Missing but not Disappeared..

It's been a long break from blogging. I had a busy two weeks of getting the house ready and presentable for tons of in laws visiting, and then three weeks of the in laws all in town. This would be the parental in laws as well as the brother and sister in law.

The last couple weeks since them being gone has just involved us trying to catch up on everything around us. Hot Husband's return to his job after a nice vacation, should have meant a refreshed man, ready to start work up again. Instead he felt weary, and not ready to go back again. Argh. We are almost at two years with this job, he's climbed two levels, and done very well. Have we paid our dues? Almost!

I've been financially budgeting like mad, writing lists and looking up prices, trying to get things ready so that when the new baby comes, we will be able to go home for Christmas and afford the expenses that can occur when a new one comes into the family! It's very stressful, but I'm trying to just rest and have a different mindset towards money. ;)

We are cat sitting for our neighbors. I am indifferent towards cats, but don't think we'll ever have an indoor one. A few weeks cat visiting is fine, especially to eradicate any leftover remains of a rat problem, but long term.. hmm. No thanks.

I am 28 weeks, or 11 weeks and 4 days till I am due. It's a boy!!! Of which we are both really excited about. We don't have a name yet, but may have to name him earlier then his birth just for his plane ticket back for Christmas. lol. Um, that might be interesting! I feel large, but really compared to how much I gained with Cute Child am decidedly much smaller. I passed out at the hospital last week at the end of my gestational diabetes testing. Not one of the better experiences of my life, but I'm alive, and all is well.

I feel very blah today! I'm sorry, I know it is coming out in my writing- you're all thinking, "bor-ing!"... haha! Sorry!

It's hard to read everyone from back homes facebook status' about how their summers are going, and their vacations. It's winter here, and I spend most days with sweaters and slippers on. I was not prepared for how cold it gets here! At night it's the low 50's, and I'm sure it's been 47-50 a few times. The day times it says that it gets to low 70's but I think because the houses are not built for this kind of weather, they keep the cool of the night and sometimes our thermometer has not gotten past 65. Yuck! Lots of layers, and a hot water bottle, and cups of tea.

I'm feeling very out of sorts in regards to friendships. Two of our great 'family' friends have left in the last 2 months, (I wrote about the first one last post) and it makes our Christian circles different. We really need good Christian friends to be with. I feel lonely, and slightly without a purpose. Plus the 'nesting' instinct is coming on, but I have no way to nest. We have no shops to go and hit the sale racks and find a great deal... but then again, I don't exactly have a 'nesting' budget either right now!

Okay, I think I need to go move our car, there is a bit of a war going on for parking spaces in our parking area, and I think the new neighbors are cross that I'm in their spot, even though someone is in every spot I've ever been in, including my own. I'd like to start things on a good foot with them! Hopefully they aren't already too cross!

Raising kids in Kenya...

It's Sunday late afternoon, Cute Child is sleeping, Hot Husband is sleeping, and we just came back from a 2.5 hour lunch at a Kenyan Chinese Restaurant. Live soft rock music (we left to a remix of Madonna being sung), tons of dirty toys and jungle gyms, trampoline, etc to entertain kiddies, free ice cream at the end of the meal... All is well. It's becoming a after church tradition.

However with the 4 families that we've gotten to know the most- 2 are leaving. 1 family, from Quebec leaves tomorrow, and I fear Hot Husband is losing his closest friend here. :( It's the great exodus, and apparently it happens every two years, or sometimes once a year here. Expat communities are revolving doors, people in, people out. New faces, fresh off the "boat", with contracts that last between 1-5 years, missionary voluntary positions with mandatory year long furloughs, etc. the 2nd family leaves for the States for a whole year long furlough next month. Cute Child sat with their daughter- he just thinks she's so much fun- in the rocks (she's 2 years older, but loves him too) and they took handfuls of rocks and poured them over each others heads. To say Cute Child needs a bath and to soak his scalp is an understatement! The weather is starting to cool down here, but the sun has been out quite a bit nevertheless. It's days like today, where it's just a bit chilly, but the sun is shining brightly that remind me of a June day in Montana. It's nice.

