May 15

What a day we had! It actually started out the night before with some excitement.... Jan was sitting on the small couch in her bedroom, when a bat flew in the open window and landed right by her shoulder on the couch, hitting her slightly. Needless to say she removed herself from the couch and the room very quickly. I was able to throw a sheet over it and safely release it outside where it could once again swoop through the air catching bugs. Thursday morning we had a visitor - a 4'2" spitting cobra came down the driveway. The guards and garden boy was were running through the yard with sticks. I ran after them shouting "don't kill it" while Jan stood on the chair in the office shouting "kill it, kill it". I managed to rescue it, but it had been injured. We put it in the bathroom trash can with a lid and set it out in the shade until I had time to release it where humans are not around. But the injuries ended up being too much and we had the garden boy bury it this morning. We headed over to our meeting at the conference! What a blessing. We met from 2pm - 6:30pm and God moved in such a mighty, mighty way! It was thrilling.
God is blessing in so many ways!

Our truck is in really bad shape and we are having to rent a 4 wheel drive to go to Narok District today. We are not sure where the money will come from to cover the cost of fixing the truck, plus renting one to get down there, but we know that God will provide. Please keep us in your prayers.
Life is always exciting here!
kim

May 14

Jan and I are in town picking up somethings, we are using Ogoti Kenani's car which is a blessing! Hopefully our truck will be ready this evening. This morning early we got a call from the president of the East Central Division of SDA's and we will be meeting with the officers of the ECD, CKC, SKC and UA tomorrow at 2pm. Please lift us up in prayer that God will bless in a marvelous way. Then on Friday we will have worship with the entire ECD staff and families. Our lay workers will all be present for the worship and will be doing a couple of special musics. Following the worship we will have a lay workers meeting and then head to Narok and the Mara to meet with the children at Siana Primary School. I can't wait. There is no place I would rather be then in the Mara.... well climbing Mt Kenya or Kilimanjaro might be good.... or catching a few snakes might be fun too, but guess I will have to settle for the open Savannah dotted with giraffe, buffalo and zebra, lions grunting in the night and the occasional laugh of the hyena... and just maybe some more beans and chapatis.
kim

May 12 & 13

Monday we had to take the truck in to Maxwell Adventist Academy to have the mechanic re-do parts of the engine that had just been done 2 weeks earlier in town. That was a bit discouraging, but hopefully now we have a good mechanic that will keep us running until the Lord brings a vehicle that will be safer and more reliable. He has a plan and we are just waiting on Him to take care of it. We were able to work in the office most of the day.

Tuesday we caught a ride with the Academy Driver into Nairobi and were able to do a little shopping and get on email. That was nice to be able to catch up on things and hear from you guys and our families back in the US. We stopped by to check with the mechanic on the truck and hopefully it will be ready on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.

James the garden boy has been digging up a termite mound in search of the queen... if you remove the queen then the termites will move away. Anyhow I was dismayed to find that while we were in town they had found a small brown house snake and killed it. Brown House Snakes are harmless and make great pets. Jan and I differ greatly on our opinions of snakes, sometimes I don't think there is hope for her, but maybe if I keep working on her she might change her mind and think that the only good snake is a dead snake!

kim

May 9 - 11

Thursday, Jan worked in the office and I headed out to a Maasai home to pick up a couple of children and take them to school. We picked up Carolyn Sumug,Beatrice, Mary and Tracy Sumug, plus visited with Tenina - it was a busy morning.

Friday we headed down to Olitokitok area to visit the churches down there and the lay pastors. We ate supper in Vincent Luvembe's home and had chapatis and beans that were very yummy! Then drove about 45 minutes to our place of lodging for the night. It was called Kibo Slopes Cottages - we were on the foot hills of Mount Kilimanjaro -which is the largest free standing mountain in the entire world! As the sun came up and peaked over the horizon early in the morning the mountain looked incredible! I love mountain climbing - and for any of you that have climbed mountains you know that a "mountain bug" bites you .... (of course it is not an actual bug - but rather something inside of you draws you back and it is like the mountain calls your name) I heard the mountain calling my name....

Sabbath we headed out to Samuel Solio and Leonard Shuaka's church church. Vincent Luvembe came with us and Patrick Muyia was with us too. The church was
about a hours drive on a very rough road... in fact most of you would probably have not considered it a road, but rather a cow path that had washed out in several sections! The church was small, made from cut timbers placed roughly together. The benches were narrow, without backs and the roof did not meet in the middle, allowing the sun to pour through onto those sitting on the center aisles. Sabbath school was out in the grass, some sat on a bench, while others sat in the grass. Vincent preached the sermon - and did a great job! We ate lunch in Samuels home just down the road - we had beans and chapatis. Then we headed home - which took us about 7 hours on a very bumpy, dusty road - along the way we saw zebra, wildebeest, ostrich and giraffes grazing, and the sky was sooooo soooo blue! It was a blessed Sabbath.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you ladies who sponsor our Maasai Children! It is a wonderful day here, about 78 degrees, the sun is shining and the rain has brought green to the grass and tress once again. We will be in Nairobi area for the next couple of days.
God is good as always! I just want to thank each of you for all that you are doing - you are changing lives and making a difference, in not just one life, but MANY!
kim

May 7th Wednesday

Wednesday morning we headed out early to Kajiado to visit with the girls that attend secondary schools. They had been on a short break and were home in Kajiado. We were able to visit with Jacinta the headmistress for a little while before updating bios, taking pictures and visiting with the following girls - Carolyne Seliena, Esther Sirintai, Doris Osoi, Josphine N, Leah Antony, Alice Naini. We spent a few minutes sharing with them the importance of staying away from the young men and not getting pregnant! Hopefully they listened well!

May 5 & 6

Our journey to Kenya began in the afternoon on May 5th. After 8 hour flights over the ocean Jan and I met up in Amsterdam where we had a short layover before boarding the 8hr Kenya Airways flight that would take us over the Alps, Italy, Egypt and on down over Sudan and into Nairobi. We arrived about 7:20pm and were able to quickly go through immigration, customs and head for home. Jan's feet had swelled up during the flight - she could not even put on her shoes when we landed and had to wear the airline sockies through the airport! By 10pm we were safe at home and ready for bed.