Hello World!

Hello Everybody!

I hope that wherever you are, you are having a wonderful day!  Our family is settling back into routine, which is good and not so good.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE ROUTINE, but sometimes I need to be shaken up a bit.  Maybe that's you too?

Here are my boys on the first day of school, getting into their own vehicles, and driving a block and a half to school:

They are very lucky and blessed indeed!  We sometimes take this for granted, our opportunities, our possessions, etc.  They are just routine.  For the kids of the Virginia Home, FOOD is a luxury, shelter is not a given, and schooling...well, for many, unheard of!

As we embark on our new school year routine, I want to be reminded that we are blessed, and I want to remember we can help bless others.  What does this mean?  It means for a $1500 donation, we can make sure these guys (and their teachers) eat for a month!

When they eat, they are happy and focused and their grades go up!!  Have you ever once thought, "I need to make sure my kids eat daily so their grades will go up and they can focus on school"?  I can honestly say I have not.

For a donation of $500/yr, you can sponsor a child so they can attend high school!  As I said earlier, school is NOT a given unfortunately.  Last year several of us sponsored kiddos, and they are doing fabulous!  There are still three kids in the current Form 1 class. who are attending, but could really use a sponsor:  Winlite, Kevin and Collins.  

Winlite

 Kevin

I hope that those of you who sponsored Alvin, Ruth, Gad, Harrison, Everlyn, and Issah will continue your support in the coming year.  I know our family will definitely continue Alvin's support!  However, in January, there will be a whole new crop of kiddos hopeful for the opportunity to attend high school!  Here's a sneak peek at some of the bright faces you could sponsor:

Won't you consider sponsoring Anne, Mercy, Andrew, Dancan or one of the possibly 8 other hopefuls?  Only $500/yr provides them a year of school, uniforms, shoes, and any other fees involved!

If neither of those donations interest you, there are "special" projects you can be a part of.  Maybe some of them I hadn't even thought of! Just let me know.  The heart knows what these kids need!  Whatever it is, won't you consider shaking up your  new school year routine and help a child on the other side of the world? 

Home Bittersweet Home

Well, we made it back home...about as smoothly as possible.  We all four slept for a pretty good chunk of the night our first night back, which should definitely make transitioning to the Central time zone easier!  However, Harrison and I are kind of melancholy.  We really weren't ready to come back home.  There's something about Kenya...the culture, the environment...it's indescribable.  Here are some snapshots to help me keep this trip in the forefront of my memory:

I am struck by the number of siblings at the Virginia Home:

In the above photo, the father pictured is the cook, and three of his eight children live and matriculate at the Virginia Home (he lives just down the road).  There are more siblings than those I have pictured above, but I didn't have photos of them.

I have so many more stories of our wonderful experience in Kenya and I will be sharing those over the next few weeks, but for now we are safe at home, and ready to start a new school year...and missing Kenya A LOT.

Feeling sad...

I should be rejoicing today!  Thanks to a generous donor all of the children of the Virginia Home received new uniforms and new shoes today!

But instead I feel a little sad.  Why do adults ruin everything?  A wise person once pointed me to Romans 12:15 which says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn..." at a time when I definitely had trouble rejoicing with others.  Why is it that when someone is down we can be right there with them, but when someone is happy so many of us have trouble being happy for them?? 

Today, we gave children who have nothing...something.  And at least one of the adults that works there, was upset that he was not thought of.  As it turned out, he was thought of, but not in the way he felt he should be thought of.  We did not give the "right" gift.  It left me speechless.  During our visit to Virginia, our lessons were all about being a servant.  Anyone can be a servant whether you are rich, poor, black, white, male, female, adult, child, etc.  The children "got" it.  The adults...not so much.  We were told by the teachers that they were mistreated, abused when they tried to receive food, and underpayed (or not payed at all actually...which we knew, but they eat the food we provide as their pay I suppose).  We tried to help them by giving them food containers (to get an additional meal each day) but that was apparently not the "right" gift as they wanted something else, namely money.  All along, we have felt that by ACO taking on the cost of the food, it would free up any other monies the Director might have so that he could pay the electricity, the teachers, etc.  Apparently that is not what has happened and the teachers are looking to us to also cover their salaries.  It is frustrating to say the least, but I won't give up.  I won't pay their salaries, but I won't give up.

So, instead of rejoicing for the children receiving new uniforms which give them a new outlook and a new hope...the adults are feeling victimized and angry.  Hopefully a wise person can point them in the direction of Romans 12:15.

