Uko Wapi?

Samuel Jaylon Rice

2011-07-24T21:06:00.001-07:00

Would like you all to meet our fourth child! Samuel was born on April 21 at 130 in the afternoon.He was 6 lb 13 oz and 19in long! He came home on Easter Sunday. Sorry I am so late to post but I am sure you can image why! Life has been a bit crazy however summer has been nice. I have been home and Michael had a lighter schedule since he taught summer school. Four kids under four, or better yet three under 19 mo. is well... Hard but good. God is better to us then we will ever deserve.
So I know what you really want to see are some pictures of us. Well we have yet to do a family portrait however we can show you a few of us.

New House

2011-03-23T10:54:00.001-07:00

So we bought a house in Clear Lake, Texas.
We are loving it and we are trying our best to get though this crazy semester, with Michael working long hours at his new teaching job (which is hard but he loves) and me working every night of the week teaching at San Jac. God is good all the time, he is giving us rest when we need rest, He is making our marriage stronger, He is providing support with all the children, but mostly He is not leaving us to do this on our own, because we could not last a second outside of Him.
Update on baby number 4, we don't have much news which makes us sad, but we are trusting the Lord as He knits this child the way He wants them knitted.
Here are some pictures to enjoy!

Catching you up...

2010-12-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

So our life seems to be moving much faster then I could keep up on blogging about it. All the kids are in bed right now, I find it to be a small victory if I can get them all a sleep especially at nap time.
Anyhow, we have been able to see Jennifer once since Isaiah was born and since we learned that she was expecting again. She seemed... well I am sure you can image how she might be. We have posted a picture of Jennifer with Isaiah. She is due late April early May, please keep her and our next child in your prayers, we are already terribly in love.

Other news, It looks like Michael may have a job. As some of you might have heard Michael is being laid off on Jan. 6th. He was going to student teach for free for 14 weeks however he has been able to find a job with the help of God (of course). He will be a Jr high teacher at a charter school for children in the CPS system. It is a Depelchin school and it is govern by the state of Texas so he will still be able to get his certification at the end of a paid year!!! So he is set to start after going to Austin for training on Jan. 10. Thank you for all who prayer for this.

We were set to move in with Carol, Michael's mom at the end of Jan. however we are still very much on the fence about it all. Too much change for all of us to handle. So with that being said, maybe pray that we find an amazing house that fits all the Rice tribe.

Also I have posted some home made gifts, Tilda, Evie and I made.They are stationary. Isaiah helped by sleeping while we worked. The boy is CRAZY!! All boy and no crafts makes a sad mom and Tilda. So he naps and we craft away. I also made pillows for a few family members no photo of that.

Holloween 2010

2010-11-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

So life has been busy to say the least. Who knew 3 kids would be so much work. Wink!

So it is looking like Michael's last day of work will be Jan. 7, 2011 and he will start his student teaching the same month. It is non paying so it looks like I will step up teaching at the community college. I was hoping to teach 5 classes but it looks like I will be teaching 6 maybe even 7 classes.

We are going to stop doing Apartment life also in Jan. and move in with Michael's mom. We still deeply miss Gary (Michael's daddy) however we know that God is good and that he will give us peace. We are excited about this next chapter in our life.

Isaiah's tummy mom is due with our forth child in May, she would like me to be at the delivery and I could not be more honored. Please pray for Jennifer during this very hard season in her life. Pray that God will reveal himself to her in a mighty way.

Isaiah Is truly a Rice and talk of baby number 4

2010-10-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of Isaiah's finalization! Great day for the rices!

Also we have learned that Isaiah's birthmother Jennifer is expecting again and is due in April. As of now she would like us to raise this baby also. While we already know that we would be honored and excited about this next baby. We are in deep prayer for Jennifer as we know this is not easy for her. We are also trusting God to provide for ALL of us.

Enjoy this pics.

Another BABY!!

2010-08-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

We had our 3rd child on July 31 at 340am after just 6 hours of labor. I got to the hospital an hour before she came! Her name is Evelyn Estelle Rice and she was 9 lb and 22 in long! Big girl but not as big as her sister. So now we have three beautiful children with the oldest being 3 yrs old!! We are so busy I don't even know where to begin, Michael is working, I am teaching 3 classes at night and we are still doing Apartment Life. I must admit that something has got to give soon, it is a little over whelming, but God is good and our children are amazing, as is our family so we are going strong and are hopeful at what the future will hold.
So enjoy some pics

a long overdue update

2010-07-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Not sure who even reads this any more or even checks this blog, but here is a quick update.
1. We adopted our beautiful son Isaiah Christopher Rice on Jan 7th 2010. (It will be finalized some time soon, we are hoping Aug.)

2. I am 38 weeks pregnant and due July 19th (But think I will be late like Matilda)

So here shortly we will have 3 kids under 3 years old, until Aug 16th when tilda will be 3 years old.

3. We are still doing Apartment Life Ministries. In January we will have finished 3 years and that is the length of time we thought God wanted us to serve.

4. Michael's dad passed away on March 30th and the loss has been much harder then anything we have ever had to face. He was loved and is missed greatly.

All of these updates could each have a long post of their own. But like I said at the time I am trying to cope with Texas heat while I am big and fat with a baby and trying to keep up with 2 little ones.

here are a few more pictures to enjoy:

Time and Friends Have a Way of Passing

2009-05-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

On a very sad note, we lost a friend at House of Hope that we were very close to. His name was Wainaina Basigwa he was a boy that i went with Margaret to rescue. It has been a little hard on Michael and I. We have felt so alone at times and when this happened it reminded us of just how far we are from them. We know we will see Wainaina again one day in heaven, however, I wish I would have looked each child in the eyes and told them that they changed me forever and that I love them so much. I know that Wainaina would not have understood me but he would have seen it in my eyes that I loved him and that he was so special to me. He had an amazing smile and his voice was high pitch and so excited all the time. Michael can do a great impression of it. I did not treat Africa or everything about it with the respect it so deserved, one day I hope to correct my wrongs. Please pray for everyone at House of Hope, I am sure this is hard on everyone. Wainaina will be missed by everyone that ever knew him.

On a lighter note:

Michael's birthday is tomorrow he will be 29 years old. We met when he was only 17, crazy!! Man have I seen him grown into an amazing man. God is so faithful even when we are not.

Matilda will be 2 in Aug. I think that is even weirder to type then Michael being 29. I am so in love with her. She is perfect. She is so strong but still so needy. She is so freakin smart and yet still has so much to learn. She is simply amazing in every way.
She just had her first cast taken off about 3 weeks ago. She fractured her wrist playing on a rocking horse. She is going to be a hand full we can tell already.

We are still serving at London Belle. We love what we are doing however we have never really done or stayed any where longer then a year or so. So we find ourselves getting a little stir crazy at times. But God has us here in this time and this place for a purpose. So we will wait and serve Him here until He tells us what next, if He ever tells us what next.

Side note:
We sent out a news letter not that long ago (before we lost our friend), if you did not get one and would like one, send us an email or a comment and one will come your way.

Why so long since an update?

2008-10-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know, I mean sure I could blame the kid or the ministry but lets be honest other moms are updating and they have many more babies then I. Sure I have been a knitting fool and Tilda and I love riding our bike to the park every day and I run a organic coop on Wed. that I just love and I have started tutoring some kids on Thur. for a little extra dough, but really I could spare a min. or two to update all 5 of my readers, right! So yea now you know what I have been up to. Tilda is walking now or better said, running. Michael and I have started the process to adopt (slowly started). We are totally in love with our apartment community and Michael got a different job with a little different hours. So yea here are some picture for your viewing pleasure, enjoy.

Tilda on her first birthday!

This is how we got though Hurricane Ike
she loved this thing!

This is how I get anything done in the kitchen.

some pictures

2008-04-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

We have more on our flicker account!!!
Hope you enjoy.

So much to write about and so little time.

2008-04-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

I think I am in a season of falling in love; in love with my family, my God, my community, and my hobbies.

I still find that having a child is a tab bit weird. I mean I still catch myself thinking, I can’t believe I am a mom and we are a family and this is my life. Not a bad life by any means, just my life. Matilda is perfect! Michael is an amazing husband and father. Matilda is just in love with him. I love to see the father/daughter thing unfold right before my eyes. Some of the things I love are:
1. When Matilda wakes up in the morning, she is just so happy to see you next to her in bed (we co-sleep) She just smiles and smiles.
2. I love her messy messy kisses! She has started to grab my lips and go in for an open mouth kiss, then she wants to eat my nose with her two sharp teeth.
3. I love how she plays peek a boo, we did not do this with her all that much but she loves to play it. She will just tuck her head down and wait till we say “where is Tilda?” and then she lifts up with a big smile on her face. If she has a piece of cloth then she will use that.
4. I love our bath time, she loves the water and her ducks!
5. I love to watching her sleep, she has her arms all spread out and her legs all over the place and she does this breathing thing every once in a while that she has done since she was born that Michael and I just love.

Some other things I love about my family:
1. Michael coming home at the end of the day and he is happy to see us and tells me everyday that he misses us and that he loves us so much.
2. Michaels family, they are amazing and they love us so so much, we miss living with them and we miss all the extra hands. But I miss long talks with Carol and laughs and cooking with Gary.

Now onto how I am falling in love with my God all over again:
God has brought us just where he wants us to be in this season of our lives. I mean we still very much miss Africa and we feel guilty some times for not being there when they are going though all that they are going though. We miss the kids a lot and we feel like we let them down by not staying the year we said we would be there and the lifetime we said we would be their to ourselves. But none-the-less God knew what he was doing by bring us home and by placing us here at London Belle apartments. He has blessed us with a great area director and a beautiful staff that are such hard workers, but I will get more into that when I talk about my love for my community. Anyhow I am seeing and feeling God all over the place. He is so good and faithful, more than I will ever deserve.

Now on to my community:
I have two beautiful communities, my apartment community, that I love serving thought Apartment life, and then there is my church community, Basilica, they are so amazing and they are coming along side us and walking with us and serving beside us at London Belle. So here is my list:
1. All the residents that we have been able to serve. There is a nice group of elderly people that are so sassy and so sweet, they love Matilda as a grandchild and that is so refreshing.
2. Basilica is so great they are always quick to help and to give of themselves.
3. I love the apartment staff, so friendly and they just love Matilda.

NOW ONTO MY HOBBIES!!!
So of course being a mom is #1 but other things I have been falling in love with are…
1. The organic veggie and fruit co-op that I co-lead with my best friend Heather. I love all the people that come out to buy they’re share and share ideas. I just love eating all the good veggies and fruit. I love that Matilda is seeing me do this, I pray that she will love fresh fruit and veggies, I hope to be growing my own soon!!
2. I love to KNIT!!! I have made all kinds of things!! I love it, I love yarn, learning different patterns and skills. I just love it!!!
3. I want to love to sew, but I have yet to really learn, I have an amazing sewing machine that I got for Christmas from Michael’s family.
4. I started a boot camp fitness program 3 days a week for a hour and I am starting to fall in love with it, while I am working my butt off I am not so much loving it, but what I am feeling in my body I am loving.

Ok so sorry I have just made you read this crazy long update, I hope you made it to the end, if you did then God bless you. We love you.

I Gots My First Toof!

2008-02-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

Matilda is resting and I am getting things done around the house so that is nice. Much has happened since Michael’s list and I will try to catch you all up. Well I tried the work thing and it was not my cup of tea right now. Matilda was not doing all that hot in her class and that was making me so sad, and I kept feeling like I do not have to do this to her. My class was nice and the kids were so smart. Matilda and I were spending way too much time in traffic and the gas, oh don’t get me started on the gas. Well after I paid for Matilda’s class and all the gas, I was making about $70 a week and well that would never make it worth it. So I quit. It is nice to be back home with my baby again. I just kept thinking this is the only season of my life I would have this time with her and well, I want to make myself sick of her, wink wink.
Michael tried the Grad class and it too was not his cup of tea, for now anyways, maybe another time. He just realized it was a lot of work for this season of our lives. We have started doing Apartment life again and well having a 6 mo. old and him working and doing ministry, it all added up to way too much right now. So he is all mine on Thursday nights again!! Well mine and LOST (the show).
Matilda is great, she is growing so fast, I kept saying we are going to blink and she is going to be a big girl, but really it feels faster then that. Some days it stills feels surreal and I fall in love all over again. I think our lives will never be what it was and that is weird and cool all at the same time. We are really a mom and a dad. My sister is living with us, so that has made it seem even more like we are a mom and a dad. She is doing well here and I know this is the right place for her. She is a big help and Matilda just loves her. I know Matilda misses Nanny and Paw, but we try to see them often. I miss them too!! When I was pregnant we watched this show called Big Brother and now that it is on again and I realize just how much I miss them. Carol had really become a good friend to me and I really am missing that. Also, they were a huge help with Tilda. We spent countless hours in the back yard swinging on the swing just to get her to sleep. Carol and Gary have done more for us then we could ever repay or thank enough.
Well Tilda is awake and I have to change her and get her dressed now. Now that I am home I will try to update more. Thank you for still reading.

Due to a lack of updating: A List!

2008-01-04T03:11:00.000-08:00

The thing about blogging is this:

You have to blog.

I just figured this out.

Sorry.

When you go an extended amount of time without updating you reach a point where the thought of returning to the blog is a daunting task.

So I thought I would remedy this by simply creating a list of whats been happening and to catch everyone up to speed. Plus, I like lists, I think a lot of people do.

So here we go:

1. Tilda is amazing. Plain and simple. You can look at our Flickr photostream to the right and see that. She is extremely entertaining and adorable. She will destroy us all.
2. Tammi is teaching at Montessori Country Day School in the museum district. This is the school that helped us out so much when we were preparing for Kenya. Tammi is still feeling her way around but I think she will do great. Plus, with Tammi working there Tilda has been accepted into the program at a drastically reduced rate.
3. Tammi and I are returning to Apartment Life. We move into the London Belle Apartments on January 19th. We are excited and scared at the same time. I think it will be really good to return to ministry.
4. Tammi's sister, Kim, will be moving in with us. I'm sure this will be fun and trying at the same time. (I keed, I keed[but kinda not]).
5. I am giving a sermon this Sunday at Basilica about worry, and strangely enough, I am not worried about it. I guess this faith thing really works, whoda thunk it?!
6. I fractured my ankle three days before Christmas then got sick and slept for two days. So yay!
7. Pray for Kenya. I know a lot of the updates most of you get have put a lot of blame on the opposition party. And while they are to blame for a lot of the problems going on right now, I can't help but feel something is not on the up and up with the Kibaki Administration. Remember people: Just because a group is already in power does not mean that they are always in the right. (*steps down from soapbox*)
8. I am going to graduate school under the Cross Cultural Studies Program. I start my first class in about 9 days. It's a Cultures of the Middle East Lecture, and should be fun. (A side note: graduate school is expensive! Pray for one of two things: I will actually be eligible for financial aid, and not just be given the "gift of a student loan" or that my company will accept my proposal and pay for my schooling(Go Space!).

That's it! I am sure I missed something, but it's 5:30 in that morning.

Sorry about no 9 or 10, I hope that doesn't disrupt anyones day.

Love-
Michael

P.S. We are totally not in Tanzania anymore, I just haven't had the chance to change the banner.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

Matilda wanted to wish you all a Happy Halloween!

Since we have been back (which still feels like yesterday, but it has been almost 8 mo.) I have felt like it was almost Christmas time. I think it was being around family again, and not having a traditional Christmas last year. Either way now it is getting close. I am getting so excited about Christmas music, shopping, eating, decorating, Matilda's first one (Christmas that is) and I am sure the list could go on. Either way Halloween is the gateway to Christmas!

Other random things. I think Michael and I have decided to do Apartment Life again. So we are getting excited about that. Many reason have lead to this decision, however we just really want to be serving again. We miss this a lot. Plus we always wanted Matilda to see us serving others. Also this will allow me to stay at home with her without the crazy stress of how ends will be met. However we still have the interview process to go, so we are not a 100% sure yet. We are going to trust God on this one.

So not to much else going on, just enjoying the great weather while it last and looking forward to the cold coming and get us.

I am a big girl

2007-09-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

So Life is different now and will be for the rest of our lives, but in a great way. Things for the most part are falling into place, however some days still feel a little weird. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since Matilda came into the world and most days it seems like she has always been here and other days it seems weird that I am a mom now.I mean I love her so much but when she wakes me up in the middle of the night, those are some hard times. Well it does not help that she likes to eat every 2 hours if not less. However I am very grateful that she is nursing so well and growing so good. She was born exactly 5 mo. from when we got back from Africa and that is still very surreal for us. On Aug. 7, 2007 marked 1 year from when we left for Africa, to spend the rest of our lives and now a year later we are parents to our own child. Our hearts still miss all the children in Africa. I think sometime what the children would have thought of Matilda. I wonder if God will allow us to go back one day. I admit at first I did not what to ever go back but as the mo. go by my heart is growing soft again for my love for Africa. It is so hard to pray about missions right now. My heart and my mind are not on the same page and I want it to be so bad. I know that Matilda is only 3 weeks old but I want her to know how much we love her and that we want to trust the Lord with her life and not us. I wish I could express my feeling better but everything is hard to put into words right now. I feel so lucky and so loved and so blessed by a God that keeps loving me even when I don't deserve it.

Matilda Eloise Rice

2007-08-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

Born: 08/16/2007 at 09:39pm
Weight: 9 pounds 6 Ounces
Length: 21 inches

It started like this:
We had our regular office visit with the midwives on Wednesday. We had already been told that, with Tammi being almost overdue by 2 weeks, Friday would be last day of the pregnancy. After an ultrasound we were told that the amniotic fluid was low and it would be best to deliver on Thursday. THE NEXT DAY!

I think we handled everything in stride. We were told to call Thursday morning at 5 am to see if there was a room ready, if there was, we would be told when to come in.

Sure enough, there was an opening and we were told to come in at 7 am. We arrived to find that we got the room we wanted with the garden jacuzzi tub (this was a must since Tammi wanted to labor in the tub). By 9 am Tammi was put on pitocin and the contractions began soon after, which was welcomed, except they were coming right on top of each other, rather than offering a break in-between, which was unfortunate, more so for Tammi than for me.

Initially the progress was slow. Tammi arrived at 2 centimeters and several hours later was only up to 3. But as Tammi reached 5 centimeters things really began to roll! During this time Tammi began feeling discouraged, but she focused her mind and heart on Christ, we read the scripture that everyone had given us, and prayed and after a hard couple of hours Tammi was at 8 centimeters! As Jana, the midwife, was telling us this, Tammi's water broke! At this time Jana took Tammi off the Pitocin and moved her to the tub. Needless to say this offered some much needed relief to Tammi.

After the tub we moved back to the bed and began pushing. It was such hard work, but 39 minutes later little Matilda came out. We were so happy. It was so overwhelming but in such a beautiful way. I can't even describe it. I'm sure all you parents out there know what I am talking about.

I am so proud of our little girl! I am so blessed to have the ONLY perfect child ever born (theologians: put your Bibles down, it was a joke!). But more than that, I am so proud of Tammi. She was so strong and fierce, she is truly unstoppable with Christ on her side!

There was some tearing, due to Matilda's coming out Superman style (fist first, followed by head), so we have had to stay a little longer in the hospital. We are hoping to leave Saturday afternoon, if all goes well.

Thank you God for my family! I am so blessed. Thank you for the community that has surrounded us and loved us. Thank you for your Son and the life that His death has granted us.

Thank you for my little girl.

Note: This is much more condensed account of the event, I am sure Tammi will fill all of you in later on.

41+

2007-08-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

So here I am 41+ weeks and still no baby. We are all doing well. However the midwives will not let me go past next Friday. So here is hoping that the baby gets the hint and decides to come before they evict him or her. I would like the baby to come on its own but we are both still very comfortable. We will keep everyone posted because the baby will be here soon!!!!!

Also I forgot to tell everyone about the great baby shower we had! We were blessed more then we could imaged. We were nervous because it rained hard for the whole day but low and behold all our friends and family came out to bless us with their love and support. Thank you.

We also had an amazing Mother and Father blessing from our community. Our baby is so lucky, as are we, for having such a God loving community.

40 weeks and counting

2007-07-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

So I sit here at about 40 weeks pregnant (Due Aug.4th) and I am feeling really well. We are about ready for the baby (as ready as any new parents could be), we are very excited. However if the baby is not ready for another 2 weeks that would be ok with me also, I am not tired of being pregnant yet. Sure I would like to meet the little person that has been inside of me for all this time and sure I would love to know if it is a boy or a girl and sure I would like to be able to sleep again (as well as a new mom could sleep), however I know that the moment this little person comes out it will start to grow much too fast and I will blink and it will be a big kid. So with it in my tummy I feel like it is safe and still little (I hope).
Other news:
Michael gave his first sermon and he did great. I was so proud of him for not getting too overwhelmed and he even seemed a little relaxed as he made strong points and good jokes. I know he worked very hard on it and I could not be prouder. I thank God all the time for giving me a husband like Michael. I know that sounds so mussy but it is true. I think back all the time to the man he use to be and the man he is today and wow God is good.

Oh My...

2007-05-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

!!!

Thoughts about being back.

2007-05-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

I have been back in America for 8 weeks and I have yet to fully deal with everything. The emotions of being back in America and not in Africa anymore, the emotions of leaving the children in Africa that I thought would be like mine, the emotions of having a baby, the emotions of Michael working and me not and us not being together every waking moment. The emotions of having an amazing church family that wants to hang out with us, the emotions of being around a large crowd of people, and well I guess the list could go on and on.

However here I am, a stay at home wife growing a baby inside of me. I still feel like I am keeping my life fairly simple to say the least, as simple as you can in America. My mother-in-law taught me to knit so I am knitting now, I am making a sweater for the baby and I am doing a really intense bible study, I try to walk 3 miles a day (I want this baby to come out as smoothly as possible) However other then that I am taking it pretty easy. Michael is working and he seems to really be enjoying him self, which makes me happy for him, I love hearing all his stories about NASA and his co-workers. We are preparing the extra room at his Parents house for the baby and that has been going slowly but the baby will be in our room for a while so we are not in to big of a hurry. Speaking of baby, I am loving being pregnant. So far things are going really well. I feel great most days. I am not sleeping to well but that is normal I think it is God’s way of preparing you for never really sleeping again. My belly is getting so big (maybe I will get Michael to take a picture of my belly) I love feeling to baby swim around all over the place and kick me. We think we have decided to wait till the birth to find out the sex. We will have an ultrasound at my next appointment however we think we have made it this far without knowing so what will another 11 weeks hurt. I also think it will be pretty cool for everyone to meet this little person and be surprise all at the same time. We can’t wait to meet this little person! Michael is taking such great care of me, I could not have asked for a better husband.

So back to adjusting; it is still weird to watch TV although I must admit I am watching much more then I should. It is weird to be around large groups of people, I am not sure why this is and Michael I think it struggling more then me in this area however I do feel it. It is weird to be around young kids. I keep wanting to talk to them in Kiswahili and I guess I just got use to Africa kids and America kids are different and they understand me so I feel like I have to use words more and not just action, if that makes any sense. I don’t like going to far from home and when I am out I look forward to going back to the house. I am not sure if this is the pregnancy or if it is just being back. Food still is amazing and I want to eat everything which could be why I have gained like 25-30 lbs so far and I don’t think I really gained anything in Africa so that means I have put on that much since I have been home, CRAZY huh! However all in all we are very happy and very much at peace now with the ways things worked out. Don’t get me wrong we still cry if we talk about Africa or if we look at pictures. We still get worked up if we think about some of the things we wish would have been different. And we still miss our friends and the children. However we know this is where God wants us right now. When we think of the future we still get over whelmed and try not to plan so much. Africa has really humbled me in this area. God has different plans and that is ok with me because I trust that His plans are better then anything I could come up with on my own. We are still taking things one day at a time and just trying to enjoy this crazy journey He has us on. I know I have said this a lot but I don’t think I could ever say it enough, THANK YOU for all your support. We still feel your prayers for our lives. I am not sure how many people are still looking at this blog but know that we are here and we would love to hang with you and talk with you. We love you all very much and we are so glad you are a part of our lives.

Home.

