and hydro are cut at the same time, which happens frequently. Aarrrhhhggg!!! No hydro, no fans!!! Yeesch that’s hot.
Sept. 22 2010
“I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” Luke 10:19
Isaac has prayed into this almost daily for many months…
Colton found and captured a scorpion at school yesterday. It is currently approximately 4 feet from where I’m sitting in a clear plastic pencil case. I took it to school today to show some of my students. It seems most people don’t know that there are scorpions in Burundi. Aime, a colleague of ours, was down a few weeks ago and we told him that Colton had stepped on one in the shower about a month ago, and he could hardly believe that they exist here - he had never seen one - and he’s a local. And we’ve had two encounters with them in the span of about a month. The one Colton stepped on was much bigger than the one he caught yesterday. We also get snakes and centipedes in that same shower.
I’ll leave you with that warm and fuzzy thought. ;-)
So we’ve settled back into the school routine. Colton is in year 8 and enjoying it. It was much more fun to start this year compared to last year when we didn’t know anyone.
Isaac is crazy busy from 7:00 AM till past dark many days, plus Saturdays. This should slow down soon once everything has been built/fixed for the schools, teachers’ houses, CRIB (ongoing), etc.
My teaching schedule is only a little fuller this year with the addition of one more class per week. It’s really busy, but it makes the time go by quicker.
So… Colton is a teenager!! I can hardly believe that we have a young man and not a little boy any more. He very much enjoys standing in front of me and measuring up to where he measures on me…. Not so long ago he was up to my mouth, then my nose, eyes… well, he’s got less than 1 and ½ inches to go and he’ll have sprouted past me!!
He had a good birthday, his second here in Burundi. He made a long list of friends that he wanted to invite to his party. I again made my boys’ favorite cake, and I’m telling you, the texture is sooo different here. It just wants to fall apart. So once I had inverted the top layer, it split down the center vertically and horizontally. We christened it “the Christian cake”, ‘cause of the cross that adorned it. ( In the past, the old perfectionist me would not have found this funny at all, but praise Jesus, He’s helping me to be a little softer around the edges.)
I want to publicly say a huge “thank you sweet Desirae!!!” This lovely lady (Colton’s cousin) spent a lot of time into a scrapbook that she put together of her life over the past year, and mailed it out for Colton’s birthday. He was so blessed to receive a package from our other home. Just the fact that he’s not “outta sight, outta mind”, is nice to know, with the huge added bonus of such a personal gift. Missing grandma’s, cousins and friends is sometimes hard for Colton.
Remember my blog from a number of months ago about this tiny little cat - Belle - that was in dire straits that we spoon fed for 5 days, it died in my hands while feeding it, Jesus raised it from the dead, and it permanently died the following day? Well, our friends Travis and Astrid’s cat had 5 black babies ( Colton and I witnessed the births of the first 4), and the momma cat stopped feeding the babies on the fifth day and died on the sixth. Knowing about our very limited knowledge about feeding an orphaned kitten, they asked if we wanted to take one. Long story short, we’ve had Zima for over two weeks, and he’s doing great. Colton is the best at feeding him out of the three of us. ‘Zima’ is short for ubuzima, which means ‘life’ in Kirundi; speaking positively into the little critters life. Colton is pretty confident that Zima will get to stay in the house permanently; “after all,” he stated, “ he’s worked his way into your heart already, next it’s into the house.” Even Isaac enjoys holding the little guy, listening to Zima’s “motor running” - Isaac’s terminology for purring. I thought cats have an aversion to water, but this feline seems to enjoy his two plus baths per day.
All three of us are in this awesome Bible study. We started about two months ago, and we meet every Tuesday; we’re doing an audio series by Bill Johnson and Chris Vallotton. There’s a couple from South Africa, Tim and Jeannette (he teaches pastors here), three Korean ladies that are starting a local NGO, Olivia, who’s from Denver Colorado, manager of King’s Conference Center combined with lots of different ministry involvements, Marieke, part of Travis and Astrid’s team, but currently working with CRIB kids, and Travis and Astrid. These people are very near and dear to our hearts. We have wonderful and deep personal ministry and prayer times together; we feel so blessed to have these friends. If Jesus is done with us here in Buj. after our two years, it will be very hard to say bye to these wonderful friends….. I don’t even want to go there just now.
