Family News

The Lord Knows What we Need

January 5, 2013 valuesdr

For quite a while now, we’ve felt like we really needed to get away as a family. Sometimes living here as the only wazungu in town is like living in a fish bowl. Just a quick illustration:

In discussing the issue of being home-bound yet again with Marc, suddenly he had an idea. Silas owns a large shamba—several acres of farm, field, and trees bordering a river—not too far from our house. He wondered, why couldn’t we go there, spend a few hours and enjoy a picnic lunch? Silas was agreeable to our going and we decided, to everyone’s excitement, to try out a trip there are a family. I was certain that this would help fill in the gaps in terms of what the children felt they had been missing, and I was thankful for the opportunity for some fun family time. Truth be told, the daily grind and Marc’s busy schedule sometimes leave me wishing for a bit of a “Sabbath rest” for all of us, and I hoped this would be it.

We had fun just getting there. It wasn’t “too far,” but a bit of a stretch for lots of little legs to walk comfortably. Isaiah stayed at home with several of the children while Marc, Micah, Jubilee, and I (with Enoch in the Ergo) zipped down to Silas’s on the motorbike. Marc went back for the girls while Isaiah and Jonah rode down on their little Suzuki dirt bike. Of course we had to greet Silas’s mother (who in Kenyan culture is just called “Mama Silas”). She spoke not a word of English but was happy to welcome us to her shamba.

Silas showed us around and, to my disappointment, the river at the back of the property turned out to be at the bottom of about a 10-foot drop-off. Instead of letting the kids leisurely explore as I imagined they would, I nervously kept a grip on Enoch and watched the littles to make sure they didn’t wander too close to the banks. The overgrown fields were fun to explore for a while, but there weren’t as many good climbing trees as the boys thought—those were closer to the house, so back we trekked.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it to the house again, an entourage of about 30 children was watching us like hawks and trying to meet up with us at various points. It seemed there was no “getting away.” And once we got back, Silas unexpectedly told Marc that he had been committed to sharing about the Gospel of the Kingdom at a “Christianized” circumcision ceremony at the house of his neighbor. It was expected that he would stay to eat, but simultaneously Silas’s Mom was also preparing lunch—pulling out all the stops and sending someone to get what was, for them, very expensive fish because she knew the wazungu liked it. By now the children were eager to go home, the morning not turning out to be what they thought, but there was no way we could offend Mama Silas. It seemed we were in a “lose-lose” situation. Ultimately, our fun family day ended up with Marc going next door (for as short a time as possible) and the rest of us hanging out much longer than planned at Silas’s. We ate a lunch of fish which, while tasty, was certainly not accommodating to our mzungu sensibilities. (Whole fish, having been dried and left in the sun at the market, often ends up with maggots in it, and we found some floating in the fish broth. Not to mention, the experience of eating fish whole was not quite appetizing.) We were thankful for the hospitality and were truly blessed that Mama Silas wanted to give us her very best; however, we were also glad to return home after an unexpectedly…interesting morning.

So you can see, we were all out of ideas when it came to what to do to enjoy some time together as a family.

I don’t want to make a long story longer, so I’ll spare you to details of how our family was connected with a group of Mennonite missionary families here in Kisumu–but of course, it was a “God thing.”

Much to our delight, we were invited to their compound for a few days following Christmas. They said we could stay in a guest house there, be well-fed, and have transportation at our disposal to visit the local museum and zoo. After a long but uneventful ride in a semi-private matatu we were warmly welcomed, fed lunch, and enjoyed the company. There were lots of children for our kids to play with and the adult fellowship was a true blessing to me. I don’t think I had realized how much I missed it.