I feel like we are in the season of transition here, people coming and going. Plus there is this cultural thing here where as soon as kids turn 2, they put them into school. Most of the times it's half days, and between 3-5 days a week. Most of Cute Child's friends in play groups are soon going to all be going to school, leaving him with much younger children. I find this incredibly odd. It's not like any of these mothers work here! (Even if they wanted to, visas are incredibly hard to obtain) My firm conviction is that I will only have this time with him for a very few short years, I want to spend every moment I can taking advantage of it. I am so honored and blessed to be able to not have to work, to be able to spend this time with my child(ren), why would I cart him off to some school, just because it's what everyone else is doing? That being said, I am praying for some (at least 1-2) other moms in my circle who feel the same as I so that he has friends at these play groups at a similar age. And it's been an excellent reminder to spend more quality time with Cute Child, treasuring every moment- it goes so fast.

This past week was a bit blah. I like blah. That means we didn't visit hospitals, or doctors, or have to administer dose after dose of medicine. The hives are still coming to the surface, though fewer, and farther between. Today his eyes were all puffy and swollen for about an hour, and then went down. I spent a lot of time trying to get things done this past week only to hit major brick walls. Either exhaustion or just closed doors. Yesterday though we hit the jackpot and bought an entire living room ensemble, and a guest bed and mattress. Now we have so much furniture, I can't figure out where to put it all. We went from a house that echoes, to one that is overcrowded. But I can't complain! It's going to be fantastic once it's all arranged, and cleaned!

Below: 2 Pictures taken on the way back from Tobaca/Kisii: Tea fields and their harvesters... And the easiest way to carry bananas!

So much to do, so little time.

Last Saturday (over a week ago) I wrote up a to-do list that was boggling my brain it was so big. On Sunday Cute Child's rash started, and by Monday we were en route the Emergency Room at Gertrude Hawkins Childrens Hospital in Muthaiga (across town). The problem is that it was a. raining, and b. college students were rioting on the roads needed to get us there. Police rerouted us, but it took us almost 3 hours to get about 2.5km's. *sigh. Such is life. Meanwhile, our kid sat in his car seat wimpering, his hives spreading more and more.

Long story short, we're over 95% certain it was an allergy to penicillin, and one that he was almost hospitalized for. The doctor was so worried, and us too, that they had us monitoring his breathing, and getting and Epi-Pen to jam into his thigh should his breathing change, or it just stop altogether. !!! Talk about stress. By Friday Hot Husband and I just collapsed. Both of us ill. Me, from being 19 weeks pregnant, and not eating, sleeping, drinking, or stopping enough. And he, from trying to help me with Cute Child but also having a super stressful job and picking up an awful stomach virus that 2 of his coworkers have also been out of the office with. :( Unfortunately he's so bad, we may have to take him to doctor tomorrow. Argh! Cute child's hives are a ton better, they come and go as the chemicals from the penicillin surface, and the itching and extreme misery have abated. Poor kid. And I'm rested, and trying to not get too stressed about how we have 2 weeks (Hot Husband has job training in States for a week- the week before his family arrives for 3 weeks) to get furniture, and everything lined up for the big family visit.

It's overwhelming. I need couches, and a bed and mattress for the guest room. I need to do up lists and write website stuff for Cute Child's birthday presents, and what we'd like for the new baby. Meanwhile we have one week till we find out the gender of this new one. I can't even imagine what it will be like to have 2 kids. There has been so much drama with our health in the last month that it just seems impossible. It isn't, I know. Deeeeeep breath!!! Whew!

If running errands here were easy, it would be different. But they're not. Everything in Africa takes longer. Sometimes it's just impossible. Sometimes it randomly works. Sometimes, something you've done 10 times, just won't work that particular day you try. Going to the bank is my least favorite thing, yet it's something I'm going to have to do several times in the next couple weeks- and I am not looking forward to the hours and hours in line and filling out forms I don't even understand that await me. I'll survive, and it's really not all that awful.