We have to move out of our house by the end of December; our land lord wants it back so his son and daughter-in-law can move in. This is a pretty huge prayer concern as rental houses are very hard to find in this area. And it has to be furnished which makes it even harder to find. So please pray that we will find a house that is suitable, and that God will kick in the added blessing of a yard that allows Colton to play soccer in the back yard. For example, often yards are not even big enough for a trampoline.
Our fridge hasn’t worked in months - at least 5 months. There are brief times when it cools so much that it freezes the food, the odd time it cools a little, but for the most part it just doesn’t cool at all. We’ve told the land lord a number of times, to no avail. So moving will bring a stop to me attempting (and failing) to keep the fridge cold with frozen water bottles. (The freezer section works fine.) It used to be that if we put food in the fridge it was the one place that the ants couldn’t get to - this is no longer the case.
Man, animal and land is greatly looking forward to the rainy season. Since April we’ve had one light sprinkle on June 29th (the day after elections; kinda’ symbolic of the Father cleansing the country). The temperature is consistently hot, hot, and hot - low to mid 30’s. Nights are a few degrees cooler than day time. However, last week Sunday we had a gentle shower, as well as a few more times during that week. Two of those mornings it was so cold; the temperature dipped down to an all time low that we have witnessed - both mornings it was a mere 23.8 degrees!!! We sat at the breakfast table covered in goose bumps. Colton put his long PJ bottoms on under his school uniform. This cold yet wonderful respite from the heat dissipated after about an hour. (Till last week the lowest we’ve experienced is 24.8.)
The same thing happened last year; we had a few “teaser” showers beginning of September, followed by another few months of harsh, dry heat. But hopefully we won’t have to wait that long this year, as last year there was a ‘mini famine’ up country because of the delayed rains.
With the dry season come the unpleasant and very unwelcome electricity and water cuts. The novelty?? tolerance?? of not having hydro and water wears off after months and it just gets old and very frustrating. Try as we might to have and maintain a godly attitude about it, we just simply fail sometimes. It really wreaks havoc with the fridge situation if I can’t freeze water to somewhat keep the fridge cool. And in this country of sweat and dust and filth, water is even more essential than just for cooking/drinking. We’ve had a lot more water cuts this year than last; for washing we store water in pails and for drinking in jugs.
When you are aware of incredible govt. corruption it makes it pretty hard to just ‘live with it’, when you know that things could be drastically different; but the public, it seems, isn’t important enough to supply them with basic necessities, as long as some of their pockets are thickly lined… Televised promises by top govn. personnel to make a complete stop to cuts go unfulfilled.
What’s especially annoying is when water and hydro are cut at the same time, which happens frequently. Aarrrhhhggg!!! No hydro, no fans!!! Yeesch that’s hot.
Sept. 22 2010
“I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” Luke 10:19
Isaac has prayed into this almost daily for many months…
Colton found and captured a scorpion at school yesterday. It is currently approximately 4 feet from where I’m sitting in a clear plastic pencil case. I took it to school today to show some of my students. It seems most people don’t know that there are scorpions in Burundi. Aime, a colleague of ours, was down a few weeks ago and we told him that Colton had stepped on one in the shower about a month ago, and he could hardly believe that they exist here - he had never seen one - and he’s a local. And we’ve had two encounters with them in the span of about a month. The one Colton stepped on was much bigger than the one he caught yesterday. We also get snakes and centipedes in that same shower.
I’ll leave you with that warm and fuzzy thought. ;-)
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tired and refreshed!
Cont. from previous blog….
So on Sunday, Wycliff, who is Mercy’s husband, picked us up at our hotel and we walked to their church - Anglican - a massive and ancient stone building with beautiful stained glass windows. After church more touring of the city, then hopped on a matatu again and went to Mercy’s for lunch.
Monday we boarded the train for Mombasa at 7:00 P.M. The trip was about 15 - 16 hrs. long; the cabins weren’t posh, but all we needed: beds, sink, etc. The farther away from Nairobi we went, the hotter it got. Mombasa’s weather is much like Burundi’s - hot, hot, and hot!!! Thank goodness for my trusty umbrella to shade me from the sun combined with my 70 SPF sun block.