2007-04-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

So we have been home for a few weeks now, sorry for not updating, but I am sure you have probably saw us already. Things are going well. Tammi and I have gotten somewhat acclimated to being back home. A lot of things are still really weird, too many to really go into here.

The baby is doing great, Tammi had her first appointment with our midwife and she seems to like her.

In other news: I got a job! Which is really exciting, because I didn't think I would have a job this quickly, but the Malibu broke down, so a job was pretty necessary if we wanted to fix it or buy a new car. My job title is "Aerospace Composite Technician". What exactly does that mean? I will let you know after I start this next Monday. I know it is with NASA, and it involves the underwater training suits the astronauts use. Pretty sweet, huh?

We will continue to update this site as new and exciting things happen to us.

We love you all!

Beware of the Ides of March...

2007-02-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

So if you haven't already heard, Tammi, the little one, and I are heading home on March 15th. There are many factors that contributed to our decision, namely being worried about the little one. You just can't relax in a place where the doctors seem sketchy and around every corner is another potential mosquito-borne illness. We are sad to go, because we really love it here in Mwanza. The Sisters have been really nice and welcoming, we couldn't expect anything more. We hope to return here in a few years with the little one and maybe some church friends. There is a lot going on here.

So we will leave Mwanza on March 11th (Sister Jennifer is still trying to convince us to stay) and return to Nairobi. In Nairobi we will play with the kids at the House of Hope and visit the Sisters at the Incarnate Word. We will also pack and prepare for our departure on the 15th. We will return home on the 16th, probably around seven o'clock at night.

We really feel that God has placed this decision on our hearts and are confident that we are doing the right thing, despite the hard decision.

We look forward to seeing all of you in less than a month!

The Kid and I

2007-02-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the inefficent manner of posting this picture. I thought Sister Denise had a scanner, she does not. I didn’t want to wait until we got home to share the newest photo with everyone, so I got creative.

The red arrow shows not only where the gestational sac is but also where the little ones had is. The rest of the anatomy (sans the “secret of secrets”) can be kinda figured out. It was good to see it moving, Tammi can even feel it from time to time.

The doctor gave quite a scare. After a four hour wait last Sunday, the doctor said that he was worried about Tammi’s loss of weight and what he thought was small uterus. So we were scheduled for and ultrasound the NEXT DAY! In the states if the doctor was worried the shi...stuff would get taken care of that day!

So we went through the next on autopilot until our appointment at 5 pm. We arrived, waited some more and were finally seen. The doctor started the scan, he immediately saw movement, and said “Good, I was worried I wouldn’t see that.” Nini-TF? That seems like a possibility he could have shared with us the previous day! Then the real ultrasound technician showed up and did the measurements. Everything was right where it should have been! 15 weeks, dead on.

We have a theory that the doctor knew that two nervous “mzungus” would gladly pay for an ultrasound to see if there first born child would be fine.

Or we could just be bitter.

Times like that makes one feel far from home.

Coming Home: The Dream

2007-02-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

So I had a dream last night where we came and we, well just I, strangely enough, was at our coming home party. The party was taking place on a patio, much like Onion Creek. The business was a place that made burritos, but they weren't serving anyone, so I went to Taco Bell and got some food (It tasted terrible [this may not be a surprise to some of you]). When I returned the place was serving burritos, Nini-T-F?*

Anyway, I barely knew anyone at the party. I vividly remember Mat Morkin being there, he was crying, saying he was going to miss us, like we were leaving again. The other people I recognized were people from high school who had no idea I had even been gone. They kept I asking "So what have you been up to?" I would tell them that they were at my welcome home party. Not really knowing any of the people, I remained fairly quiet. Finally someone began talking about the prices of soda, so I took this as my chance to to say something about soda in Africa:

Me: When I was in Africa...

Everyone(groaning in unison): Oh God! Are you always going to talk about what it was like in Africa?!?!

Me: (silent)

So that was rough. So it was a lot of listening to strangers talk about strange things. Then I looked down the steps of the patio and there were som dirty, naked, Asian children begging and I said "There was saying in Africa 'Whereever there are naked, begging, Asian children, tea will be served'"**. Everyone silently stared at me. So I got frustrated and began walking to my car (the MALIBU!) looking forward to listening to music loadly and alone. On my way to the car I saw a man walking with a kettle of tea and some cups.

Behind him was a chimpanzee. I said "Whereever there is a (expletive deleted) monkey, tea will be served." Then Tammi woke me up because we were running late for church.

It was kind of a bitter dream. I must warn our friends and family, we will probably talk a lot about Africa at first, bear with us.

Also, Mat Morkin, don't cry, we will be around for a while.

* "Nini"="What"
**There is no such saying in Africa, or the World for that matter, as far as I know.

Chips Mayai!

2007-01-27T03:05:00.000-08:00

This is Chips Mayai. Everybody say "Hello!" and make him feel at home. This is a little Tanzanian treat that I hae grown to love. It's preparation is pretty complex: first you make some chips (FRIES!), then you throw them in a frying pan and fry some eggs with them.

Try it at home, if you can.

Tammi and I went to a pub near our home and got two cold sodas (mbili soda baridi, tafadhali), a plate of plain chips and a chips mayai for 700/= (that is seventy cents in American Dollars).

Good stuff!

Ps. I also started that podcast I had been talking about. You can subcribe to it by clicking here. If you have iTunes, this link should open automatically and begin updating.

Have fun!

It's Tammi!

2007-01-24T04:04:00.000-08:00

1/23/07

So we have been here in Mwanza for a little over 2 weeks and we are feeling right at home. I feel like the three of us could not be in safer hands. The three nuns here are such a blessing. I never in a million years thought I would be such good friends with nuns. They are inspiring every day. Michael one day looked at me when we were visiting the nuns in Nairobi and said “you wish you were a nun don’t you”. For a split moment I thought, hey it is like a slumber party all the time. I am sure it can be hard at times however they are always laughing and having a good time and really understand what it means to live in community. I love it! While we have been here we have also met some Franciscan monks from Italy and they are so cool. One is a Mac owner and was so excited to find Michael, they talked for hours about Macs, it was really cute. Michael said that if I became a nun he would become a monk. The nuns here however wanted the baby. Either way we are being humbled by all of our preconceived notions of the Catholic Church.
Speaking of the Catholic Church we have found one that we have been going to for the last three services. The first Sunday was coming around and Sister Jennifer told us that we were free to go to any Church we wanted to go and she began to tell us where some were in the area. We asked where she and sister Denise went and she said they do not go to the same church all the time. We live on some property that was given to Sister Denise by the Diocese so that means that a Church is very close and Sister Jennifer goes to that church most Sundays and Sister Denise goes to a church called St. Francis Xavier. The church is a few minutes away and the service we go to is in English. So from the first time there we felt like it was a very nice community. We have met other Americans in the area that I think will be nice friends. We have also been able to take communion for the first time in five months and it is beautiful. I know what you are all thinking, “I did not think you could take communion in a Catholic church if you were not a Catholic”… however we felt like we completely understood what it meant and that is what was important so we take it with out a second thought. Also the Priest is from America and he is great and we enjoy his sermons very much, many people here have a hard time with his accent however we think he sounds like us, so sometimes I think he is preaching just for us. The music is amazing, I have thought about being home the words to some songs but then I realize it is not he words to the song, it is the sound, and you can’t have that sound anywhere else but here. The music comes from one of the pews, where there is a Tazaninan women who plays an acoustic guitar and sings and her voice is so different and beautiful and then you have a drum and shakers and sometimes a keyboard. It does not sound that impressive however it is and I can’t bottle the sound up for you and that makes me sad. Speaking of singing, the two nuns here at the house come from a community in Nairobi that sings before and after a meal.
Whenever we would go to visit the nuns in Nairobi and we ate with them they would sing and I loved it. So now I have asked the two nuns here if they would sing after the meals and they have and it sounds like angels singing. I have asked them if they were required to sing well before they could become a nun and they just laughed. I love meal times here, everyone works together to prepare the food and to clean up and we all eat at a large table and we pass the food around and we eat and eat and laugh and talk about the day and just enjoy each other and it makes me what to have a big family. Also the food is always a little crazy and you never really know what we are going to eat. Tonight for example we have left over spaghetti, rice, beans, potatoes, green beans, beets, bananas, oranges, cucumber, carrots, and a random mango. So you can see every meal is kind of a buffet of sorts. We call them crazy meals.
So how am I doing you might ask? I am doing very well. We are very excited about the little person that will join us in another 6 mo. I think I am already getting a belly (or it could be the crazy food) however I feel like it is harder to hold in my gut. I have found a very nice Tanzanian Doctor that I will see every month until we leave that seems very nice. I feel ok most of the time except a little tired, but every day has a few hours in it for me to take a nap, so I am very grateful for my naps. All the women here are very excited for us and could not be anymore supportive. Some days it is still hard for Michael and I to really wrap our minds around the idea that we will be a mom and dad but it is getting easier as time goes on. One of our only worries is Malaria, I am not taking any drugs against it and I am just using creams and spays and a net at night however it has rained every day since we have been here and the mosquitoes are crazy bad here. Already Sister Jennifer and Isabella, one of the little girls here, have gotten Malaria and we are just trusting God that if I get it I will be fine and if I don’t then that is more then ok too. Please keep this in your prayers.
I am sure there is much more that I am forgetting to talk about however it will let us have stories for you all when we get home. Love you all.

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Also, I have been uploading the few pictures we have taken here in Mwanza after about a month of not uploading any pictures. Enjoy them!

I Knew This Would Happen...

2007-01-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

People thought I was being paranoid, but it happened: my iPod is dead. On the flight to Mwanza it started having troubles and stopped working, but I was able to restore the factory settings and it worked fine for about two weeks. Now, all of a sudden, a few days ago, it stopped working again. Now it is making funny noises like the disc is warped or something. Oh well, no personal music for three and half months...I should be fine, right?

I'm not even surprised, really. It feels like the iPod has been with me for a long time, but then I keep remembering that this is my third one (God bless Apple's Customer Service! Take it in with a problem and they replace it with minimal hassle). So I have only had this current one for about a year.

So long friend!

New Address, a Tornado, and a Toilet

2007-01-13T00:47:00.000-08:00

Here is our address in Mwanza:

Montessori Training Center/Sister Denise Mattle
PO BOX 6428
Mwanza, Tanzania

Phone Number: +255786682425

Sister Denise told us we needed to put her name because the post office has never made her pay for a parcel, which sounds really nice after paying close to $300 in customs fees in December.

Also, earlier this week we had a tornado in Mwanza. This is extremely rare in this region. We saw it while we were in the city, it touched down near the Sister's Primary School, about twenty minutes away from where we live. People died. I kept thinking "I wonder if they will hear about this stateside?" But then I realized that we don't hear about genocide happening here stateside, so a few Africans dying in a tornado probably wouldn't get much attention. So it goes.

Also, on a much lighter note, we have had some questions about our toilet conditions so I thought I would include a picture:

Definetly not conducive for bathroom reading. How will I ever finish A People's History of the United Statets now?

Our Little Bundle of Molecules...

2007-01-06T05:10:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of you may have already received an e-mail about our little person, so I thought I would go ahead and make it official (because a blog entry is like notarizing a document): Tammi and I are expecting our first child this August. This is one of the main reasons that persuaded us to return home in May rather than the intended August. We are really excited. Our little person is almost eight weeks along! Thank you for all of your prayers! We look forward to seeing you all!

In other news we have made it Mwanza and are fitting right in! There is stable internet where we are staying, which is an incredible blessing, if I do say so myself. It is almost worth not having a Western toilet and hot water (we'll see if I am still saying that in four months!).

I hope you all like the new look of the site. I think the new banner looks like a wacky 1970's East African sitcom. I like it.

Talk to all of you soon!

From Tammi...

2007-01-03T05:45:00.000-08:00

Date: Unknown

I would like to be sorry about not really writing much, I think I am just really numb these days. God has more in store for us and that has left me in His whirlwind as usual. I am left just standing back in awe of who He is and what he wants with me. We came here with the hopes of this being our new family and what we have found out is our real family is amazing! Our Church family back home is still our Community. Don’t get me wrong we have found amazing people and we have seen God here without us ever doing anything. We really did come to love these children and how everyone back home responded to that has still left me pointing to God because He is the only one that could make their response possible. So now we have to say our good-byes, when we thought we would never say good-bye. I am left with peace, I have cried, I have talked to God about it over and over again. He has not told me everything and I doubt He ever will, He has just told me that it is okay and that House of Hope is okay and that it is not worth fighting for anymore. So I surrender to Him and we leave. I have no idea what is in store for us in Mwanza. At first I was not looking forward to it. I thought I have been a nomad for years it seems. We lived with Michael’s parents and then we moved into an empty condo for 7 weeks and then we have been in Africa trying to make a home where we would never have a home, and now a new place to try to create a sense of belonging. All the places we have squatted at has made us grow into better people so we have no regrets, however it does make each move a little harder. I know that following God may mean never having a place to lay our head again, but our flesh wants to lay our head down somewhere.
So going to yet a new place, a new country, someone elses home…. all sounds and feels so tiring. However we have been in prayer about this for a while and when we bought our airfare yesterday (because the 17 hour bus ride might have killed us) I felt excited for the first time. I felt like everything was going to be okay and we were going where God wanted us to go. So our tickets are to leave on January 5th and return to House of Hope on May 1st and stay and visit for 1 week and then off to Houston on May 8th (get home on May 9th). When we talk it sounds so close however when we calculate we still find it ends up being 4 months and well on Jan. 7th we will have been in Africa for 5 mo. so we are just a little over half way their. I feel humbled by this, humbled about all I said before I came, humbled in my perspective towards the world, humbled when I think of how much our family has sacrificed for us, humbled at how many people are praying for us, and I know the list could go on. You know if God brought me all the away across the world to humble me I would say it was more than worth it. I wish I could tell all of you how truly blessed you have made me. It just seems that THANK YOU would never do it. Never be enough to show you how much you have done for me, given me and been for me. I love you and not just the ‘thank you’ kind of Love, but a real love that is from God for you, the love that makes you weep at night because I miss you. Thank you for that.

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From Michael:

The next blog entry from me will be from Mwanza, Tanzania! The place we are staying has an internet connection from what I hear, so who knows what craziness might ensue? I love music, and sharing it, so maybe a podcast, for those internet savvy people...stay tuned.

AHHHH! More Kids!, Christmas, and a Farewell

2006-12-29T03:37:00.000-08:00

In the first 18 days of December the House of Hope has taken in 19 new children! On the 18th alone 10 new children were brought home. Welcome Francis, Ndichu, Mondo, Regina, Joseph, Wanja, Nancy, Rosemary, Monica, Charo (yes, Charo), Ruguru, and Chege (pictured in order):

With the amount of new children I haven't been able to hear all of their stories and for that I apologize. All of the new children are acclimating with the other children well. They are great, great kids!

Christmas at the House of Hope

Below is an excerpt from our January Newsletter:

Have you ever prepared a Christmas morning for sixty-three children? It’s a daunting experience but completely worth it! The preparation began with preparing for each child a bag with his or her name on it. Of course we thought plain black magic marker on brown paper bag was too boring so we decided to add some flair by drawing full color pictures on bag with mulit-colored Sharpies (Thank you Krista Vossler!). Drawing sixty-three pictures takes longer than what you would think and we still had to stuff the things!
We proceeded to fill the bags with candy, chips, and fruit juices as well as items picked from the busy market, which Tammi loved! We purchased gifts from lists given to Margaret from the children. Most of the gifts were modest: sandals, shoulder shawls, purses, toy cars, and a Bible. Others were a bit more outlandish: a piano (they have a piano) and an “air piano” (we had no idea where to even begin!). But we were able to get the bags completed a full day before Christmas! Now came the task of sorting through all of the clothes lovingly donated to each child earlier in the year.
Margaret, as well as Tammi and I were amazed at the great amount of clothes donated. We had an amazingly easy time assigning outfits to each child and we even had enough to accomadate all nineteen of the new children. How amazing is that?! On Christmas morning we distributed to each child a new outfit, which they rushed to put on. They looked so handsome and beautiful, you could see them beaming with pride in their new clothes.
Next we handed out each child’s package. They were so excited that they almost couldn’t wait to tear into them. When each child had it’s package, well, I can’t even begin to tell you what happened next. I know there was a blur of motion, screaming, laughter, and then it was all over. The children had a great time and it appears that they got everything that they wanted (except that blasted air piano!).
While the children were opening their packages they gorged themselves on the candy and juice in their bags so by the time lunch was served the children began to crash. Luckily the rice, meat, and soda were enough to revive them for the church service that followed. During the service, Christopher, the plumber, rededicated his life to the Lord. Afterwards he told me “You know Michael, I thought being a Christian was enough, but it’s not”. That really meant a lot to me because sharing in this culture, especially between men, doesn’t happen to terribly much.
All in all, Christmas at the House of Hope was a great experience but not one I would want to do everyday. It was so tiring, but rewarding at the same time.

A Farewell:

Just after the New Year Tammi and I will be leaving the House of Hope to go volunteer in Mwanza for almost four months at the Montessori Training Center of Tanzania. We will be leaving with the blessings and encouragement of Margaret and the House of Hope Family. It will be so hard to leave all of the children, but we feel this is something that God wants us to do.

At the Training Center, we will be able to use the skills that we have both been blessed with to a greater extent.

Please keep us in your prayers as we make the move to Tanzania.

Hey! Guess What? NEW KIDS! -plus- Look What Tammi Has Been Up To!

2006-12-18T05:43:00.000-08:00

So we have a couple of new boys at the House of Hope. One is named Ndishu and the other Joseph. I think they are both closed to five. It gets difficult when a bunch of new kids start showing up. You kinda lose touch with who they are and their ages and their stories (all heartbreaking). Tammi went with Margaret to rescue the boys, but didn't get the chance to chronicle the experience. I know she was really tired when all was said and done. Since I don't have the back story for the boys, I will put up more interesting pictures of them rather than the regular "brick wall mugshots" (plus, I have yet to take the pictures on the wall...sorry Pam). The first one is Joseph and the second Ndishu. They are really quiet but really sweet.

On the domestic front Tammi has HAND-STITCHED another quilt! This time it covers our ful size bed. It is very warm. It was made entirely from fabric purchased in Mwanza. I am very proud of her! Check it out:

Plus here is a photo I took of a sunflower that hasn't bloomed. It's my desktop wallpaper:

I love it!

Have a great week!

Ps. I have also posted the lion-share of photos to flickr. No more catching up for me!

Three New Kids and the Boys Emerge...Sort of...

2006-12-12T02:31:00.000-08:00

In the past week the House of Hope has gained several new children, all boys.

Last Tuesday, when Margaret was picking Tammi, Kelly and I u from the Nakumatt we were met with a young child in the van. His name is Amos and he is five. Like Njeri, Wanaina, and Wanjiro, Amos only speaks his mother tongue, Kikuyu. We don’t know much of Amos’ story except that he spent a lot of time on his own in his village roaming around. Hopefully we will learn more as time goes on.

The two other boys, brothers Victor (6) and Eric (4), came a few days later, also a surprise. A couple of months ago they lost both of their parents to AIDS. They were then moved to their Aunt’s who also died. Finally they reached their grandparents house about a month ago. Shortly thereafter their grandmother passed as well. Having his wife die caused the grandfather to become overcome with grief and he disappeared. The boys were taken in by a local priest and his wife a couple of weeks ago only to have the wife die. Where the boys were finally left at the Village Chiefs office. This is where Margaret got them. Victor and Eric have had a hard road and though they are rescued they still have struggles ahead of them. The boys also only speak their mother tongue, but their dialect, Wikamba, is only spoke fluently by two people at House of Hope, Peter the Herdsman and Agnes Muthoni, the cook. Margaret speaks very little Wikamba. On the bright side, Victor and Eric have already been circumcised so they were able to move into the boys dorm to become more quickly integrated into the House of Hope. The first boy pictured is Victor, the second, Eric.

Last Friday we a ceremony for the boys coming out of seclusion, or so we thought. We had some visitors come so, one an evangelist from New York and one from Nairobi, who has been a friend of the House of Hope for a few years. The guests came with food and sweets for the children. The food brought will be used for Christmas and the sweets, well the sweets were metabolized as soon as they were given. After all the food and fun, where were the boys? Back to their room! It turns out the men believe the boys still need more time in seclusion, that some of the boys still haven’t healed properly.
That was last friday and the boys, while making a few appearances a day, still remain in seclusion. Hopefully we will see them soon.

This was supposed to be my week to really get all of the pictures uploaded but it ended up being Kenyan Independance Day so I had a window of four hours at the Sarit Centre to get it all done but it turns out that three of those hours the internet was taking a nap. So in this last hour I am rushing to get at least the oldest pictures put up, the Mwanza pictures. Tammi, Kelly, and Margaret went to a market and I came here and now they are done, so we will see what gets up!

Four New Kids, A Moment, & Tear Gas

2006-12-05T01:26:00.000-08:00

In this past week the House of Hope has been blessed with four new children! During the week Caroline’s, one of the already existing children at House of Hope, aunt and sister, Grace, came for a visit. Tammi and I thought this weird. If Caroline’s aunt is capable of taking care of Grace (and another brother, we found out later) then why couldn’t she take care of Caroline as well? Well it turns out that she has grown weary of the children and was coming to talk to Margaret about placement. Margaret thought it best that the aunt continue caring for the children, but would allow Grace to stay with us for a week.

Grace, who is twelve, has been nothing but a joy to be with since she has been here. She is extremely helpful and friendly and has already blended well with the other children. I hope she is able to stay.
On Friday Margaret told Tammi and Kelly that they were invited to go with her to pick three more children in a village a few hours away. I wasn’t invited because the mother was single and still an active prostitute, and it might look bad for me to go into her home. I understood completely and stayed home and cleaned the house and did laundry anxiously awaiting their return. They had departed about nine in the morning and did not return until almost eight that evening. With them they returned with three beautiful children, two girls and one boy, Wanjiro, Njeri, and Wanaina.

Wanjiro is not yet two years old and is so tiny, but she can walk and feed herself, to the amazement of all the children. Loise, who is four, just recently began feeding herself.

Njeri is six, she is beautiful. She was born with only three fingers on her right hand and limp from what we think is a shorter right leg, but at first glance these differences aren’t apparent because she has adapted so well to them and acts just like every other child. Margaret didn’t even notice them until the next day!

Wanaina is the boy and he is nine but has the body of a four year old. Tammi says that on the way back to House of Hope he kept talking about different foods he had never had, and was hoping to have. Things like bread, rice, chapati, meat, all things that are normally served here, were delicacies to him. By chance Muthoni, our cook, had prepared chapati for dinner that evening so the children were met with meals of chapati, rice and meat. They were so excited.
Of course there is some apprehension with the new children. I can only imagine how overwhelming it must be to leave a place that you pretty much only took care of yourself and siblings and enter an environment filled with children to play with and actually knowing that your meals will come at certain time everyday. Their second day here, one of the existing children asked Njeri what was wrong with her hand, and she broke and started crying and went outside and refused to go back inside. We know the child who asked wasn’t trying to be malicious, only curious, but this sensitivity is normally with every new child who joins the House of Hope. Tammi and Kelly asked Margaret if Njeri could come up to Kelly’s room to just get away from everyone, Margaret, allowed it. Njeri stayed up for about an hour and did art and ate sweets and eventually went back down stairs and has been fine ever since.
Oh yeah, Wanjiro, Njeri, and Wanaina only speak Kikuyu, the language of the people group of the same name. Luckily Margaret, some of the Aunties, Cyrus, several workers and few children speak it enough for the children not to feel left out. So our English and the little Kiswahili we know is absolutely useless in communicating with them. Grace speaks English very well.

Something happened last night that made our time here completely worth it: Tammi and Kelly have a weekly girls night in Kelly’s apartment. Usually I go down stairs and watch a movie with the boys, but since the majority of the boys are still in seclusion I stayed in Tammi and I’s apartment and went over some of our pictures. A few minutes into girls night Tammi came over with Mary to get something and out of nowhere Mary points to Tammi and says “You are my second mother,” then she points to me and says “and you are my second father”. I flinched at her openness. I asked her if it was okay for me to give her a hug, and after much giggling she walked over and hugged me. It was the best thing to happen to me since we have been here.
I know this is unprofessional of me, don’t tell anyone I said this: Mary is my favorite.

