Our weekend at Rift Valley Academy (RVA)

As many of you remember, I served at RVA way back in 1997-1998. I still have quite a few friends there, including special friends Jan & Matt. We were at the same Candidate Week January 1997, had become quite close while I was there and kept in touch all these years! We stayed with them and their 4 children. Micah and their youngest child, Torrie, had great fun playing together!
This particular weekend at RVA was pretty busy. They had Pinewood Derby - tons of kids design and construct little cars and they're raced in scheduled heats all day Saturday. It was also Senior Store. The seniors make and sell donuts and omelets Saturday morning, then all kinds of great food for lunch. If I remember correctly, they're raising money for their banquet and/or their senior trips.
It was so nice to get away from the city to enjoy beautiful views of the Rift Valley, fresh, clean air, lots of trees and open spaces! It was also nice to be back and reconnect with old friends! It sure made me feel old though when people would tell me that all of their children are grown, in college and/or married, some with kids of their own!

Another special part of the weekend was visiting my old friend, Harriet, a sweet married Kenyan woman with 3 boys! This picture is (L to R) Samuel, Harriet's husband, James, the youngest, Abraham, the middle child, and Harriet. John, the oldest son, lives a few hours away so he was not able to be there but he did call on James' cell to talk with me! I was introduced to Harriet by another missionary friend. I used to walk up to her house every Wednesday and have chai and chat for several hours (it is not culturally appropriate to just pop in for a quick visit!)

We did not have a way of getting a hold of Harriet so we stopped by her house to let her know that we would be at RVA for the weekend! Needless to say, she was shocked! She stood and stared at me for a while then gave me a huge hug! Harriet gave Robb a hug then picked Micah right up and gave him a big hug! She knew I had desired to be married and have a child back in '97-98 and she prayed for me all these years! She used to always say, "Char, God is never late!"

The most exciting part of seeing Harriet again is that I had never seen her walk on her own. She had a congenital hip disorder and when I met her she was no longer able to walk, but was only able to move around a bit with a walker. Several other missionaries who had known Harriet before me had sent money over the years for her to have hip joint replacement surgeries. While I was there, I kind of took over and arranged with the medical center there for one of these operations. There just happened to be an orthopedic surgeon there for a month who not coincidentally specialized in hip joint replacements! Harriet had the other hip joint replaced after I was gone so I was seeing her walk for the first time! God is so good!!

Our weekend away was wonderful! Robb caught up on some sleep, I got to see many old friends, and Micah, well, as usual, he had fun!!

5 Years!

Saturday was our 5 year anniversary! It seems like so much longer – in a good way, of course! We arranged for Micah to go to Angie’s house, again (Kurt’s out of town)! Kurt and Angie have a 12 year old son (their 2 oldest are away at university) whose name is also Micah (We refer to them as Big Micah and Little Micah.)

All three of them are great with kids, and our Micah loves going over their house. When we got to their house, Angie had already made sugar cookies and they were going to decorate them! Big Micah graciously allows Little Micah to play with his Lego plane, trucks, helicopter… made with the tiny Legos!

Anyway, this post is about us and our anniversary! We dropped Micah off around 4:30pm or so and headed out to an area in Nairobi called Westlands. We parked at a fairly new, very modern, upscale mall and then walked across the street to some furniture “shops”. These are outdoor mind you, and they just set up their furniture on the side of the road and will usually have a book of photos showing different styles and pieces they make.

We did not order anything (pricey and we still do not know exactly what we want.) I did tho buy some fun toys for Micah for Christmas. They are made out of thick metal wire and what resembles black inner-tube material. I bargained them down to 300/- each (or around $4.00.) There were several men selling these things and after buying a couple of them, a man approached me with his and said, “I will make the same price.” The look on his face was priceless when I said, “Okay, 300/- ?” He could not believe that I bought them for that price, though he did sell me one for 300/-. They are used to getting more from wealthy residents and/or tourists. Now Robb says he wants some too!