Meanwhile, we've joined the prayer team at church, are starting to see ideas of the future, and have really had some awesome opportunities open up in training different Kenyan pastors here- first off shadowing the Vineyard pastor here and learning from him. He's a really great guy, wise, and very experienced- he grew up in DRC and the Middle East. We like his style- his approach to the gospel and to Africans is refreshing and very Christlike. No big names or titles, no yelling in tongues, no Westernized worship or ways, no prosperity doctrines. Simple beliefs in a loving Father, who heals, saves, restores, delivers, and speaks. We like.

We are thinking of getting a house cat. I know! Me. The dog lover, is considering a house cat. I can't believe it's come to this. But the rats, they won't leave us alone, and one got in the house the other day- fairly certain it's gone now- and it was just too much to bear. We need a mouser, a guard. It has to be trained, short haired, good with children, and excellent at killing rats, large insects, and anything else that threatens our family. In the meantime, we talked to our neighbors and can borrow their cat for the day if needed.

Some things have begun to shift for the finances. For one, the company decided to pay for the new babies labor/delivery and all the items leading up to that. A huge huge HUGE blessing. The day after the announcement we handed them several hundred USD worth of receipts! YAY! This means that if other things continue to come through as promised, we can go home for Christmas. Without them covering the baby, it would have taken a complete miracle for us to financially be able to afford a new set of roundtrip tickets for all of us come next January. For those of you praying- thank you so much! Keep it up we need more of this!

In the meantime, I have two questions.
1. What gender do you think the baby is?
2. What "blog name" should I give it? ____= Cute Child... what should this one be?

Expat Blues...

Not sure if I'm feeling down because of hormones, or because it's just another part of adjusting to living in another country, so far from family and friends.

Hot Husband and I are continuing to be stretched in the area of finances, and just praying that everything works out in the end. This puts a level of uncertainty in our lives- and particular things like making our apartment into more of a home. I'd like to paint, get some pictures framed, hang things on the walls, and buy more seating for the living room.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Our church did nothing and had no honoring for the Mother's. It is a holiday in Kenya, but I didn't realize it wasn't till end of June, and English Mother's Day was April 3rd. Simply put, I had an expectation and it wasn't met. Then when it wasn't met, I just felt that much more homesick, thinking of our church(es) in the States and all the wonderful things they do for mothers. Adding insult to injury, I'd had a dream in the morning that had capitalized on my feelings of not fitting in recently, and when I was at church not anyone that I've known for months initiated conversation- normally no big deal, but after the dream, and already feeling lonely... a yucky feeling! Everyone left, and Hot Husband and I just decided to go home and be together with Cute Child instead of going out. As I said, it felt lonely. Back home, and growing up, families get together and go out to a fantastic brunch buffet, or to someone's home for a beautiful meal. Everyone is surrounded by family and/or friends, and loads of love.

There are moments when no matter how well I've adjusted, and how many people I've gotten to know, I feel lonely. This isn't just living overseas, though being out of your home country is much more of a stark contrast, but it also can and has happened in the States. Just being away from family and the familiar. We have moved 6 times in 6 years of marriage. I'm sure that this something to do with it. I have personally moved almost 15 times in the last 13 years. It's funny, though I'm wining about it right now, I know deep down, that I wouldn't have it another way- especially when I look back and reassess the moves and why they happened. Ivan and Isabel Allum prophesied once that some people have seasons of their lives where they go through doors, but my life was going to be- for the most part- a sort of encampment on one of those type of circular doors that just rotates around and around, with constant coming and going. If the last 13 years are any indication of that, I'd say they were spot on!

The last few days I've been wondering if there is something wrong with me. Why do I feel this way? Why don't I fit in more with others? Am I that different then others, or is it my own pride or imagination that is making me feel like such an odd duck? Lol. I know, I know, this sounds so dramatic. And I know, I am a citizen of heaven, not created to be like everyone else, or even to fit in with everyone else... I'm created to be more and more like Him... which is most definitely not like everyone else!