This morning on the way to town Margaret and Cyrus told us that there may be riots in the city today. I wore flip flops today, I am not prepared for a riot! Anyway, we were told that it was due to rivalling political parties and demonstrations and such. With the boring two party system of the states, this is new to us (not that I am attempting to incite riots over our electoral process). So after having to pay high customs fees Tammi and I had to go to the bank to get some more money. On the way there I saw a group of people (just business people, not rebellious youth ala the WTO riots in Seattle) running towards us and hearing what sounded like a drum circle. We just got out of the way and proceeded to the bank. Upon entering the bank there was a fine smoke in the air, as well as people covering their faces with their shirts. Then there it was: the burning in the eyes, nose, and throat. We had walked into tear gas. Apparently a few blocks away the police (or military, who knows, they all carry machine guns) had released tear gas and the wind had carried it our way. Exciting but mostly scary.

Welcome to Africa.

Ps.I am trying to load as many pictures as we can. We have almost five hundred pictures to load and while the Sarit Centre is quick but not that quick, our battery might run out! Maybe when we have more time I will bring our power converter and have a go at it! Sorry.

Pps. Also sorry the last entry being posted four times! That blasted Nakumatt!

Ppps. The first photo is John Felix after the, ummm, ceremony. All the boy's had matching khangas (the wraps) that we picked up in Mwanza. Hopefully Mwanza pictures will make it this week!

Here's Tammi:

Week 11/30-12/4

We drove up to a small village that was right off a main road. From first glance it just looked like a few run down shops not really worth stopping and looking. As we drove up we were met by a well dressed woman who spoke English fairly well, she got into the van and said we were allowed to park at her house that was higher up on a hill. Her house was amazing, small in size by American standards but very large for the village standards. Inside her house was handwritten quotes written all on the walls. Some were scripture others were just very powerful quotes. She was very educated. She said her specialty was helping “special needs” children. My heart rejoiced at the sound of an African saying “special needs” most people just say things like “they are not right in the head”, or “retarded”, or “lame”, or “stupid” so you can see my need to rejoice over this women who lives in a village where most everyone has AIDS and she knows what “special needs” is and wants to help them. So she tells us that one of the three children that we took found out that we were coming that day and had not left her house out of fear he would miss us.
We were then lead to the house where the other children, mother, aunt, and grandmother were at. The room we entered was no bigger then a walk-in closet, Kelly and I were asked to sit down but we almost could not fit. The mother and aunt were in the room, they did not look as bad as I made them out to be in my head. They seemed pretty peaceful but very skinny and their bodies were shaking. On the bed was the baby, the two year old that looks no more than twelve months, and the aunt puts the baby on my lap. She was just wearing a small shirt and no bottoms, not a diaper or a cloth, nothing. The baby gave me a look over and then crawled down and walked to Margaret and grabbed her hand and never looked back. She went everywhere Margaret went and never cried, not even when we were leaving or saying goodbye to her family. The boy could not stop smiling and laughing, he just keep saying in Kikuyu all the food he was going to get to eat. He was so excited about being in a car for the first time in his life and about the juice he got on the way home. He has a really bad cough that sounds horrible but he does not let that slow him down. He is a little aggressive at times but who can blame him really. Njeri the middle girl is so sweet, she cried once in the van but it was not because she just left her dying mother, aunt and grandmother, it was because the van was going very fast and she did not understand it or like it. She told Margaret it felt like she was falling. No tears were shed at the children’s departure, I think Kelly and I were about to cry more than the mother was.
It’s hard to explain but I think they were rejoicing at the thought that their children would not end up like them. I think the image we saw on our way out put the whole experience into perspective. We left looking out the window at a man that was building a small coffin.

In Memorium, Mwanza, Drinking with Nuns, and Twenty Limping Boys

2006-11-30T05:15:00.000-08:00

The memorial service for the one year anniversary of Naftali Basigwa’s death was tough. I won’t go into too much detail out of respect but despite the discomfort it feels as if there was a certain amount of closure for all those who knew Naftali, specifically with the children and Margaret. Some “snapshots” that will be with me forever:
- Sarah, in her stoicism, refusing to let anyone see her cry to the point of being lead out f the room with her face covered.
- Mary, so mature for her few years, openly crying during everyone’s accounts of the Naftali died, but still eager to be the first child to speak despite her pain. I am still haunted by her words and her ability to speak them.
- Head Teacher Njagi, who didn’t know Naftali, urging everyone in the community to continue to raise the children as Naftali would see fit.
I prepared a slideshow of pictures of Naftali set to music to show. The speakers of the computer did project too well into the room but it seemed like people liked it. The memorial service ended up being about four hours long and ended with a large meal for the entire community. In this time it seems like healing took place.

The day after the service Tammi, Kelly, and I departed for Mwanza, Tanzania to visit our friend, Sister Jennifer who has been placed at a Montessori Training Center ran by a sister from the Sisters of Divine Providence, named Sister Denise. We decided to travel by bus. I have never travelled anywhere by bus. Let’s say it was definetly an experience. It’s kinda like traveling by airplane but slower and stinkier and with no bathrooms and with out the luxurious leg space offered by the airlines. We were set to depart at 9:30 PM from Nairobi and travel through the night. Our friends from the Sisters of the Incarnate Word in Karen dropped us at the station at 8 PM and we boarded the bus at 9 PM and didn’t depart until 11:30 PM. Yes, a two hour delay without one word from the bus line.
What we had read to be a 11-12 hour trip soon became a 16 hours. You heard correctly: from Nairobi to Mwanza, roughly the equivalent of Galveston to San Antonio, took almost the same amount of time as a flight from Houston, Texas to Nairobi, Kenya.
You’ll about what happened at the border and on our arrival in Mwanza from Tammi.
Sister Denise was a firecracker of a woman. She is a nun from Switzerland and speaks German really loudly. It was really intimidating but she was a really nice woman. I was sick the whole time we were in Mwanza and she kept giving me medicines whose labels were in German. On the second night, she said “You’re a man, I’ll give you a whiskey tonight. That should clear everything up!” Being a rum man, I was a little nervous. That night we went to her house and she started digging through the cabinet saying that people always bring bottles of alcohol to her as gifts and she rarely drinks, so I was welcome to it. She sat two bottles of whiskey, a bottle of sherry, a bottle of grappa, and bottle of Bailey’s type alcohol on the table with a sake’ glass for me. She said she was going to prepare cocktails for the ladies.
Let’s just say I slept well that night and felt a little better in the morning.
The next day we went to Saane Island which is a wildlie reserve on an island in Lake Victoria. It was pretty neat. Aside from the sad looking caged hyena and lion, we had a good time. We got back in time to go dinner with Sister Denise, Isabella and Maya (two girls Sister Denise took in, and who attend her school), Bettina (a girl from Switzerland volunteering at the Training Center), Sister Jennifer and some other lady at a restaurant on the beach of Lake Victoria. It was spectacular. You will have to see the pictures.
We sadly departed Mwanza the next day for our long trek home, this time it was a meager 15 hours.
We scheduled our return home for the twenty oldest boys circumcision ceremony that was supposed to happen early the next morning (Saturday). We arrived home and found out it was to be rescheduled for Monday, so we left with Margaret, Cyrus, Felista, Miriam, Sam, and Mary Anna to visit Margaret’s grandmother, only to find out on the way that the doctor wished to perform the procedure on Sunday. So we turned around, made purchases, and headed home to begin preparing the boys for their big day. I was placed on a panel with Cyrus, Samuel, Joseph, and Wabogo to discuss with boys the procedure and what it means. I kept thinking “This happened to me when I was 8 days old! What do I have to offer to this 5-14 year old boys?” I thought of somethings to say, I’m not sure if I helped or not.
The next morning we piled twenty nervous boys into the small van and headed to the doctors office.
It was a harrowing morning. It took nearly 6 hours to “work over” ten of the boys, who I then escorted home.
Needless to say it was a rough day. The boys were in pain that they never thought would go away. But they still ate and became their oldselves by the days end, only now with considerable limping.
Things were good until yesterday, Wednesday, when the nurse came to remove the bandages and examine them. The boys became scared that it was happening again, and some couldn’t be consoled. It became necessary for Joseph, Cyrus, and I to hold down a number of them for the routine examination. It was clear afterwards that the boys were shaken up and so was I. I keep seeing Josiah in my head screaming “Hapana, Hapana” (“No,No”) at the top of his lungs while being restrained.
Needless to say, my son, if and when I have a son, will be snipped well before he learns the word “no”.
Heartbreaking.

I must apologize for the lack of multimedia this week. We went to the Sarit Centre (Center!) and their glorious internet was down. So here we are at the Nakumatt. We have 430 pictures waiting to be uploaded. Let’s hope nothing worthy of recording happens this week!
We love all of you and miss you, you have no idea how much we miss you.

Here’s Tammi:

So much…

Our Trip to Mwanza, Tanzania
It was not until I was awake in a bus at 3 in the morning that I realized that I have no idea where I am and that it was a little strange to travel in a third world country at night in a bus with lots of rain and lots of fog and bad, bad roads. Either way we all sank into our seats and fell asleep the best we could. When we got to the border we got told that our visas has expired, we had gotten a six month visa before we left but apparently that is not good enough because at the airport they are only allowed to give us a three month visa and we were not aware of that until we got told at the border that if we were found with an expired visa that we could be arrested. So he lets us go and tells us that we will have to buy ($25, we think) another visa on the way back in to Kenya. So fast forward to the border to get into Kenya and we borrow 3500/= from Kelly thinking that is $25 and that will be enough but low and behold it is $25 each thus $50 and the guy at first asks us for America currency and we say we have not been in America for almost 4 mo. so he says ok and we give him the 3500/= and he says ok that is enough for one I need another $25 and it just so happened that God was so with us because we had left over Tanzania currency, 70000/=, and Michael has just that amount in his wallet. So off we go and not 15 min. down the road we get flagged down by two police officers, now this is not uncommon, we had this happen all the time on the way to Tanzania, they would just come on with guns and walk up and down the aisle and then we wait forever but then we are on our way. However this time was different we are told that we must all get off the bus with all our things and we are to get into two separate lines, girls in one and boys in another. So we find ourselves on the side of the road with our luggage in our hands getting patted down by people with guns. We were a little scared, ok I was a little scared but all in all we were fine. So needless to say when we got pulled over by the police with Charles (the driver) on the way home because we did not have insurance and we were told that we would have to have the car impounded we were not scared in the least. Margaret took care of the situation and we were on our way soon enough.
Almost forgot to tell you the best part of our journey. When we got to Mwanza we quickly found ourselves with no Tanzania currency and no cell phone and no idea where the nuns lived. We got out of the bus and tried to call Sister Jennifer but our cell phone was a no go and we were stuck. We found a taxi driver that spoke a few words of English that was willing to take Kenya currency (we did not get too ripped off) and he took us to where all the other white people hang out (a very nice hotel) and we asked a women at the desk if we could borrow her cell phone and we got a hold of the Sisters.

Now on to the beauty of Mwanza
Mwanza, Tanzania was amazing, such beauty, it was breathtaking. The house we stayed at was really a dorm house for teachers coming to the Montessori training center, it over looked Lake Victoria, which is a spectacular view. The Sisters were so hospitable, the food, weather and town were all very nice. Sister Jennifer was so happy to see us and Sister Denise (a nun from Switzerland) was so happy to learn about us and she was quick to show off her Montessori school. She has started a nursery school, Primary and now a secondary Montessori school. All in Africa! She has been in Tanzania for 25 years and believe it of not has never heard of Oprah. Sister Denise was also quick to take advantage of Michael’s knowledge of the computer. He designed a very nice brochure for her training center and said he would work on a web site for her. The last night we were there we ate dinner on the beach of Lake Victoria. Never did I think I would be playing volleyball in the sand of Lake Victoria, unbelievable! God only knows what is in store for us but we hope Mwanza is a part of it.

Other things
*About a 15 minute walk from the House of Hope you can see a group of Zebras, about 50-100, just hanging out. They have been there for a while and we really enjoy our walks with our Zebra friends.

*We have a group of frogs that sing us to bed at night. All the rain has given them a sweet song to sing. Sometimes it is so load we laugh while we are dozing off to bed. Sweet dreams of happy frogs.

Tanzania, Rain, More Rain, Some Pictures, and a Video

2006-11-15T02:05:00.001-08:00

This Friday is the one year anniversary of Margaret's husband, Naftali's, death. Margaret closed the school and allowed all of the workers a day off. We will be having a program to remember him. There will be prayers and sharing and probably a lot of meat. It should be a somber day and we hope Margaret is able to stay strong. This morning she asked me to help her prepare one of his pictures for an announcement in this Friday's paper. While doing so I stumbled upon the pictures of the funeral that Moses had put on her computer. She said she had no idea that they were there. In those pictures we found a picture of Naftali in his uniform. She said that was the picture she wanted, and she was glad I found it. I told her I was glad I could help. We made the picture her desktop wallpaper. She said it would help her. This Friday, remember Naftali in your own way.

This Saturday, however, due to exams all next week, Tammi, Kelly and I will be bussing our way to Mwanza, Tanzania to visit Sister Jennifer at her school there. It will be nice to see Montessori in a primary school setting. Also it will be good to get away for a little while. What won't be good is a 12-13 bus ride in the dead of night. Please envy us, I know you want to! We will be seeing Lake Victoria, which is exciting, but we are a little nervous. We have travelled extensively in the U.S. but there is something about a roadtrip in Africa that takes a bit of getting used to, I am sure we will fare well, though!

In other news: the wet season is among us! I never thought I would miss dry so much. You get to know yourself when you base the importance of something against having to put on your gumboots (RAIN BOOTS!). The blasted mud! Not that I want their crops to wither and die, but a few days of dryness and sunshine would be nice. What about God? Do me a solid!

Along with the rain a smell has made itself known near the stair to our homes. Initially I chalked it up to the rain causing the sewage to back up, but as of late itself, it is smelling more and more like death. It kills me and everyone who has to walk that way. Thank you rain for making dead things moist enough to throw off a mighty stink.

One good thing about the rain:

Tammi's smoking gum boots!

Dear Michael's Dad:
This one's for you:

Love-
Michael's Colon

And finally, my favorite picture lately. It's Sarah at the Boy's Dorm Party. Try not to smile:

Now here's a video from the boy's dorm, yes those are girls:

If you have time look at the new pictures. They include our trip to the slums in Kibera, the boy's dorm party (with more meat), and nuns playing volleyball. Don't miss it!

Here's Tammi:

11/7/06

We have been here 3 months today or maybe we left 3 months ago today, it does not really matter I guess. Who is counting any ways?

Michael is in the kitchen cooking spaghetti and I am at Kelly’s place typing this journal entry. I think of all the things I have not shared with you and I could blame lack of time but that would be a lie. I am really not sure why I have stopped sharing so much with you. I think because it is not so new any more, don’t get me wrong there are many moments that are strange and still very hard to swallow however that happens more times then I could keep up with and it has also become not so new.

Our Fieldtrip with House of Hope
I did not really say much about the fieldtrip with all the children, I think it was because we had just come back from being with Margaret’s family that the field trip was just too much to process. We had a great time and the children really seemed to enjoy themselves. We left somewhat early, not as early as Margaret would have liked but early none-the-less. We really did not know where we were going we just knew Rift Valley and well the Rift Valley is huge, it is a Province of Kenya, west of Nairobi. So off we went on what felt like the longest road trip of our lives, it could have been because the bus was full of 44 children and 11 adults. Either way we got to Rift Valley and it was amazing, again I wish I could described the beauty but I come up empty every time, I think all I can say is God is amazing (also I am sure you have seen the photos). It is just amazing that you can go just a few hours outside the city and everything comes alive and it is green and fresh and the air is sweet and cool and people are here and there all quick to wave to you. So still clueless of our final destination we can tell the kids are needing to go to the “choo” and well when you have a call you go wherever you can go. Right before we stop to go to the restroom on the side of the road, I noticed that George has fallen asleep in the seat behind me and he is preventing Beth from sitting down so I pick up George and hold him in my lap to allow him to sleep and Beth to sit. So all is well except George has horrible gas and well when the time came for us to stop to let the kids go pee I thought maybe George needs to go #2 so I wake him up to go with the other boys to a big bush to pee and when he comes back he goes right back on my lap and we are off again. So a few minutes later George starts to look like he is going to cry and I ask him what is wrong and he will not tell me so I get a teacher to help that was sitting across from me and he tells me that George is not feeling well and well I think I best take him to an auntie so Agnes wins and she gets George and not 30 minutes later, at most, we all smell something pretty gross and low and behold George has pooed all over her and all over him self and on the floor. We have to make a stop at a market place so Margaret can buy George some clothes and Agnes can clean him up. We thought George would feel weird for the rest of the trip but nope, he was quick to show off his new clothes. Man was I lucky! If I have not said this before Agnes is an amazing women!
So back to our trip, we finally get to our destination, Lake Nakuru National Park. We park the bus and Margaret goes in to pay for the park entry and then Cyrus comes to get us, we go to the office and find out that it costs about $1 for the kids and $7 for the adults except if you were white, it was $40 and we were all a little overwhelmed with the price. At first we thought, well we don’t need to be here, we can just go into town and explore but Margaret was not having it, so off inside the park we go. We drive and we see all kinds of animals, it was pretty amazing and I am glad I did not miss it but still it sucks sometimes to be white. So I am sure you have all seen the photos and well that about wraps the trip up. We did think that Michael’s parents would love it, I hope they get to see it one day. So we do not really ever get out of the bus, we get to stop at one place that was a cliff that over looked the lake and it was beautiful but it was a short stop, we could not eat there because the baboons were crazy intense and would have ran off with Nicholas or Loise. So back into the bus we go and back home we make our way.

We tackled the city by ourselves
Margaret leaves for work really early and well it has been raining and so we did not want to risk not being able to go into the city so we suggest that we leave with her in the morning and we go where we need to go in the city taking the public transportation. She agrees and we are excited. So we wake up and leave at around 6ish and all the males in the community push the van out to the semi-main road. They had to push because the van was a little broken. So off we go and we drop Margaret off at work and we head to the Westlands because we are hopeful that Kelly will get her package and she does!! So we head back to downtown where the main post office is and Cyrus drops us off at a random place that we had seen before but was not 100% sure of how to get to the post office but we say “when in Rome” and off we go. So we are a little hungry since we got up so early so we enjoy a really large breakfast for 180/= which is a little over $2 and we eat and get full and are ready for our adventure. Before we left Cyrus points us in the direction of the post office and we have been to the post office before and it is on a rather main road in the city so we head that way and low and behold we find it or rather Michael finds it! He is amazing in any city, he makes tons of mental notes and he is great at finding his way around. So we go get Kelly’s package that should be noted as a funny situation because she had to go to about 5 different people just to pick up her package, we kept thinking that someone has got to be watching this on video. So we go to find a way to Westlands where the Sarit Centre (aka fast internet and lots of white people) is. So we go to the bus stop or Citi Hoppa and are told that no Citi Hoppa go to Westlands that we will need to take a Matatu aka a very small van that goes really really fast. So we find one and are told we need to hurry up since they stop in the middle of the road to pick us up and we head down the Uhuru Highway to the Westlands. We quickly discover that the music is hip hop and really loud for that matter, I totally think of Kimberly because I know that she would have been dancing in the aisle. Oh and the best part of the Matatu, and I know you were thinking the music was the best part, is the price, it was only 40/= which is less than $1 so you get a ride and music all for $.50 can’t beat that! So we go take care of our internet needs at the Westlands and we see that time is telling us to head back to the Nakumatt Mega to do our shopping and to meet up with Margaret and head home. So we think that the Matatu should be just as easy the second time around so we hop on another one this time we are in a mini bus of sorts and we have not just music but we have a TV that is playing hip hop videos, I call it soft porn but to each his own. So we dance in our seats and ask if this bus takes us where we want to go and we get a “yes” until we find ourselves lost and in the middle of the city (part of the city we had never been in) and we are told if we go somewhere we will find a Matatu that will take us the rest of the way. So we are lost and not wanting to look lost because well we were the only white people for miles and we were also running a little late by this time. So again Michael’s beard saves the day and a man comes over and ask if we are lost and we humble ourselves and say “yes” so he takes us where we need to go and we get on another Matatu and find ourselves safely at the Nakumatt right before Margaret gets there! Little side note, we hope to go back to the part of town we got lost in because we saw some great shops we would like to look it, I think it works to get lost sometimes!

The Boys Dorm & Kibera

2006-11-08T05:09:00.000-08:00

The Boys Dorm -or- I hope having a bed to yourself is worth your foreskin

This last Saturday we moved the first ten boys into the newly finished boys dormitory. John Felix, Lukas, Peter, PK, Mugo, Ben, Juma, Aaron, Morgan, and Joshua made the shift in a mad flurry of clothes, toys, and wooden objects crudely put together with nails, string, or anything they could find. It was a bittersweet event, mostly for Tammi and I. We had always hoped that there would be a place for us at the House of Hope as dorm parents, but it appears that's not in God's plan for us. But Patricia is now the head of the boys dorm, which she deserves, because she does work her butt off everyday (you may remember the expose' in our last newsletter---she washes the clothes by hand everyday. We did finally get the washer everyone is always talking about, but we think it slows her down, so she doesn't use it much), and now she has a room to herself.

Due to the boys moving in we had a large party! You know what that means? MEAT! Two kilograms of it to be exact. Crazy! We ate nyama choma (roasted meat), rice, and Tammi's favorite, a carrot and cabbage dish. The kids got fat, we got tired, overall, an exciting evening.

But to "cut" to the chase: the twenty oldest boys, this month, as a rite of passage, will be circumsized. Yes, you heard me, circumcision. I am slated to help talk to the boys about this. What do I say? "Well boys, the same thing happened to me when I was eight days old, I am pretty sure it will be about the same as when you are thirteen..." It happens the day after school lets out. Merry Christmas, boys, it is better to give than to receive...

No, there will be no pictures of this event.

---

Kibera

Today we went to visit our friends, the nuns, in Karen. Sister Rose took us to their school, which is on the edge of one of the largest slums in Nairobi, known as Kibera (you may have seen it in the film The Constant Gardener). She showed the school then walked us arond the outskirts of the slum. It was surreal. We didn't really know what to expect. Well we expected squalor, you know, weeping and gnashing of teeth, kind of thing, but no, there was none of that. For being called slums it really seemed like a community of well below average homes/shacks. We know this is just the perception of a well-off white person who only walked around the still green edge of an otherwise brown and grey "slum". We saw families going about their daily routine, and didn't feel sorry for them, because that would not help them. They seemed to have their own joy that we (those who live in permanent housing) could never understand. I know that it has to be a hard life there, I am in no way doubting that. It was an experience. I hope to go back.

There will be no pictures this week as we are in the Nakumatt. Hopefully next week you will see the boys dorm, kibera, and volleyball with the nuns...sorry!

It is also my fault that there is nothing from Tammi this week, sorry X 2.

Bye!

A New Day, Rain, and the Return of Tammi

2006-11-02T00:59:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!

From now on we will be coming into town on Wednesdays instead of Fridays due to confusion with purchases Cyrus must make and the picking up of Margaret. They thought it easier for us to come to town midweek. It was fine with us because it splits our week in half giving the illusion of two Fridays instead of only one, which is pretty cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

"But Michael", you say, "by our International Date Line Decoder Ring, it is now Thursday, not Wednesday, you silly goose!" I can answer this anomaly for you in one word: rain. A pirate's booty of the stuff. This much rain mixed with the 4-wheel drive of our van going out means no town for the Mzungus. So being short on food we hatched a plan: wake up super early and ride into town with Margaret on Thursday and then take public transportation everywhere we needed. So that is what we did, and after about 20 minutes of pushing by every grown male at House of Hope we were on our way, and here we are! We navigated through the Town Centre (Center or Downtown) on foot and took a matatu for the first time to the Westlands and our ever beloved Sarit Centre (CENTER!), all for 20/= each (about forty cents). We will be taking some form of transportation, whether it be matatu or City Hoppa, to the Nakumatt for some much needed shopping and to be picked up by our now gimpy/ hopefully fixed van. What a day!

