2014

January

Nate turned 4 in January, and we pondered over how it was possible that 4

years had passed since that very eventful day when he came into the world.

My parents also made their second trip to Kenya in January. We took them
several new places, including Arabuko-Sokoke forest and Sabaki River.
And of course, we took some trips to the beach!

February

The highlight of February was Nate's half-term break.
We headed to Malindi for a long weekend. We spent our time in the pool,
on the beach, and at ice cream and pizza parlors, per Nate and Ben's request.

March

March is hot. While coping with the heat, we got ready for our trip to the US!

April

We went to Texas! It was a longer visit this time than the last time we went,
with break time worked in throughout the weeks we were there.
We started our trip with a real vacation - fun family time with no work on the side!

May

It seems (from the outside) that our time in the US should betotally relaxing -
after all, we aren't home cleaning our house, cooking for ourselves, keeping up
with the daily grind, and we're in the most comfortable place on earth (the US).
But, we are on the go all the time. We took a few days off here
and there, but it was still a tiring month of travel and visits.
Nate and Ben really, really love Texas.

 June

The end of our US trip. At one point I calculated the number
of miles we traveled, excluding trips within the towns we were staying in
at different times, just from one stop to another around the state.
I don't remember what it was anymore. Thousands. Texas is big,
and we didn't even make it to west Texas, the panhandle, the valley...
Nate got back to school almost as soon as we were home. He missed it so much!

July 

We got back in to the swing of life here.
The Maisha Kamili Transition Home became fully functional,
eventually housing 4 transitioners.

August

Kenya's school breaks are in April, August, and November-December.
While Nate was on break, we took a family trip to Nairobi to
renew his passport. We stayed an extra day or two to take
advantage of time in the Big City.

September

This was the beginning of the last school term in which
Ben would not be in school yet. We also celebrated him turning 3!

October

We started going to church in Malindi this year. It is quite a drive to make
(several times a week), but we feel it is a place we can
serve usefully. We are all making new friends, which is
something we really needed (especially me!).

 November

We celebrated Thanksgiving with great friends!
It was the best Thanksgiving I've ever had outside of the US.

December

With schools closed and many people on leave, December has
brought a lot of visits with friends!
We will spend Christmas with Rodgers' family, followed by a
Skype with my family during their Christmas celebration. 

It's hot, we haven't had running water for weeks,
Nate and Ben have spent way too much time with each other since schools
let out last month and they are getting on each other's (and my) nerves,
people disappoint us, we disappoint ourselves, but God is here.
He has brought us a long way this year, and he continues to
mold and shape us into the likeness of Jesus.
The year was good because God is. 

best of 2013

A photo summary of our year

January in Texas

Nate loved his firetruck birthday cake

February - first day of school

March was hot. It's usually the hottest month of the year on the coast of Kenya.
They were either looking at the moon or watching an airplane.

Easter
They love millipedes. The one they are watching here is actually rather small.

April, at our new house, before it was ready for us to move in

May, we moved to Kilifi. This dining set was Rodgers' birthday gift. He fell in love with the wood.

Mother's Day - they both miraculously ate everything that was served. It was the start of a new trend! 

a trip to Haller Park in June

July - our first outing without diapers

At the beach in Kilifi

August - watching the waves in Malindi

Ben cuddling Grandma after getting in trouble

September - Ben considers his birthday cake

Kilifi beach again. Nate and Ben would wait until the waves came in, then make a run for it. They are a little afraid of the water.

At Grandma's house in October

Nate dips chicken in soup. He was such a picky eater in 2012, he has really amazed me this year by eating so many different things.

Also at Grandma's house

November - putting up the Christmas tree

Trying out the top bunk in our room at a guest house during our trip to the Great Rift Valley. I told them they have to be 6 years old to sleep up there, though.

In December, we had a big party for our MKKs. Of the 30 MKKs we now sponsor, 22 were able to come to the party.