During our first full day we visited both the museum and zoo, so the second day was spent just enjoying the company of several of the families and relaxing. I even got to do two loads of laundry in a washing machine! Needless to say, I felt incredibly spoiled and it was so nice to get a break from that day-in-day-out manual labor. I was equally blessed that they made sure we ate well for every meal—a much greater variety of food than what we have available in our village and even in the next big town. Not to mention, refrigeration meant an opportunity to have cold smoothies and homemade granola with cold milk! It’s amazing how much you take those little things for granted—and what a blessing it was to enjoy for the short time we were there. Most of all, we were blessed by the obvious love of all of these Kingdom Christians and their willing generosity.

Here we are in Kisumu–a rare photo of the whole family, in which *almost* everyone is looking cheerfully at the camera–and only three takes, I think:

(I’m sure you can’t help but notice Micah’s new haircut in the photo. When Silas told us that “Africans no care about quality, they care about price,” he wasn’t kidding. We bought a set of clippers here and I decided to cut Micah’s hair. He likes it short, so opted for a “1,” which has always been super cute on him. Much to my horror, the comb fell off the razor as I was buzzing by his ear, so he was shaved almost to the scalp in a split second. Convinced that I could somehow rescue it, I put the comb back on and continued, only to have it happen again. So, Micah got totally buzz-cut but he had a super attitude about it, praise God!) Now, for the conclusion of our story…..

I came away truly refreshed from our mini-vacation, the burden of discouragement which I had been feeling at that time greatly lifted. The family was likewise encouraged, and we returned to home and “normal” with a renewed sense of God’s grace and goodness (in spite of another round of illness that hit us almost immediately upon our return!) I share this not simply to relate our experience, but to encourage you to consider how you might spur someone around you on to love and good deeds (see Hebrews 10:24)—even if, to you, what you offer seems small.

We are thankful, and God is good.

Kids, Animals, and Bananas

December 4, 2012December 4, 2012 valuesdr

We’ve officially hatched our first set of chicks–they are VERY cute, and we have another set due in just about 5 days. Enoch (who continues to be fascinated by all our critters, especially the bunnies because they are easy to catch) had great interest in the chicks at first. Then he met the pecking end of an unhappy Mama and decided to leave them alone (for the most part). Instead of actively chasing them, he has learned instead to follow Mama while her back is turned and try to do “Nice” (i.e., pet the chicks). But as soon as she catches on and turns around, he runs! Smart kid.

As of this weekend, we’ve also welcomed a new puppy to the family. Don’t know how old he is for sure, but he’s not little and not big. His name is Simba, and he looks like a cross between a German Shepherd and a Yellow Lab. He has integrated into our family surprisingly well. He was a little skittish his first day but now is learning to come when called and already barks when people come into the yard. Isaiah has taken charge of dog training and baked up some dog treats to use as rewards. Unfortunately, we had to make another batch in not too much time because everyone decided that they made really good snacks! (It’s not as gross as you might think. They’re just corn meal, wheat flour, beef broth, egg, and salt–a tasty cracker substitute.)

Spoiled "mzungu" dog. You'll never catch an African dog sleeping on a chair!

We’re all excited also for our first harvest of bananas. There are two varieties here: sweet and starchy. The sweet bananas are what you’d expect (smaller than what you’d get in a US grocery–kind of like the ones they try to sell you for a higher price because they’re so small that they must be “gourmet” or something). The starchy bananas are eaten while still green and they’re boiled and mashed or cut and fried. Of course we prefer the sweet variety but we have both in our back yard. It’s been interesting watching the baby bananas form–not what we expected. The flower is HUGE and the bananas literally unfold row by row and eventually the flower falls off.

And, totally unrelated to the “new developments” featured in this post, here’s a photo of Enoch “helping” Rebekah do laundry this morning.

Thanksgiving

November 22, 2012November 22, 2012 valuesdr

I hadn’t made any big plans for Thanksgiving (in spite of its being all over Facebook) because, you know, Thanksgiving is an American holiday and we’re not in America any more. Not to mention, a turkey is totally unheard of here.