So now that the wet season is here (hopefully), we will have to now stop thinking about it and actually buy a pair of gum boots (rain boots).

A majority of the pictures posted this week (all 26! We thougtht we would give our avid readers a break from staring at flickr for a crazy amount of time) are from a walk we had with about half of the kids from House of Hope and a few kids from the neighborhood last Saturday.

Sorry, no new videos, maybe that will be remedied by next Wednesday. Remember that day; if you have something to e-mail us, do not, I repeat DO NOT wait until Friday, we won't see it until the next week.

And now the long awaited return of Tammi:

10/20/06

So this Friday was much different then any other Friday however we did not know that at first. We got up late because the kids were on vacation that day do to a special Kenya holiday that honors Jomo Kenyatta ( original last name was Kamau), Kenya’s first president. Kenyatta was the strong man that lead this country to independence in 1963. It is hard to wrap our minds around the idea of this country only really being 43 years old, it is beautiful to be a part of something so young and you can feel that one day it will be much better then it is right now, however you can also feel like it will come with great struggles. So back to our Friday, we got up and found out that we would be going into town at 11am or so. So we got ready to go to the Sarit center aka that European mall. So we get our computer ready and for some reason I think I should take our camera, just incase we see some wild animals on the way to town. So at around noon we head off with us, Kelly, Ben, Margaret and Charles, our driver, all piled into the van. We head into town and Margaret tells me that she wants to show us the countryside so she wants to take us on a drive. We all get very excited to go on a trip to see the countryside, we had read that the countryside is amazing. After about 3-4 hours of driving and stopping to buy fresh fruit off the side of road. We get to our final destination, a village where Margaret grew up, near mount Kenya. Mount Kenya looks amazing, we could see it from Margaret’s father’s garden. Mount Kenya was really neat to see it was almost easy to miss it believe it or not. The land is all lush and green mountains all around it and then you see in the distance the huge mountain behind it, it looks out of place almost, you could see snow on the top and we were sitting in almost tropical weather on the mountain we were on it. I hope you can make it out in the photos but I know the photos will not do it justice because the whole environment was breath taking, I have never seen such beauty in all my life. Coffee was everywhere, and people were everywhere they waved to us as we passed by. Charles our driver came from the same village and everyone knows him, so they saw him and saw he was driving a white person and they would began to wave and get very excited. Margaret told us that many from this village had never seen a white person. I hope I represented all white people well. Charles was very excited to be so close to home that he asked if we would like to go visit his family, and of course we did. His family was all very excited for us to stop by, they quickly greeted us with hugs and kisses. They were also quick to give us sweet bananas and greens from their garden. I know these people have very little and yet they were able to still give us so much. Charles’s mother was a very cute woman, she was very old, however she seemed in great shape, she was also incredibly short. His son and daughter seemed really nice. We stayed long enough to take some good photos of the family and see their sitting room but it was already late in the day and we really needed to get to Margaret’s father’s house. So off we went to what would be our final destination. Margaret’s father had not seen a white person since he was fighting for independence, it made us a little nervous to think that the last time he saw a white person he was trying to kill them. He was very nice to us and very excited for us to visit him and his family. When we got to his house we had not peed since we left our house so needless to say we needed to go badly. However they did not, have any western style toilets, just a nice deep hole in the ground with a concrete around it. So this was my first time and Kelly’s first time to pee in a hole, sure we have camped but this is a little different, I am note sure why it is different it just is. However we both did great and it was just a little smelly at times but it was nice and it worked. I think things would be different if I had to go poo or if it was that time of the month if you know what I mean. However all in all peeing in a hole; not that bad. Some women had already been cooking for us, we got a freshly slaughtered chicken for our first dinner. We had potatoes with the chicken and we had cooked bananas and a chicken broth soup to put on top. It was all very nice however we had a few difficulties with the chicken because it was super tough to chew, Michael was given the leg because the men are suppose to have the leg and it was so hard that Margaret keep giving him a hard time for not eating the leg. She said but that is the best part and the man are suppose to just rip it off the bone. Michael just told her that he was not a man and could not do it. He put up a great fight but in the end the chicken won and Michael left a little meat on the bone. So we ate and got very full and the sunset before we could see too much around the house. Margaret had asked us if it would be ok for us to stay the night or go into town and get a hotel room. We said we would love to stay and plus who wants to stay in a crazy African hotel in a town that has not seen white people. So we get excited about the idea of staying the night with all these great people. So we stayed outside with a lantern and some very good tea. We were surrounded with more coffee then anyone knows what to do and we are taking tea, crazy but it was good. So we have tea and talk with a few relatives that stop by to see the visitors and to have some tea. We enjoy our time in the beautiful night with the millions of stars right above us, until it started to rain. So we get excited about the idea of staying the night with all these great people. So we quickly move the party inside where we sit by a lanterns and listen to Margaret translate two men’s story on how they fought for independence. Margaret’s uncle and father both fought and lived in the bush for seven years only eating what the near by villagers would bring them. Margaret’s uncle began to ask us questions about our lives and how we lived before we came. He asked if we lived with our family and we said we did but we are the exception not the norm. He asked what we did before we came here and what kind of jobs do people have back home. He also asked if Michael paid a dowry to my family and when they found out that he did not and you do not do that they could not stop talking about that. They just keep saying that live would be so much easier for everyone if there were no dowry. We asked what kind of things could be a dowry and they said cows, goat, and of course money. We started to talk about something else for a while and then the two men started talking again and Margaret said they started to talk about the dowry again. Time was going by and we were getting kind of tired so we thought we would be going to bed soon but no not these people we needed to eat again. So we enjoyed some good old fashion BEEF, yes little bit size cubes of beef with lots and lots of nice hardy fat on them. So we eat what little we can and off to bed we go. Michael and I get a very nice room with a nice size bed and Margaret and Kelly sleeps on the couches in the sitting room. I am not sure where Ben sleep or Margaret’s father slept. We however slept very well and the extremely load rain was mostly funny because when it was barely raining Kelly said, “aww I really like the sound of rain”. But we knew that if it rained hard it would sound so load because the roof was just a thin tin roof. So after everyone went to bed it started to rain so load you could not even hear yourself think. I just kept laughing and thinking about Kelly. She said the next day that she was fine and that it woke her up a few times. The rain did not stop all night long and we got up to it still raining. We ate some small sweet bananas and some bread and waiting for the next meal to come. We found out that morning that a goat was going to be slaughtered for us, we had mix feelings about the whole thing because we had just had chicken and beef the night before so we were not really jumping at the idea of having yet a different meat. If you have not figured it out yet, meat is kind of a big deal here, so if you are different and special you get tons of meat and you should feel very honored. So we met our fate with open arms and started to eat tons of food. We ate some kind of a veggi dish right before the goat came that was pretty good. Beans, potatoes, maze, and greens all mashed together. We sat very in the kitchen and at it with all the other ladies. The food sat very heavy in our stomach so we all decided to take a nap and by we I mean me, Michael and Kelly took a nap. We were woken up by the smell of goat. Just the first course of goat meat; the intestines and liver and some mystery parts. Kelly ate way too much liver I think because she was sick the whole next day. Neither Michael or I ate the liver, good thing I guess huh. The next round of goat meat was shared among many friends that all came to have goat and visit with outsiders. So we enjoyed lots of goat and had a soda to wash it all down with. We got asked many questions and we took many photos. The time was passing by and if we wanted to get home anytime soon we need to be heading out soon. So after the large fest we packed out things and we headed back home. We said all our good-byes and gave many hugs and kisses and we were invited to return whenever we wanted. Margaret asked if we wanted to stop at a large market on the way back home and we said of course. So we stopped and we all got some goodies. Kelly and I got a nice bag/basket and a nice wraps and a few other things. We did not stay long which was a good thing because people were starting to say some rude things to us in Swahili and asking us for money. However people keep mistaken Michael for an Israeli man, I guess it is the crazy beard. Margaret over heard a man tell another man, that had been saying some bad things about us in Swahili, that how could he say that about a man that comes from the line of Jesus. We all had a good laugh about that on the way home. Our journey home was nice but long. We stopped to pick up Moses at his school that was on our way home. By the time we got home, Kelly was feeling very sick and was quick to go to her room. Michael and I felt fine and we cleaned up and cooked a good meal. It was nice to be excited about coming home to house of hope. We had not really had that feeling yet, to miss this place. We still had that feeling of living out of a bag and well you don’t really miss that. So we had a home to miss now and that was a good feeling. We feel at home here and we still miss things every now and then but for the most part the homesickness is gone and that is a nice feeling.

Bonus Image:
This is an abnormally large fly (notice the other fly for scale) I assassinated in our bedroom last week. I think this guy ate whole turd and half a lime flavored Life Saver himself. He is still laying in that same place as I type, if you really wanted to know. I have never been a hunter, but this hoss is worthy of mounting (no jokes, Tim or Joel)

See you next when?

That's right, Wednesday!

Love to all of you!

Tammi Has Become Wicked Domesticated and a Little Blue Material

2006-10-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

So Tammi has adopted some new hobbies since arriving to Kenya. On of the main one is sewing. It all began with her work with the children in teaching them to sew pillows and dolls. Then in the room we were staying in when first got her, Tammi spent much time looking at the quilt in the room saying "I can do this!". Soon I found her sketching a pattern for the quilt and wanting to find a fabric shop. We found a shop in the Sarit Centre (Center!) and Tammi purchased her fabric. The fabric sat dormant for about another month until we got our own place. Then the dam broke and over about a week and half, everytime she had free time she sowed and sowed until we had what is pictured above: a 40" by 40" blanket. I was really surprised how well it turned out. It was completely done by hand! She has wicked talent! At this moment she is purchasing more fabric, for her next sewing project. She has also decided to conquer basket weaving! No joke, BASKET WEAVING! It is on our nightstand as I type!

There is nothing this woman can't do!

Now for a reason why this blog isn't linked to the Starfish Kenya website:

At school yesterday Joshua walked up to me on the playground and asked how many balls I have. I was shocked, but I couldn't help but laugh at him. He said, "You have two don't you?" Words could not express my discomfort, but I kept laughing. "Could you bring them down here?" At this point I realized he was speaking of the three footballs (SOCCER!) that Kelly had brought, one of which we had already given them. I was relieved and humored all at the same time!

I know we promised Tammi's journal on our last entry, and she did write tons of stuff, but I did not think to put it on our flash drive before we left for town. It is all my fault and I apologize.

We love you all!

Mount Kenya, Lake Nakuru, "Happy" Baboons, and so many pieces of Goat.

2006-10-24T02:51:00.000-07:00

Such a strange week. We apologize for being late with our weekly updates but we have a good excuse. On Friday we were leaving, or we thought we were leaving, for the Sarit Centre (CENTER!), when we unexpectedly took an alternate route. Margaret had said she wanted to show us some villages, so we figured this was going to be it. Little did we know that almost four hours later we would be in the small village where Margaret grew up near Mount Kenya, to visit her father and family. It was really beautiful! Her father is a coffee farmer (who only drinks tea, by the way) so we got to see coffee trees. Everything was so green. That's really all I can think to say. It was full of differnt kinds of plants that all offered nutrition. They slaughtered a chicken for our arrival and since we ended up spending the night, they slaughtered a goat for our departure. I can only speak for myself, but I don't think my appearance warrants a chicken to slaughtered, not to mention a goat. But we were greatful, and it was good. On a side note, goat and Kelly's stomach do not mix! The reason for the celebration was because white people have NEVER visited their village and some of them had never saw one. Margaret's father, Wilson, last saw a white person when he was fighting for Kenya's independence from the British. So yeah, I didn't praise colonialism by any means (because everyone knows how I rave about colonialism!). We had a great time with Margaret's family and are invited back for Christmas for which they promised to slaughter two goats! Whew!

We got home late Saturday and rested Sunday. Then Monday we left for a "planned" field trip with all 44 children! We piled into a large bus at about 8 am and left House of Hope. No one, except maybe Margaret and the driver knew where we were going. We heard Great Rift Valley, but then we were informed by Njagi that the Rift Valley runs from Jordan to Mozambique, not to specific. So everyone was in the bus, heading northwest for many, many hours when we reached Nakuru, home of Lake Nakuru National Park. After some arguements with park security about admission prices for white people, we entered. It was breathtaking. We saw many animals, the children loved it! The baboons were crazy near the picnic area. The baboons were easily my favorite because they are always, ALWAYS, ummm, shall I say, excited. Anyone who was ever a thirteen year old boy will know what I am talking about, and will know that it is impossible not to find it hilarious.

It was really a great weekend, which is ending now at our beloved Sarit Centre (CENTER!) with it's glorious internet connections. Tammi was working on her journal when we were told we had to leave now or wait for some other time, so we decided to go ahead and go. She promises next time she will have something. Her updates will also be more specific.

Please go to our flickr account and enjoy the photos of this past week including a party for the kids, Mount Kenya, and Lake Nakuru!

We love all of you!

Now, a video with baboons!

A New Place, A New Friend, and A Permanent Position(for now)

2006-10-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

So this is the living room of our new home at the House of Hope. It is really nice. More nice than what we expected or even deserved, I think. We are able to cook (first meal: spaghetti and salad, second: eggy in the basket...simply beautiful!). Things are strange in the new place. First off: There are not 44 children just around the corner asking for cards or a new movie. We miss that, strangely enough. They do still come and stand outside our door and holler requests. Next: There are noises that come with a new place. The first night we kept thinking there was someone knocking. Last night Tammi swore there was a small rodent in our rubbish (GARBAGE!), there was not. We feel weird living in such luxury when millions of children have been orphaned and living alone on the streets, begging for food. But we will make the most of it.

Kelly arrived on Tuesday. She was also really surprised by the accomodations! The children seem to have really taken to her and she already has a set position in the community. We were worried about that, since all of the trouble finding a place for myself, but things appear to be going great thus far. I think she will really be an asset.

I appear to have a permanent position for myself as well. I will be moving from class to class offering "insight" on the days lessons. I might use materials or just offer a new perspective. But I have a schedule, and that is great!

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Some play by play:

10/11/06
No more waking up to whispers of our name from around the corner

No longer in the big house and we are a little sad. We moved to our own space that is really close to the house however it is not in it. We knew the first morning would be a little weird to not hear 44 children all getting ready for school or church or playing, and it was hard and weird. We could hear them in the distance but it was not the same as waking up to screaming, laughing, singing, and crying. I will miss it very much.
Our space surpasses anything we ever expected to find here or in Africa for that matter. I am still not sure what I think of this. I want everyone to know that I feel honored of such a space and I am very grateful to everyone who made this possible, however it is hard being white hear, we are learning that people have a very hard time seeing past our color and the money they think we have. So moving into a space that is very large by anyone standards is a hard to swallow when many of these workers will never have a space like this. We watched as a strong team of men worked day and night to have this space ready for us and we were humbled and felt very much not worthy of their hard labor. They are workers and we are still not sure if we are even in the same ballpark as them. I completely realize that this space and Kelly’s space will be used when there are teams here and that it will save them team lots of money, however, we were ready to give up everything to be here so all this is a little weird and hard at times.

Kelly makes her way to House of Hope

As most of you know a friend from Ecclesia named Kelly has come to join us for a few months. She is here to work with the children with art therapy. I am very excited about this I think this will be really good for the children and getting them to be more creative. She seems to be really excited and ready to work with the children. It will be nice to have more hands when we are working with the children. Please keep her in your prayers!

Going to the airport was very exciting for us, we were allowed with Margaret to greet Kelly at the gate, so that she would see our faces when she got off the plane. This is how we were greeted when we arrived so we thought it only right. This is really not suppose to happen but Margaret is a very important person here and the men who work security at the airport are from the same village as her late husband, so when she walked into their office to ask and said her name the men stood up to greet her. So you guessed it, we all got backstage passes! So we picked her up and came home to find the older children just as quite as when we came. Many of the younger children had gone to bed already so it was just the older children who were waiting for her. She let them ask her questions and they started to open up but it was really late and they needed to go sleep. It was weird to see myself in many of Kelly’s reactions. I could see how far I had come. I could see how much I have changed already. I could also see this for Michael. He is different now also, he is a leader and a helper here. All who knew him would be blow away and so proud. I know I am.

I forgot to tell you about my birthday celebration!

As you have already see, I got the best song sang on my birthday by some of the best kids ever! Hearing Happy birthday from family is amazing, but hearing it from 44 kids that are truly grateful every year they live, will bring tears to your eyes and that it did. It was very unexpected because it was the day after my birthday. Margaret came home with a large box of biscuits and the kids knew something great was about to happen. So she told them that the day before was my birthday and that they should sing to me and that they did! Then I got to pass out lots of biscuits to all of them, a birthday gift I am sure to never forget!

Kelly’s first day

Kelly and I got our day started at around 9ish. We did not get up until 2ish pm our first day here, so we were quite impressed. She came over and we were off! I took her all around the house and then we went to the school just as the children were about to have tea time, so we partook in a nice glass of tea. The children were very excited to see Kelly and they could not wait to play with her. She jumped in with both feet. We stayed for circle time in the nursery and she got to hear all the great songs the children know including my favorite,10 green bottles dancing on the wall. Then we were off back to the house to go though all the things she brought. We separated all the things that were for the children and all the art supplies she brought and most importantly our stuff! We were so excited to see all our goodies!! THANK YOU EVERYONE most importantly GARY and CAROL! But no special thanks to HEATHER TAYLOR because of the pictures of the family enjoying themselves at Chuy’s and then the chocolate bar, made our mouths water and you know we are not drinking to much water these days. Just kidding, we love you all!

Funny story

So we were all in the TV room watching a movie and Mbau farted pretty loudly and Isaac got upset (he was sitting next to Mbau) and he started to complain in Swahili to him and Mbau said something back that seemed like he was saying it was not him. So Isaac decided to smell Mbau’s butt and low and behold it was Mbau because Isaac stared to wave his hands over his nose and say some harsh words to Mbau in Swahilli

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Sorry, no videos this week. The internet at the Nakumatt is just too slow. Maybe next week fi we make our way to the Sarit Centre (CENTER!)

Bye.

Ps. Good luck, Dave.

My African Hand, A Birthday, A Teacher, Baptism, the Moving on of Some Beloved Staff and a Modest Request...

2006-10-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

This photo of me was taken by Morgan. It appears that I am trying to cover my face with a rather, umm, "ethnic" hand. I have not begun to change colors, yet. The hand is from Mary Anna. I don't know what it is about these kids and wanting to put hands in front of a camera lense, it's crazy. Some kind of nervous tick I guess. It would be amusing if not so annoying! But I will forgive them. The picture made me laugh.

So this last Tuesday was dear Tammi's birthday, our girls all growed up! Twenty-six! Can you believe it?! It was like just like week she twenty five. Where does the time go? It was weird being away from home for her birthday, and I am sure it will be even weirder being away for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. If Yom Kippur is any indication, we have a hard road ahead of us! We thought we had slid under the radar of any kind of celebration in the house. We were going to have a party with hot dogs and chips (FRIES!), but opted to wait for Kelly's arrival. So the third came and went, oh well. The next evening Margaret came home with a tin of biscuits (COOKIES!) and we thought they were just a prize for the children, but no, it was all for Tammi (and the kids, too)! Everyone sang Happy Birthday, it was fun! Here, we had witnessed an extra verse to the song when it was Margaret's birthday which goes "Happy birthday to you, I went to the zoo, saw a fat monkey and thought it was you!" We thought it was hilarious, and were expecting it for Tammi's song but all we got was "I saw a (awkward pause) monkey and thought it was you". Still funny. Enjoy a partial video of the event:

So we found out last Saturday that one of the primary teachers, Purity, had quit. I, of course volunteered to fill in until they could find a replacment. So starting last Monday, I taught full time, for the first time, ever! It felt good. I didn't get to use too much Montessori materials, but I think I offered something different to the everyday classroom routine (including high fives, trash talk, and using heads to lean on). Call it unprofessional, I think the majority of the enjoyed it. They brought in a replacement teacher on Friday, and they wanted me to show her the ropes, go figure! I will probably teach full time for a few more days next week until the new teacher gets her assignments. I taught mainly English, CRE (Christian Religous Education [talk about hard to stretch into an hour long lesson!] and Creative Arts (Tammi helped me in this class. We had two rules: you can't use a ruler and you can't draw a damn house! [omit the damn]). It was fun.

Last night we had Friday Fellowship. Tammi and I had both been fighting fevers all week, and frankly, we just wanted to go to sleep. But we went, and thank goodness we did. We discussed 1 Peter 3:13-22, and ended up focusing on the baptism aspect of it. We feared awkwardness, and of course there was a little (no more than being in a room full of people who are tired and don't wish to talk), but there were some serious questions about baptism, how we feel about it, what the Bible says about it, and what it is like in America. This went on to a conversation about what it means to be saved. Really incredible stuff. We told everyone if they wished to discuss baptism more that we could talk with them and see what we could do. We were told by Margaret after the meeting that most of the people in attendance had indeed given their lives to God, but not yet been baptised. Big things are in store!

In the past couple of weeks we have been losing a lot of the staff that was here when we arrived here and it has been a little hard. First Teresa, our cook, left with family problems, but now she gets to live with her children, whom she had to live away from before for the sake of her job. She was replaced with Elizabeth, whom I am convinced makes fun of me. Then Carol, the auntie who had replaced another auntie we only knew for a few days, left. She was twenty, and related closely to her. She was replaced by Little Agnes (since we already have an Agnes, everyone calls her by her African name, which we can NEVER remember, hence the "Little"), she is nice. Then, unexpectedly last week Catherine, the lady who washed the dishes, left to take care of her six month old baby that no one knew about. She was really funny. She liked Tammi a lot, and I know Tammi really liked her. Her replacement, Lillian, is now here, and I, so far, don't have an opinion on her. It's difficult for us, at least, to have all of these new faces, but it appears the children are handling it well. It's good that all of the new people started at the same time, hopefully they will all bond and not get too annoyed by the white people in the house.

As mentioned above, Purity also left, and her replacement is named Catherine. She is quiet.

A modest proposal:
Whoever would wanted to by me an 80 GB Black iPod, I would be eternally greatful. If you founded just 100 people to give $3.50, it could be mine! Just think about it.

note: I don't really expect this, it was done in god humor.

note 2: but it would be cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

Extra Videos!

They girls doing their hair. The scratchiness was intended:

ZEBRAS!!! (These were seen on the way out of the neighborhood/village:

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A bit of play by play...
10/2/06-
I went to the washroom (aka restroom) earlier today and found a large black cricket, I asked Michael if he thought it was important to take care of it or not and by taking care of I mean killing it. He said “no I saw him earlier and he is fast and well I just did my business with him in the room and he was fine”. So we thought that was then end to the story of the rather large black cricket but it was not, we came to get in bed for the night and Michael wanted to go wash his feet, so I go to get in the bed and guess who was all curled up under the blankets with just his head sticking out? The large black cricket! I asked Michael to come into the room that he had made a new friend and we both could not help but to the think it was cute and it reminded me of Fletch a little. So Michael put him in a glass and took him outside.

I keep forgetting to tell you all about spending the night with the nuns, it was so much fun. They were so welcoming and so excited to have us over, they wanted to show us everything and tell us about everything. They live in a city called Karen and it is where all the rich Kenyans live and we do mean rich by anyones standards. The houses were huge and the land was very beautiful. We stayed up really late, just sitting in a room playing with laptops and sharing music and pictures. It felt so good to have something to offer someone. Michael was afraid that he would feel weird being the only male but that was not the case at all, they teased him and quickly put him to work on the main computer in the house. One of the nuns named Sister Ester told us all about a people group that she lives with now (she was just home for a visit) and we are really going to try to go visit in November. They live in another part of Kenya about 4-5 hours away and they are called the Pokot people. The sister also told us about the project they have in Tanzania that again we may try to go visit in December. We will keep you posted on all the details about the nuns. Just wanted everyone to know that we have a great time and it felt a little like a slumber party all the time. They all work so wonderful together and they have a true sense of community. It was very beautiful to see and to be a part of even for just a day. Also forgot to tell you we took our first ride in the public transportation. It is called the city hoppa and it was very exciting. We took it from Karen back to the downtown Nairobi. We did not take it alone, Sister Jennifer took it with us, but I think we can take it alone now that we understand it.

