No court date this Friday.

"When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, a broken friendship, or a new friendship-when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing...Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him."
I find myself in that place today, highly disappointed, rather speechless, and not even sure which questions to ask. Just got off of the phone with our lawyer's office-we do not have an appointment with the courts tomorrow. In short, our documents were not pulled and we were not put on the schedule. I don't know why, but I do know that no matter how unsettled my spirit feels about this, or how disappointed I may be, what really matters right now is my response too the situation. I want to be angry, I want to cry, but more than that, I want respond in a way that undeniably brings credit and glory to Christ. Samuel said, "We believe we are all letters that will one day be read. I want to be a letter that others want to read over and over. A letter that brings people to Christ and glory to God." Well, I don't want my letter to be one of self-pity or anger. One might say at this point such feelings are justified, but I keep reminding myself that Jesus did not sit on a cross for me feeling sorry for himself or being angry at me for committing the sins that put him there. No, he surrendered to love. A thwarted court date does not even compare, does it?
In closing, keep praying. They say they are going to try for next Friday. While you pray for that date, please pray that all things are able to happen as God wills. Let's not try to force things that are not in His plan. Also, pray I stay focussed on the right attitude and keep a chin-up! I'm quite sure I cannot do that without your prayers.

Our Day in Soweto

We spent the day in Soweto today. The kids are on break, but Samuel and company still look after them and feed those who would otherwise not eat. Since not all of the children were there, I had a better chance to connect on a more personal level. It was a lot of fun teaching them how to play hopscotch.
I was privileged to a part of their lunch hour prayer time. Whenever I am invited to take part in a Kenyan worship service, I feel ushered into a place that I feel is closest to the holy of holies spoken about in the Bible. Sometimes I wonder if it is because the people of Kenya have nothing, so they are able to worship freely, with an emptiness that allows such room for the Holy Spirit's free movement. Not that we cannot experience such things in America, but it seems to be more the norm in Kenya.
Today while I was in Soweto, I offered to wash the children's dishes. Do you know what they said? "Mama Sundi, do you know how to wash dishes?" I was mortified. Sure, it was kind of funny, but it was also a shame that they think a white woman doesn't know how to wash her own utensils. It's not their fault, that's just the white they know. Grace kept saying, "Mama Sundi, you are really challenging me." John took a picture on his phone so he could show all his friends the white woman that washes dishes in the slum. I was so humbled.
Well, that was our day, and we are so blessed.

Today, it’s just me-being transparent.

Imagine that today is November 26^th. Some days it seems like such a short time ago that I said good-bye to family and friends and boarded a plane to embark on the adventure of my life! However, I must admit that most days, home is a distant memory. So much has changed in these past months. I have been through so many refining moments. So many life altering lessons-it’s been quite a process. It seems things like that have a way of making or breaking who you are. Some days, I feel like I am breaking, but then, there are those days when I step aside and let God step in. I wish I could say that was every day. Why can’t it be? But then, broken is part of the process, too, isn’t it?

The past few days, I have felt very broken. It seemed like a deep sadness had set in. I tried not to think about it, but it finally caught up with me. So, today, I took a long walk with Sundi and tried to sort it out. It’s loneliness. (I am assuming now that Michelle has left, those reading my blog are my dearest friends, so it goes without saying how much I do not relish time alone.) I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Here in Kenya, I have learned true emptiness. Not a bad emptiness, but where everything familiar and comforting is gone and you are left with just you, God, and Satan in a battle that without the noise and distractions of daily life, you really see and feel. I have learned that the battle, at least for me, is for my mind. I think the heart and the mind are so closely connected that it almost goes without saying that if one controls the mind, the heart is already committed. I now understand more fully the importance of taking every thought captive… so that the mind of Christ is in me. I think in every day life, especially in a place so controlled by lists and schedules as America is, it is easy to distract oneself from the thoughts in ones head, but is that really what Christ means by taking every thought captive? I am inclined to think not. For me, in this place in my life, it means filtering every thought through truth. Wow, Satan tells some very believable lies-even sometimes he tells the truth in a way that is not beneficial.

So, that is me today, learning things I would never have slowed down to learn had I not come here…thankful for the process…hoping I never forget the lessons learned.

Okay, people, it's me..alone this time. It's a little intimidating to load my point and shoots (as Michelle refers to them) and hope you people can deal with the lack of sarcasm coming this way! In the end, you'll probably miss Michelle as much as we do! But still, point and shoot or not, you cannot change how CUTE my babies are!

Of all the pic I took when Michelle was here, this is my favorite. Sundi was Michelle's shadow the entire time she was here. At first, we weren't convinced it was Michelle she loved, but rather Michelle's camera; however, the camera (not the Mac-daddy) stayed and Sundi was still pretty depressed after Michelle left. Actually, today was the first day she ate a full meal. (Sorry, Daddy, I had to drown it in Ketchup to get her interested.)
It is hard to find the right words to tell you people who spend your time and money to come out here how much it means to me as you put into my child all that she has missed for so long. Thanks you is simply not enough.

We had the weirdest schedule when Michelle was here. This was our last night's meal. Yup, this is what we all ate for dinner...talk about the five major food groups...cookies, soda, chips, popcorn, and french fries!!! When I put the kids to bed at midnight, they were still flying high!

Chocolate chip pancakes

Below: what I swept off of the floor after our meal!