Mombasa was fabulous!!!! A large part of the city is on an island, accessible by bridges, but we also opted to check out the ferry. That was really beautiful. We went to this absolutely amazing park that had baobab trees galore. The trunks are incredibly thick, kind of like the Redwoods of California. Colton and I both have this thing for trees - Colton loves to climb them, and I just love the look of trees; and leaves. So Colton scrambled from tree to tree, climbing like a monkey. Things that wouldn’t necessarily garner much attention in the western world are much cause for locals to stop and take in the sight as a mzungu goes about his business, including tree climbing.
We visited Fort Jesus - google it for a bit of East African history, followed by a scrumptious Chinese lunch on the ocean. After this we headed to the Indian Ocean. Wow!!!! God sure knew what He was doing when He spoke this into existence! Breath taking powder white beach that goes on mile after endless mile. We could go out into the water over half a km. and the water was only up to our chest.
The camel ride that we had on the beach was awesome. It walked very slowly, clodding along just like the camel on the Veggie Tales movie, Jonah.
The three of us really enjoy shell collecting on the beach, and this was even more fun than on Lake Tanganyika, the 600 km. long lake that we can see from our house.
Thursday we spent more time at the beach. Considering that I’m not a beach bum, nor can I go in the sun, it was fantastic. And the fact that I wore a sport shirt with short sleeves and shorts for once was not cause for people to stare, as anything goes on the beach in Africa.
At 7:00 P.M. we boarded the train back to Nairobi. It was all-inclusive, so dinner and breakfast are served in the dining cars. The animals had us glued to the windows for hours; we saw many herds of zebra, antelopes of varying kinds, wildebeest, ostriches, other large land birds, etc.
Saturday we went to this huge Maasai market; the colors, the Maasai body piercing, the haggling, the loud banter, the ‘smell’ of Africa, it truly is a place where the senses are engaged!!
Afterwards while walking around, just taking in more of this busy city, we stumbled on this fantastic little coffee house that served real, brewed coffee!! Super, super strong stuff. It’s my new favorite coffee house in the world; no joke - move over Second Cup and Starbucks. We bought three mugs there and I got a t-shirt with the logo on it - “Nairobi Java House”. If time and finances allow, book a flight to Nairobi Java House, and since you’re in the city anyway, make sure you check out the rest of the city as well.
For supper we wanted to have things from the supermarket that we miss from Canada and enjoy them back at the hotel. So after careful deliberation and having to make choices from the overwhelmingly many aisles of food, we decided on yogurt (Colton and I each polished off a one litre no problem), Ritz crackers (imitation, though the label was the Ritz label), apples, which we don’t buy in Burundi ‘cause they’re a dollar a piece, and tiny and not fresh at all; a very large bag of delicious potatoe chips, Pepsi!!! (yaaayyyy!! For devoted Pepsi drinkers like us; though I must say that the Coke in Burundi is good - must be due to the fact that it comes in glass bottles), and imitation Oreo’s. Oh… the little pleasures of our Canadian home!!! Yikes, maybe I should check how many food groups we covered before I print this…..
On Sunday morning we went back for another great coffee at the above, chilled, than headed to the airport to catch our flight back home. We had a short layover in Tanzania, and came home feeling tired, refreshed and rejuvenated; a contradiction in terms, I know, but a vacation is probably the only time when “tired and refreshed" makes sense.
We thank God very much for our time away; we really needed it. We know we are where the Father wants us, but that doesn’t make it easy.
I came back with a new fire and excitement for this coming year. I like that.
So on Sunday, Wycliff, who is Mercy’s husband, picked us up at our hotel and we walked to their church - Anglican - a massive and ancient stone building with beautiful stained glass windows. After church more touring of the city, then hopped on a matatu again and went to Mercy’s for lunch.
Monday we boarded the train for Mombasa at 7:00 P.M. The trip was about 15 - 16 hrs. long; the cabins weren’t posh, but all we needed: beds, sink, etc. The farther away from Nairobi we went, the hotter it got. Mombasa’s weather is much like Burundi’s - hot, hot, and hot!!! Thank goodness for my trusty umbrella to shade me from the sun combined with my 70 SPF sun block.