However, last night Marc finally figured out that today, everyone in America would be celebrating–giving thanks to God AND enjoying a feast as well. He determined that we needed to keep some vestige of American tradition and announced that he would go into town this morning (Thanksgiving day) to gather supplies for an evening meal. Chicken and mashed potatoes seemed the next best thing to turkey, but the boys weren’t too excited about the prospect of slaughtering our celebratory dinner. And all the kids piped in with their opinion: if we were going to splurge on a meal, it might as well be pizza. Nothing beats pizza! Marc suggested seeing if our neighbors had a duck they wanted to sell, but that was quickly shot down and a second vote taken for pizza.

The two adults conferred and agreed that bacon cheeseburgers were a reasonable alternative to turkey, but the children unanimously overrode our suggestion once again with pizza. So it was decided that today, we shall give thanks and celebrate, with bacon cheeseburgers and french fries for the adults and pizza for the children. (Though the adults will probably have to at least *try* the pizza. It’s a rare treat!)

So today, Marc and Deborah are off on the motorbike to town. I hope the market has cheese! (Sometimes they don’t.) We are thankful for how God has been working in our lives and in our community. We’re thankful to be feeling more at home here. And certainly we are thankful that we will be eating cheeseburgers and pizza, while many of our neighbors only enjoy meat once a year and sometimes don’t have their daily ugali. Count your blessings, and pray for those who aren’t feeling so thankful today. See how you can reach out and touch someone else’s life. Be blessed today!

Finally Feeling at Home

November 20, 2012 valuesdr

I just realized that tomorrow marks our 9-month anniversary of being in Kenya. Perhaps it’s just the passage of time, but for the past couple of weeks I’ve finally felt at home here. When I walk out the back door, the landscape doesn’t strike me as being quite so foreign. I’m familiar with most of the kids who hang around the front gate, and if I’m not I know how to politely chase them away. I have a better idea about we can and can’t acquire at the local markets and how much things should cost. After spending our first few months feeling like all we did was work, work, work (and lucky to get language arts and math done each day), we’re more at ease with our daily tasks and everybody pitches in fairly well to get done what needs doing. Our schooling is, as a result, a little more in-depth, which is good.

Last but not least, Marc has spent more time at home these last few weeks and I feel like we’ve finally been able to relax a bit and just enjoy each other. Yahtzee is our new favorite family game. The girls and I had some free time to make a paper “picnic playset,” the kids and I did some coloring and played with clay, and I’ve been able to actually sit down and read stories with my little ones. Oddly enough, it’s been reading aloud to the littles that I’ve missed the most during these busy nine months. I feel like I’m finally able to catch my breath.

So that’s it…no big lessons or lofty exhortations from this blog post. Just thankfulness. 🙂 I pray that you will embrace all the little moments that you have with your family and appreciate wherever you are in your journey.

New Additions and Random Thoughts on Baby Talk

October 31, 2012October 31, 2012 valuesdr

Things have been quiet here lately (relatively speaking). Marc has been home for the past couple of weeks and that has allowed him needed time to invest in his local disciples. He’s also been able to do some work around the yard, including fencing in with chicken wire for some rabbits and chickens and making proper housing for each. The children are thrilled with the new additions! Feels more like home and brings back good memories.

Here are just a few of the new additions–the one gray rabbit is Peter, and he’s officially the “pet,” though the others will eventually end up in the pot. 🙂

With the difficulty of getting eggs in quantity, I was especially pleased that we acquired twelve chickens (though only 8 are hens and quite a few of them still young). Within a few days we started getting two eggs a day–yay!! But our neighbor insisted that one of the hens we had gotten from him would go broody if we let them collect, and he assured us that increasing our flock was a good thing. Marc agreed, and so…we’re still buying eggs, a few here and a few there, as we wait to see if Mama Hen will, indeed, step up.

