In pictures...

Easter...

i love easter. and this year, being in a developing nation where dead bodies are much more seen and dying is a whole community thing (we get requests weekly to help someone pay for the burial of a loved one), the whole idea of joyous, miraculous resurrection and the sorrow that the disciples and friends must have felt when He died- it left me pondering for days! add onto that the dying of a missionary friend here (shot and killed in a home invasion) a few months ago, and a couple other acquaintances and friends of friends, and death is just very real here. i think that may be one reason that Easter is not as 'real' to the church in the US.

selah.

also, here friday and monday are national holidays. on monday, a security guard at the supermarket looked at me in the eyes, gave me a huge grin, and with his free hand (the other holding an AK47) said to me, "Happy Easter, Madame!". (yes, it took me totally off guard, but made me smile) On Palm Sunday all the cars and matatus (bus taxis) had palm fronds stuck in the grills and rear wipers...

anyways, that's a little bit of why i enjoyed it so much. we had a normal service at church, a nice lunch at our pastors house (serving a south american dish, which was delish!), a skype call with friends in Chile and DC, and homemade ice cream with friends at our house for dinner. nothing too special or crazy- but the very essense of Africa, mixed in with the knowledge of Him and His sacrifice- that made it all the more amazing.

Simple Woman's Daybook April 2, 2011

Women with just picked tea leaves near Kisii, Kenya, 2010

Simple Woman's Daybook stuff taken from Charis- one of my favorites, and besties, even though we've lived far apart for, well most ever-http://www.charisscofield.com/

Today:

Outside my window: Dark night. There is no electricity down the side of the hill from our house (though ours is on right now), so it's just inky black darkness outside. The huge acacia's and other african trees are rustling in a quiet night breeze. Since we're at the equator, the time never changes, the days always start at the same time, and end at the same time. Roughly 630am and 630pm. Currently we are 7 hours ahead of the east coast, USA. It's still bizarre to me that my family is in the early afternoon right now, and in the hour I'll be getting ready to go to bed.

I am thinking: How quickly time is going. How much I want to accomplish. How every day matters. How I love my family so much. All my men. My boys, Hot Husband. *sigh. I'm such a blessed woman!

I am thankful: That I get to live here. That we get to have these adventures. That even in all the chaos going on in the world, I know, that I was, and my children were, made for such a time as this. There is no mistake about any thing. The things that my children are being exposed to, learning and seeing now, will make them more aware, and more compassionate. I pray that theirs will be a voice in the wilderness, "prepare ye the way of the Lord", and a voice for the widow, the orphan, the refugee and the forgotten.

Remembering: How much I love Montana summers. If there is one thing I wish I could give my children, it's a month every year in August or July in northwest Montana. Among so many things would be to swim in Macgregor or Flathead Lake. The other night I was thinking about how after swimming I used to sit on the dock for hours in the early evening, and watch the water skippers dance on the top of the water, and the waves and movement of the dock get eerily still as night set in. I would always smell my arm, cool and dry. Something about the smell of my skin after swimming in a Montana lake- I love that smell.

From the learning rooms: I am moving through fear. There were 3 updates from the US Warden this week on Security. With only a month in between us and Ebel and Lora... I found myself sinking into fear. Talking to a dear friend who just went through some counseling because of all of this... Her counsellor told her that one of the main things that we deal with in grief when it's trauma related is fear. It was a relief, and a confirmation to me to hear that I am not too emotional or something.. but that is actually part of the stage of processing I'm in. That being said, I am not staying in it, not giving it a foothold and not dwelling on things... Today and tonight I feel such Peace. (thank you Father)

From the kitchen: There are not the same items here for cooking as back 'home'. Most everything is made from scratch. Lately my favorite staple has been homemade granola with chopped fresh, sweet mango on top. Absolutely delicious. Makes me smile just thinking about it. Simple is just best.

I am wearing: (besides my clothes) My wedding ring and my engagement ring. Along with my single pearl ring to remind me of the great price. (Matthew 13:44-45). This isn't normal here. Many expat women I know don't wear much more then a single gold band. I've made peace with the fact that mine could get stolen. And I make sure and leave them at home if going to the market. But for the most part, my rings are such a labor of love from my husband. He worked so hard to get me these rings, to show that I'm his. I wear them proudly- I am his!

I am creating: more of a comfortable home. After over 15 moves since 1997, I realized this past few months that I've slowly given up really moving in to places. We as a couple haven't lived in a place with colored painted walls in 6 years. And my children have never had painted walls. Just white. We need to hang pictures, buy rugs, get cozy. Create a home!!!

I am going: to beautiful Jenni's wedding in August in Bath, England. I want to enjoy every bit of it. Even if I have Little Brother strapped to me the entire time. I'm praying that somehow I will be able to fully enjoy myself, even with my mommy responsibilities.

I am reading: blogs, because my kindle broke last week. :( But a new one will somehow get to me soon. It's at my parents house waiting!

I am hoping: for a beach holiday. for the 20 pounds I need to lose to go.

One of my favorite things: When Hot Husband wears his Diesel jeans. That's one nice ass, babe. :)

Picture of the week: (but since nothing's been downloads, we'll use this)
Flamingo's, one year ago today on a drive we took enroute Tobaca:

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. :)

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.

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.

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.