Monday, March 28, 2011

My favorite gift.

Okay, so I'm not sure if this item is my favorite gift *of all time* or not. There may have been something else I've received that trumped this... But I can't actually think of what that would be.

About a month before we left NYC/NJ for good 'ol Nairobi, my hot husband thought of a brilliant solution to my refusal to keep carting books from house to house, let alone country to country. He bought me a kindle. OOOOOOOOohhhhhhh, yes. I love it. I loved it pretty much immediately.

The first thing I got was the entire collection of Jane Austen books for $1.99. Oh the joy!

I then bought a cover.

Last week I had my kindle in my purse from my time at Java house with my Monday morning decaf latte. (I'm currently reading a book that has the potential to change my life. really.) Hot Husband needed something from the purse, brought it upstairs, and then instead of carrying the purse back downstairs, dropped it from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor. It was in the case. But for some reason, this drop must have put the kindle on it's side and well.. the top 1/3 of the screen it looks like is broken. The ink is all muddled. Kind of like an etchosketch.

We called Amazon. Told them the story. And the lady says... "Well it could be that when you dropped it, it broke the screen... but more likely is that it's just a flaw in the manufacturing of the Kindle." and then... "Your warranty is 3 months past it's expiration but I'll make an exception and get a new Kindle to you immediately." !!!!!

We then explained that we can't receive large items like that in the post here in Kenya (they'll get stolen or we would be charged an insane amount to receive it), so it would take us a bit to figure out how to get it to us here. And since that is the case, we wouldn't be able to send the old one back within 30 days. To which she says, "Oh, no problem. We don't really need the old one, I'll also waive that requirement." !!!!!!

In a land where the customer service is somewhat nonexistent over half of the time, where good service is so rare I can count it on one hand the situations I've had, this was a breath of fresh air to our weary and wary souls. OH THE BLISS!

Thanks God for Amazon, for wonderful customer service, for shiny brand new Kindles.


I'll leave you all with a photo that has nothing to do with this post. A praying mantis on Hot Husband's toothbrush. :)

Monday, March 21, 2011

Saturday afternoon drive...


Since we are here on Hot Husband's working visa (the rest of us all having dependent passes), we can get into the ah-mazing national parks here in Kenya for about 1,000KES. This is the equivalent of around $12.00. Ni-ice. So on Saturday, when Hot Husband's Mt Kenya climbing partner came down with Malaria symptoms and was in bed with a high fever, their trip cancelled... We loaded up the kids and went for a ride in Nairobi National Park. It's only about 20kms away from us, and is a peaceful, safe way to spend an afternoon driving around.

The rains have started here, and the whole night on Friday was spent with power outages, and pounding, pouring rain. The morning dawned and by 10 it was sunny and humid... Perfect animal watching weather. We packed a picnic and got into the park by 11. We saw tons of rhino- unfortunately too far to get a real good shot, but still close enough to really enjoy it. And then these 2 lionesses just sunny themselves on the side of the road. When we started to turn around to leave- one of them had rolled on to her back to give her belly a tan. What a sight! Just made us both giggle like kids watching her. Absolutely stunning and so much fun!

This is one of the things that is so great about living in Nairobi- being able to go out and experience the great outdoors is really very easy. There are a 100 things to do, and being able to do a game drive just in an afternoon (we were done in the game park by 4) is such a blessing- especially when you have little ones with short attention spans, and need just half day outings.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Children


I've just been thinking...

Being a mom (or being a parent, but I'm a mom so we'll stick with that for now) is one of the most rewarding and challenging things I think a person could ever do. The fitful sleepless nights, the body changes, the pains, the incredible amount of information and opinion on what is the right discipline, what is the right sleep method, eat method, car seat, stroller (push chair), even which way a kid should face in the stroller can become a topic of advice and is completely overwhelming and has brought many a mother to tears. It's non-ending the amount of decisions that come with raising a child.



And yet it's amazing how perfectly natural it all comes. With the first kid everything feels like an event. Changing a diaper is an event. Feeding is an event. But by the second one, you go into auto pilot for most things. You can change a diaper in your sleep, with your eyes shut (almost). You know the sound of a pacifier falling out of a mouth from across the house and how many > seconds you have till the baby starts crying. The moments when your children spontaneously laugh at something you say or do never gets old. The delight and wonder they experience -daily- at discovering new things, keeps us young, brings us back to being children ourselves.



