Well, we have been on term break for over a week and now.  We have been able to relax, especially in the evenings, but have still managed to keep somewhat busy during the days. We have hosted people to dinner at the house, got in some needed shopping in Nairobi, gone to a craft fair, a worked at a Family Fun Day that was put on by the school for the Kenyan nationals and their families that work here full time.

The national staff and their families were treated to a full day of activities for both the children and adults. A picnic lunch of pork, goat, rice, Seppati which is like a tortilla, and dessert was provided. Some of the activities included a puppet show, disc jockey, acrobats, blow up jumping houses, water slide, and various games. Many of the staff including Debbie helped bake the desserts. My day started out at five AM in the morning to help roast the pigs. The day started in pouring rain, but shortly cleared up with a beautiful double rainbow and the warm sunny weather before the guests arrived.  The Lord provides, doesn't He.

Debbie and several other ladies were busy preparing many pounds of cooked rice during the morning and then working the serving tables.  In spite of the hard work, we all had fun and I believe it made an impact in the lives of the staff and their families. I have included several pictures of the day for you to view..

Killing the goats

Skinning the goats. The hides will be tanned by the Masai

Hard work watching the pigs roast

Cutting the pork

Puppet Show

Face painting

Water slide

Musical Chairs

Serving Line

Walking boat game

My favorite Server

Jumping house

Acrobats

Term Break

This morning the last of our girls left to go home to their country of origin until the next term begins in five weeks.  Things are eerily quiet here and we dearly miss them already.  It is like having an empty
nest all over again.  It will be a time of needed rest and refreshing for both Debbie and me however. While school is in session it is constant activity from early morning to late at night seven days a week. On Sundays we get about a two hour break when one of the staff who is not a dorm parent comes and stays at the dorm while Debbie and go to a bible study with some other couples.

It has been an interesting holiday season here.  Since Thanksgiving is only recognized in the Americas and not anywhere else, Thanksgiving is not celebrated here and there is no break in school for it. In fact final exams were taking place on Thanksgiving day. We actually celebrated Christmas with the students before the break. Debbie and I along with another dorm couple oversaw a dorm Christmas party of about sixty high school seniors; the girls from our dorm and boys from another dorm. Now that the students are gone we will be getting together with a few other couples from the States today for a Thanksgiving meal which Debbie is helping to prepare as I type. Next Thursday we will do it all over again with another couple. So you see the holidays are a little backward here.  We have had our Christmas tree ( if you can call it that) up for over a week now. By the way turkeys cost about $7/lb american here. They are not a typical Kenyan meal.

Christine, Omar and the boys will be coming out to visit us in the middle of December.  We are really looking forward to that. They will be staying until January 7th  so we will have about three weeks with them.  We plan on doing a ten day Safari to several of the game parks.  This will be a year of giving rather than receiving for them.  We don't plan to exchange gifts for Christmas.  Instead they have raised about $670 dollars at their church to buy shoes for an orphanage about ten mile from RVA. Part of that will be used to help purchase land for a new orphanage. They have also had a drive at their schools in Baltimore and have collected school supplies and toiletries and Omar's office has collected toys to bring out to the orphanage.  We will go and have the boys go the orphanage two days after arriving to present these offerings to the children there.

Since I last wrote several other things have taken place besides the normal schedule at the school. Debbie and along with a fellow co-worker at the Arcade celebrated a birthday with one of our Kenyan worker's daughter. We had a nice visit and dinner which they prepared for us at their home and them had birthday cakes. The father's name is John.  John heads up the ministry at the IDP camp and sometimes uses what little money he has to help feed the kids at the IDP camp. Please pray for him and the ministry there. I will include a few pictures below.

Debbie, John and Janet

The different class had dorm parties this month.  One class had a pig roast.  We will be doing another pig roast for the national staff next Friday.  We will be roasting two pigs and seven goats. All the full time national staff and their families will be treated to a day of food and entertainment.

Cleaning the pig

Roasting the pig

We also had a time of cooking Christmas cookies with the dorm girls and some senior boys.

  

And last but not least we had Pinewood Derby Day here at RVA

Sorry the link did not work.  The video is inserted on this blog.  It shows the the church worshiping in dance and song, much the same way I believe King David did.