Mombasa was fabulous!!!! A large part of the city is on an island, accessible by bridges, but we also opted to check out the ferry. That was really beautiful. We went to this absolutely amazing park that had baobab trees galore. The trunks are incredibly thick, kind of like the Redwoods of California. Colton and I both have this thing for trees - Colton loves to climb them, and I just love the look of trees; and leaves. So Colton scrambled from tree to tree, climbing like a monkey. Things that wouldn’t necessarily garner much attention in the western world are much cause for locals to stop and take in the sight as a mzungu goes about his business, including tree climbing.
We visited Fort Jesus - google it for a bit of East African history, followed by a scrumptious Chinese lunch on the ocean. After this we headed to the Indian Ocean. Wow!!!! God sure knew what He was doing when He spoke this into existence! Breath taking powder white beach that goes on mile after endless mile. We could go out into the water over half a km. and the water was only up to our chest.
The camel ride that we had on the beach was awesome. It walked very slowly, clodding along just like the camel on the Veggie Tales movie, Jonah.
The three of us really enjoy shell collecting on the beach, and this was even more fun than on Lake Tanganyika, the 600 km. long lake that we can see from our house.
Thursday we spent more time at the beach. Considering that I’m not a beach bum, nor can I go in the sun, it was fantastic. And the fact that I wore a sport shirt with short sleeves and shorts for once was not cause for people to stare, as anything goes on the beach in Africa.
At 7:00 P.M. we boarded the train back to Nairobi. It was all-inclusive, so dinner and breakfast are served in the dining cars. The animals had us glued to the windows for hours; we saw many herds of zebra, antelopes of varying kinds, wildebeest, ostriches, other large land birds, etc.
Saturday we went to this huge Maasai market; the colors, the Maasai body piercing, the haggling, the loud banter, the ‘smell’ of Africa, it truly is a place where the senses are engaged!!
Afterwards while walking around, just taking in more of this busy city, we stumbled on this fantastic little coffee house that served real, brewed coffee!! Super, super strong stuff. It’s my new favorite coffee house in the world; no joke - move over Second Cup and Starbucks. We bought three mugs there and I got a t-shirt with the logo on it - “Nairobi Java House”. If time and finances allow, book a flight to Nairobi Java House, and since you’re in the city anyway, make sure you check out the rest of the city as well.
For supper we wanted to have things from the supermarket that we miss from Canada and enjoy them back at the hotel. So after careful deliberation and having to make choices from the overwhelmingly many aisles of food, we decided on yogurt (Colton and I each polished off a one litre no problem), Ritz crackers (imitation, though the label was the Ritz label), apples, which we don’t buy in Burundi ‘cause they’re a dollar a piece, and tiny and not fresh at all; a very large bag of delicious potatoe chips, Pepsi!!! (yaaayyyy!! For devoted Pepsi drinkers like us; though I must say that the Coke in Burundi is good - must be due to the fact that it comes in glass bottles), and imitation Oreo’s. Oh… the little pleasures of our Canadian home!!! Yikes, maybe I should check how many food groups we covered before I print this…..
On Sunday morning we went back for another great coffee at the above, chilled, than headed to the airport to catch our flight back home. We had a short layover in Tanzania, and came home feeling tired, refreshed and rejuvenated; a contradiction in terms, I know, but a vacation is probably the only time when “tired and refreshed" makes sense.
We thank God very much for our time away; we really needed it. We know we are where the Father wants us, but that doesn’t make it easy.
I came back with a new fire and excitement for this coming year. I like that.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya, here we come!!
We left on Wednesday, August 11th and came back on Sunday, August 22nd.
We arrived at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi and immediately were thrown into a world of many white faces and shops filled with more chocolate and “things “ than we had seen in over a year. And not just any chocolate, but LINDT chocolate!!! Amongst almost every other kind you can think of. Yummmm!!
We went to our hotel, just chilled for a while, went downstairs for dinner, nothing hugely exciting. Oh, wait, we went to this huge supermarket that had everything; we just walked around trying to take it all in - clean, brightly lit and fully stocked shelves of anything you could wish for. It was as if we were transported into another world in the span of a few short hours. We bought lots of junk food and went back to our hotel room and pigged out on our scrumptious finds.
