Full Holiday Tidings- December Fun

December 21, 2019

Full Holiday Tidings- December Fun

December has been a busy month for everyone here, this month marks the wettest Dec. on record here in east Africa. The heavy continual rains provide blessings and challenges. The grass is green which means plenty of food and water for animals, and people here, as an African joke I heard once goes “If you want peace in Africa, just add water!” But with all the rain comes threats of flooding in our little valley, so we wanted to thank you all for your prayer as the dangers of flooding seem to be past.

Mid-December marked our Home Stay time with a Dorobo pastor and his family near Moidabi Settlement, which is about 2 hrs from home. The challenges of dropping into their way of living and shadowing them for a week were steep due to absolutely everything about daily life being new and different. We pulled away having made new and lasting relationships in a core Dorobo home area. The family’s location is of special significance to further work in this area and beyond into other parts of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

While we were out, a new risk arose with the giant yellow acacia all over the property, these massive, but poorly rooted trees, were losing large limbs or falling over all together due to the soft ground created by the heavy recent rains. At 1 AM Thursday on Dec 12th, a huge tree came down and completely smashed the Workshop but by God’s grace just brushed the Staff Housing Unit. No one was injured, but clean up and mitigating other trees at risk of toppling and smashing the house has dominated our last full week. We never expected that Jeff might use the basic chainsaw knowledge gained from those dreaded early-fall wood cutting trips with His Dad and Grandfather, but God does indeed have a sense of humor in the chainsaw maintenance and wood cutting He’d planned for him all the way over here in Kenya!

Home in the bush!

Floodwaters receding, note the high-water mark on the concrete wall by Jed's boots. The creek rose 15 feet to just beneath the bridge.

Irene taught me how to make Chipati. It's a lot like a fried tortilla. I told her to not be shy and to correct me when I did it wrong, and bless her heart- she did. We laughed a lot!!!