Also, there's been more odd things going on in our apartment complex. I had to laugh the other night. I woke up at about 4am, to a loud argument going on in the parking lot beneath our bedroom window. Two men from one of the companies here that rents out apartments for their employees to stay in while they are here on assignment- had brought home two prostitutes, who were most decidedly not liking each other. They were screaming and carrying on, while the men were just trying to get them upstairs and into the apartments. *sigh. While this is happening, there were the 3 Kenyan children washing their parents large and brand new 50,000+USD LandRover by hand in the backdrop. It's odd, these kids wash the car in the middle of the night, and I've not once seen the parents. They work continually. Why they don't pay a gardener/askari 100sh (a bit over a dollar) to wash the car like the rest of us is totally beyond me. I just do not understand it. This apartment complex is a very odd mixture of single men and their prostitutes, and families with their children. Also last week, another guy brought home a prostitute, fell asleep and then woke up to his passport, laptop, and everything being stolen from the woman. He then screamed at the night watchmen for allowing her out. How were they to know that his guest was stealing from him? All this to say, it doesn't make me feel all that safe, and I know it does affect my sleep when all this is going on.

All this to say, my blues have caused me to take a step back and evaluate the things in my life that are amazing blessings. To spend time with Him and worship, raising myself out of these blues. He for certain is not blue! We love it here, for all the crazy neighbors, awful traffic, and prolonged financial breakthrough. There are flowers blooming everywhere, the weather is hardly what one could call cold, the rain is a beautiful downpour, the birds sing songs I have never heard, and there is a wonderful community of moms for play groups that keeps Cute Child constantly playing outside. I have been married 6 years to an amazing man, who has never let me down, and loves me deeply. He works hard, and loves Father and Cute Child so much. He is an amazing dad and helps me out in ways that many other dads don't do. I have Doris who cleans my house, and has helped me with Cute Child through the last 3 months of sickness- always being cheerful and loving. I have family back in the States who sends us packages of mac n cheese, tons of tv shows, and lets us borrow their parenting dvds. I have in laws who are visiting and bringing all we need for baby #2's arrival. We have a great new car, that when we leave will provide us with a good nest egg for buying another car wherever we go. I have a son who is bright, loving, sweet, charming, and full of laughter who brings joy into every day of my life. I didn't have to go through a year of fertility medicine to get pregnant with this upcoming child. The grocery store carries Honey Bunches of Oats and Blueberry Morning Post the last 5 months, so my bit of cereal breakfast bliss has been sustainable! Though we don't know what will happen in the future, if I rehash our past, our last 6 years, I can honestly say that He's never left us hanging, He's never led us wrong, and that the future will only be brighter and better. I am a deeply blessed woman for all the friends that live all around the world. For their love, support, prayers, and compassion. For their encouragement, little notes, and just them believing in me, in us. I am truly rich.

Just some random things about living here..

In Nairobi, if you're driving down a big hill, give plenty of space to the large water truck, or Citi Hoppa (city bus) in front of you. In fact, give lots of space to any large vehicle in front of you when going down a hill. Mostly because the hills going down immediately go back up and many of these vehicles can't quite make it up the hill. In which case they stop, even more black clouds of exhaust come pouring out then normal as their engines work in overdrive to get the rest of the way up the hill. In the off chance that it can't make it, random men will jump out, or appear from nowhere and place large rocks behind the tires to stop it from rolling backwards. And if that doesn't happen... you will watch the vehicle roll backwards- towards your car. This has happened to me. I was fine since I had given space to get out of the way. But yesterday was a weird day driving, I was reminded of this rule over and over again as I saw 5-7 large trucks/buses stuck on their way uphill, large rocks wedged behind their tires, long lines of cars waiting to get around them.

I was also reminded yesterday that I am hormonal. This shows itself in my driving- I get so irate here when driving!!! I have no idea how most people here learn how to drive, I suspect that they never have. It's absolutely infuriating and ridiculous at moments. Driving is bedlam at times, and being pregnant/hormonal while driving brings out the worst in my temperament. I yelled at 2 drivers yesterday. People think it's rough driving in NYC, or that Boston drivers are aggressive. HA! I'd like to see those people survive an hour driving around Nairobi! All this too say, I'm not exactly proud of the responses that I had to those drivers, and have been asking God to help me!