Mercy, a Kenyan, was a teacher at The King’s School till June. She got married to a Kenyan just before Christmas in their native Nairobi. She came back to Burundi to finish the school year, while her new husband, Wycliff stayed behind. In June she moved back to Nairobi, but not before she offered to show us around Nairobi if and when we came. Well, Mercy is just a darling, and she (and hubby Wycliff on Saturday) was a great tour guide on Friday and Saturday.
Thursday - First we went to an elephant orphanage located in Nairobi National Park. Hung out with, petted, laughed at, got dirtied by about 15 elephants.
Next stop - Giraffe Center. This was THE best. There were buckets of food pellets that made it very easy to befriend these beautiful creatures. At first the sensation of their long, rough and slimy, black tongue wrapping around your hand was … umm… I don’t know, I guess just plain gross. But just the realization that you were actually feeding a giraffe made you forget about the grossness and give them handful after handful. One of the employees asked me if I’d like to be kissed by a giraffe, and without thinking about it I said yes. The guide demonstrated by putting a pellet of food between his pursed lips, and lickity-split, (pun intended), the pellet had exchanged lips!! First I was up, followed by Colton who had to do it time and again because Isaac kept missing the camera shot. Hee-hee!! This one time when Colton had this necking experience (pun definitely intended), he kept arching his back more and more, but the giraffe’s neck just kept coming and coming, till finally it got the pellet, leaving a thick line of saliva hanging between Colton’s chin and his mouth. Loved it - me, not Colton!!
When it was Isaac’s turn I kept missing the shot as well, and no, it wasn’t intentional; this also necessitated numerous attempts, somewhat to Isaac’s chagrin. Thankfully they had a washing station nearby, complete with soap, that we made good use of.
Following this we went to Mamba Village, which is a large crocodile place. We’ve seen crocs. in Burundi lots, so this wasn’t a big deal. We came for the lunch that is served in a beautiful outdoor setting by a little lake.
Next it was off to Westgate Mall, a 5 story shopaholics paradise. It is located in a very posh area of Nairobi. Many of the shops are high European fashion brands, whose prices made our eyes spin. Here too, we just walked around trying to take it all in, thinking back to Burundi and the incredible contrast between it and where we were now. And you know what we bought?! Spices!! I’m not kidding!! Spices!! Finally in a real store and all we bought was spices.
At about 8:30 P.M. we went to Carnivore, which is this really huge place that serves meats that you might not ever even have heard of. For example, how ‘bout some zebra tonight? Perhaps a nice slab of medium-well done crocodile; not suit your palate today? No problem - maybe hippo will hit the spot. Oh, you just want something mundane? Well they cater to that as well. Does steer heart (Isaac’s favorite) sound better? Or ostrich meatballs? Colton’s fav. - pork sausage; my favorite - boring ol’ chicken breast.
They just keep bringing different types of meat till you tell them no more. We must have had at least 10-12
varieties that night. I’m not that keen on meat as a rule, so the cat that was roaming between the tables was very well fed beside my chair.
Regretfully, we weren’t able to take any pictures at Carnivore because we had completely killed the camera battery at our other excursions that day, and we didn’t go to the hotel before dinner to recharge them.
That was Thursday, a super fun day.
Friday, Mercy came to our hotel after breakfast and we headed out to Nairobi National Park. We saw lions, albino zebra’s, cougar, leopard, cheetah, hippo, wildebeest, numerous antelope species, crocs., monkeys, ostrich, etc. etc. Our mode of transportation was the ever popular matatu, which is what we would call a hippie van in the west; blaring reggae music, brightly decorated, windows rolled down, swerving in and out of the absolute craziest traffic you can imagine. Burundi traffic , as awful as it is seems almost like child’s play by comparison. At night these matatus turn into a kaleidoscope of colors in motion as the lights that the owners install illuminate the insides.
After lunch we toured around the city, and met up with 2 other Kenyan teachers, which was really cool. In a city of close to 5 million people and running into someone you know is pretty sweet. Oh, and when we were at the giraffe center we ran into another Kenyan teacher!!! Three in total, not counting our planned encounter with Mercy.
Irene, one of the teachers who lives up country in Kenya during the summer months had come to the city for a few days and was staying at this hotel that was a fraction of the price that we were paying for our hotel. Our hotel was very, very basic by Canadian standards, but it is the high season right now, so it wasn’t cheap. Anyways, Irene suggested seeing how much a room would be for the three of us at this cheap place. Isaac and I agreed that we would first check out a room, and take it from there. Well, before we could hardly blink, and without seeing a room, we were booked into this place for three nights. Imagine what $15 US per night gets you!!! In much lower standards than you and I are used to. Let it suffice to say it was an experience, and thankfully we spent very little time there except for the nights.