For dinner we went to a Japanese restaurant called Onami’s. Several people recommended this restaurant to us. It had very nice ambiance and only a few other tables were occupied since it was only 6pm.

Of course we had sushi!! We did not think we’d have sushi again for a couple of years! It was good, however we had to ask them to make the Spicy Salmon extra extra spicy since we did not even sniffle!

In conversation with our waiter, we told him we were celebrating our 5 year anniversary. After dinner, our waiter brought us a free dessert (a small chocolate lava cake and vanilla ice cream) and one of the managers hit this huge gong five times! Thankfully there were not many people in there!

We then headed downstairs to ArtCaffe – a coffeehouse restaurant – and had decaf mochas and dessert! We were gone for about 4-1/2 hours! It was so nice to go out, relax, enjoy yummy food, and spend some time together!

Rainy Days

The rains are making for interesting days! We decided to go looking at furniture last Saturday - what an adventure!
It hasn't really rained that much yet but we are already seeing the effects!
Green grass for the skin and bone cattle, green tree lined road out to Karen, and mud, mud mud!!

We headed out to a section of Ngong Road that is literally Furniture Row! It is shop after shop after shop of furniture makers pretty much selling the same things give or take a few unique pieces.
Each shop displays various pieces of furniture, rain or shine, and you just walk along discreetly scanning everything for what might catch your eye. You WILL be approached by "salesmen" at each shop who will make every attempt to get you to buy from them.
We didn't decide on any furniture that day but saw other fun things, like interesting shoppers,
and one-stop shopping: furniture, lawn mowers and tomb stones!

Power rationing, rain, and other late nite thoughts!

The word on the street is that the power rationing has officially ended - for now! Some of you may not have known that Nairobi (and surrounding areas) has had power rationing for a while. Different areas had different schedules. Our schedule was no power Tues., Thurs., or Sat. Although we were scheduled to have power Sun., Mon., Wed., & Fri., we would still experience random power outages! The nice thing is that we knew, for the most part, what days we would not have power so we could plan ahead.
So now, we have power every day, for the most part! Robb made an interesting observation though. What a coincidence that the power rationing ends about the same time that the power rates increase by 36%!! Hmmmmm!!
We have had rain off and on for the past several days! I awoke a few nights ago to rain falling hard and fast - not the kind of rain we need here! We have had more rain though yesterday and today. New leaves are blooming, and we are seeing a bit more green! Is this the arrival of the infamous El Nino? I guess we cannot really tell yet. Similar to southern California, rain causes slippery roads and accidents galore!
We are definitely still in the middle of a serious drought. Sadly, it is not raining in areas where it is most needed. Please continue to pray for long, slow rain that will help restore crops, and provide food and water to people & animals! (I'll post some rain-related pics tomorrow!)
Why is it that I cannot go to bed early? Robb was tired at 9pm so he went to bed. I was tired at 9pm but...here I sit at 11:15pm still playing with this blog! There is no possibility of sleeping in - the latest Micah will wake up is 7am, and here I sit!
Okay people! It is now midnight and I have one question - where oh where has my downloaded photo gone??!! I give up and I'm going to bed!
Blessings!!