Enoch (at almost 18 months now!) keeps us all smiling, although as Marc said the other day, “He’s one-foot-three with a five-foot attitude.” Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. As we say, he is rather “vertically challenged.” Here’s a recent photo of Enoch reading with Jubilee:

I remember Isaiah at this age–talking a blue streak such that I was able to have adult-like conversations with him. At the time, I thought that was normal. By the time we got to number 5 (who was rather slow to talk), I remember asking the pediatrician about his lack of verbalization. He assured me that by 18 months, most children only have about six words in their vocabulary. I was rather surprised but could actually count six words that Micah was able to say. Enoch also seems rather non-verbal, though he certainly makes himself known and his intentions clear. Here are his words (you can see he favors the “N” sound!):

Nigh-Nigh (when it’s sleepy time)

No-No (you can guess he hears this a lot!)

Nose

Nice (He was so mean to the cats that we’ve trained him a bit on how to pet them “nice” and he’s actually getting it!)

Dada

Mama

Bye (when Daddy leaves on the motor bike…accompanied by “vvvvvvvvvvvvvv,” since he loves the vroom-vroom!)

Dit! (When the chickens come in the house, I say, “Git!” and chase them out. Very cute to see little Enoch chase a chicken, waving his fat little fist at it, boldly declaring that it should, “DIT!”)

Wow, just shy of 18 months and…eight words!

The Lord Helps Those who Help Themselves

September 20, 2012September 21, 2012 valuesdr

We have a good-sized garden, largely planted with sukuma (greens) which are a staple here along with ugali. Trouble is, we mzungus don’t eat that much of it and as a result, many of our neighbors have been invited to come and pick greens at will. And they do. But the plot has become rather neglected and overgrown, frankly, because the daily labor of wash, food preparation, schooling, and such is quite enough to fill my hours. I haven’t made the garden a priority.

But yesterday it came to my attention that the condition of our little shamba (farm) is bordering on shameful, and folks are talking. So, today I sent Isaiah out with the slasher to cut the overgrowth along our back fence, Rebekah stepped up to do laundry while Jonah cultivated around our various fruit trees and Deborah and I grabbed some hoes and weeded in the garden. I decided that two rows would suffice for today, and then we’d call it quits and move on to school.

Lo and behold, as we finished our second row (surprisingly, a good two hours’ work), my neighbor–one who regularly comes to pick our greens—sauntered over and grabbed Deborah’s hoe. So I kept on working a third row alongside of her. Not more than ten minutes had passed when a large group of teenaged girls came by and began loitering along our fence. Apparently the sight of a mzungu hoeing is amusing. Well, Christine let them have it and, after a barrage of Bukusu (the local tribal dialect), most of the girls came into the yard. Several took over the hoes we had, a few started toward the back yard with the wheelbarrow full of weeds, and the rest headed for the swing set. It seemed they traded off play for labor amongst themselves and Christine made an excellent overseer. I finished up the “hard laundry” that Bekah couldn’t manage to scrub, and then went in to clean the kitchen floor (which had also been on my to-do list for this morning).

By the time noon rolled around, there was more play than work going on and some of the neighborhood “bad element” had snuck in under cover of all the activity to glance surreptitiously (and not so surreptitiously) at some of the kitchen things that I had moved outside in order to clean the floor, and into the kitchen itself. I ended up chasing everyone out of the yard, but not before about 3/4 of the garden had been cultivated.

Although “The Lord helps those who helps themselves” isn’t exactly a Biblical statement, it sure was true today. I’m praising God for a community of hard workers and glad to have gotten so much accomplished!

Water, Water, Everywhere…

September 14, 2012 valuesdr

…and not a drop to drink? Yes, such has occasionally been the case in the last six-plus months here in Kenya. To say that water has been a challenge would certainly be an understatement.

It started with carrying water…and complaining.

Then, the blessing of a rainwater collection tank (and piping to a spigot right outside our back door!) followed by a catastrophic failure that required major re-investment and work.