In Canada I would hardly think twice about buying Kenyan coffee. It was surprising to find that it’s almost impossible to find an establishment that has brewed coffee; almost everyone just serves a pretty poor instant coffee. So after a number of days Isaac and I wanted a real cup of coffee, and while staying at our wonderfully cheap hotel we decided that we’d check out the 5 star Hilton’s restaurant to see whether they served real coffee. Much to our delight they did, but it came at a crazy high price; we splurged on a very tiny cup of super strong java, but opted out of the $30 US breakfast per person.
The lack of availability of coffee in Kenya is because the growers get much more for their coffee beans when they export. In Burundi, very, very few locals drink coffee even though we have superb coffee grown up country. Reason being most people can’t afford to drink it.
In the afternoon Mercy and Wycliff took us to the August 7th Peace Memorial. This is the US Embassy site that was bombed by Al Quida on August 7th, 1998. Two hundred and eighteen people died. Pretty awful.
In the evening we went to Wycliff’s parents house - super fun people. His dad is the director of admin. in the Kenyan parliament and was very eager to give us a tour of parliament, whether in session or out, which ever we preferred. Across the street from Wycliff’s home is where Mercy grew up with her aunt and uncle because her mom died . So we went and had a nice time with Mercy’s family. Kenyan’s are so friendly and welcoming, and we left with warm invitations to come back, feeling loved and accepted. By Kenyan standards we were, after all, almost family now as well.
To be continued…..
We arrived at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi and immediately were thrown into a world of many white faces and shops filled with more chocolate and “things “ than we had seen in over a year. And not just any chocolate, but LINDT chocolate!!! Amongst almost every other kind you can think of. Yummmm!!
We went to our hotel, just chilled for a while, went downstairs for dinner, nothing hugely exciting. Oh, wait, we went to this huge supermarket that had everything; we just walked around trying to take it all in - clean, brightly lit and fully stocked shelves of anything you could wish for. It was as if we were transported into another world in the span of a few short hours. We bought lots of junk food and went back to our hotel room and pigged out on our scrumptious finds.
Mercy, a Kenyan, was a teacher at The King’s School till June. She got married to a Kenyan just before Christmas in their native Nairobi. She came back to Burundi to finish the school year, while her new husband, Wycliff stayed behind. In June she moved back to Nairobi, but not before she offered to show us around Nairobi if and when we came. Well, Mercy is just a darling, and she (and hubby Wycliff on Saturday) was a great tour guide on Friday and Saturday.
Thursday - First we went to an elephant orphanage located in Nairobi National Park. Hung out with, petted, laughed at, got dirtied by about 15 elephants.
Next stop - Giraffe Center. This was THE best. There were buckets of food pellets that made it very easy to befriend these beautiful creatures. At first the sensation of their long, rough and slimy, black tongue wrapping around your hand was … umm… I don’t know, I guess just plain gross. But just the realization that you were actually feeding a giraffe made you forget about the grossness and give them handful after handful. One of the employees asked me if I’d like to be kissed by a giraffe, and without thinking about it I said yes. The guide demonstrated by putting a pellet of food between his pursed lips, and lickity-split, (pun intended), the pellet had exchanged lips!! First I was up, followed by Colton who had to do it time and again because Isaac kept missing the camera shot. Hee-hee!! This one time when Colton had this necking experience (pun definitely intended), he kept arching his back more and more, but the giraffe’s neck just kept coming and coming, till finally it got the pellet, leaving a thick line of saliva hanging between Colton’s chin and his mouth. Loved it - me, not Colton!!
When it was Isaac’s turn I kept missing the shot as well, and no, it wasn’t intentional; this also necessitated numerous attempts, somewhat to Isaac’s chagrin. Thankfully they had a washing station nearby, complete with soap, that we made good use of.
Following this we went to Mamba Village, which is a large crocodile place. We’ve seen crocs. in Burundi lots, so this wasn’t a big deal. We came for the lunch that is served in a beautiful outdoor setting by a little lake.
