One month!

Hey friends, sorry for the long absence. We sent off our second team on Monday and I just spent most of yesterday resting and simply being because I am very drained. Life here is so good and I love it so much. I find so much joy and purpose here, but life here is also very full. Full of love and joy, full of work and hard fought relationships, full of emotion and empathy. It really requires all of you- physical, spiritual, mental, emotional… But I can testify that the Lord has been our strength in every moment.

And as I sit here I can hardly believe it has already been an entire month.

As I think back on the past 4 weeks, I think of little snap shots of tender moments, and of tough ones as well. There are the laughs, hugs and many many cups of chai. Chai tea is part of life here. Every day everyone breaks midmorning to have chai, and again in the afternoon. Needless to say, not tons gets done but I love the emphasis it puts on relationships and communal living. Kenya has taken a piece of my heart that I know it will never relinquish.

The time spent with this last team was great and our time together was very different then the first team (not better or worse, just looked different). It was cool because we were able to help our partner ministries in a lot of physical ways. Love Africa focuses a lot of relationships, but we also wanted to be sure we are helping these people beyond those. We still visited the hospitals and prayed and talked with the families and patients. Praise the Lord that Little Lambs were able to have an extension on their time on their current land, but at double the rent, so we were able to go and visit and encourage them. Time spent with those little kids is always precious. Please be praying for them as they raise money to find a new home. Another highlight is going to the Women of Courage Bible study at Rift Valley Fellowship, those women are so strong and have a very different part of my heart.

But our team was also able to partner with our friend John, who has several ministries, but we were able to start building a preschool in John’s property for kids in his area that are not able to go to preschool and really do not have a safe place to be in the day. During the building project, lots of those kids were hanging around and some of our girls were able to love on them.

Another highlight was at the IDP camp. Slowly they have been constructing tin houses for the families to be able to move out of the tents that were given to them in 2007 by the UN. There was just 4 more families that needed homes and this past week that dropped to 3. Our guys got to go in and build Sammy, the chairman, his home. The look on his face when it was completed was indiscernible. Glowing with sheer pride and joy.  It is so humbling when you see this tiny, what we would call a shack, yet these families feel so blessed by this safe place they can call a home.

The final thing we built, alongside of the Kingdom of God, is we got supplies to build some desks for a school we visit often called Southern Cross Academy. If I have not mentioned it before, this school has a lot of children from the IDP camps, and they provide a lunch for all the kids- for many of them, that is their only meal of the day. It is fun and all to play with the kids but sometimes I wonder what impact that is making. We try to talk of Jesus and give them love they might not receive at home, but selfishly it is hard to not be able to see the impact you are making. So providing these desks is something we can see the actual impact of help. These kids cram 5 people to a 2 person desk because they just don’t have enough space for them all. The kids were so excited when they saw the desks and kept asking what classroom they were going in.

I should say that Love Africa is able to do all these different projects and help the ministries because we have set aside a portion of the money that each person raised for this purpose. So really, your financial support is making all this possible and you can know that we are putting it to good use. I thank you again for your support, not just so that I have the opportunity to be here, but because I get to see how big of blessings each shilling is to these people. Even the smallest dollar is making these people’s life significantly better. And we never want to be some white missionaries that come in with a bunch of money and try to make their life better, because they need ownership and dignity, but when we can partner these projects with the relationships we have formed, it hits deep. I feel so privileged that the Lord has brought me here to be one that gets to have hand in this. I don’t take that for granted.

It is easy for me say that “we did this” and “they were able to do that” because I don’t have many other words to explain it, but really I can’t emphasize enough how humbled I am. In the big things and the small the glory goes to the Lord because without Him we would be nothing. This past year I picked up Ann Voskamp’s phrase “All is grace” because really, every moment is only because of grace and I see that clearer and clearer every day.

Thank you for your love and support, for your thoughts and prayers. I feel so blessed.