Our new home sweet home

We are definitely enjoying a season of blessing! RVA kind of feels like utopia, for now at least. The kids have jumped right into life here, not missing a beat. They already claim to love it! As some new friends of ours here are preparing to leave and return to the states, I have found myself grieving the time when we have to leave... which is first of all ridiculous to be thinking about already and second of all confirmation that I love it here, too!

Why do we love it so much?

1. God wants us here, so we're enjoying the blessing of being in His will.

2. The fulfillment of something and some place we have been working towards for years!

3. Living in intentional, Christ-centered community.

4. The overlap of our passions... family, student ministry, missions, Africa, community, relationships...with a little bit of soccer, music, healthy cooking, and simplicity mixed in.

5. Amazing, Godly role-models pouring into our children's lives on a daily basis.

6. God's astounding beauty. (I will take some pictures but it just can't be captured on film. You really need to come take it in for yourself! It is breath-taking!)

7. I'm sure the warm sunny days and crisp breezy nights don't hurt. 

Here are a few pictures to help you picture where we are serving...

"FIRST DAY" OF SCHOOL 

The kids walking to Titchie (the name of the elementary school at RVA).

Noah's first grade teacher, Mrs. Kinzer ...aka Aunt Carolyn (Michael's mom's sister). How special is that? :)

Madison's teacher and our neighbor, Mrs. Seymour. She is also friends with the Wills from Connecticut before she came out to RVA over 7 years ago. 

Kindergarten only has half days, which is wonderful. Madison has 14 classmates who are very excited to have her join their class!

There are 5 boys and no girls in first grade this year. They join up with the second graders in the afternoon for combined studies. In this photo, they are on their way to catch frogs from the pond. They had a guest field trip guide, Mr. Michael Wills :)

Noah made a fast friend named Seth. They come home from school together every day to play. Notice the action packer picnic table for their after school snack :)

TOUR OF OUR NEW HOME

This is the road from school, Titchie Swot (on left) to our home (the little triangle roof you see peeking over the hedges down on the right). It's about a 2 minute walk or a 1 minute run.

This is technically our back door, but for all intents and purposes it is our front door because it is the side of the house that faces the road.

Notice the beautiful geraniums, the hammock... and the belly :)

This is the right side of our house. We don't use dryers because the electricity is so expensive... and because Kijabe is sunny and windy.

This is technically the front of the house, but we consider it our backyard. Notice the other hammock.  We usually eat out here on the cement when the kids and Michael come home from school for their lunch hour.

 

View from the back extending into the side yard. We hope to build a little playhouse in that back right corner. There's also a swing hanging from the tree. 

This is the other side of our house but, like Tyler, your attention is probably drawn to the humungous slug instead!

We are now rounding our last corner back to the "front."

This huge water tank is right across the street and is a popular hang out for the preschoolers and Titchies.

... you can see why :)

Now for inside...

Nice spacious kitchen, thankfully, since this is where I seem to spend the majority of my day.

Cute little built in table.

The kitchen doorway leads to our dining/living area. I love the space and light, especially for hosting larger groups.

View from the "back" door.  So thankful for the rugs we folded and stuffed into action packers to bring here.  It makes such a difference.

If you're really trying to figure out our floor plan, the door on left leads to our kitchen. Just through the right doorway is a hallway to the right that leads to our 3 bedrooms. There is also a little laundry/mud room on the right just before the front door. 

This is the tunnel hallway. Bathroom is on the left, then there's a bend and the hallway continues to the bedrooms. I plan on putting some colorful Scriptures on these walls! 

The hallway bathroom.

The bedroom Madison and Tyler share.

Noah's bedroom.

Whoops. I forgot to take a picture of our bedroom/bathroom. I will get on that next time it's neat and tidy:) And once our collapsed bed is fixed... 

And there it is. Home sweet home. We are very thankful.

Please join us in praying for many opportunities to speak God's Word, offer up prayers, and actively show His love to all who enter.

A few remaining memories from ABO

I found some pictures from ABO on my camera and would like to wrap up ABO before sharing photos from our new life here at RVA.

Here are the kiddos performing for the adults at the end of our 3 weeks together. Tyler's just doing his own thing... and getting away with it because he's so cute!