Rodgers' mom had a big party to publicly thank God for healing her of a major illness a few years ago. Here she is surrounded by her kids and grandkids.

We moved again, just a few houses up the street, to a place with a house for us and a duplex we can use as Maisha Kamili Transition Homes (a few details about that here).

Our housekeeper left us to get married. We decided to get a washing machine for my birthday/Christmas gift instead of hiring a new housekeeper.

As always, we end the year celebrating Emmanuel, God with us.
Here's our play Nativity before the boys tore it up by playing with it so much.

Merry Christmas!

2012 Christmas Letter

Normally I mail our photo Christmas card with a little letter about our year. This Christmas finds us in Kenya, thus we're doing our Christmas cards digitally, as part of my "this year in pictures" end-of-the-year blog post. So for those of you coming to the blog for the first time via our Christmas card email: Karibuni! Welcome!

January

Nate turned 2!! We were living at Camp Tejas, working on our first fundraising goal so that we could move to Kenya. God amazed us by meeting our fundraising goal around the end of the month.

February

We got ready to move to Kenya by traveling around the state, speaking in churches, and visiting family

March

We arrived in Kenya and began settling in to our new way of life. We were sent here by non-profit organization Maisha Kamili to start children's homes. The first phase of our work was to register Maisha Kamili in Kenya, look for land to buy, and set a fundraising goal for buying land

April

The boys got to meet lots of their Kenyan cousins and make friends in our neighborhood.

May

Rodgers' birthday! And look! My parents came to visit. We also went on a game drive (safari) in Tsavo. My first! I'm sure I've mentioned that it was awesome.

June

June started fun with my parents still visiting, but after they both left, Ben got sick, and we had trouble with our car and the electric company. Good news: Ben is a strong, healthy guy! He recovered and has not been sick since. We rented cars when we needed them, and we were able to stay in a hotel with a bathtub while our power was out.

July

In July, Nate decided he was done with daytime diapers (nighttime potty training took a couple more months)! Ben started eating real food. Pictured here having just "cleaned up" Nate's spilled snack. He also started climbing the stairs. Maisha Kamili began supporting orphans and children of widows who need help paying school fees.

August

Ben and Nate started really playing together. They love rough-housing with their dad. Below, they were pretending to be in a bobsled. Ben's goofy personality came out more and more. He loves playing jokes and making us laugh.

September

Ben turned 1!!

October

We went to Nyahururu to work on getting Maisha Kamili registered as a ministry in Kenya and also to see how one of our friends is running their children's home. We went to Lake Nakuru while we were up there, as well as crossing both the Rift Valley and the Equator and seeing Mt Kenya. Ben went from taking a few tentative steps to running around with Nate. Nate says that Ben is his best friend. Neither one can stand being away from the other for very long. Also, my uncle and cousin came to visit. I really didn't take many pics of them, but here they are looking at the Indian Ocean.

November

Our work continued, and these two boys just kept growing. The 7 MKKs we were taking care of at this point are pictured below, with their names in the photo caption. We had them all over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner.

(back row: Moses, Beatrice, Pamplin Mpate; middle row: Santa, Tiffany, John; front row: Joshua)

December

We've been planning to have a Christmas in Kenya since 2010. That one fell through because I was 38 weeks pregnant on Christmas Day. We rescheduled Christmas 2011 in Kenya because we were planning to move here this year. We will have Christmas dinner with Rodgers' family on the Saturday before Christmas, followed by Christmas with just the 4 of us at home, followed by 26 hours of flying and layovers (a longer trip if you count from the time we leave here for the airport until the time we arrive at my parents' place from the airport on the other side) to get us to Texas for a month of visits and reporting on Maisha Kamili. Our December and Christmasy adventures will be posted here on the blog, though considering how busy we will be the last week of December, posts may not be very prompt!

As I finished this post up, I enjoyed going back through our picture posts from previous years.