Cat story

As most of you know, we are cat people (Micah and I also like dogs but Robb is not so keen on them.) We were so anxious before leaving the states about what to do with our two cats, Matthew & Trouble. Although they are both older cats, they were still active and playful! God is so good even with things like pets! Robb's mom, Rita, said she would take Trouble. As you can gather from his name, he can make life interesting! Well, Rita says that he is doing very well! He occupies her lap whenever he gets a chance and enjoys her backyard!
God really proved His goodness with Matthew. Randomly (without any pleading or coercing), my brother-in-law, Alan, who is dreadfully allergic to cats) mentioned to my sister Susan that they would take Matthew as long as he did not have an allergic reaction! Wow! That was really big of him!! (Seriously Alan!) The other factor with Matthew living with them is that they have a big dog, not something our cat had really been exposed to! Well, Susan is happy to report (and I am sooo thankful to hear) that Matthew is doing GREAT! He and the dog get along great (they touch noses) and Alan is still breathing! Thank you God and thank you Rita and Susan (and Alan, Alexander, Matthew & Kasick!)
Now God has given us the opportunity to help out a missionary family who returned to the states while blessing us with a cat! We bought a few items from Debra and her family last month. Each time I went to her house I would see this cute white and tan cat sleeping in her front yard. They named him Kahawa, which means "coffee" in kiswahili, but she said they should have named him "chai" or tea because he looks more like chai than coffee!! I asked her what was going to with Kahawa and she still did not know, but was going to have to take him to the animal shelter if no other options came up.
I had talked to Robb but he did not think we should get a cat so soon. Well, the last time I went to Debra's house she said that they were going to bring Kahawa to the shelter that next morning. I called Robb and he said, "Okay, we'll take him." Debra and her family were so thrilled to know that their cat was going to live with a family and be well taken care of.
Kahawa has brought us joy and I believe has even helped in our transition! Micah loves him and he tolerates Micah's "pets"!

Always singing!

All in a day...Be flexible!!

We had an interesting day two weeks ago that really speaks about being flexible but I have not had the chance to sit and write about it and actually post it. Between painfully poor internet connections, Micah, our househelper Dorcas, people coming to our gate, laundry to hand-wash, planning and fixing dinner…I am hoping to finish now!

We had been told about Wycliffe, a young man whom several missionaries hire to do yard work and other odd jobs. He is married to Celine and they have a 5 year old boy. He works hard and makes huge efforts to get by. We met him and his family two weeks ago at another missionary’s house and we felt compelled to offer him some odd jobs as well. Wycliffe and Celine were both orphans and finally were able to move out of the slums a few months ago. They are strong Christians and literally trust the Lord to provide each day.

We planned for Wycliffe to come by the next afternoon to help Robb with some yard work. He arrived about 10am…be flexible! Robb put aside the tasks he had planned for the morning and started working in the back yard with Wycliffe. They trimmed the loquat tree and bougainvilleas, and dragged piles of branches through the house to the front for trash pickup. I believe they filled 6 black yard waste bags and still had several more piles. Clearly, the yard had not been worked on in quite a while.

While Robb was working with Wycliffe, I brought Micah to another missionary’s house to play then continued with more cleaning and organizing. Shortly after, there was a knock on our front gate (be flexible!) and I met Mama Sumaki (the fish lady!) or Margaret. She brings whole tilapia fish and fillets them right there for you! I had to get over the fact that flies were all over the them as she filleted them. One fish costs 300/- or $4.00. Not bad considering one fish was more than one meal for us. She has been selling fish to missionaries (and others) for about 20 years or so. Needless to say, she really knows how to fillet a fish! I was disappointed that Micah was not there to see Margaret fillet the fish for us.I was told that Margaret likes to take the heads & bones and make soup with them. I had asked Wycliffe earlier if he wanted them so I saved them for him. The next time Margaret was to bring me fish I asked Dorcas if she would like the heads & bones to make fish and she said that she does not make fish soup. She asked if Wycliffe and Margaret are from the Luo tribe (they are) because the Luo tribe is originally from Lake Victoria, and she is Kikuyu and they do not eat fish. Interesting!!

Robb had connected with another missionary who said we could borrow his “extra car”. That afternoon Robb took a taxi to go pick it up, and I have to admit that I was quite surprised when Robb returned (be flexible!)! The “car” is fondly referred to as Big Red! It is a 40 or so year old Land Cruiser, and it shows and feels every bit of it! It is loud, rough, and tough to drive, but it is fun, can handle most any pothole that it encounters, and people generally stay out of its way! Shifting certainly has not been kind to Robb’s torn rotator cuff but it has been so nice having our own transportation!

Whew, what a day!!