Enough of my venting!  Today was a really good day!  Here is a snapshot of how it all came together:

Before~

During~

After~

Whenever I feel like giving up, I will just look back at these faces.  It's not about anything other than the children.  When we first started this whole thing it was about the children.  The children who were unable to care for themselves and weren't eating every day.  They now eat every day, thanks to donations (if you are interested in donating, one month of food is $1500).  They are healthier, happier, more focused, etc. etc.  Giving them new uniforms even furthers those things, and I really believe that they are starting to believe in themselves.  

I do believe the food program has brought in some good caring teachers.  As Walt told them, they are serving and doing the right thing and although for now their only reward is food, someday if they are good and faithful servants there may be more.  I feel like they are receiving more than where they were before, if not than they would never have left!  We want to support the Kenyan people in helping themselves, not just support the Kenyan people period.  We are hopeful that the children of Virginia will grow up to see the importance of serving by our example and will give back to their own people.  Maybe it's not too late for that man (or those men), and I will pray for them, as I know times are hard, but anyone can serve and to serve, you will be blessed (it may not be in the way YOU think it should be, but you will be blessed nonetheless).

So let's rejoice today, shall we?

Elephants

Lions and Tigers and Bears....nah!  We had elephants.  And more elephants!

One of my missionary friends, Alice Stickney, who recently moved back to the US, used to pray that I would see elephants on my safaris because she knew how much I loved them, but I would only see one or two at a time.  Well, her prayers were answered in a MAJOR way!  Thank you Alice!

After the first night's stay at the Mara Encounter, we were chatting with the staff and our guides and found out that many many elephants had held the staff at bay because they were grazing all throughout our camp and the staff could not come to the dining tent for breakfast.  Apparently one guard escorted my guys to their van for their hot air balloon while the other guards kept watch over the "elephant situation".  Walt and I had also thought it rained during the night, but found out that was the elephant rustling past our tent!!

Later that morning, our guide Sammy and I set out to meet up with the guys.  One of the first things we saw were these cute "young adult" elephants playing!

The problem is that we were right across the river and needed to come up on the other side, right between them!  I told Sammy we better wait until they are done and he said, "We will just go now"...and proceeded to drive our vehicle into the river and once across we had to go up that little rocky path between those two elephants.  Really!  At that point I was a little scared so I put my camera down, but those two scooted apart and we drove between them and they flapped their ears and raised their trunks and wanted to play!  Once past them, we rounded a corner and saw three more hidden in trees on this very narrow path (so they were very close to us) just playing and flirting with us!

But the REAL story I want you to know about occurred later on Monday night.  Before dinner we could hear the elephants calling and they were VERY close!  We were gathered around the campfire, having drinks and we could see the guards huddled together talking and shining their flashlights out into the long grass.  They said the elephants were close, but would not come into camp while everyone was still up and about so we were safe.  We continued on with dinner, and could still tell some of the staff was distracted.  Our guard escorted us to our tent (our boys were in a tent next to ours) and as we arrived he proudly said, "The elephant was RIGHT THERE, but I shined my light to hold him back.  Just before you got here!"  I looked at Walt and said, "Now why would he tell me that?"  After that we zipped ourselves into the tent and then the guard zipped us in from the outside.  We were secured for the evening and went off to sleep at about 10 pm.

At 12:59 am we hear and elephant "trumpeting" loudly between our tent and our sons' tent!  Walt shoots up out of bed, lands on top of me and puts his hand over my mouth so I won't scream!  I was very calm actually...my only fear was the boys were not with me.  I was afraid they'd be so excited and want to take photos or something and would draw attention from the elephants.  I should have known better really...they knew this was a serious situation.  Actually, Harrison thought it was a leopard and Hudson slept through the whole thing (that child can sleep any time/anywhere).  Once I finally convinced Walt he could get off of me I wasn't going to scream, we laid there for the next two hours listening to the elephants (we had no idea how many there were or exactly where they were because we couldn't see out of our tent) pulling up grass and eating it, breaking trees, snorting, trumpeting and even breathing!  We could also hear hyenas in the distance calling their pack.  

Of course you know it...I have to go to the bathroom.  So does Walt so we used the light of my cell phone and hunkered low against the ground as we made our way in there.  You have never seen such quieter ninjas in all your life!  About 3:00 we finally fell off to sleep, then heard another big commotion included some people yelling!  We were in and out of sleep for the rest of the night, but I did not mind. I found it fascinating to lay there and listen to the elephants!  I cannot even believe I'm saying those words...I got to listen to elephants walking around my tent all night long!  We even heard one of them sniffing at our tent, yikes!  I truly wasn't scared they would attack me, but I did fear them falling into my tent and sitting on me....I also didn't like not being with my boys.