Then, later, digging a borehole and developing it into a well–with no little trouble of its own. And finally, INDOOR RUNNING WATER at the kitchen sink and the hand-washing sink in the dining area! If you knew my sweet Uncle Bud (my grandfather’s brother), you’d smile like I did when I heard his response to that major advance in technology: “That’s an answer to a prayer I didn’t even pray yet!” But even gaining that involved its own time, money and stress. Plumbing (especially of the indoor variety) is not, as you can imagine, very common here, and there’s no Home Depot or Lowe’s for one-stop shopping. The local hardware store is barely adequate to the task. We’ve had fittings that don’t fit, hose that exploded under pressure, and leaks innumerable. We’ve disconnected and re-connected, tested, and replaced things too many times to count.

Icing on the cake? The loss of our American-bought well pump after a torrential rain somehow muddied the crystal clear well-water and the pump couldn’t keep up with continual use as we tried to clean out the system. Glenn Roseberry (who visited us before moving on to Tanzania) graciously brought us a new pump in his luggage, and we recently got everything up and running once again. Not sure why, but the water is no longer crystal-clear, so we’ve reverted to bleaching our drinking water again (after the failure of our brought-from-America Berkey water filter…sigh…)

All that to say, given our history with water, I’m not sure how long this will last–but we’re all very excited to have a HOT WATER SHOWER!

Busy Morning, Ending with SWING SET!

September 4, 2012September 3, 2012 valuesdr

While I did my morning’s wash, here’s what was going on around me:

Aniga came over early, and he, Marc, and Isaiah started on building the swing set. After leaving instructions for the completion of the project, Marc left for a meeting with a local pastor.

Here are Isaiah and Aniga working on the build:

While I was busy with laundry, Rebekah was taking care of a few things in the house: dishes, baby-watching, and filling up the drinking water:

Hannah helped Rebekah with the dishes and baby-watching, then she carried swings out to the guys so they’d be ready to hang when the time came:

Micah and Jubilee were out digging “bore holes” in the sand pile–

Deborah (my right-hand gal) helped me with the laundry and then hit the books.

Jonah got to take it easy a bit…he’s not been feeling well. He did some language arts and then this:

Amidst all these “goings-on,” we had a guest visiting. Gilbert has been attending our house church and is a pretty good translator. He’s had some health problems and hasn’t been working his farm, so he’s had financial struggles as well. Unfortunately, finding work that he can do is difficult. One thing we did was to have him go through a “Beginning Horticulture” course (though we still have to review all of his questions-and-answers); eventually, Kingdom Driven Ministries will provide him with a certificate of completion. Now, we’ve decided to teach him how to use the computer. Surprising how difficult this is when you don’t grow up at all familiar with the technology (like the average American). Here is Gilbert hard at work, copying the Sermon on the Mount in Microsoft Word:

Enoch, though being “watched” by his two older sisters, still eventually managed to get into the dishes they were doing:

By this time, the first swing was up–Enoch laughed and smiled through his whole “maiden voyage”:

Lunch time rolled around, and no one wanted to eat. Here’s what they did instead:

Cute Baby, Big Brothers, and Donkeys in the Yard

August 31, 2012 valuesdr

Lately we’ve all seemed tired, some have had recurring headaches, and each day has had enough trouble of its own…so blogging has kind of fallen by the wayside. Here are a few photos by way of update:

Enoch, at 15 months, keeps us all smiling. Still pretty much non-verbal (except for the occasional “Mama” or “bye,”) he still manages to communicate quite well. His loud and abrupt, “Eh!” sound usually indicates that an older sibling is provoking him in some way and he is not pleased. Enoch also has an amusing love/hate relationship with both our cats. They put up with his merciless pulling of fur because they usually end up sharing food on the floor after meals. Here, I put the pan of crumbs on the floor for the cats after we had polished off our breakfast cake–and look who ended up with the advantage!