The intense mothering instinct to protect, to make children not run with pencils or chopsticks ("you'll poke your eye out"), to hide them from rejection, bullies, pain or suffering, leads us to deeper levels with Father God a thousand moments a day. The beautiful blush of pride that will be worn on your tired face when your child stands at the top of the slide, hill, stage, or in front of his latest piece of art will give you small glimpses into the great pleasure that we give our Father. Yeah, so I don't get hours of quiet time, and I barely have sat through a Sunday morning service at church in 3 years- but the amount of revelation I experience daily on how my Father loves me is amazing. It's non-regrettable. It's deep. It's perfect. It's exactly the way it should be! (For now at least- I do look forward to returning to an entire church service!)

Hot Husband and I commented with Cute Child that it (becoming a parent) was the steepest and fastest learning curve a person could ever go through. But it gets easier, and then just when it does, you look at one another and say... "let's have another one". And then, Lawd Have Mercy. You start it all over again... only this time it's a bit easier.


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Indescribable

On Thursday, the day after the last post, I was in a car accident. Hit from behind, quite hard. The baby slept through it (I was taking him for his 4 month check up at his pediatrician), but I got pretty bad whiplash. Still aching from it, but my heart is aching more for what happened the next day.

First, let it be known that as I was driving, I kept hearing this voice saying that I was going to get in a car accident. At one point I said aloud, "In the name of Jesus, I pray for protection Holy Spirit and your angels, over myself, baby, and this car.". Not 5 minutes later we were hit from behind.

Okay so theologically, how do I interpret that? ....
Yeah, I don't know either. All I know is that next time, I'm just turning around and going home.

The next day, started out normal. Until I had several missed calls on my phone from our pastor at Karen Vineyard Church, Doug. I'm in charge of intercessory prayer for the church, a program called Pray10. He asked if Hot Husband was in town or away on business. (in town). He asked me to sit down. I asked if he was okay, and he said no, not at all.

Then he told me about a beautiful family in our church. Ebel, Lora and kids. (the kids names aren't in the news and so I think I won't mention them here either). They are a Dutch family, who have this amazing vision of building family homes for orphans. Meaning, homes in with families to take care of many orphans at once- in the same community setting. They live out in Athi River, 50kms from Nairobi, on a YWAM base. Ebel was building 8 more houses in order to receive more children.

Doug told me that the house was burglarized, Ebel shot, dead, in front of the children. Lora is okay he said, but she was taken advantage of.
shock. silence. dead. no breath. the world stood still. my vision blurry. my mind numb. my hands slack, then fists, then slack again...

I hung up my phone with Doug, and felll to the floor, on my face, laid out for Him. Sobbing snot into our rug. News like this hits you in the face, you cry and then you stop- it seems so unreal- and then another wave of reality hits and you sob more. I got up and wrote to my intercessors. And then I sat and thought of two friends who are very dear to Lora and Ebel. And wondered if they knew. One did, the other did not, and I had the awful horrible task of calling and telling them the news.

Last weekend and then most of this week has been a blur. Phone calls, planning (we did a memorial service on Sunday), praying, (so much praying), updating, processing.. laying in bed and hugging my husband so close, and then staring into the dark room of what Lora has lost- trying to see what God is saying in the middle of all of this why, and what if, and madness. On Thursday we did a prayer time for a few ladies in the church. OH the sweet richness of unity. Bringing comfort, peace, and strength to us all.

I'm better. Though my friend described it perfectly... "the shock has worn off, the deep throes of grief are ebbing... and today i feel moody. incredibly moody.".

I don't have much else to say. I just want you to know what my life has looked like here in the last week. I don't have any great revelations or words of wisdom.

I do know this though, satan never wins. And in a situation like Lora and Ebel's where it looks on every front as if satan has won... I just remember that God always, ALWAYS has the final say. I'm waiting to see what comes out of this- the gold and beauty will astound us all.
I know it.