The next morning we went to breakfast and were all set to laugh about it with the staff.  We were shocked when we heard that there were 50, yes 5-0, elephants in our 12 tent campsite!  I had been planning my blog post and I didn't want to over exaggerate, but I was prepared to tell you there were 3 or 4 elephants in our campsite.  When the staff told me 50, my mouth just dropped!  Some of the staff had to leave super early and they said that once they were able to get to their vehicle and head out, the only thing they could see for a mile was more elephants!  They said it was the craziest thing they had ever seen.  As we were heading to the airstrip, we ran across a sweet group of elephants just playing in the field.  I never tire of watching elephants.  Then, just about everywhere we looked we saw another group of elephants.

I will write more later about our game drives and the Mara Encounter where we stayed, but suffice to say, this one of the COOLEST most frightening things I've ever done!  I truly loved the experience, even though it was a little challenging for me since it was so far out of my comfort zone!

So-far-r-we = Safari

Oh my goodness, I don't even know where to begin!  I have learned MANY lessons in Kenya, but probably the two most prominent ones are: Trust and Flexibility.  So this morning is the BIG Safari!  We are picked up at 6:30 for our plane ride to the Mara.  Those of you who know me at all will find this rather humorous...I wore the same outfit for the second day in a row, but my shirt was dirty so I just  turned it inside out and wore it that way (flexibility...ha!)  We get on this little "puddle jumper" plane with only one pilot (trust...since Walt said "what if he has a heart attack?") and he drops us literally into the middle of nowhere!

We do land safely and there is one guy with one Land Rover at the drop off.  He says, "Come with me" so we do...(trust again)  About three minutes into the trip he informs us that he is not with the "resort" we are staying with, he was just going our way and volunteered to take us...(can you say HUGE trust)  I mean c'mon, I started thinking about this and I trust people way more than is logical really.  I don't know if this is good or bad.  It is true, we did get to where we were supposed to be, but if you could actually fathom where in this world we are, because I can't.  I saw NOTHING as we were flying in, I saw a "shopping center" that didn't even have electricity or people, and I saw one or two people and one or two animals...THEN, I saw an almost empty gas tank in the vehicle we were in!

After arriving safely at the place (I'm not even sure what to call it except primitive and rustic...I'll be killing my friend Tom upon returning to Nairobi) I discovered that there are set times for meals, NO hair dryers or straighteners (flexibility...thank you very much), a bucket shower and a guard escort to and from dinner.  What in THE world?!?!

Despite all of that, we went on a once in a lifetime game drive this afternoon/evening.  At one point we were surrounded by elephants (in the past we have seen 3 or 4 at a time, if any).  They were literally on both sides of the car at the same time!

Hudson was being an awesome spotter on the trip, ha, ha!

We stopped to watch the sunset and had a nice little drink.  

Perhaps our greatest achievement of the day (even greater than that beautiful sunset) was the male and female lion walking right down the road towards our vehicle.  They walked ALL the way up to it, and our driver backed up slightly and they kept walking towards us.  Then they walked to the side of our car, stopped, the male lion cocked his head at us and they continued on.  It was pretty scary at that point.  They stopped again just behind our vehicle and they were so close we couldn't actually see them...we had to be very quiet and our driver asked us not to use flash photography.  This was the only photo I could get (the lion is the lighter figure in the center of the red light) after it moved further away from us.

When we got back to the camp, it was time for our bucket showers.  There's one bucket to be shared by two people.  When it's gone, it's gone.

After our showers, we ate dinner by the campfire.  Our guards escorted us back to our tents and then they zipped us in!  This is what our tents look like:

Now...all you haters who gave me a hard time about my last "tent safari": YES, this tent was beautiful and fancy, but make no mistake folks, THIS TIME I WAS CAMPING!  We could only wash our hair between 12:00 and 3:00 (it was the best time of the day for our hair to air dry), so consequently I haven't washed my hair in 4 days!  We could only take the bucket showers at certain times, we had a hot water thermos (which I loved) which sat on our vanity for face washing, there were spiders, and oh...did I forget to mention elephants?!?!  Our tents were solar powered, and they zipped us in at night. I'll concede that my last tent experience was a bit posh, but folks, this one was rustic.  But I really did love it! :)