This has been a busy and hard week for us.  Both of us have had an intestinal bug.  First Debbie and then me.  I am still not quite over it, but I thought I would get this blog off to keep you up to date on some prayer requests that are needed here. This past Sunday and went down to to participate in the IDP camp church.  As I mentioned before, these people are displaced people who are malnourished and living in very poor condition.  For the most part they have no means of support.  Many of them do the Lord.  Each week they hold their church service under a tree. Last Sunday it was raining, but that did not keep them from joyously coming out to worship the Lord for a service that went on for almost two hours.  I wonder how many worshipers would do that in the U.S. They danced and sang to the Lord as only they can do here in Africa.  I have included a link with a small video.  I hope you can access it.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/49944324/IDP%20Church.mp4

The sad thing was that one little 5 or 6 year old girl who sang in the childrens choir during the service was run over by a truck and killed that same day.  Please pray for the grieving family.  The funeral is to take place this Friday and the parents have no money to pay the bills for her burial.

The term will end in a few weeks and the students here become stressed and a little homesick to see their parents again. Pray that they will be able to concentrate on their school work and final exams.  Most of them are involved in many activities beside their normal school work as you can see from the photo's above.

We continue covet your prayers for support as we try to prepare for being here for a second year beginning in July.

A Praise and a Concern

This week has been both a week of concern and also a week of praise.  Praise God that He watches over His own. It is well known that though Kenya is a beautiful country it has many of the same problems with crime that many of the western countries but probably in higher numbers.  The people of Kenya are some of the most friendly people I have ever met, but  because of poverty and drugs, people become desperate and turn to theft and other crimes. RVA campus is completely surround by a high security fence with all but a small portion of it covered by razor wire. Three nights ago a thief who had escaped from a previous arrest and was addicted to drugs managed to get over the portion of the fence without the razor wire and break into the the tenth grade boys dorm around midnight. He was discovered by one of the boys as he tried to escape and was captured and turned over to the local authorities. This could have been much worse than it turned out for reasons that I won't go into, but I want to post this on the blog for two reasons.  The first reason is that it has caused some fear in one of the students for which he is getting some counseling.  The second reason is that the young man who broke into campus has many problems, but the most important one is that he does not know the Lord as his savior. Please pray for safety of our students and that God will bring peace to the student who is having emotion difficulty. Also pray that God will reveal himself to the desperate man who has to steal to support his drug habit, and that God will be glorified in it all.

October 20, 2012,

The last two weeks have been busy as we have been involved in Outreach programs, participating in a national church program, monitoring SAT exams and simply attending many campus events. I thought I might try to attach some pictures to the blog this week.

Just prior to Midtern at RVA both Debbie and I were involved with the Outreach programs.  Outreach is an opportunity for some of the students to minister and get involved with nationals in off campus settings. As mentioned in the previous blog, I helped lead several students to an IDP camp.  We were able to visit with the people in their homes, pray with them,and play and interact with the children in the camp. These people have nothing and struggle to meet the necessities of daily existence, but always have a smile on their face and welcome you to their tent or house. Please pray for peace during the Kenyan elections this March.

Debbie, along with another couple helped lead a group of students to a nearby orphanage.

 This week was Kenyatta Day in Kenya, which is a national holiday. Classes are canceled and many activities are planned on campus. Since the students at RVA come from many different countries, many dress up in their native country costumes.  The oldest student from each of the 30 countries was  chosen to hold the flag of their country and march into chapel while a portion of their national anthem is played. The students cheer as each flag comes in and the noise is deafening. A picnic is then held afterwards, sports are played between the staff and students and the day ends with fireworks. It really is one of the highlights of the term.

Us with our dorm daughters

Our South Korean dorm daughters

Some of our Kenyan friends

Continue to uphold the school in prayer.  Debbie and I have been asked if we would stay another year beyond our one year commitment.  Please pray that we would be able to raise the support to stay. One of our students had to return home due to illness.  Please pray for healing so that she may be able to return next term in good health.

Almost Midterm at RVA

I'm sorry we have been so delinquent in keeping this blog up to date. We finally arrived at RVA on August 16th, approximately ten days later than our original scheduled arrival date. We had to hit the ground with our feet running. Although our apartment was graciously furnished by our sponsor family before arriving here, there were still many things to be done before making it a home. After arriving in Nairobi, and before arriving at RVA, we were taken to the market in Nairobi, to purchase food and supplies that we would need over the next several weeks. You can imagine trying to think of everything we would need for the next several weeks even before arriving and seeing our apartment. Many of the food items come in different packaging and are brand names that we were not familiar with, but we managed to to set up our pantry in a reasonable fashion. We have been to Nairobi twice since arriving, and are now more familiar with what is available when shopping. Nairobi is about an hour drive from RVA.  We do not have a car here and must rely on someone else going in and try to hitch a ride with them. Yesterday we hired a taxi along with another missionary to go into Nairobi.