I tried to upload a video clip of one of their songs, but I'm not sure if it worked.

Ms. Caroline had the kids set up a market on the last day. The kids sold the crafts they did not want to keep. All the adults came with kenya shillings ready to shop. The kids really enjoyed it. My kids said they were saving up their earnings for a piki (dirt bike) but ended up spending it on cokes at dinner instead :)

Unfortunately 4 out of 5 of our family were sick throwing up on the day of our scheduled home visit in Muchakos. Michael went without us to visit a local home. Our friends Jerod and Josh were gifted a live chicken by their hosts. Michael wasn't so lucky. :)

Our friends, Rueben and Chris, students at Scott Theological Seminary -where our 3 week training took place.

Rueben and Tyler playing ball after dinner one night :)

Our friend, Sadik, from Tanzania -a first year student at the seminary. We hope to be able to attend his wedding he invited us to... but that won't be for a couple more years

Noah's ABO buddy, Owen. His family will be serving at a guesthouse in Uganda, but they may be attending home school week at RVA within the year... we hope!

Our friends, Jerod and Megan. We met them at candidate week in New York summer of 2011, kept in touch some, but did not realize that we would be attending ABO with them! Such a fun surprise! They are serving on a TIMO team in Tanzania for 2 and a half years... without electricity!

 Josh and Michael instantly hit it off as techy dorks :) Josh and Heidi will be serving with On Field Media based out of Nairobi, the closest big city to us, so we hope to be able to see them again!

Our next post will be dedicated to RVA. We are so excited to be here and are just loving it! Can't wait to share pictures with you!

But The Greatest of These is Love!

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13)

We have been learning so much at Africa Based Orientation!
One of the first things we learned about was worldview. My favorite definition of worldview is the lens through which we see and interpret the world. This lens is formed by your experiences with family, friends, culture, norms, etc. So we came to Kenya with the worldview of a westerner or more specifically an American. And we are trying to interpret the worldview of our fellow African brothers and sisters, through our western lenses.
Duane Elmer in Cross Cultural Connections gives us some sage advice, which is to keep in the forefront of our minds that other cultures are not wrong, just different. I know some of you might take offense at that advice, because clearly some practices in other cultures are wrong (like polygamy). Elmer addresses this conundrum far more eloquently than I can. In short, Elmer challenges us to distinguish between cultural practices that are right, wrong, or a matter of preference using the Bible as the measuring stick. Too often I think we blur these lines and at times even completely miss the mark, thereby categorizing a cultural practice in such a way as to cause unnecessary discord. Dare I mention our perception of church worship… more or fewer hymns, lifting our hands or keeping them restrained, dancing or standing resolute, beige carpet or blue carpet... I digress!
Most recently we had the privilege of learning more about Islam from an African scholar, Derek, who had an exceptional command of both the Bible and the Koran. We also had the opportunity to visit a mosque and have a Muslim gentlemen teach us about his faith. The greatest take home point we gleaned from Derek was how to better love our Muslim brothers and sisters.

If you are like me, your knowledge of Islam is confined to sound bites from popular media streams. Keywords gleaned from these sources and associated with Islam might be Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, The Taliban, 9/11, and Mosque. While we download this information from popular media into our minds we get a false sense of being informed, but how informed are we really? Is there anything else we need to know about Islam? Might we benefit from sitting down with a Muslim brother or sister to have an honest dialogue about our faith?
Here are some practical highlights of what we learned:

• The most important way to share His love is through friendship and relationship
• Listen to your friend
• Ask questions of genuine interest
• Avoid Confrontation
• When in doubt, glorify God!

These concepts could be applied to any relationship. I think we often fear sharing God’s love with others because of a feeling of inadequacy…I don’t know the Bible enough, I can not speak eloquently enough, I am poor at arguing…and you may be right on all accounts, but what does God ask us to do? Surely, we are not responsible for changing hearts…we just need to love well and when the opportunity arises speak truth with love and gentleness. We have full access to the Truth in God’s Word. So, join with me on this journey of loving well and sharing God’s Truth through the relationships that God brings into our lives.
Michael