A week or so ago, Isaiah was experimenting with molding plastic (not sure why, but it’s always one project or another). He needed some good “clay” to make a mold for the melted plastic and the soil right next to our house showed some good specimens. He set to work digging a big hole, and up toddled Enoch to “help.” He loves to copy his big brother. 🙂

And speaking of big brothers, the entire neighborhood now knows that our 11 year-old, Jonah’s, greatest wish was to find a chameleon for a pet in Africa. As a result, he now has SIX. Here is one. He has names for them all, but I can’t keep up. He spends about an hour a day hunting for appropriate-sized flies, grasshoppers, and crickets to feed all these little guys. The locals are scared of them and believe them to be poisonous. Our neighbor, witnessing both Jonah and Rebekah handling them, said she thinks that we must be using some chemicals on our hands to be able to do that safely.

Please disregard the pretty pink princess sleeping bag hanging over Isaiah’s head here. (It started to rain before the laundry was completely dry, so we have a back-up clothesline stretched across the kitchen.) Isaiah decided to use my kitchen counter as a work bench for his new “business”–grinding jembes (hoes), slashers, pangas (machetes), axes, and knives. It puts a few shillings in his pocket, which he is excited about. We have talked at length about “business opportunities” for the boys–we don’t want to take business away from any locals, and will allow them to pursue things that only “we” are able to do. Because we have solar power and an inverter as well as a generator–and a good grinding tool–Isaiah is able to do this work, which no one else in the area does. Jonah has been baking cakes for a couple of local shops and selling small pieces for 5 shillings each–also something that no one else does because, of course, only the mzungus have an oven!

Finally, we’ve been having a local guy (Aniga) do some various odd jobs for us, most involving working with wood. One project is to make a smaller gate in our fence (we currently have a very large and very heavy gate, which takes two people to open and close. We don’t really need one that large for foot traffic and Marc’s motor bike, which is mostly what goes in and out). Also, eventually he will be building a SWING SET for the children! (Can’t wait for this one!!) Grampy gave the kids a Wal-Mart gift card for Christmas right before we moved and we bought and shipped in our crate a few swings and all the bracketry we would need to assemble a swing set–the only thing we’ve been lacking is lumber. So that’s on the agenda, too. Anyway, recently Aniga went out to purchase some big lumber. Usually things make it home by motorbike, but the size and weight of these was just too much for a piki-piki. We were all surprised and quite amused when THIS showed up in our front yard:

Yes, those are donkeys. Expect the unexpected!

“Cans, eh?”

August 10, 2012 valuesdr

One of the things we brought with us to Africa is our canning supplies. We were told that it is impossible to procure canning jars and canning pots here; people just don’t use them. I can understand why. With a practically year-round growing season, why would you? Not only that, but the amount of fuel required to pressure can (or even water bath can) is beyond the budget of most folks. Thus, dried everything: corn, beans, peas, mushrooms, etc.

But I have to admit, we mzungus like the flavor of fresh. And this mzungu Mama likes the ease of opening a couple of cans and having dinner 2/3 ready, versus spending the day cleaning, soaking, and cooking something…dry. Last but not least, the mzungu palate is a little more varied than that of the locals–we appreciate french beans (commonly called “green beans”), tomatoes, and sweet corn. Sweet corn is unheard of, and green beans and tomatoes are not always in season–and when not, they are more expensive than other food items.

We probably didn’t know it when we packed our gear, but as much as canning is certainly a novelty here, we are really going to appreciate having the technology at our disposal. We have recently bought 39 kilos of french beans for…very cheap…because they are ready and there’s not much market for them among the locals. Those who grow them want to sell them before the crop is spoiled. As well, just yesterday we harvested our crop of sweet corn–yum!! We’re looking forward to tomatoes, but…not yet.

In any case, we’ve already canned 42 quarts of beans and between yesterday and today, the same amount of sweet corn, plus an additional amount of beans.

People keep dropping in to see the process—they are quite intrigued. When we tell them that cans can keep food fresh on the shelf for…years…the typical response is, “Eh?!” (“Eh?” is a general expression of surprise or disbelief.)

Here are some photos from our work today:

Big girls snipping beans