I promise I will get Tammi to be more consistent with her journal. We have been sick and busy this week sorry!

Next week: KELLY! It will be good to be sarcastic to someone other than Tammi again. Sarcasm does not really exist in Kenya and as most of you know, it is my bread and butter.

BYE!

So lately...

2006-09-29T02:35:00.000-07:00

...we have been doing "portrait" style pictures of all of the children. The first pictures we took of all of them (the brick wall mugshots) served their purpose, but we wanted something that showed a bit more of their personality, hence the 315 new pictures on our flickr account. What's flickr you ask? Well silly, look to the right of your screen. That's where we have been putting all of our pictures, check it out!

We have also been putting some of our videos to music, the result has been, well, entertaining to say the least. I hope you enjoy them.

The child pictured above is Loise. She is a forty year old woman trapped in a three year olds body. She has a wicked smokers cough, seriously.

Here is the House of Hope Dance Party with Ken, Jane, Hannah, Waithara, Jose (pronounced Joe-Say, I know, it is hard to believe, we still have trouble with it!), and Nico. Keep in mind, there was no music playing when the video was shot:

No play by play with Tammi this week.

Please

Spiritual Warfare, Storytelling, The Goat is Got (Literally), and My Dreams of a Short Order Cook

2006-09-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

In the "We Should Have Thought of That" Department:

It will be taken care of today!

Spiritual Warfare

I have always somewhat scoffed at the term spiritual warfare. It seemed dramatic, a bit crazy even. But in this past week Tammi and I have been struggling through our daily lives and we have come to the conclusion that there is only one reason for our hardships, mostly mine though: spiritual warfare.
I have been spending to much time being homesick and finding reasons to complain about, for a time this was fine, natural even. But you reach a point where you look at yourself and wonder “Is it really always everyone else’s fault or could I, maybe, have something to do with this?” Of course I had something to do with it! Prior to our departure I felt confident in many things: I felt my marriage was strong, better than most, even, I felt I was finally becoming a spiritually mature Christian; I felt good about my life, I felt in control, and that is where the problem lies: we are never truly in control.
When you begin trusting yourself too much, you begin not trusting other beings, namely God. Confidence is spectacular when you are in your comfort zone, but when EVERYTHING around you changes you kinda have to throw that confidence you had become accustomed to out the window, and start fresh, trusting in God to provide for you the new tools you need to function in your new environment.
I did not do this.
I did not trust God to do this for me, and it showed. I could not be a truly good husband to Tammi, as a teacher, in both the classroom and the fellowship/church room, as depended on myself alone to speak for God, instead of allowing him to speak through me, I was not giving all of myself to any of these things because half of me was still in Texas.
This past weekend was rough. I was convicted of many things. Most importantly, I need to trust God for everything to be provided for me. It is not my show---it is His, and I keep forgetting that. I am not here for personal glory, but to be an instrument of his will. Whatever He convicts me of, I NEED to do, and not think about it so much.
Pray for this humility in me.

Storytelling

Once a week each class has a storytelling lesson. This sometimes means that children read a short story and then retell it to the class (which is completely bogus, in my honest opinion) but in my class, Standard One, made up of 6 and 7 year olds, Teacher Njagi (enter Patton Oswalt routine here) allows the children to get up in front of the class and freestyle, that’s right: OPEN MIC!!! Like most open mic stand up comics, the stories are ultimately unimaginative. Most of the stories follow one of two formulas: 1) There was a hare and a hyena and something happens to them, usually a race, or 2) There was a boy/girl (depending on who is telling the story) who goes into the forest to search for meat, and in the forest they encounter any number of wild animals who have the sought after meat and something else happens. Each story lasts about 3-4 minutes and is performed in either English (the older ones) or Swahili (the younger ones). But Tuesday Fedrick, one of the neighborhood children, got up to tell his story and it was, well, *expletive deleted* crazy!
It started: “There was once a mother and a pussy cat...”
Njagi: “A pussy cat?”
Fedrick: “Yes, a pussy cat.”
Njagi: “Go ahead then”
Fedrick: “There was a mother and a pussy cat and one day the mother told the pussy cat to go and dig in the shamba (the garden) but the pussy cat did not want to so the mother made him leave, so he left. The pussy cat found a, umm, dog eating meat (everytime Fedrick says ”meat“ he really emphasizes the word, for example: ”mEEat“) and the pussy cat wanted some meat so he started eating the meat and the dog got mad and started chasing the pussy cat for eating his meat and and the pussy cat ran away...”
Here he abandons the pussy cat and begins introducing character after character, including lions, giraffes, elephants, leopards, and even rabbits and hyenas all in search of “mEEat” (and yes it did not escape me that giraffes, elephants, and rabbits are, indeed, herbivores, this adds to the magic of the story). This goes on for about 6-7 minutes.
Njagi interrupts: “Could we wrap this up Fedrick?”
So Fedrick indeed wraps it up: “There were some leopards who found some goats eating meat (yes, goats too are herbivores) so they killed them and ate their meat (I am assuming the meat the goat’s had as well as the goats themselves). In the morning the farmer came out and could not find his goats but he found the leopards and he began chasing them and some lions began chasing the man and they caught him and ate him. And the pussy cat was at the farmers house because the pussy cat had two homes and my story ends there”.
About 10 minutes total. It was beautiful and completely loony all at the same time.
Good show, Fedrick!
I told a story involving a boy who was bad and had to work in the shamba and miss a trip to Mombasa with his school mates, a mole he finds in a hole in the shamba who shows him an underground world and eventually introduces the boy to an old giraffe who takes the boy to Mombasa, weaving through a hundred mile traffic jam and passing his school bus and getting to Mombasa first.
The kids seemed to really like it. Tammi and I are going to make a book out of it and have the children illustrate it. I’m pretty excited!
I still have nothing on Fedrick, though.

The Goat is Got, Literally.

Those who have known me for a while know that my internet handle is “the goat is got”, after a song from one of my favorite bands. Well this past weekend, Margaret, after much talk about it, had one of the goats slaughtered for everyone’s enjoyment. I was a little scared. I had been a vegetarian for about the past eight years until we began planning for our move to the House of Hope and now GOAT! Tammi will tell you a bit about the uncooked goat further down the post. But upon arriving home from town Saturday, first we noticed that it was unusually quiet which is strange for 44 children, but then I noticed a strangely familiar aroma: Long John Silvers. It was unmistakable and really, really surreal.
Barbecued goat, is pretty good. The kids go bonkers for it. They all appeared to be in a goat coma. Allow me to imitate Will Ferrell’s sleazy professor character from Saturday Night Live: Their faces and hands glistened with fat while there bellies pulsated with still warm goat meat.
Sorry, but I have never, never had the urge to say “goat meat” but after hearing 44 Kenyan say it repeatedly, I cannot, for the life of me stop saying it.
Say it with me once more, with feeling. Emphasize “meat” like Fedrick would:
Goat mEEat!
On a sad note, Tammi and I spoke to Peter, the herdsman, a few days later and he said the goat’s name was “Germany” and he was sad that he was gone. We’re not sure if he ate any or not. He really loves these animals, it’s inspiring.
Also, before the cooking we were told the goat was supposed to last the family a month. It didn’t even last the night, save for a few pieces. The children are already lobbying for two goats to be slaughtered for Christmas, rather than the one already planned.

My Dreams of a Short Order Cook

The cook we have had since we came here, Teresa, recently had to leave because of some family problems (we are unsure if it is permanent or not), and Margaret brought in a new lady named Elizabeth. I confided in Tammi that I was hoping she was previously employed as a short order cook in Nairobi’s best all night diner.
I longed to able to holler “Denver Omelet!” and have her yell back a few moments later “Denver Omelet up!” But I think she is just a regular cook, which is fine, the food is growing on me more and more everyday. She does have big shoes to fill if she is replacing Teresa, however.
“Goat mEEat Omelet!”

----
Here's Tammi:

The week of 9/16/06 – 9/22/06

I find I am not sure where to start, I did not do a nightly journal like I should have and now I have a weeks full of memories all rushing though my mind. I think everyone likes the run down of a day- to- day life, but well that did not happen this week. However if I had to give the week a theme it would be “a good week of humility”. Something I think we were way over due for. First off we needed to humble ourselves before God and we had not. We thought and I am being completely honest here, that we were above reproach. We were quick to blame others for what was really going on in our hearts. We were not feeling God because we really did not want to. We knew what he would say and well we just did not want to hear it. Maybe I am speaking just for myself, so I will do that from now on. I heard different people say you just need to take it to God, and at first I thought I was, but when I examined my prayers I realized all I was doing was complaining and not really asking or telling Him much of anything. Everything changed coming back home from town. I looked out the window and was thinking some thought that were far from glorifying Christ and I finally just said in a whisper “Satan I rebuke you in the name of Christ” and in that moment something unlike anything I have ever experienced happened. The thoughts left me and I was before my God, talking about everything and feeling completely comfortable and at peace. That moment my heart changed and so did everything else here for me. The next day we went to church and Margaret preached and I felt convicted about a lot of things and at first I wanted to be mad, but God would not let that happen, he convicted me but gave me peace about it. That afternoon we went in the direction of Mombasa and Margaret told us we were going to where she goes to get most of the supplies and so we were taken to a village, a real African village, it looked right and it felt just like Mexico (Michael’s words), however you get my point. All the people looked busy and happy, we went to buy more coal for the house. On the way to there Margaret begin to really open up about the lose of Naftali, we have not heard much about him up to this point. She began to tell me about her feeling about his one year anniversary coming up and how much she thinks about him and misses him. I just told her that I was so sorry and if there was anything we could do on that day to help we would. She showed me the clinic he was taken to on the day of his death and how she has never be able to return. She also told us about the tribal differences that happened after he died regarding how he gets buried. She told me about the way people responded and how much it all hurt her feelings. So everything seemed to change on the way to Mombasa, when I would look out the windows I could see sights only seen on TV or in magazines and it was beautiful. The sun was breaking though the sky and the rays were hitting the valley, which was below us, just right. Margaret showed us the school the children use to go to (it was very far from home), she told us about how Naftali would take and pick up her and the children every day, she just started to tell us everything Naftali did. He was a great man that loved his family very much. I felt so blessed for getting to learn more about him. Margaret did not have to open up, but she did and I don’t think it would have happened if I was harvesting ill feeling toward her. I felted honored and humbled.

The day before Church:
We were going into town that day, however before we could leave Charles had to come back. Margaret told us that Charles had taken a goat to be slaughtered, we had know this day would come but we still thought it may not happen until Christmas. So I thought no big thing, Charles will come back, the meat will get removed and then they will tell us we can go now, or so I thought. I did not even hear Charles come home: Margaret called me to her room, just me, this has happened before but it had just been to talk about a member of staff that she was thinking about letting go, however I still get nervous. So I walk into her room and I am speechless for a split moment because for as far as the eye can see there is meat everywhere, meat in bags, in bowls in trash can, meat and more meat and all raw! So I think, please God keep Michael in the other room. I realize quickly that Margaret just wants to show off all the meat to me and that she is very excited about us getting to be a part of this, but all I can think of is wow this is one goat! (oh and I see his tail, it still had fir on it). I also see how it is the same as going to some ones house that just got back from hunting deer and they take you to their freezer to show you all the meat. Either way I begin to see the pride that she had in being able to offer this to us.
That night when we return from town we don’t hear much and that is never the case when we come back from town, the kids are all over the van and all over us, like we just got their all over again. But this night we heard very little. As we walked around to the back of the house all was explained. The goat was now being cooked over fire outside and all the children were eating and were very peaceful. They cooked the goat in oil and lots of good flavor. So all the kids had shinny faces with big smiles on them. They quickly got us chairs to join in on the fun. Before long we had a plate in front of us with the goat on it. We ate and it was very good. Sam came and sat in my lap and we gave him a piece or two and he fell asleep with a tight belly and a smile on his face. The kids played and waited for more goat to be cooked. Near the end Margaret told us that almost all the goat was gone, this was a goat that was suppose to last a month or so. She said it with joy, she was so happy to see all the kids so happy. It was really something, one day you see a goat and the next day you eat him and go to bed happy.

Another school meeting:
We had another meeting with Margaret regarding the school situation, she told us that she had a meeting with the head of the education ministry and told them about the new time table (the one with Michael and I working with the level one for an hour a day with Montessori material) and well they did not say “no” but they did not care to much for it. So in the end we are going to try to work with the kids in every level using the Montessori material as practicals (classroom aids) rather then as integrating Montessori into the system. I am not sure what to think of this, however I do know it takes a huge strain off of us. We were not a part of this decision, we told her we were open to whatever she thinks maybe best for the whole system. Her fear is that the people from the education ministry may drop by (and they can at any time) and they will not like the way things are ran and that can mean bad things for the school. So we will try to work with a handful of children on Saturdays to see how they might do with the Montessori material, since the kids go to school on Saturday (they do fun things, however it is at school). So we will be going into town on Friday instead of Saturday from now on. We are also noticing that some of the subjects that are covered are lacking to say the least. We know it is not our place to say that the text books that are just little paperback books that are about 50 pages long are not that good, they are poorly written and they say very little about anything. We are also noticing that the textbooks for level 1 is not all that different from level 4 books, maybe a little bit more info. for level 4 but not much. So we are not sure what to do about this, because we think many of the older children are staving for new information, harder information, things that will challenge them to dig deeper into themselves. We also found out that all the material for the year has already been covered. They just spend from Sept. to Dec. going over it all over again so that they will be able to pass an exam. So pray that we can challenge the children at home to think about harder things, and to seek things and questions them.

When it rains it pours:
It rained hard the other day while we were at school. It sounds so loud in the classroom because the roof is large sheets of tin. So it rained all during lunch and that meant no playing outside, so you know what that means, yes you guessed it, 55ish (44 of ours and 11 outside kids) all going crazy in the early childhood classroom. Sounds fun huh? Not as much fun as walking home in the mud is! The walk home seems so far away when you are walking in mud and not just oh a puddle here and a puddle their, I mean crazy kind of mud that gets on everything. So we walk home and take off our shoes at the door and don’t think about them again until the next day. Oh quick side note, the only way to make it during the rain season is to have boots, so we will be getting boots soon, because the rain is coming! So the next day we come home and we see our shoes out and we take the hint and get to work to start to clean them. So we look awkwardly for soap, a bucket, water and anything else we may need to get our shoes looking half way decent. All this is happening while 4 of the ladies sit around and watch. One of the ladies is a new worker to help in the kitchen while Teresa is out sorting out things with her family. So all the women are watching and working at the same time and we begin to work the best we know how, then we hear the women start to laugh and talking in Kiswahili and looking at us. We think no big thing, we have had that happen to us every day since we came here, so we keep trying. Then Joseph the house manager who does lots of things around the house came over and said let me help, we thought ok he is going to show us how to do this and then he will let us finish, not the case, he washed all 4 shoes and they looked amazing. We sat their getting laughed at the whole time and being humbled by having a man that works his butt off clean our shoes. Michael said we would have been out here for hours and they would not have looked half as good, and I knew Michael was right. The most amazing part was that he had a scrub brush but he used a corn cob to clean the sides of the shoes and it worked great, he also used a part of the coal bag to clean the inside of our shoes, again amazing and unexpected. They use everything in the environment and so do the kids. We were a little upset that they women kept talking about us in Kiswahili and kept laughing but we thought we must have looked rather spoiled to say the least. So we walked inside with a wounded spirit and a humbled heart.

This Week in Kenya...

2006-09-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Before we came to Kenya I searched far and wide for a Swahili Bible with both Old and New Testament and when we were buying Swahili Bibles last week for Friday Fellowship we found this nifty half English half Swahili Bible. I was very excited! One catch: it's stamped defective because it hapens to be missing four random verses. I don't know which ones, and neither does the publisher! It's a fun item to have but I can never give it an athiest that I hope to convert. What can you do?

I miss all of you. I have been feeling a little under the weather lately.

Here's Tammi:

Friday 9/8/06
Since Margaret was going to be out of town all weekend we all thought it best if we just went into town on Friday rather then going on Saturday, because it would be better to be at home with the kids all weekend. So off to town we went. We first went to the bible store to get some Kiswahili bibles to share with the community. It was very nice to go somewhere different, the whole time we have been here we have only gone to a town really far away that we could not find again to save our lives and the Nakumatt the Nakumatt is off the same road we are off of, Mombasa road, it is the road that will take you to the airport or the downtown. So needless to say we were very excited to go though a neighborhood. It was neat to see houses with gates around them and to see how they protect their homes. They line the tope of the brick walls with broken glass or barbwire, the broken glass made for something scary yet very colorful and beautiful. So we made it to the store only to be told they only take cash, we did not have that much cash on us so off to the bank we go, PAYPAL is amazing and Heather B. is too. So we got money and went back to the store, we got 20 Kiswahili bibles and 5 bibles that were in English and Kiswahili so that we could use them to follow along with others when they read. So now we were ready to go spend 4 hours at the nakumatt. It never seems to fail that when we want to go into town we should know we are going to be in town all day. So we are getting more and more use to it. Also side note, the whole time we have been going to the Nakumatt we also eat lunch there, they have a café that serves America dishes and other good stuff, so we eat and we tip. We found out that you do not tip in Kenya and if you do, it is much smaller then we have been. So we have been the stupid Americas at the Nakumatt, stupid or rich, I am thinking more stupid then rich. Also we found out that we were doing about 10% of our bill and that is like a days rages here in Kenya. It is just so hard for us to wrap our minds around how a bill can be like 1000/= and so we leave about 100/= which is like a little over a $1 and that is about ½ days wage. How could anyone that makes that much ever eat at that café? I guess they don’t and that would explain all the beans and corn dishes that are so popular here. Oh a quick side note, we saw at the café a note that read, if the service is good then tip us (this made us feel a little better).
So fellowship night: First off thank you all that prayed for us, we felt it! It was a slow start that was made much more dramatic by the load and I mean LOAD crickets in the background, but as the night went on everyone started to open up more. We still have a long way to go but things look very hopeful. It was very nice, our cookies and tea were a big hit (we found out that the cookies were worth about $10 and well according to our calculation that is about a weeks worth or work in cookie form) so no wonder they were such a huge hit! The bibles were also a huge hit, at first no one took them then someone was brave enough to take one and they all went! We saw them again in church on Sunday! So over all we felt Jesus in that place and may said at the end as we all took our second cup of tea that many have wanted the fellowship to be like this and that they were very excited about what was to come. Thank you again everyone who prayed for this; please make it a point to pray for us on Friday mornings (it is the afternoon here when it is morning there).

Saturday 9/9/06
Today seemed much like every other weekday here at house of hope; all the kids go to school except they don’t take it seriously, no uniforms and no real agenda. My class just colored for ½ the morning and then after tea we all went for an hr walk. It was nice to see the neighborhood so to speak. Michael’s class just played indoor games all morning. Then off to the house for lunch at 1230 except they never eat at 1230 they don’t eat until like 1ish so that makes for a crazy 30min or so. Then they don’t go outside until 2ish and well they are the quickest bunch of eaters they world has ever seen. So they just run around like chicken with there hear cut offs for about an hour and a half. Also we have found out that it is a competition with the kids to eat the quickest, everything here is a competition, that when they go into the other room we hear them say “ I am number one” and “I am number 2” and so forth. So lunch and then a nap for us and the kids go off to God only knows but for 2 hours we don’t really care (wink, wink). Then we got up when the kids came home and we went out side to start to wash our cloths with the rest of the kids. We washed and hung all of our dirty cloths and then it was dinner for the house and we played Indian Jones after dinner and it was a huge hit! So over all the day was nice and the kids handled Margaret not being here very well.

Sunday 9/10/06
Off to church we go. When we were leaving out the back gate we saw the sweetest sight ever. A new baby sheep, she was born the night before and still had her umbilical cord and everything, and Peter the herds man, named her Shallow. She is too cute for words hope you enjoy the photos. So church was very nice, Michael did not have the pressure to teach (because of the fellowship night) so that made it something we could just sit back and learn. It was about Zacchaeus and his faith, it was very powerful to hear about a man of great status turning from it all and following Jesus. You realize here how weird it is to turn from your corrupt life and turning to Jesus and giving everything back to those you took from. Not just turning your life over to Jesus but climbing a tree to see him. No one who was rich here, or anywhere for that matter, would climb a tree to see Jesus unless they knew who he was. Also something I had not though of until I heard it was that Jesus called Zacchaeus by name out of the tree. Jesus knew him by name, and called to him over the crowd and out of a tree and told him that He (Jesus) was going to be staying at him house, no question on if that would be ok or not, just straight up “Hey you up in the tree I am calling you out and I am telling you it is time for you to turn away from your sin and I am going to come and stay in you heart forever, get it” and well Zacchaeus got it and turn from the sin he had done. It was very powerful. What made it more powerful was the fact that we get to hear this sermon in Kiswahili and then in English, so our spirit is hearing it two times to make sure we really get it. After church we went back to the house to have a late lunch and by late we mean 2 in the afternoon and then we went for a long walk with the kids around the area and talk about everything we saw. The kids really love getting out of the house and so do we. We get to wave at the few cars that go by and they give us all weird looks and we get to say hi to all the neighbors and all the animals that are wondering about. So then we went back to the house for all the night time activities which are baths, washing shoes, polishing shoes, washing cloths, preparing dinner and eating dinner, all in which leaves everyone tired and ready for a movie and you know we love movies. So we put in a movie and let something else entertain the children other then us for a few hours.

Monday 9/11/06
Half days are so great! We were only going to be at school until about 11 because we were going into town to pick up our first package! It was from the Rice’s and we were beyond excited and nervous. Our first package we knew would be hard but we were still none the less excited. So to the post office we go at around noon (because everything is always an hour or so later then when you think it will be) so we get to the post off and find out that everyone that handles the packages goes to lunch between 1 and 2. So we thought hey we are close to the bank and we still have not gotten our ATM cards so we will go to the bank and kill and hour standing in lines and that we did, 3 lines to be exact and about 1 hour, so good timing huh? And we got our ATM cards and our pin numbers. So back to the post office we go and we find out that we are at the wrong post office and we need to do to the Westlands post office. So we go and it is a great ride with new things to look at and we always thought that the Westlands was so far (because Margaret always tells us it is) but it is not, it was really close and really neat looking, we think we will go back one day and look around more. So we go and we were thinking that the duty fee was going to be like $50 dollars (again because Margaret told us it would be) and we were super blessed with it only being $6 what a big difference huh! So we get our package and we do not have to open it (it had already been open for us and gone through and resealed). However I am super hungry and we are really close to a place called fish and chips and that sounded really good so we go and Michael and I get a hot dog (no fish at a place called Fish and chips), and Cyrus and Charles get chicken and chips and we all get a drink for 425/= which is only like $5, so we all eat and feel good and get back into the van! Oh the crazy bumpy Van! We go to the Nakumatt to pick up some things while Cyrus and Charles go to pick up Margaret we all meet up and Margaret tells us that British Airways has called and they have Michael’s guitar, WHAT but we already said our goodbyes to it, and we were already seeing it as Gods will and it was a blessing! So Michael was already feeling stressed. I think it was the combo of getting the guitar and going back to the airport and not getting on a plane to go back home, that was part of the stress. So we go and it all feels very weird and hard to swallow, but we get though it the best we can and pick up the guitar and head back to the house to find 44 children all whispering “guitar” and we went straight to the room to hide! We open our package and cry for about 15 min. or so over our goodies, the knife, astros cap, the space pen, and shirts were all a nice surprise to Michael, I was very excited over the Tums (I just looked for some at the store today), and our letters about how everyone is doing including our CAT!! Michael could not read the letter once it go to the part about Fletch and well I could barley get through it myself. We finally pulled ourselves together long enough to go and play with the kids for a few minutes. Michael played his guitar for a few minutes and I gave Mary her letter from Tina, she was very excited and seemed to be really moved by the whole thing, THANK YOU TINA for making Mary’s day!
Now we sit in bed, I typing away, and Michael playing his guitar, it is really comforting to hear, reminds me of home, I think it does him too. Over all a very emotional day for us both and we are quite tired.
Oh a side note, HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY ARABELLA GRACE! We love you and miss you very much, don’t grow to fast while we are away!

