Updated Photos

First UP: Flora from around Scott's Campus


For all of our friends in the Midwest who have been experiencing the fall, and snowfall, we've got some wonderful "spring" pictures of a campus that is in full bloom.



We think these are called Jacaranda Trees. They have gorgeous purple blossoms and are throughout the Machakos area. They've been in bloom for a few weeks now and are starting to lose their blooms leaving behind a purple "carpet." When they are in bloom the whole tree is purple. You can see some spectacular images (better than I can take with my point and shoot) if you look on line. But here are some from around here.









This one is across the football "pitch." Too bad I don't have a better zoom lens.



Isaiah holding a fallen blossom. This photo was his idea. Not bad for a three year old. The photo turned out well.













One of our purple carpets beneth a Jacaranda tree.











This one is right outside our house. This was the first morning after it rained.
















Now for some real flowers from around campus.








This pink beauty grows on a bush outside of the asministration building. (How's that for a guy who has never been interested in botony, but appreciates God's beautiful creativity?)









Same Location, different bush.










Jenny, in her Anniversery Dress, staning beside one of the flowering bushes just outside our home.











This one is in our own back yard.













This one too. But We even have these kind of lilly's in the US as well. You just don't get to see them like this in October!








Some Other Photos.












Here's Jenny and the girls! - Yes that's right, it seems as though we are going to have two girls. The best news is they look healthy. This is Jenny at 20 weeks along and looking great!







The first rain came last week. This was the first time it has rained since we got here. We've been praying for rain almost every day. When the rain started to fall Isaiah ran outside and said, "Let's thank God right now!" So we did. We've had a few good days of rain and now are seeing our first green grass since we arrived in Africa almost three months ago. The last three days have been dry, so keep those prayers for rain coming. We've had a good start, but we are still far short of what we need. Thanks for praing for rain.









Isiaiah also thought it would be a great to play in the rain, so he ran inside and got dressed in his swimsuit (We had no idea what he was doing). He came out dressed like this and proceeded to play in the downpour for about 10 minutes. It was a wonderful way to celebrate. Nate got his swimsuit on too, but stayed under the roof because he didn't want to get wet.












Nate and Isaiah being boys. They love to climb!












Our Mini Safari


About two weeks ago we had the chance to do a mini-safari with some other missionaries who were on campus doing some training. We invited ourselves to go with them and had a great time. There are the boys driving their Safari Truck. It was a run-down 1930's era pick-up. They loved it.







One of the monkeys we saw. Isaiah even fed a few of them. We learned on our Safari that most Africans view monkeys the same way that North Americans view rats. Monkeys are pests. Well, we are still North Americans so we though this was a cool pest to see.














Some Wildabeast.














We saw several giraffe. The drought was still so bad that these giraffe had to bend down to eat other. We also saw some Impala and other animals. It was fun to be on the Safari.








Just a wonderful shot of our Nathanael. He's getting so big.

















One final shot of Nate. This is him playing in the ash pile in our back yead. He's covered from head to toe in ashes and loving it. Brings new meaning to "ashes, ashes, we all fall down." The only part of this he didn't like was having to be hosed off outside.

Stories

First, I should say that we got rain last night. PRAISE GOD!! We have been praying for rain. Yesterday, we found out that there are two camps in Kenya, those who say that the rains come starting Oct 10 and those who say that the rains will start Oct 20. This year, at about 7 pm, the rains came on Oct 10. It sounds like we were having a crazy windstorm and I opened the door to find it down-pouring outside. Todd ran to get the boys and we all went out on the porch. Isaiah said, "We need to thank God right now. Dear God, thank you for answering our prayers and sending rain..." It was a very sweet prayer, then we all put our hands in the rain and got wet. It would be best if the rainy season lasts for 1 1/2 to 2 months.

Now, I have bug and animal stories. We found our first gecko in the house. The boys were delighted to watch him run around a bit. I have been hoping that we would have some geckos because they eat mosquitoes. None of us are taking anti-malarial medicine and I'm especially trying to avoid getting malaria. Africans view malaria similar to how we view the flu. One of the attitudes we have noticed is, "Why are you so concerned? People get malaria and then you treat it." We have spotted two mosquito-eating machines in the house and I'm not chasing them out.