Final day in Kenya

Hello again. Well, it is my last day in Kenya. I'm really sad to leave. I totally need another week here to do everything I want to do. Today we just hit the mall and a Maasai market. We were running really late because Kim and I didn't go to bed until 7:30 this morning. We got home from the market around 5:30 and I wanted to get some pictures of Sundi and Damon before we lost the sun. I got about 20 minutes in and then the light went away. So, not as many pictures as I would like. We all went "lala" - took a nap. I got up at 8:00 to check on my flights. Finally at 10:00, I figured I needed to get Kim up. She was so surprised that she slept so long. I've definitely sleep-deprived her this week.

My flight leaves at 10:00am tomorrow (2:00am EST). I will miss Kenya greatly when I leave. I can't wait to come back.

Day 5 in Kenya

Hello everyone, it's Michelle again. Today was one of the best days in Kenya. Kim, Sundi, and I went to Pastor Samuel's school in Soweto (see previous day's blog for more details). Samuel has 52 kids in the school currently. All of these kids are "street" kids - 19 of them have families that care for them (either their own or another family), the rest have no one to care for them, or their family cares for them very poorly. Samuel provides them 3 meals per day, an education, and sometimes clothing. The goal is to have a uniform for each child. In Soweto, if a child is in a school uniform, they are considered "belonging" to someone. They are less likely to be harmed on the street if they are wearing a uniform. So, for their safety, Samuel tries to provide each of them with a uniform. Each uniform costs approximately $20. They currently have 21 uniforms, and are in need of another 31. We saw that many students did not have good shoes. This is also important because of the rain and cold. It is very sad to see a student walk to school on a muddy dirt road in the rain with either no shoes, or shoes that no longer fit them. It costs approximately $7 to give a child new shoes and socks. You'll be hearing more about the needs of the school and how to assist in the next few months.





The students spent several minutes singing all of their songs to us. It is just too cute to watch. We took some movies of the singing on Kim's camera and hope to put it on the blog soon. Currently, it is 5:51am and neither of us have gone to bed. So, deal with it. Movie to come later.

The kids lined up to walk outside to get a group picture and then individual pictures.


Hard to see in the second pic, but they are all sticking out their tongues.

I needed a model to figure out the settings on my camera and Sundi happily obliged.

Belinda

Dorcas

Caren

Moureen

Faith

Selpher

Sylvia

Jane

Prudence

Beatrice

Tamara

Winnie

Jecintah

Veronica

Vivian

Sophy

Margaret

Margaret

Millicent

Michelle

Magnaton

Yvonne

Winnie

Yvonne

Tina

Frederick

James

Jack

Michael

Sean

Ryan

Jack

Emmanuel

Joseph

Daniel

Louis

Felix

Wilson

Glenn

Samuel

John

Andrew

Arnold

Stephen

Dennis

Dylan

Bruce

Joseph

Albert (below)

The teachers are below Albert - sorry, we had a cut and paste issue. Deal with it.

In order, the teachers are: Beatrice (with Faith), Marian, Dan, Pastor Samuel, Grace, and Faith (obviously NOT a teacher).

This is lunch for the kids. Matt Moore purchased all of them their own plates and cups when he visited in October. Before that, they shared a few plates. They either ate off the same plate with other kids, or had to wait for others to finish before they could eat.

Sundi had 3 cokes. The word for bathroom in Swahili is "choo", pronounced "cho". This is one of Sundi's favorite words and activities. She knows where the bathroom is everywhere we go.



Kim (if you don't know this, why are you reading this? I mean really, come on. Don't you have anything better to do?)

This is a shot of the road in front of the school.

Kim playing with the kids.




I had some candy left over from the Grace CpR retreat and my co-worker gave me her leftover Halloween candy. We were able to give each of the kids some candy as well as some of the other street kids not a part of the school. What was so interesting, was that they never get anything like this, and yet they offered to share with us. Many of them got little boxes of nerds. They came up to us and wanted to give us some of their nerds.







School back in session after a morning of getting pictures taken and playing outside. They had just finished exams last week, so today was a little fun for them.

Different poster on the walls. I thought the above poster was interesting because it states that "Flowers smell nice" and then the next line reads "Aids has no cure". Crazy that a 4 year old learns these things so early.

The above above picture is Kim and me with all the kids. We asked Dan to take the picture with Kim's camera. He was very hesitant. Pastor Samuel, on the other hand, gleefully took my mac daddy camera and shot everything in sight. Problem is, he didn't quite understand my instructions on focusing.

At the end of the day, Kim showed Sam and the teachers the donated books that we were able to bring with us on this trip. They were very happy to have the new material.

Where's Waldo (aka Michelle)? Can you pick her out of this picture? Also, why is everything I am typing being underlined? It is now 6:30am and I don't care. Kim and I took Samuel and Pam out to dinner for Thanksgiving and to celebrate the news that they found a new house to move into. We stayed out pretty late, not getting home until 11:45pm. That is why we are still blogging. We just realized that the mosquito we tried so hard to kill last night with "Doom" was actually a gnat. Go figure. It still lives. In other unrelated news, Kim spewed water out of her nose and mouth while sitting in the passenger seat of Sam's car. Sam got wet, but said nothing. I, on the other hand, almost peed my pants. We just have learned not to let Kim drink and ride.

So, look Ma, no underline. Go figure. Well the loopy time has set in and we must leave you all now. Tomorrow - same Bat time, same Bat channel.