Tuesday 9/12/06
Yesterday I told Olivia that we could run together on Tuesday (she wants to be a long distance runner). So all day I was a little excited about running with her and anyone else who wanted to join us. We also found out in the morning that the staff meeting that was canceled on Saturday was now going to happen at 4pm right after school got out. I told everyone that I was going to run then I would be back before the meeting stated. So off to run I went only to have all the kids pass me up and run so fast and for so long, they really showed me up! However Ben at some point decided that he was going to run in the opposite direction as everyone else and that was a little frustrating and scary. As I was running I begin to feel my throat getting sore, like the day I worked in the garden, and I thought it must be the dust in the air and the dirt roads that is getting to me. However I never got better just worse and by that night after one of the longest and hardest meeting yet I hade a bad fever and my whole body hurt like I had the flu. So I went to bed crying because I did not feel well and because again we got told that we were not meeting expectation and that I had hurt some feelings and had my feeling hurt also. So Michael was amazing and support the whole time and just let me cry and got me everything I would need to feel better.

Wednesday 9/13/06
I still was not close to feeling better but thought it would not look good if I did not go to school. So I went to school and felt like a zombie all day. So at lunch time I went home and went to sleep, I did not really wake up until Michael came home and I did not eat breakfast or lunch and did not really want to get up for dinner but I did and had a few bits of food and back to bed I went. I really missed the kids a lot but knew I would be no fun or use if I were still not feeling well.

Thursday 9/14/06
Had a rough night the night before because I had a bad fever all night so I was cold then hot all night long. I did not sleep well so I did not go to school I just stayed at the house and sleep and took a hot shower and watched a movie and did not leave unless to go to the bathroom. Margaret called to ask if I wanted to go to the clinic but I think I am getting better but still weak and running a fever. Michael came home at lunch time and help me eat a little bit and then we both went back to sleep. We woke and I thought a walk may help me, so we walked made a few phone calls and came back for dinner and all the kids wanted to read, so we got lots of books out for the kids to read. We went in the room to read for a few minutes but I started to feel weak again so I went back to bed.
I found out that my family’s dog got hit by a car and died and that my sister got rear-ended the next day and that she was a little scared and that my mom was a little overwhelmed. Mika (the family dog) was very sweet. I went with Kimberly to pick up the dog when she got her. She was so small and cute, I remember that at first it was just going to be Kimberly’s dog, but that did not take long to change and she was everyone’s dog and she even sleep with my parents (who would have ever thought) she was a good smart dog who did not deserve to get hit by a car right in front of her house. John also did not deserve to watch a dog that he had grown to love get hit by a man that he knew and have that man not really show any real emotion. My mom told me that the neighborhood came over and helped to pick up Mika and but her in a bag and prayed over her. It is hard to ever write this because I know how hard that must have been for my family. But also how beautiful is it to know that most families in neighborhood hardly speak to each other but when it really counts they come together and pray together and help each other to love on each other. Thank you to all who came to my family when they needed it the most. I know this will be really hard on my sister, she is very loving and I know that she loved Mika very much, please let her know you are there for her and that she is loved, please pray that God will ease her pain and the rest of my families pain.

Friday 9/15/06
Fridays are always long, but good. The reason they are long is because we have fellowship on Friday nights from 9ish to 10ish. So we always tell ourselves that at some point in the day we will rest a little but that never seems to happen on Fridays (every other day we don’t have a problem resting). We took Stanley to school to show him how thing are ran. For those who do not know who Stanley is, let me feel you in. Stanley is a paper man that Paige, Michael’s niece, sent to come stay with us for a few days. He needed to have his picture taken with some of the kids and he needed to learn a few things about Kenya in the process. So Stanley played with all the kids, ate some sugar cane, played in the shamba, and seemed to have a nice time over all. Be sure to check out Stanley in the photos. So we stayed at school until 2pm and then came home to work on fellowship things. We worked and watched Sports night (a TV show that Michael’s parents mailed us), then we heard all the kids come home so we went off to take more pictures with the kids and Stanley and to get a group photo of us with the kids. So we played and then went for our walk and by the time we came back, Michael was not feeling to hot. He is doing much better now. We had a long talk about everything and I think we are both feeling better about things. So I ate dinner (Michael did not feel well enough for ugali) and I got out lots of books for the kids to read. Well Michael and I do most of the reading but hey we don’t mind. They just keep bringing us books and we just keep reading. They all sit around us and listen to us read about some pretty crazy things that I am sure they don’t fully understand, but it makes me feel good that they just want to listen to us read. However Michael and I both had to draw the line when we got asked to read a book about Thanksgiving, we really knew they would not fully get that one. So Margaret came in to do evening prayers and I went to the kitchen to start making tea for fellowship. They have a fire going with a large pot with boiling water in it and you add un-pasteurized milk, that has already began to separate, to the hot boiling water, then you wait for the milk and the water to boil and than you add tea leaves to it. You don’t let it sit for to long and then you drain it all (by putting a pitcher on the ground and picking up the large pot and poring it into the pitcher), put it in a thermos and serve it up, when you add biscuits aka cookies with you tea it makes the tea a lot better. So fellowship was nice and people shared and they seemed to really like it. At the end we asked them if there were any prayer request and people had some, it was really nice to know what we could pray for. Many had asked for a spiritual gift to return to them and two asked for more ways to share their musical gift with others. All in all, a very nice time of sharing and learning.

The Patron Saint of Completely Legal DVDs, Updates, and Cursed Cravings

2006-09-08T04:32:00.000-07:00

Completely Legal DVD’s:
Outside the store we go to do our internet business, buy sodas, and eat glorious masala chips (fries) there are numerous men screaming for you to look at their merchandise: power strips, traffic cones, hammers, pillows, and the much fabled, and extremely sought after, completely legal DVDs. The first several times we went to Nakumatt, the store’s name, we were accompanied by Margaret, and I longingly looked at the salesmen as the van slowly passed by. This last time, however, Tammi and I were able to sneak away and peruse the goodies. We were handed a stack of movies and on top I saw Superman Returns. How the completely legal DVDs work here is that they put 7 movies on one disc. How do they do that you ask? Two words: lackluster quality. After some haggling the disc we purchased included Superman Returns, Click, The Break Up, Waist Deep, 10th & Wolf, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, and Shooting Dogs.
We rushed home to check our purchase. I was eager to see Superman because I was unable to see it before we left the states and was really looking forward to it. Yeah, it was a movie theater recording, big surprise. We could hear seats creaking and people laughing throughout the film. We watched it though. I enjoyed it despite the quality.
We waited a few nights for the sting to die down, before we watched the next movie. We wanted something light after a long day so we watched Adam Sandler’s Click, another movie I wanted to see but never had the chance to. It was great (shut your mouth DVC), as an Adam Sandler fan I was completely satisfied, and the quality wasn’t horrible, probably because it wasn’t a theater recording. But as the credits began to role the screen faded into the beginning of the next film.
A black screen with the words “Rwanda, 1994” appeared. Tammi and I both knew that any movie beginning with those words would not be the lighthearted fair we had begun the night wanting to see, but being five hundred miles from the country, we were interested. The film was entitled Shooting Dogs, staring John Hurt (I had never heard of it, DVC?). Of course it was about the genocide that occurred in the nineties, and it took place at a technical school in Kigali ran by a priest, John Hurt, and a volunteer teacher played by Hugh Darcy. The story-line was much like the well-known Hotel Rwanda, except even more hopeless. It was difficult to watch, even more so with us living so close to the event and being volunteer teachers.
Afterwards we were worn out. We were completely not prepared for the film, but it was really well done and I suggest you check it out, unless you have loved ones living near Rwanda.
The next day, as Tammi and I were walking to school, Tammi commented that the film made our kids and their actions easy to deal with as long as they aren’t committing mass genocide. I tend to agree, although sometimes it’s questionable...I KEED, I KEED!
So in conclusion: I am not quite ready to give up on completely legal DVDs. I think as long as we buy older movies that have already made it to DVD in the states, or were released in 2005 or earlier, we should be fine. I see the DVD we purchased (ksh 300, or $4 US) as a mix-tape made for us by someone didn’t quite know our taste in songs. There are some duds, some gems, and some songs you would like to have in better quality. It was an experience.

Updates:
~ Last Saturday we sent out our latest newsletter via my mother, it’s pretty sweet, if I do say so myself. If you didn’t receive one and would like one, email us at mwilliamrice@gmail.com, and we will get you put on the list, or better yet comment to this post with your address, and I sure my mom might send you one, she would probably be faster than us.
~ For the last week Tammi and I have been silently observing the classes at the House of Hope School to try and find were Montessori could fit in to there already packed timetable. I have some ideas, but it will taken some flexibility on the teachers parts, but I think we can make some of work rather well. We will be introducing some materials at the home in the evening in the meantime.
~ The kids at Gateway Community Church in Clear Lake a few months ago raised money to go towards the building of a football field (or for those in the United States: SOCCER!) for the children at the House of Hope. Well the building began today, IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASSES! What the hell is it with children and heavy machinery? They see a back-hoe and they lose the ability to do the simplest mathematics. Crazy! It should be great though. It will be huge and have a track around it. The children are wicked excited.
~ At the House of Hope, every Friday evening, Margaret hosts a fellowship evening for the adults in the compound. Tonight Tammi and I are trying out more of a “small group” setting rather than the usual worship-pray-message-worship format. We are trying to have the group dialogue more rather than passively participating. We will be discussing Romans 6:1-14. Join us if you are in the neighborhood. If not, pray, please pray.

Top Ten Cravings That Can In No Way Be Satiated Until We Return To Houston, No Order:
-Chuychanga from Chuy’s...yes, this includes the full set up, salsa, and the blessed Creamy Jalapeno
-Mai’s General Tso’s Chicken, Garlic Tofu, and Tofu Spring Rolls
-Chinese Buffet, I know it’s not authentic, but I don’t care
-Bombay Sweets Vegetarian Indian Buffet
-Friends at Onion Creek, or anywhere for that matter
-Luby’s...yes Luby’s, crazy, huh?
-Batting Cages
-An Astros Game...expensive seats
-Wall Ball
-Fletch

We love all of you and wish you were here, really.

Waithara, Ken, Hannah, and Jane relieving some "stress":

Now, here’s Tammi...

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Monday 9/4/06
First day of real school, it was not too different but the things that were different makes a big impact. We decided at the teachers meeting that we would just watch and take notes for the first week then we would have another meeting on Fri. and Sat. to discuss all the things we noted. They wear uniforms to school and they all look so cute. My teacher was back and ready to go and she was much nicer to me. She said on our walk back to the school after the meeting that she had no idea that I was here a year, so that would explain her not really being all that warm to someone that she thought would be gone when she got back from holiday. So I think that helped her understand that we should work together. I think it will be ok with us. ALL the kids have tea time and lunch in the preschool class which is crazy over whelming for everyone involved but mostly for the kids that our in the preschool class because their sense of order every day 2 times a day gets all turned upside down. So that was some of the first things we noted. However I noticed the kids did very well working and they seemed to take regular term time a little bit more seriously. I took good notes on how I think the classroom should be set up and what things need to be removed and what things need to be added, so I felt like for a first day I was able to sit back and see a lot, I am sure we are going to be sharing with Margaret soon.

Tuesday and Wednesday 9/5-9/6
Well these two days were a blur because we were sitting at school all day and then coming home to prepare for activities! We made a multiplication BINGO game that Michael was going to use with a few children to help with multiplication! We did too much these two days, we are still learning how to better manage our time.

Thur. 9/7/06
We left one month ago today. Crazy to think this, I still find myself not fully understanding that we are in AFRICA!! It still sounds weird to say. Everyday it becomes more real but yea it is still weird. I have been able to hear more from God, it has been really nice. I hear him in my dreams and on my walks and well all around. I have missed him and was worried that I would not hear from him the same way I used to, I know I had to just stop to listen but he has always been here.
Margaret told us today that she was going to be out of town until maybe Sunday. So party in Nairobi and you are all invited! Kids are welcomed, wink wink! However please keep us in your prayers, we don’t want the children to be upset by this.

These boots...

2006-09-02T03:36:00.000-07:00

Ben has by far the best style of all children. I know you are saying "Michael, their clothes are primarily donated to them, they wear what they have!" I agree, but he has a couple of pairs of shoes...the boots were his choice, and his choice alone! The next day he wore the same thing plus a yellow down vest. The boy has style!

The has been pretty great. We have been left alone with kids quite a bit and, I believe, it's been fruitful. The kids are really starting to like us! Thank God!

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Tammi Time:
The week of 8/26/06 – 9/1/06

Sorry to all the fans of the every night journal entries, I did not do so well this week, maybe next week. The week in general has been one of the best and one of the worst. I will start with the hard part first because well, it is short and the amazing moments far surpass all the hard junk.
Everything was going pretty good, or so we thought, until Thursday. I am not sure of how much to say or not to say. I think for the first time in my life I am feeling like I might not meet some ones expectations, or many people’s expectations for that matter. I mean my whole life I have done well for myself. I have worked hard to be where I am today. I feel, if I maybe so bold to say, I am a hard worker, I am trust worthy and, well, Michael and I make a great team, we are not afraid to say how we feel and confess when we are having hard times. All this to say, when all that is questioned or we feel like we are not meeting expectations, we get upset and start to struggle when we were just getting on track. I know everyone means well but really, we did a lot to be here and I repeat A LOT. We felt the calling from God and He gave us compassion for these children way before the picture of House of Hope was painted for us. Everyday we take into account the children’s background and everyday we think about how far they have come to be here and to be alive. They have met our expectations. Ok well enough of that, this all sounds like a rant, when in fact I think it all comes down to communicating and we are hoping all the parties involved, including us, get better at it.

So I will now move on to all the great moments!
The week has been much better then we could have imaged. We went in it thinking this is going to be a crazy and hard week, but in fact it was very nice and peaceful. All but two teachers were off this week, so that meant we had to take over and help lead a group of 11 a day. Margaret had a talk about us to the children and the next day they were all listening and respecting us a lot better. It was a huge blessing that I know played the largest role in this being a good week.
So now is a run down of something nice for every day of the week:

Saturday 8/26
After a hard day of being in town longer then we would have liked we came home to find all the kids sitting around a pit roasting corn, eating and looking at the stars. A few of the boys that had worked on the solar system project started to ask us more questions. We think we were able to point out Mars (brightest star in the sty). We ate lots of roasted corn and had a good time of laughing and enjoying our time with the kids.

Sunday 8/27
Going for a walk with a group of kids (and some other adults) to the camel farm that is off in the distance here at the house. Michael stayed at the house and watched a movie with the other group. I thought that the farm is bound to have a fence around it but nope, we all got super close to the huge camels. They were very old looking but still very neat to say the least. We walked for a while and the kids were having a great time exploring. They kept saying they wanted to find a mtoto (baby) camel. We looked for quite a while but to no avail, I guess they keep them somewhere else.

Monday 8/28/06
Teaching sewing for the first time in my life and it going well, and the kids making pillows and dolls and cloths for the dolls. On the way home we saw a girl put the doll on her back, I could not stop smiling.

Tuesday 8/29/06
Michael and I sat outside and washed our close with all the other girls. Michael said that the boys were never going to listen to him again but I said you have strong hands and can wring out the cloths much better then me.

Wednesday 8/30/06
Helping Ken sew a nice doll and pillow, he is such a ladies man.
Having Nicholas take a nap on me.
Having Lois speak to Michael in Kiswahili and Michael saying “oh Lois you know I don’t speak Spanish” (an Anchor Man joke)

Thursday 8/31/06
Having Ben arrive at school with a pink shirt and cut off shorts and you guessed it cowboy boots on! (Be sure to check out the photo)
Roy (the name of the boy calf here), who gets feed by humans, was getting hungry so he was running around and mooing like crazy, he tried to suck a mans elbow! Way cute!
Getting KISSES for the first time from Lois, and it was not just one kiss, it was too many to count it was a little weird but really really nice, all the other boys were watching and laughing, but she did not care she just grabbed both my cheeks and went in for it, on the lip kisses! Too sweet, she was being a cutie pie all night. We are both growing very fond of her. (She is the little girl in the video with Michael).
During prayer time we were learning about Noah and Margaret asked if anyone wanted to share what they knew about Noah so a few spoke up but Ben’s stuck out the most because he put the story of Lot and the story of Noah together and it made for something amazingly funny that lasted a good while until Margaret said are you telling about Lot or about Noah and Ben said “Lot”. What made Michael and I both laugh the hardest was Ben said something about Lot or Noah, who knows, going to drink a soda before going home to his family. Ben is one funny boy!

Friday 9/1/06
Watching The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe with all the children and having them all cheer when Aslan came back from being dead. Also having Caroline get upset that we could not keep sewing, she asked if we could do it on Saturday.
After fellowship time, Michael went into the living room where the boys had decided to stay up late watching Narnia again, and he found that the main menu was on the screen and the boys asked him really nicely “can you play the last thing”, Michael said “what thing” and they said “snake picks” and he realized after much confusion that they were asking to play “sneak peeks” , he went ahead and played it for them knowing that they would be a little disappointed. All we could think of was, I wonder how long it took them to read that and come up with “snake picks”. Oh and when I asked “who asked you to play it”, he said, you guessed it, Ben and Peter.

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And now a video of Tammi in the kitchen:

A Man Had A Ruler, Amen

2006-08-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

Quick Note:
Dear Dave-
Precious!
Love Michael

Here we are again! Tammi is well, I feel great! A little homesick, but great nonetheless.

I haven't really journalled too much in the past week, but we have been working on the newsletter, and this is a little something I wrote but decided it was more blogworthy:

Almost one month ago we left the United States to become a part of the House of Hope Community. To say Tammi and I seamlessly integrated ourselves would be a lie. First off, we are white, and large, and don’t know a word of Swahili (although we are working on this!). Secondly, we are from the United States and have become accustomed to certain creature comforts that our air conditioned homes, personal automobiles and level roads usually afford us. Am I complaining? Most definetly not! We have been brought warmly into this community despite our differences and were fed, housed and kept warm, not only by the grace of God, but by the Basigwas---all forty five of them, as well as their family and friends.
Despite the warm reception of our new family, we find ourselves homesick at times. This is normal, I know, but we do miss all of you and carry you with us through our everyday lives. Not a day passes where we don’t say to one another “So-and-so would have loved this” or “So-and-so would love this food”, it’s inevitable. Something else has happened, that I thought would never happen: we miss Houston. I have been fighting my love/ hate relationship with Houston my entire adult life. Just before our departure Tammi and I discussed how Houston makes it so hard for people to love it, by systematically removing everything that makes it worth living there (i.e. Astroworld, Cactus Records, and eventually the River Oaks Theater, the Alabama Bookstop, and dare I say, the Astrodome). But as we are driven through the bustling streets of Nairobi, down Kenyatta Boulevard or around the circle of Haile Selassie, I realize a certain chaotic charm that I could get used to. But I still long for my Westhiemer, Montrose, Alabama, and the southbound entrance onto to I-45 off of Allen Parkway at that certain time of day where the beauty of downtown will crush you and your automobile if the oncoming traffic doesn’t first.
I guess that is why we don’t go into the city too often: it is much easier to see beauty here at the House of Hope.

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Another reason my dad would love it here:

The kids are fans of JAG! JAG!?! What next Martial Law?

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And now Tammi's continuing omprehensive journal:

Friday 8/18/06

While I was in the shamba the day before I noticed that my throat kind of hurt, I thought it was because I was freakin thirsty but it was not, I was sick! So When I woke this morning I felt like crap, I had a fever and my throat was killing me. I took some advil and was off. We were planning on going into town so we just went to school until 10am and then we came to the house to meet Silas to go into town. We took one of the aunties with us and we thought it was so she could go on holiday but we later found out it was not holiday, she was fired. So that was weird for us, but Margaret explained everything later to us. So any ways back to our trip to town. We went back to the Africa walmart to get a passport photo taken so we could open up a bank account and both Margaret and Silas both thought it would take hours for them to do but it only took 5 min. so Silas went to run some errands and we went and had lunch and use the internet. Silas came back before we were completely done with the internet and he wanted to take us to the bank, so off we were going deeper into the city to a bank that was big and kind scary, the deeper into the city the more intense it gets. So we get to the bank and Margaret has to sign some papers for us to be able to open an account, and she was not available. Silas just thought if the lady talked to Margaret, then that would work. Well that would be a no go in any country so Kenya was no exception. So we filled out all the paper work and got everything ready but that meant that we would have to come back the next day to complete the whole process. So Silas said he was going to take us yet again to another internet place and drop us off while he went to run errands and to get Margaret at work. So we went to a place that Michael and I would normally hang out at with no problems, a cinema with a bunch of other places in it. But the whole time Silas is telling us to stay close to him and to not leave the internet place. But come on you know us. We stayed for as long as we could and then we went to a restaurant and got a couple of cokes and talked. For the first time ever we felt a little out of place. They served us ok but they kind of treated us different and it felt like people were staring at us. But we quickly got over it and we talked and enjoyed our coke and when we were done we called Silas and he was on his way to pick us up. So we walked to meet Margaret and made our way home. Once home I went straight to bed and I started to take some antibiotics I had gotten from a dr. before we came. So I had a high fever and my whole body hurt and my throat felt like it was going to close completely up. So that meant we missed fellowship night but I could hear some of it as I would wake every now and then. They did it all in Swahili but I could feel it in my heart. Margaret prayed at the end and I could feel the Holy Spirit so strong, it was her voice but you could tell it was God speaking because my whole body could feel it. When she was done you could tell she was tired. I think I will tell her to do it all the time in Swahili because you can feel it more.

Sat. 8/19/06

I did not do much, stayed in bed all day. Michael went to the bank with Margaret to finish up the account and he came back with treats. KitKat bar and some coke, sprit and Mountain Dew! I felt so special. Michael also told me that Margaret picked up a new auntie for the children who looked like one of the children. I woke from a nap to have dinner in the living room and to be back around the children but I still did not feel any where near 100%. I met the new auntie and she did look young but she is 20 and you can tell she is a grown up in her face. Some of the children are still having a hard time seeing her as an adult, but it will come with time.
So, being physically ill and home sick makes for a sad Tammi. The kids could tell I was sick and Olivia told me that she was praying for me. I thought that was so sweet. She later asked if I was going to the hospital,
I said “I am not that bad I will get well soon”.

Sun. 8/20/06

Today was a little rough to say the least (could be because I was still not back to myself). We had some guest today, about 20-25 people from a church youth group that is in South Nairobi. The youth pastor gave an amazing sermon! Margaret had asked Michael 5 min. before we left for church if he could speak for 5 min. or so. Michael was overwhelmed but God told him what he needed to preach about. He addressed the children (who were already asleep by the time he spoke) but it was very good. We don’t think many could understand him any ways. So after church we got to help with the food and serving our guest. For the first time we felt like part of the family, it was very nice. Everyone let us jump right in and help. The guest were a little snobby to us (the whole HofH) but over all they were nice. After lunch, I went to go rest for a bit, we woke when they were all leaving. Good timing on our part. So we came back together with all the kids, you can tell when the kids have visitors, they all act a little bit crazier. They were all over us and all over the place. Margaret had to have a meeting with all of them in her room. They came back a little be calmer. We watched football and went to bed.
Oh I also got to talk with my mom and sister today! It was so good to hear their voice. I love them so much and miss them so much! I think about them all the time!

Mon. 8/21/06

Back to school, I still do not enjoy getting up on Mondays for school. So off we went, my teacher is on holiday again and Faith was back, so we tired our best but the kids over took us. I have good moments and really bad one all in the same day. I have learned to pick my battles I suppose, but it is hard. The kids I have noticed do something kind of strange when they are confronted with something. If one is hurting another or if they are acting out and you get on to them or just say something like “what can I do for you” or “ I am going to need you to work (Kazi) please” or “say you are sorry” They space out, not like the kind of space out that they miss behave more, the kind of space out that takes them to another place far away from where they are. I can’t fully explain it, I think it may have some thing to do with coming for a very traumatic background. So school was over for the day, thank God! Off to the house we went. We ate lunch and took a nap and we were ready to go again when they came back to the house from being outside. We went out side where they were still playing and getting ready for a fruit snack, we got some too. Oranges and mystery fruit (with think it may have been guava) when we asked the kids they said “I don’t know”. So the kids starting taking baths and we went for our walk, when we came home it was getting close to dinnertime. We ate with the children then we went to play some cards and such. I showed the older kids how to play battle. The first time we played it went rather quickly the second time, not so fast. It took forever and it was between Sarah and John Flex. It is funny how kids everywhere will grow sick of the game but can’t quit in the middle of it. So they played on and on until Sarah won! We had our tea and called it a night.