How about a string of yucky bug and food stories? Sometimes the local grocery store sells frozen fish. It's quite expensive and sometimes has questionable quality and/or packaging. We bought fish for the first time a couple of weeks ago. The fish went into a plastic bag and must have thawed a bit before getting to the freezer. That trip to the grocery store we also bought a flat of eggs (30 eggs). My pantry started to stink! I got the eggs out and discovered that I had tiny ants all over the cereal boxes. (By the way, eggs don't have to be refrigerated until after they are first refrigerated. Eggs sold in grocery stores here are not refrigerated because they don't need to be and almost no one has a refrigerator. With how often we were losing power, it's much easier for us to not refrigerate our eggs either). So, my pantry started to smell a little better with the eggs out and I killed a whole bunch of little ants.

The eggs stayed on the kitchen counter and mildly stunk up the kitchen until Nate and I found the rotten egg. It was so funny! We now know where the phrase "bad egg" comes from. I was making corn bread and Nate was helping me. I cracked that rotten egg and black slime came out along with the most potent stink. Nate started yelling, "Stinky! Stinky!" I almost barfed and got that egg outside and into a plastic bag as fast as I could. It smelled so horrible that it really was comical. I was in a hurry that morning because I needed to serve a snack to about 14 people and prepare some food for a funeral. (So, I forgot about the bag of rotten egg just off my porch). That evening, I'm outside trying to figure out why I have 100 flies just sitting on the bush outside my door. It was almost like they were drunk, if flies can be drunk. They wouldn't fly away when swished and they were slow when they did move. Then I saw the bag and almost gagged again, while realizing it was my fault that the flies were everywhere. They loved the rotten egg!

But the pantry only started smelling a little better with the eggs gone. The day after we bought the fish and other meat, my refrigerator broke. We had to move our frozen things to another missionary's freezer and later were allowed to use a small fridge in the guest house. (We were without our fridge/freezer 1 1/2 weeks, not bad). Since the fridge broke, we had to start making several trips over to the guest house per day to utilize our cold foods. I'd often grab a bag out of the pantry to help me carry things. On a particular day, I thought my mom might call so I grabbed my phone and tossed it in plastic grocery bag to walk over to the guest house. Then a stink hit me. I opened the bag and looked in and was hit by a smell that made me want to vomit again. (Good thing my stomach is much sturdier in the 2nd trimester or I'd have been cleaning up even more yuck). I pulled out my phone, which was completely slimmed and had a maggot crawling around on it. It turned out that the plastic bag that the fish had been in ended up in the bag of bags in the pantry. The fish juice that leaked out into the plastic bag rotted and attracted maggots. My phone is cleaned up and usable again. Now, thankfully, my pantry has a lovely, neutral smell. And, only a few small ants have dared to enter this past week. No mercy, I squish all ants on sight.

A fun thing that the boys do at home is to go on "fly safaris." We happen to have 3 males and 3 fly swatters. Dinner time can be an especially annoying time for flies. It seems that the flies all invite themselves to dinner. Todd started a game where the boys each get a fly swatter after dinner and get to run around trying to swat the flies. They do jump swats and everything. It's hilarious as long as they don't hit each other.

I'm sure that I have more stories, but I will save some for a later post. To whet your appetite, we did a mini-safari on 20,000 acres on land this past Friday afternoon. We will post pictures with that blog posting. We did see our first giraffes here in Kenya. Spectacular! Have a great Sunday everyone.

TIA

There is a saying here in Kenya. "TIA" or "This is Africa." Mostly this is used by westerners to describe the unexpected ups and downs of life in Africa. To all of our church family at Calvary CRC, you now have first hand experience with this. We were having a lovely conversation during worship, but the generator shut down and we lost power and internet connection all at once. By the time we had power and internet again, it was too far along in the worship service to try and connect again. Sorry we didn't get to give you more of an update on ministry here, but with life this week we are glad we even got a few moments to connect with you.

This whole week we lived "TIA." For Tuesday through Friday the Internet was intermittent at best. Although we had power on Saturday we were too busy to get on-line. Today we had perfect internet (for most of the day) but no power! :) TIA. Anyway, we like it here and these are things we are already starting to laugh about. Can you imagine Americans whose power was just randomly shut off for a full day. Talk about angry, especially on a Sunday for NFL football and the final day of the Baseball season. Here in Machakos, it's just part of life. TIA! :)

Well, it is late already and we need to get to bed. I give my first mid-term this week. We will try to blog more later in the week (unless we have another TIA week).