Next it was off to Westgate Mall, a 5 story shopaholics paradise. It is located in a very posh area of Nairobi. Many of the shops are high European fashion brands, whose prices made our eyes spin. Here too, we just walked around trying to take it all in, thinking back to Burundi and the incredible contrast between it and where we were now. And you know what we bought?! Spices!! I’m not kidding!! Spices!! Finally in a real store and all we bought was spices.
At about 8:30 P.M. we went to Carnivore, which is this really huge place that serves meats that you might not ever even have heard of. For example, how ‘bout some zebra tonight? Perhaps a nice slab of medium-well done crocodile; not suit your palate today? No problem - maybe hippo will hit the spot. Oh, you just want something mundane? Well they cater to that as well. Does steer heart (Isaac’s favorite) sound better? Or ostrich meatballs? Colton’s fav. - pork sausage; my favorite - boring ol’ chicken breast.
They just keep bringing different types of meat till you tell them no more. We must have had at least 10-12
varieties that night. I’m not that keen on meat as a rule, so the cat that was roaming between the tables was very well fed beside my chair.
Regretfully, we weren’t able to take any pictures at Carnivore because we had completely killed the camera battery at our other excursions that day, and we didn’t go to the hotel before dinner to recharge them.
That was Thursday, a super fun day.
Friday, Mercy came to our hotel after breakfast and we headed out to Nairobi National Park. We saw lions, albino zebra’s, cougar, leopard, cheetah, hippo, wildebeest, numerous antelope species, crocs., monkeys, ostrich, etc. etc. Our mode of transportation was the ever popular matatu, which is what we would call a hippie van in the west; blaring reggae music, brightly decorated, windows rolled down, swerving in and out of the absolute craziest traffic you can imagine. Burundi traffic , as awful as it is seems almost like child’s play by comparison. At night these matatus turn into a kaleidoscope of colors in motion as the lights that the owners install illuminate the insides.
After lunch we toured around the city, and met up with 2 other Kenyan teachers, which was really cool. In a city of close to 5 million people and running into someone you know is pretty sweet. Oh, and when we were at the giraffe center we ran into another Kenyan teacher!!! Three in total, not counting our planned encounter with Mercy.
Irene, one of the teachers who lives up country in Kenya during the summer months had come to the city for a few days and was staying at this hotel that was a fraction of the price that we were paying for our hotel. Our hotel was very, very basic by Canadian standards, but it is the high season right now, so it wasn’t cheap. Anyways, Irene suggested seeing how much a room would be for the three of us at this cheap place. Isaac and I agreed that we would first check out a room, and take it from there. Well, before we could hardly blink, and without seeing a room, we were booked into this place for three nights. Imagine what $15 US per night gets you!!! In much lower standards than you and I are used to. Let it suffice to say it was an experience, and thankfully we spent very little time there except for the nights.
In Canada I would hardly think twice about buying Kenyan coffee. It was surprising to find that it’s almost impossible to find an establishment that has brewed coffee; almost everyone just serves a pretty poor instant coffee. So after a number of days Isaac and I wanted a real cup of coffee, and while staying at our wonderfully cheap hotel we decided that we’d check out the 5 star Hilton’s restaurant to see whether they served real coffee. Much to our delight they did, but it came at a crazy high price; we splurged on a very tiny cup of super strong java, but opted out of the $30 US breakfast per person.
The lack of availability of coffee in Kenya is because the growers get much more for their coffee beans when they export. In Burundi, very, very few locals drink coffee even though we have superb coffee grown up country. Reason being most people can’t afford to drink it.
In the afternoon Mercy and Wycliff took us to the August 7th Peace Memorial. This is the US Embassy site that was bombed by Al Quida on August 7th, 1998. Two hundred and eighteen people died. Pretty awful.
In the evening we went to Wycliff’s parents house - super fun people. His dad is the director of admin. in the Kenyan parliament and was very eager to give us a tour of parliament, whether in session or out, which ever we preferred. Across the street from Wycliff’s home is where Mercy grew up with her aunt and uncle because her mom died . So we went and had a nice time with Mercy’s family. Kenyan’s are so friendly and welcoming, and we left with warm invitations to come back, feeling loved and accepted. By Kenyan standards we were, after all, almost family now as well.
To be continued…..
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