More side notes:
1) If you have not noticed the photos yet, be sure to check them out! All the kids are there, so if I talk about one, you can go to the photos and take a look see and put a face with the story!

2) They have roaches! And crickets (big black ones), Michael found one in the sink one morning and tried to flush but he was too strong, so I peed on him, I was scared he was going to jump up my butt, but I won that battle!

3) I stink all the time! And Michael thinks deodorant takes the place of showering (not much different from when we were in the states)

4) It feels like camping all the time and well I am not sure what I think about extended camping…

5) When ever you are talking to anyone in passing they think you are asking “How are you?” and they say “Fine”, so really you could be saying something really mean or really nice and you will get the response “Fine”

6) Everything we eat gives us gas……

7) The food is very good (except the greens), I find myself looking forward to it!

8) The boys really really like football!

9) We have been here 2 weeks and still no rain! It is the dry season we found out. It rains in Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. (so we got that to look forward to)

10) I tried to explain organ donation to Margaret and you could tell she thought that was way weird.

11) Margaret told us 450 people die every day of AIDS in Kenya alone. These are people that are being reported that live in the city, who knows what the real number is.

Tue. Wed. Thur. and Fri. 8/22-8/25

Well this is when it happens, I guess, I start not writing so much or at least not everyday. Our days are starting to get very routined I suppose. We get up, have breakfast, walk to school, 1030am we have tea time then back to school. Then home for lunch at 1230. Then a nap from 2-4ish and then tea and a walk until 5ish. Play time with the kids until dinner at 6ish then playtime or project time from 7-8 then prayers until 9ish. So that has been most of our days in a nutshell. All of this is not to say that beautiful things are not happening. They are, we laugh every day at someone being silly and I hold someone everyday that has gotten hurt.
For the last 3 nights we have been doing a project over the solar system with the older kids, we did not realize that all of them have never heard about other planets let alone the solar system. Most of them if not all had a hard time reading simple English and then putting the information into their own words. This might have been our biggest struggle. They could not understand that they could not just copy from the little books we had given them. Finally, I just let them copy, the battle was too hard to fight. So the first night (Wed.) they read their book and wrote something about it. Thursday night they made their planet out of art supplies, again they could not really image that they could make it however they wanted so in the end they all looked pretty much alike. So come Friday night they were ready to tell all their other brothers and sisters here at HofH about the solar system. It was long but good. You could tell they were nervous and excited to report back what they had been doing the last few nights in the kitchen. I was very proud of them all especially given the circumstances. It seemed like Margaret really enjoyed hearing them speak and read in front of everyone. So we told her that we hope to do other projects with all the different age groups. All ideas you might have are welcomed!

I think one of the things that I am struggling the most with is finding my place here. Michael can preach, he can teach and he is a male that is with the kids all the time. So I know what you are thinking, you can teach too Tammi, but I am not so sure. I am really quick to get frustrated with the kids and that makes for a really bad teacher. I don’t think I have been all that kind to them in the classroom. I have been quick to grab their hand when they don’t understand, I am quick to pick up the really little ones in the classroom when they are destroying other peoples work. I am well, not that good with them in the classroom. I am really scared about this. I mean some of the worst ones in class will then the moment we walk out the door want to hold my hand. So needless to say Margaret and us have been having talks about all this. I have agreed to be patient with them and my teachers (who still do not talk to me). She has also explained that the children could be having a hard time seeing me as a teacher. They see me as a visitor that they play with. She also said that the teachers could be having a hard time not seeing me as a threat. All in all I am leaning to just role with it and be bolder with my teacher when I am upset or if I think the children are not respecting me. I pray with time I will see my purpose here. This whole place is ran by really strong women and well they are doing an amazing job that it is hard to see how I could even compare.

Michael and I started working on an old Beth Moore bible study that I had brought. I think this is going to be really good for us, please pray that we will find the time to work on it and that the Holy Spirit is with us.

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Amen, Hallelujah, Amen.

Update 18/08/2006: The Big One

2006-08-18T03:42:00.000-07:00

Everyone make this last you for a week or so because we are not sure when we will be back to post some more! Hope you enjoy, I know it is crazy long so take it a day at a time. Love you all!

Check our Flickr for new photos!

Michael's Journal Entries:

14/08/2006: Nurturing the Spirit...whatever.

I’m tired. We both are, I am sure of it. Each day we are met with new obstacles: new faces we haven’t saw yet despite living with them for a week now, a new language that seems to shift in our minds on a daily basis (there is a world of difference “chamba” and “shamba”, well, you use one to fertilize the other, so they are similar), and a job that, despite our shortcomings, God has felt the need to assign to us.
We are tired.
But there is something about these children. They come from practically nothing, but they are blessed, and they bless us, continually, everyday that we are here. They are precious, but definitely not little angels. They can be a handful. They scream and fight and make each other cry, but they also lift each other up and hold each other accountable. It’s amazing. Normally when children this age openly worship Christ, I tend to question if they fully understand what they are doing, but not these children. They have a faith that kings would trade their riches for.
It’s inspiring. It makes the late nights, early mornings, and long afternoons completely worth it. I cringe when I am labeled a “missionary”, because these children are the ones spreading the word of the Lord in everything that they do.

15/08/2006: The Night Time:

It gets hardest at night when the children have gone to bed and Tammi and I have retired to our room. There, my most vivid memories of home rush back to me. Some of Tammi and I’s happiest times were just laying in bed doing nothing or preparing t sleep.
These times are still nice and looked forward to, but they are different. There is no Fletch annoying us (how I miss those annoyances), no Doctor 90210 (despite my utter hatred for the show) instead of the Colbert Report, and no leisurely strolls to the kitchen for a late night snack (we do, however, have a cache of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Rolos, and Jolly Ranchers left over from Chicago O’Hare).
These are the times when the weight of what God has called us to do sets in and we feel our most discouraged. We must go day by day and realize that somedays will be harder than others and that the harder days may out number the easy days.
We must be okay with that and welcome it. We must. It’s a necessity.

Tammi's Daily Journal, or, The Big One:

Thursday 8/10/06

Today was hard but good! After we got gas for the van and made our way down the bumpiest road in Nairobi we got to the city. We were in traffic all the way there, and not like Houston traffic more like Mexico traffic. We went past the slums. It was weird and a little anti-climatic. I am not sure what I was expecting but it was not quite what I saw. It was off in the distance we were on a hill or something and it was in the valley. We got taken to a clinic to get medicine for malaria, however all we got was a mosquito net and some cream to rub on our bodies. We were not that concerned about malaria until we met a woman on the airplane that is from Nairobi that got malaria once, so she was sure to freak us out. However we feel fine and safe, so we may or may not use the net and the rub. Then we went to get our currency exchanged we went with $500 and walked away with 36,000 Kenyan Shillings (ksh) which sounds like a lot however gas today for the van was 1,500 ksh and it did not fill it up. The doctor was 3,500 ksh and our phone was 8,600 ksh so needless to say you can do the math and see that things still cost kind of a lot. It is weird to see traditional Africans talking on a cell phone, so everyone has one however at the cell phone counter we looked and acted like we had no idea what a cell phone was. Then we went to the Internet café, for the first time we felt at home.
So we came home to see all the girls washing cloths so I joined them, they had a good laugh and watched as I picked up the wet clothes and began to scrub them with my hands, then all was well and they knew I was ok. So we washed until it was all done, some other girls washed shoes and some boys polished the shoes. It was practical life for real not just models of it. The kids take baths in groups outside, I am not sure how all that works yet. I know that the older children play a large part in that. The boys and girls are really starting to like us. I have had a chance to put two babies to sleep in my lap, Heather you would be so proud. They crawl up in my lap and fell asleep. I LOVE IT! Michael has been singing and dancing with all they children, they love to teach us new stuff. Oh! the books that we brought are a huge hit!!! They love them. I have brought out all of the Dr. Seuss books and there is nothing more beautiful then to see small kids reading to each other. They treat the books with such care, you just look up and see groups of kids around a book all taking turns, how freakin' cool is that! I also showed the kids how to play “go fish” with the deck of cards (grand canyon cards) they can play cards all night long. We sit at night and talk with Margaret. She is so amazing, she always give us time with her. She seems to like us and we really like her. So it is feeling more and more like home every day. We know it will get hard when the newness wears off but for now it is really exciting. The kids are on holiday now, however they still go to school for half a day then play sports the next half of the day. So tomorrow we hope to take the parachute down to the school. We do not know all the children’s names yet, but we are getting it. Michael and I both said that every day we see another kid and swear that we did not see them the day before. We both look at each other and say, who is that and we both don’t know. We also were wondering how do they keep up with all the children and then we realized that they lock up the compound at a certain time and everyone is locked inside, so I guess that is how they keep up with all of them. Also we forgot to tell you that Moses is home, I think he is home for Margaret’s birthday either way he seems very nice. I am sure we will see and talk more to him. We found out that on Friday it is fellowship night here at House of Hope. All the workers and us all sit around and praise the Lord and talk and get a sermon. How cool is that, we have a small group!

Friday 8/11/06

Our first Friday at House of Hope and it was something. The kids are off all of August but God knows that they cannot run free all day long so they go to school ½ days all month long. It was different to say the least the teacher that will be the head of my class is on holiday so her assistant is named Faith and I assisted her in the classroom. She was very excited that I might be able to help her. She was very open to me working with the children. They seemed to be quite a hand full. There were 19 all together and half would work on writing and the other half would work with Montessori material. The class was not set up quite the right way but they make due. The kids are very bright but some material is not all there and you can tell the kids sense of order is all thrown off. I did well with the non-verbal communication, they seemed to understand well when I would just make hand signs and do the action I wanted them to use. We had teatime and then played outside, then back to work until lunchtime. Then we went home for lunch and played for a few minutes then back to school. Friday is board games for the old children and the younger ones play outside again. So that is where I was, Michael got to play board games all afternoon. The sun in Africa is hot but the air is nice. We played until most of the kids were tired and crying. Then home we went. Michael and I had tea (we have tea 3 times a day) and we made all kinds of jewelry out of yarn. The whole process is very overwhelming for Michael and I; it was funny and scary to hear 10 plus kids all saying “Tammi” all at the same time. I keep saying “one at a time”, but you know how that goes. So at the end of that whirlwind Michael and I went for a walk alone to regroup. It was nice to see the sun go down and just walk together. The kids were in the main playroom all playing well so we joined them. A boy (I don’t know his name yet) always wants me to read to him so as I was reading to him he put his face on my chest and begin to fall asleep, I could feel him breathing and my hear melted. He woke and quickly turned his body back around. Ken, (who looks two but is really seven) is very quiet most days and does not speak all that often, worked really close to me today. Later that night he was playing with another boy and they were chasing each other Ken would come and hide behind me, I guess I was a safe place. Michael and I just smiled because it meant Ken was not so shy any more.
Fellowship was something, it is from 9-10 and everyone seemed pretty tired but they are ready to worship the lord. We sing songs (mostly in Swahili) and then someone will preach. The only hard part was when everyone started to pray at once in Swahili, that was really something. I keep asking God to give me the gift of tongues but that was a no go. One day I will understand them. All in all it was nice and everyone was very warm to us.

Saturday 8/12/06

The kids did not have school today and we had not gotten a chance to show them the parachute so, you guessed it, we went to the playground and played with it. We quickly felt overtaken. They all wanted to rip it apart, to say the least. I think they were excited but still very anxious. I think they think everything and I mean everything is limited, we noticed this again when we were handing out paper and pencils to all of them. They want whatever they don’t have. I think I understand and it makes sense, you spend your whole life wanting something, i.e. food and clothes, so that when you get a chance to have something you want a ton of it because you think it will never be their again. So yeah, we did not play with the parachute to long because the young ones were getting hurt. So we went for a walk all along the property and that was nice. Near the end we played follow the leader and Michael was the leader. I have never seen Michael stretch himself so far, it is amazing. Anyways, he was the leader and all the kids were doing just like him, it was so freakin' cute. Even the ladies that were with us to keep up with the kids were laughing and doing what Michael was doing. So we came home and we played for a while until Margaret came home with 3 more kids. They were a brother and sisters to George, a boy that was already here. There mother was the woman who took poison to die but it did not work so she is slowly dying of AIDS. Margaret later told us that the mom tried to give the 3 kids the poison also but the oldest daughter named Leah was strong and told her other sister Beth and her brother James not to take it. So they are here and they seemed to be doing well. I think it helped that George was already here. I am pretty sure they are going to stay. Margaret said they are just here for the holiday and she will talk with the girls and the mom to see if they can stay. So after all that we went for our evening walk and we saw Margaret and her brother, Silas, out in the field near the school so we went and talked with them a bit. They are planning on putting up a soccer field with a track around it, so we are really excited about that. Olivia is from the tribe that wins all of the marathons and she wants to be a runner so she will use the track to train. I am excited about that; maybe I can train with her.

Sunday 8/13/06

Our first Church service at House of Hope! It was amazing, a few people from the community came and that is pretty special to all of us. They have a big vision for the Church at House of Hope. The people were all very excited and the singing was so amazing. I thought of Maegan at Basilica, because the man that did the drum was amazing. It was a circle drum that you wear around your neck and you play dancing around. So we sang the best we could and then at the end Margaret wanted us to speak. I did not say anything but Michael spoke and read from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 and I think the group really respected him more because of it. I was very proud of him!
So after church we went into town. We went to a place that had American food and I got pizza and Michael got a hamburger. It was weird but good. We also got COKE, made with real sugar! The place we ate at had Internet access, so that is when we uploaded everything. Anyhow we looked around this huge store that was kind of like a Super Wal-Mart. It had tools and food and well everything you could need. So that was kind of weird. We also found out that our cell phone for some reason cannot text internationally (it now looks like we can’t text any T Mobile customers). We have not been able to fix it and it drove us crazy. We have also concluded that we can understand what everyone else is saying in English but for some reason that can not understand what we are saying (or they don’t want to) because when we went to the cell phone store they only wanted to talk to Margaret despite us saying “hey the phone is our not hers”, and then when we went back to the store without her they told us to call the help line or go to a service center. So needless to say we have no way to text. We can get it but not sent it.

Monday 8/14/06

Hmmm…. I think that today could have been better but for what is was it was good. My teacher came back from holiday and was not that warm to me. I am not sure what she thinks of me, but we will work on things. I wish the classroom were different, more prepared and less crazy. The kids have no sense of order and that is causing many problems. I am hopeful that it is because the kids should really be on holiday. I am thinking things may be different once September comes. So I will hold onto that. After school the kids were going to split up into groups and we decided to just take a nap, yes you heard me right, a nap. So we slept until 4 and woke up for tea and to play. We played and went for our walk and I talked to Heather on the phone, it was so nice to hear her voice, it doesn’t feel like I miss everyone until I talk with someone and it all floods back. I told Michael as I was crying that it feels like we are trapped between two worlds. However I felt better after we went for a walk after my talk with Heather. Then we went back to help with dinner, I peeled some eggs and swept up the floor and laughed with all the girls. We had a great dinner with rice, greens, beef, and eggs and bananas and avocado (they are huge and good!), so then it was time to play and say our prayers and go to bed. Michael and I, once alone, watched for the first time a show (the office to be exact) and it was really nice to lie in a hard bed that is a twin size bed and watch a good TV show!

Tuesday 8/15/06

We have been here a full week. Life is falling into place! We woke and went to school today with the children. Today Margaret’s brother introduced us to all the teachers and that helped with my classroom situation. So my teacher was much warmer to me today. I still do not care for the classroom dynamics but what can you do. You roll with it. So I worked with the Montessori material in the early morning and mid morning I helped some boys in reading. They were using workbooks, which I did not think were that great at teaching reading, but what can you do. When the teacher asked me to work with them, I just said, “well I have never had training with workbooks but I will see what I can do”. So I went and saw that I could use the movable alphabet and it was a huge success! The boys were all spelling words by the end. So when the teacher would look I would be using the books to then have the boys spell things out without looking at the books but rather sounding the words out. So I think tomorrow we will take a few new things down to the classrooms. Michael is teaching mathematics to his class (how weird does that sound) and he is very good. The kids at the end of the day are very excited about what he will be teaching the next day! His teacher seems to really like him and is working very closely with him. She gives them the lessons and then he uses the materials. We are noticing that the standards are not as high as the USA. I keep thinking that my class is suppose to be doing a lot more then it is and some of the kids I feel have the potential to do really amazing things but the material that is in the classroom is not allowing for that. So I will keep trying and maybe in like 5 years the classroom will be well. Sometimes I wish that Michael and I could have our own classroom but then we would not understand the students. So maybe when we can speak Swahili we will be better. However we are doing a lot of things at home. Michael was going over mathematics to some of his students at home and we were asking them questions and the older ones would answer but the younger ones were learning. This peer learning is amazing!!
We got to have dinner with the kids tonight. Most nights we eat really late with Margaret and we just go for our walk when the kids are eating and bathing. So we ate at dinner, it was good but weird. They all eat very quickly and they do not really speak so it is quite and cramped. They have 44 kids plus us so 46 people all in a 14 X 16 room (at most) and well you can imagine how full the space is. But either way it was nice to join them and eat at the same table. They say this blessing before every meal that we have only been able to get the first part until tonight we were able to get a little bit more. Once we understand it all I will pass it on to you. So Michael and I had to wait until almost dark to go for our walk but we did it and tonight we took the baseball and gloves with us. So just the two of us played a little catch out in the field it was very nice.
We took photos of all the kids today. We told Margaret that we would get a photo of all the kids and write down what size they are and if they were a boy or a girl. So we have 28 boys and 16 girls. She wanted to pass all the information on to Pam so they could get the kids more pants. So we took all the photos and we almost know all the names. Michael is better at it then me, but he is better at a lot of thing, I am the worst at names and I had a feeling that I would be no better here.

Random things I have wanted to write about:

1) They have a large staff of workers; with us included it is about a 2:1 ratio 2 kids forever 1 adult. However many workers work in the field and with the livestock and with the house or with the construction so it is not workers for the children. However needless to say they have a really nice size community here.

2) With 44 kids and 28 of them being boys it is hard to go a day without a laugh or two about some bodily function.

3) They have a washer (it is not hooked up yet but will be when the guest house is done) so here is hoping that we will not need to wash until then and if we do things like we did back home it is fully possible.

4) We have not gotten sick at all (keep praying) but no problems with jet lag or with diarrhea. God is keeping us well and strong (maybe a little tired, but our naps from 2- 4 are helping)

5) We don’t really care for boiled milk and water but that is what we get with a tea bag 3 times a day.

6) One of the boys named Ken is really cute and I said before looks 2 in his body but in his eyes and face really looks like he is 67 so we tease him a lot, don’t worry he does not understand us. Michael will ask him how retired life is like, and when Ken leaves the room Michael says, tell your wife we said “hi”. Michael looked at me today and said “ little known fact, Sarah (one of the older girls) is his forth daughter” I laughed so hard.

7) When we went to explore our future home that is still being build we saw a pile of poo and I don’t think a cow could climb back down stairs, so you can figure that one out.

8) We have to rebuild some bridges with the staff. We have some preconceived notions to combat with all the other teachers.

9) They drive on the other side of the road and the steering wheel is on the other side of the car.

10) We use to drink 64+ oz of water a day and really just sat on our butts, but here we drink about 16 oz and that includes our 3 cups of tea and we are much more active. How can they do it?

11) We are realizing that if you do something for one child you have to do it for them all. You can’t just buy one a gift, and you can’t just let one person have a piece of candy and so forth. We had a dream of one day taking a child or two back to the US with us but now, after we have fallen in love we can not imagine not being able to take them all. I was outside with the older girls and they were asking about going to America one day and how they would go to Pam’s house and how they would go to Linda’s house and so forth. I realized at that moment that it would be impossible to choose one of them to go with us. Being equal sucks some times.

12) I realize that when the newness of this whole journey wears out, that my journal entries will lessen.

13) We have continually said that this whole experience is like being in a movie. Well, we pinpointed which movie: Nacho Libre. Michael is brushing up on his wrestling moves to when the children a bus.

Wednesday 8/16/06
Highlight of the day: All the girls painting their nails and having most of the boys join in. When I think of the epitome of masculinity I think of a strong African man and tonight I saw the future strong African men putting on girls fingernail polish. I know one day they are going to think back and remember a white missionary woman who came and painted all their nails. When Margaret found out I thought she would be upset but she just laughed and laughed, so she was a good sport. Benjamin came to me and wanted his thumb pink and wanted polka-dots on his pinkie so I did that and then he came back to me and wanted me to put a letter “J” on his thumb and when I asked what for, why the letter “J” he said it was for Jesus! Gotta love Ben!
Also today at school we saw a Camel farm off in the distance, we asked Olivia if that was in fact Camel farm and she said “yes” and you can sometimes see antelope, Michael said “oh you mean African deer, no thanks”.
School was great, Michael played with the girls at break and they teased him a lot. I had a great meeting with my teacher and we added a few things to the classroom, it is not in the right spot but one thing at a time I suppose.
Carol: you may want to get some knitting recruiters to help, because Margaret loved your sweaters, we showed her the different sizes and she put in her order for 50 of them. 10 @ size 2 and 10 @ size 4 and 20 @ size 6 and 10 @ size 8. So anyone who likes to knit get with Carol and she will give you a pattern that she uses! The kids walked by and saw the sweaters and all wanted one also. So I know that sounds like a lot so get you tons of helpers!
I keep thinking that I am just giving you a run down of our days, and while I think you may enjoy it (oh I hope that you do) I also should talk about where we are spiritually.
Hmmm...this is where it gets hard. We are at a weird place. I think it is because we never have alone time (I hope to work on that soon). But we can see God moving, but it is hard to feel him sometimes, if that makes sense. We want to but yea it is a weird place. We know that we are here because of His well. We know that He is here working in a mighty way, but we are still getting to know Him in a new light. I also think some days are much harder then others, we are starting to get a little home sick every now and then. It comes in waves. One of us will be fine while the other is having a hard time. It is good that it is working that way; I think it is God’s way of letting us work things out with each other.

Thursday 8/17/06
We were humbled today. We worked in the garden with the kids, digging holes and filling up buckets with manure. It was hard stuff and the worse part was not the shoveling manure and having it get on our shoes but we were planting greens and we do not care that much for greens. So yeah the kids were quick to show us up. They are some super humans. They can dig and work for hours and play and stay up all night and still they get up much earlier then us. The best part of working in the hot Africa sun with the kids is that Ben pushed Lukas into a large pile of cow, there really is no other word for it, shit! No joke, everyone started to laugh and Lukas started to cry. Funny thing was Lukas was acting like a show off the whole time before the fall (he got schooled). Also, work in the “SHAMBA” is primarily work for the men, so when the older girls started trying to help the boys started screaming “No girls allowed”, but Michael quickly reminded them about most of them painting their nails the night before (most still had it on), and they begrudgingly allowed the girls to help. So the rest of the day was nice and we just sat around and enjoyed each other.
One of the most amazing things happened tonight, Leah one of the new girls that I am sure you have already read about, was off alone in a corner of the room and I could hear her out of the distance singing “Jesus loves me” and another praise songs that says “Jesus you are a winner”, and my heart melted. Here is this girl whose mother is dying at this very moment and tried to kill her whole family, and she is praising God not because she has to but because she believes it with her whole heart. I felt God tonight I just had to listen.

Another request: Margaret wants a church; we currently have church on Sunday in the preschool class. That is not the best place for many reasons, one is because it is a classroom so everything needs to be moved about and changed and on Monday morning everything needs to be back in place. It is also not enough space for everyone and Margaret also wants a place that can be treated like a hall. So the kids can have teatime in the hall and not in the preschool classroom (which stresses the crap out of me and the kids because the older kids all run into the classroom).