We have rats that keep trying to invade our house. Hot husband obliterated a broom trying to kill one in the kitchen. He ended up trapping it in a box, putting that in a garbage bag, and then beating the bag/box against the marble walkway outside... Till the guards came and assured him that the rat had to be dead, and he was waking the other tenants. This is the thing. We live on the 2/3rd floor. They literally are scaling the wall outside to get to our kitchen window ledge, and the attached outdoor laundry area. *sigh. The specific rat that met Hot Husbands wrath- climbing into the kitchen via a top window. He had to climb GLASS to get into that window. These Kenyan rats are scary, freaky, and genius. But not genius enough to figure out the hot pink pellets I put out, doused in vanilla extract are actually POISON! BWA-HAHA-HA!!! (evil laugh!) Yes, so there are lot of them, and every night they eat all the poison, and the next night I put out more. I would use something else, but I've been to 4 stores and it was between hot pink rat poison pellets, and this sticky mat that you put down and their feet stick to it. Um. Heck no?!! Do I really want to wake in the morning to find a rat on a sticky mat screeching at me to un-stick his feet?

In Nairobi when it rains, you may not be able to get through to anyone on your cell, and your DSTV satellite tv service may suddenly not work at all. Also the internet will randomly become completely useless. People will drive as if they've never seen rain before, and a drive that would normally take 15 minutes in traffic could take 2 hours. Luckily the rainy seasons are the only seasons they have here. Imagine if they had snow? The whole country would shut down!

On a personal note:
I'm in week 16 and not puking. Rooibos tea in the night has been a major lifesaver with that, meaning that I'm also not eating like a horse to ward off puking constantly. The result? I haven't gain anything. However, sadly, I have lost 2 pounds the last two weeks because of an awful cold that has me barely hungry- and only eating because I know the baby needs it. This pregnancy in the weight department- so far- is proving to be very different then when I had Cute Child. At this point I think I had already gained 10+ pounds. I'm still in regular clothes, and currently look like I have a large beer gut. I will start gaining soon no doubt!

We are learning a lot personally as we are being stretched in ways financially that we haven't in the past. Without going into the details, please just keep us in prayer.

Burst into Song

This is my friend Kerri. And Sozo is the church that Hot Husband and others (like Kerri) all planted years ago. Sozo is very different now. It doesn't really exist as it did, and well, they have big titles for leaders, and do and preach things/doctrines I just don't subscribe to, nor agree with...

but watching this video, this one of Kerri's new song, brought tears to my eyes... One thing remains the same. The desire to worship, to pour love on the One who saves us, to let Him pour His love back on us. It was good for me to see that is still there.
Her song is on itunes- it's good. It's great. Go get it.




I won't be afraid,
I won't suffer shame
The Lord is my tower
I'll hold onto His name
He's calling me back
He's making me dance
Looking ahead
Forgetting my past
His unfailing love for me
Can't be shaken
Even though the mountains move
Burst into song
Shout for joy
Don't hold back
Don't hold back
And all your tears
Will wash away
All the pain
Till joy remains
(till joy remains)
-Kerri Lee Smith

I don't think ...

I don't think this one thing will ever get easier, no matter how long I live away from my family.

This one thing:

Being away from my family. But more then that, being so crippled by communication here. Internet being sporadic, at best.

Today I chatted with my sister on skype- via instant message, and when we said goodbye. I cried. I just sat on our couch and bawled. I don't think I was made to live any more then a cell phone call away from her. Even in Boston we talked several times a week. I hated that when I gave birth to Jonah she was in Japan and I couldn't call her right then, or have her right there. It was the only sad moment. (So, I called Natalie and it brought a smile back to that sober moment! LOVE you Nat.)

Sister, I love you, and I miss you- almost more. :(