We have been assigned as dorm parents to eighteen senior high school girls.  In the short time that we have been here we have already grown to love each one of them. Besides the girls in our dorms we have also adopted many of their friends as our own, since they also spend a lot of time in the dorm visiting. Each is girl is special, coming from backgrounds of many cultures throughout Africa as their parents serve as missionaries in different countries. There are many missionaries from Korea on this continent, and several of our girls are Korean. Because English is a second language for them, the  courses can be more difficult. In their culture, getting into a good university is even more of a priority than it is in the States, and a lot of pressure is put on them to do well by their families.  Please pray for Ha En, Chester, Hannah, and Julie, as they apply to college this year and complete their studies at RVA.

Each week we have a dorm meeting with each of the girls as a group where we discuss expectations that we have for them, have devotions with them, and then a time of fellowship and treats. We usually build a fire for everyone to sit around during this time, in order to make it feel more like home for them. Please pray that as we share God's word with them that He will use us to make a difference in their lives, and that we may help them prepare for the difference in culture they will face when leaving family and RVA for college at the end of the year.

No one at RVA has only one job assigned to them,  since there are more jobs to fill than there are available missionaries. Many are coaches, teachers, sponsors,  or organize activities besides their main jobs. Besides  being dorm parents we have been given other assignments to fill.  Debbie is teaching two classes of Spanish 2, and one class of Spanish 3.  She is spending a lot of time grading papers, working with her students and preparing lessons for the next day. Please pray that she will not be overwhelmed with the preparations for these classes.  She spends many late nights preparing. I have been assigned to to help run the school store which is called the Arcade. The Arcade is essentially the student school supply store, which also sells some treats to the students such as ice cream and soda.

I have been teaching a tenth grade boys Sunday school class.   The young men at RVA have not been allowed to have exclusive relationships with the girls until the tenth grade, but that is now being moved down to include the ninth grade. The material in the class is to show them what qualities that God expects christian men to exemplify in there daily lives.

This coming week many of the students are signing up for "Outreach".  This is a time where they will be reaching out in the surrounding communities in some type of service. I will be joining five other men as we each lead a group of nine boys down to an IDP camp.  IDP stands for Internal Displaced People.  During the last elections there much violence in Kenya.  Many of the people from different tribes were killed and many were forced off of lands where they were living if they happened to be from a different tribe other than the one than that the land belonged to. These people lost all their that they owned and were forced to live in these camps.  They have very little and many are malnourished. A national man whom I work with at the Arcade has started a church at the camp, and each Sunday takes boiled eggs and porridge to feed several hundred children.  Although he relies on some donations from the staff here, many times the cost of this comes out of his own meager resources. I will try to get some pictures during the outreach and post them for you on our next update.

Please pray for Jon as he ministers to these displaced people and that funds will come in to cover the cost of feeding these children. Pray also for the health of the staff and students. There have been many who have been ill over the last several weeks.

Leaving tomorrow!

Lord willing, we will be leaving Philadelphia tomorrow evening to start our travel to Kenya!  Debbie is doing better, but still healing. Pray with us for the Lord's protection as we travel and begin our work at Rift Valley Academy!

Unexpected Delay

Within hours of leaving the Erie area for the first leg of our journey to Kenya, it was discovered that Debbie had a serious infection in her hysterectomy incision.  Now, 3 days in the hospital later, we have new plans. Lord willing we will leave the Erie area on Aug. 9th after a doctor visit and plan to fly out to Kenya on Aug. 14th.  We are praying for the Lord's direction and healing. Thank you for praying with us.

Count down to Kijabe

In 4 weeks we are scheduled to arrive in Kenya!! We are very excited and packing non-stop! There have been some challenges, but God is good and has provided healing and strength. We praise Him for his goodness to us!

Kedong Dorm Apartment

We have been in touch with some of the missionaries at Kijabe and they have sent us pictures of the apartment where Dennis and I will live next year.  Of course we will have different furniture, but it has been encouraging to see what our accommodations will be!

Candidate Week

In early April, Dennis and I attended Candidate Week in Peachtree City, Georgia with these young people who are also headed to Africa in the near future! It was a blessing to get to know them and to learn so many things that we will need to know on the field!  Our support is almost all in  and we are scheduled to leave from Philadelphia and head to Nairobi on  Aug. 5, 2012!