It keeps getting better...

2006-08-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

Things are really beginning to click a the House of Hope. The newness of us is kinda wearing off to the kids and they are starting to act more normal around us which what we really wanted in the first place. Some of the older children (Olivia, Rose, Felista, John Felix, Benjamin, and Sarah) have really taken us under their wing in helping us learn Swahili (which means that laugh at us a lot if we say someting wrong).

We are extremely blessed with everything we are being provided. It really is much more than we could have ever expected. For instance, they have a television and the children LOVE Walker: Texas Ranger, seriously. They were blown away when I told them I had driven by Chuck Norris' home in Texas. I think they think we are friends. They are also aware of WWF Smackdown with The Big Show and Chris Jericho, again, seriously. They don't get wo watch it, because Margaret doesn't think it is good. We tend to agree, but for completely different reasons.

This is Tammi during Walker: Texas Ranger last night:

Thank you all so much for all of your prayers. The church service this morning was amazing. The music is breathtaking, it's almost a blessing that my guitar is missing because I would not have been able to add anything. There is talk of me giving the message in the very near future, please, please pray for that.

We miss all of you, but are excited at what God has in store for us.

Michael

First Few Days

2006-08-10T03:31:00.001-07:00

A Quick Note to Anyone We Gave A Contact Card to:

The address we put was incorrect, here is the correct one:

House of Hope
c/o Michael & Tammi Rice
PO Box 66339
Nairobi, Kenya

We have a cell phone:
Calling from land line: 011 254 020 0720 133 104
Calling from mobile: 000 254 0720 133 104

That is a crazy long number!

Tuesday & Wednesday:

So much to talk about, my mind is going 90 to nothing. We are in love! Africa is amazing and we have not even seen that much of it. The children greeted us with songs and cake! We have been treated like kings and queens, we are so happy. The food is amazing, they have this cabbage and carrot dish that is to die for, I could eat it forever (lets hope I don’t get sick of it). So yeah, the kids are amazing, we sat and read (2X) “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” The kids did all the reading and I just listened and held up the book. These kids are so smart, they are teaching us Swahili, we already feel like we have learned a lot! Margaret is amazing, she greeted us with hugs and kisses and we felt at home the moment we saw her. She is so wise and peaceful, the children love her so much. The landscape is much like west Texas, you can see hills and mountains in the background but the land is dry and the grass is yellow. You can see goat and sheep and the chamba (aka the garden) is amazing. Heather B. and Holden would be in Heaven there is lots of Spinich and everything is so fresh. Margaret said that sometimes you can see zebras and giraffes on the rough road to House of Hope. Everyone is so warm and we are going in to town soon! We are playing well with everyone!!! We miss you all very much but feel very much at home. We feel we may have packed to many clothes and too many shoes. Everyone here just wears flip-flops, who knew! Other things that you would not have ever thought of is that they have TV and they watch MTV (crazy) they watch the Tyra Banks show (that is too weird) I walked into the room to hear and see Coldplay on TV, it was nice but weird. Oh I forgot to tell you what Benjamin asked Michael for, a Playstation. How funny is that!!

List of things we already know that we would like for the family:
1. A bus and or a car = $15,000 (I know that is a lot but if you do not ask you do not receive)
2. Timex watches = (?) (The boys are in love with Michael’s watch, because it glows when you press the button)

That is all for now, I am sure we will tell you more soon.

We love you and we are exited about tomorrow and the next day and the next day and well you get the picture. Every day seems like a party, speaking of party Margaret’s birthday is on Saturday so fun will be hard by everyone. We can’t wait for our first church service at House of Hope. God is with these people. They know they are blessed and we know we are blessed. We have not taken any pictures yet, we figured we would have plenty of time for that.

Thursday:

On our way into the city we found ourselves out of gas on the side of the road. We took in the beautiful landscape and the cool air. The weather is amazing! It is about
65 degrees!

God bless all of you, and we miss you.

Love-
Michael & Tammi

who is that handsome man in front of that flag?

2006-08-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

I thought you would all enjoy this photo! I know I do.

I am sure Michael is going to love me more for putting up this photo

A Letter to Our Cat, Fletch-

2006-07-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

(Authors Note: I know this may seem silly to some of you, but next to my God and my family, Fletch is the creature I enjoy the most on the planet. It's hard for me to leave him but completely necessary, for his sake.)

Dear Fletch-

I know lately you’ve been confused with all the moving Tammi and I have been doing, for that I apologize. I have not been to terribly straight forward with everything that will be happening in the coming weeks. Tammi and I will be leaving for a long time and we won’t be able to take you with us, if you did, we would have to make you go to sleep for a long time. Now I know that this does not sound particularly inconvient to you, but there is a chance that you could get hurt and possibly die, and that would break our heart.
This isn’t like our trip to New York of Miami. We are not going for vain reasons. God has called us to move to Africa to help some children who are without mothers and fathers. We will be living with them and teaching them and helping them grow. We once saved you from a shelter where you were all alone (do you remember that? I do). You were scared and we brought you home and gave you love and you grew into a mighty cat with a tremendous heart. That is exactly what we are hoping to do at House of Hope, I hope you understand and won’t forget us. We won’t forget you.
There is a song by one of your favorite bands, the Weakerthans, about a cat that is worried about the type of life his owner is living, and knowing that he is capable of so much more. I know that if you wrote songs rather than short stories, you would have written this for me. I want you to know that we are leaving this comfortable and sometimes lazy life for a much bigger cause than I think anyone can comprehend. I want you to be proud of us. I think you will be.
Again, I am sorry for not being open with you over the past few months. We will be moving home for our last week in the states, and I promise we will spend some quality time together.

“Plea From A Cat Named Virtute”

Why don't you ever want to play?
I'm tired of this piece of string.
You sleep as much as I do now, and you don't eat much of anything.
I don't know who you're talking to-I made a search through every room, but all I found was dust that moved in shadows of the afternoon.
And listen, about those bitter songs you sing?
They're not helping anything.
They won't make you strong.

So, we should open up the house.
Invite the tabby two doors down.
You could ask your sister, if she doesn't bring her Basset Hound.
Ask the things you shouldn't miss: tape-hiss and the Modern Man, The Cold War and Card Catalogues, to come and join us if they can, for girly drinks and parlor games.
We'll pass around the easy lie of absolutely no regrets, and later maybe you could try to let your losses dangle off the sharp edge of a century, and talk about the weather, or how the weather used to be.

And I'll cater with all the birds that I can kill.
Let their tiny feathers fill disappointment.
Lie down; lick the sorrow from your skin.
Scratch the terror and begin to believe you're strong.
All you ever want to do is drink and watch TV, and frankly that thing doesn't really interest me.
I swear I'm going to bite you hard and taste your tinny blood if you don't stop the self-defeating lies you've been repeating since the day you brought me home.

I know you're strong.

Love-
Michael

ps. Please help Bo get over his social anxiety disorder, I know he is capable of greatness as well!

Feeling like you are in a movie

2006-07-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

No real purpose to the photo, just wanted everyone to see these great kids!

OK now onto the post....

For a while now I have had moments that I feel like I am outside of myself and I can watch myself like a movie. I am not sure if this is a defense mechanism, or if it is because I know I am leaving soon and don’t know how to handle it all. These are a few snap shots from some movies I am in:

At Susan’s house:

Susan is Michael’s cousin, she has breast cancer.
I was nervous about seeing her for the first time since she had a partial mastectomy. I walked in the door with Michael’s sister, mother, and niece and at that moment I was no longer there, I was watching myself fumble around awkward and scared. I have known this woman for as long as I have been with Michael, which has been for 8 years. I have gone to bible studies with her I have cried with her, prayed with her, laughed with her, I have shared life with her. She has always prayed for Michael and I and has loved the Rice family for her whole life. She is a strong woman, who loves God so much. I admire her faith…
She looked different, she seemed different, she sounded different. You could tell she had been crying and I did not know what to do with that, I wanted to love on her, tell her that God is faithful (although I think she knew that more then I) and I wanted to tell her that She was so beautiful to me, more beautiful then the last time I saw her. She seemed humble, peaceful, and vulnerable. I fell more in love with her. She looked at me with loving eyes and she seemed to see that I was scared. I didn’t want to be there and I jumped at the chance to leave. I don’t know what to do with sick people, I want it to all be right, I want to say and do all the right things, I want to fix them, make them whole again. I wanted to do that with Susan, I wanted to touch her and make her better, make her breast come back, but I couldn’t and that made me sad and helpless. But, what I saw from the women in Michael’s family was inspiring. Carol and Heather bought Susan some nice tops to wear to the doctors that they thought would not draw so much attention to her chest. They came in and rallied around her with so much love it hurt. Susan’s mother was with her and had been with her from the moment she came home from the hospital. These women were at the hospital the day of the surgery and have not been far away since then. I love these women, I am truly blessed to be a part of their family.

In Dairy Queen last night:

Michael and I choose to go inside because the drive-thru was too backed up (you can kid yourself when you go though a drive-thru). However we walk through the door and we see a rather large little girl playing on the seesaw all alone and we see a ball pit (and we all know what is at the bottom of a ball pit), so though the door we go. We hear a man complaining about his blizzard, saying and I kid you not, “this blizzard is wrong, it does not look like the picture outside and I don’t even like caramel chips”. So we wait to order, we wait and we see the cooks putting things in the microwave, we see a family that are all not wearing shoes and we order our malt and our blizzards all feeling like we are outside of ourselves watching ourselves. I asked Michael if he too felt like he was in a movie and he said “I always have in this town” and I said “me too”.

Montessori school:

This is too hard to fully explain this movie, maybe because it is not sad nor funny….kind of boring and surreal. There are many and I repeat many moments that I look at Michael with the look of, is this really happening, I know you all our thinking, like what things, and I can only say I have to sing songs with other grow ups that involve my eyes close, my butt out, my tongue out, my thumbs up, and me turning in circles. I know the kids will love this but really, is this really happening. Other moments are writing the alphabet on that big lined paper and turning it in only to have it returned with a note from the teacher that says try not to write it with a slant. CRAZY! So yea I don’t want to say all this to make you think there are not really good moments…moments like shopping with classmates on break, holding one of the cutest babies ever (we have a 3 mo. old in our classroom). Learning how smart kids really are, and getting more and more excited about going to Africa. None the less we are very much in a movie that feels much like the show ‘The Office’….good but really really uncomfortable.
I think one of the main reason we feel awkward is because everyone knows we are Christian. We did not fully know how not Christian Montessori was until we got into it, but it is. We have both worked at jobs that people knew we were Christian however not everyone knew, and now everyone knows and well that is new and different but good. We have no other choice but to live out life with these people and pray that we point in the direction of Christ. It is beautiful but hard and we are honored that God would allow us to walk though this hand and hand with Him

Montessori Training, Part One...

2006-06-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone! Things have been really busy lately, so sorry for the lack of updates. I am about to begin my fourth week of Montessori training (Tammi's third). I have learned so much in the past few weeks, including relearning arithmetic and geometry (both of which I didn't learn to well to begin with!). A lot of what we are learning has really been a shock to the systems of Tammi and I. Tammi has equated the Montessori training to culture shock and I tend to agree with her. Although the philosophy has been shocking I can already see how it will be applicable at the House of Hope. It's very basic but it builds in to a cohesive curriculum that will flourish in the minds of the children.

Tammi and have both been tremendously blessed to have been placed with classmates that have made this experience truly enjoyable. We find ourselves looking forward to going to training not only for what we will learn but for who we will learn with. Most of our classmates have already had previous teaching experience, both Montessori and Traditional, and they have been tremendously helpful, as well as entertaining. All of this has helped Tammi and I see we are truly on the path that God wants us on, and that feels great!

This verse has been with Tammi and I throughout this entire process:
"1 When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and power, 5 so that your faith might not be based on men's wisdom but on God's power." 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

May peace be with you.

God is Merciful

2006-06-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

My God is so merciful. He is the forgiver of my sins and the lover of my soul.

I am not sure how to approach this post. It is a journey that can only start with a confession.

I must confess that for quite a while now I have been carrying Africa as a burden. I will go to a get together with people and the first thing I think of is, I don’t want to talk about Africa, and I don’t want to make any new connections with people. I don’t want to become friends with someone new because that would mean someone else to say bye to, I don’t want to hear “I will miss you guys or this is such a great adventure you are getting to go on” I find myself wanting to run away from all that God has given to me. I did this the other night, I fell into temptation that seemed to offered everything I was looking for, escape from everything. Instead of running into the arms of my God for comfort I was trying to run away from them. As I write this I cannot help but to think of Psalms 139 that says there is nowhere I can go that you are not there. I confess this to you out of sheer repentance and humility, I have taken all that God has given me and made it into a mockery, He blesses me more abundantly than I could ever deserve and what do I do with those blessing I look at them like a spoiled brat wanting more. Getting the opportunity to serve God anywhere is a gift, a gift that should be treated with much more respect then I have been. I should be pouring out with rejoicing songs in response to this gift. I should want to tell everyone about this one and only true God that would provide for my every need. Oh I should go on and on about the great things he has done for us during this time. He has given us all the funds, He has supplied a place to live, supplied us with wise council, with loving people that continue to pour out all they have for us. I should be doing all this but I have not done nearly enough. Forgive me Lord, I am humbled before you and before my brother and sisters in Christ may your presence never leave me.

This Psalm was in a bible study I did this morning and I wept and prayed it as my own.

Psalms 51
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts [a] ;
you teach [b] me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are [c] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
18 In your good pleasure make Zion prosper;
build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then there will be righteous sacrifices,
whole burnt offerings to delight you;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Hey Stranger!

2006-05-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

The days are getting closer and closer. Excitement is building!

I begin training at the Houston Montessori Center on June 5th (Tammi on June 12th). Tammi and I had the use of a condo five minutes from the Center donated to us during our training, we will be moving in soon! We are so greatful! This period will be a time of intense training and growth into the people we will be at the House of Hope. It also helps us to ween ourselves of the family and pets (not that Fletch and Bo aren't family!).

This time will be crazy. Keep is in your prayers now more than ever. And get in touch with us if you can, we will miss you!

More to come...for real!

-Michael

No more school, work, and hair

2006-05-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

so our last day of school was May 8th and we graduated on May 9th, Michael's birthday!!
Our last day of work was on May 15th and me and my sisters hair was off on May 13th. So change is a coming!

BEFORE SHOT:

AFTER SHOT:

Feeling like a foreigner at home

2006-04-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

So Michael and I are starting to feel like we are here but not really. I wish I could explain it better, I can find myself in a group of people that I know and love at a place that I know and love and I feel off, I feel like a foreigner nothing feels right or comfortable. Everyone seems loving and safe but I feel like I am in a fog and everything seems so dreamy. I am not sure if this is something we are doing or if it is something that God is allowing us to go though. We are both realizing that our path here (USA) would be one that would be easy and predictable. We can see that we could be successful but is it something we would be happy doing? I said the other day that going to Africa feels like we are swimming against the current. It will be hard but something is driving us to swim and swim we will.

I read a really neat article the other day that my teacher gave me and it was all about the education system in Kenya and it was sad and over whelming all at the same time. These children in Africa have to take an exam that is really just a filtering out process, the class ratio in 2003 was 70:1 and I am sure that has only worsened. In 2000 they opened the schools to the public and made the education somewhat free which meant that all ages could now go to school. So you have a 6 yr old and a 16 yr old in the same classroom. Tell me that would be worth $100 a mo. So needless to say we are a little overwhelmed and really excited. Sometimes we just wish we were their. This journey has been beautiful but long. We are ready to have these babies in our arms. To give them all hugs and kisses and to play and watch them learn, we are pregnant, and as Joel would say it, with 34 African children. That we are and we are counting down the weeks till we get to see there faces.

Updates......and more updates......

2006-04-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

I thought I might not remember how to do this whole blog thing.
So some updates:
School is going steady, we only have about 5 weeks left and we can’t wait. We are in the home stretch and boy can we feel it. We are counting down the day until we get done with school so we can start more school in the summer (Montessori training). However we are looking forward to the change and we are excited about learning how we will be teaching all the children in Africa. We find ourselves thinking a lot about the children.

I started coaching Paige’s (my niece) volleyball team.It is though the YMCA, it is the 8-9 yr old league. We are called “Sparkle Motion” All you Donnie Darko fans will get that one! Anyhow I love it. My sister Kim is helping me coach and she does a great job with the girls! We lost our first game but I have high hopes for my girls (11 on the team). They did a great job!!!

My best friend Heather told me that the Rise school (the school my godchildren go to) is having a fundraiser, a 5K run, so I thought I would give it a shot. It is at the end of April so that does not give me all that much time to train. However my sister is my coach so that is working so far. I pretty much jog and jog really slowly but hey it is something. So here is hoping I can complete a 5K on April 29!

The Basilica community (Church Plant in South East Houston) is in full swing and we can all feel it. We are all getting very excited. We all have family and friends that we can picture in this body, worshipping the one true God and it makes us again in awe of an amazing God that would give us this opportunity to serve Him!! Please pray for our dear friends Heather and Joel and their three kids. Pray that they will have peace and protection during this time of transition. Pray for Joel, that the hand of God would be on him and not let him go!

I just finished an amazing Bible study (Beth Moore) over the Tabernacle. It was called God’s dwelling place a women’s heart. It blew me away and still is. God was speaking so much to me during the last 10 weeks. I love Beth Moore Bible studies and this was my last one for a while and I thought it would not be that big of a deal but hearing her pray over all the women I realized I would not hear her pray over me for a while, and that really sank in the last night. Carol (Michael’s mom) and I have gone to a few of her bible studies (Carol much more then me) and each one we go to we get closer to each other and closer to God. I love Carol so much, God blessed me more then I could have ever imaged giving me her for a mother-in-law. I will miss our drives to the bible study; I will miss our talks on the way home. I will miss the blizzards at Dairy Queen that we would get on the way home. The bible study was a little overwhelming at times, Beth had shown us so much about God and His amazing plans. But it was all good and more amazing then I could have imaged. At the beginning of our last night I was thinking I do not know enough, about God about the Bible and about….and well the list could go on and on. But by the end when she said, we are the Tabernacle, Jesus lives in us! I realized I do not need to know everything; I just need to know that my God is with me and He will never leave me. How amazing is that!!

Fundraising has been amazing! God is so faithful!! It is so hard to put in words what we have seen thought this time of raising fund for our first year in Africa; I can just say that my God is amazing. Our needs, every time and I repeat every time have been met more abundantly then we could have imagined. Our garage sale was super successful, He held back the rain and brought people and they bought almost everything with in a few hours. I kid you not, we started about 730 and we were done by 2 and made over $1,000!!!! How cool is that?!!! The funny thing is when I started to plan for this garage sale and had nothing really to sale, God told me $1,000 is what you will make. When the day came and people asked what my goal was I said nervously “$1,000”. They said “wow that is a lot”, I said “I know but that is what I am feeling” and at the end when we all sat down to count it all up it added up to a little over $1,000. We are still not at our total goal for our first year but we know God is in control and our needs will be met!!!! Blessings to all those who helped, donated or came to the garage sale! Also Blessings and THANK YOUs for all that have given or committed to give towards our year in Africa. May God give you a glimpse of what He is seeing your gift go toward.

Sorry this is so long, I have had plans to update you all but as you can see we have been a little busy. Please pray for peace over Michael and me as we continue to stay focus on God and journeying towards our future home at House of Hope.

This gets more real everyday.

2006-02-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

It really does. Now more than ever because responses from our fund raising letters are coming back to us. The responses more than confirm God's plan for Tammi and I. We are so excited, but tired at the same time.

In one of my classes the old saying "Kill them all and let God sort them out" was brought up in discussion. The line stuck with me and I came to the epiphany that all too often we tend to personify our problems, allow them to get to us, and eventualy break under the pressure. Being a husband, working and going to school full time, leading a small group, beginning theology training to possibly become an ordained minister, as well as getting ready for Tammi and I's journey to Africa, I began too lose sight of the beauty in God's plan for us, all of us. I began to give in to the tiredness, complaining, and all around overdramatics.

But I didn't want that.

I gave it all to God.

I let Him sort it out.

I am ready.

He keeps taking my breath away

2006-02-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

I have always had a hard time with the here and now mentality. I am a goal driven person; I am a dreamer, a planner and a controller. Something in me is different, something is changing. I think it is because if I start to think of the pile of plans that need to be done I start to see/feel fear creep in. So I look at each day for what it is and I have noticed God all in it. Everyday I see Him, hear Him and feel Him and words can not express how much of an impact that is making on my life.

Michael wrote something and read it out loud to me; it was fiction with a little of Michael’s life in it, as he read it to me my heart stopped. I know many of you don’t know what an amazing writer my husband is but he is, and I am not just saying that because he is my husband others have said that also. His writing was not sad but it still brought tears to my eyes. I whispered into his ear, as I kissed him, that I was glad he was back (the writer).

My dear friend Heather and I were talking the other day (We could talk for hrs if we were not interrupted with life). We talked about the day and about the future and about us. I know I would never walk away from all this alone (just Michael and I) and I know we won’t., my God promises to be with us. Amen! That does not always stop me from thinking about the good-bys and the heart ache that will come. When that happens I find that God reminds me to come back to today and stay stead fast on Him.

I hear people throw around the word “Journey” and I never really cared for it before now. When I heard it before I thought of things like, take it easy, relax, don’t worry, look around, the out come it not the point, it never ends, and so on. I know why all that bothers me. It goes back to what I said at the beginning of this entry, that is not me. I need an end date, I need a goal, I need steps, I need no distractions .Focus, focus it is the only way to get results. So the shift is starting to happen it is scary, really scary but my God is it so amazing it is taking my breath away.

In the beginning there was...Pt. 2

2006-01-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

I am a good man.
I want to be a great man.
I am a good husband.
I want to be a great husband
I am a mediocre follower of Christ.
I need to be a better follower.
Preparing for this journey to House of Hope I have to take inventory on who I am and where I am. I felt, as an American, I had become a fairly decent person. I knew how to live and be productive and successful at work, home, and in relationships. For the most part being a male in America is one of the easiest things you can do, and I was having a fairly good go at it. Prior to November 2005 I was confident that I would be able to make the transition for being a male in America to being a male in Africa.

Naftali, the father at House of Hope, was going to aide me in this. I would watch him, follow his lead, and learn from him. In November 2005 Naftali unexpectedly passed away. Naftali set the male example to the children at House of Hope; he was a great man, likened to Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia. How am I supposed to replace Aslan?

I’m not.

I am scared. I would like to point out that I haven’t lost my faith in Christ’s plan for me. I am confident I can “do it”. But I don’t want to just “do it”, like I’ve done everything else in my life. I want be great. I want to help raise these children to adults that Naftali would be proud of, adults who will embrace children who came from the same place they did, and they will strive to give them a warm place to grow, to make them whole.

This is where I am:

Hope.

In the beginning there was...

2006-01-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

When Adam and Eve ate from the apple they became aware. God asking them where they were was not because He did not know, but because he wanted Adam and Eve to speak it. I have been working through a bible study for a few weeks and working thought other things and when faced with the same question as Adam and Eve it left me speechless. “Where are you Tammi?” I found at first my answer was responses that were filled with my past or with my future: “hard childhood so…” or “preparing for Africa so…”. All those responds are true but do not answer the question. Then God quickly put me in my place, “No Tammi, Where are you right now”? I must confess that I did not know the answer, I looked around at my life and found that all I could say was “Lord, I am here, at work, at school, at home, at church, struggling, forgive me Lord, forgive me for not always obeying you, for not handing thing over to you, for the way I live my life, for my condescending attitude, for my lack in trusting you, for my shame, for my fear. Thank you for your grace, your mercy, your love, your patience, you gifts, your peace, and for being the great I AM. Please stay with me here in this time and in this place.”

I write all this to confess to you also. I don’t know what it means to truly be vulnerable or maybe I am vulnerable and that scares me enough to make “fig leave coverings”. So I hope with the help of my Lord that I will be able to be more open with you and put my fears behind me and let my Lord tend to those battles.

Please come and join us in this time and place, as we struggle to learn what it truly means to follow a God that is consistent and never changing. We don’t know what all this will look like but we have faith that It will be glorify to the Lord we have no other choice but to serve.