Caleb turns 4!

Celebrated with a Spiderman birthday party and cupcakes with his friends at school. Can't believe our little guy is 4 already!

Nathan's big night

Six years after his decision to follow Christ, Nathan made the decision to be baptized. We are so proud of him and his spiritual growth this year. God has big things in store for our son!

Pictures at last

Or so I thought. Caleb has decided to not take a nap today so this post will be short but I'll at least get a couple of pictures of the kids in. School is going well and we are settling in to our new schedule. I am amazed at how much I get done during the day without my "helpers" but I do miss them. This move has been a good one all around though!

Transitions

Back in 2000, we had a year that I thought would top all years. I won't bore you with the details, just suffice it to say that it was full of lots of firsts, big decisions and things that have changed the landscape of our family today. Evidently these big years tend to cycle through and we are finishing yet another one of those years. I know that many of you have been saddened by my lack of blogging (ok, maybe that is an exaggeration but you couple of people can stop bugging me about it...)but I am hopeful that I will be doing a better job soon. After 7 years of homeschooling some or all of my kids, I sent the oldest 4 off to school today and Caleb will be following them in a few days. Our family has been stretched quite thin with commitments that were not always ours to make (yes, some were) but have all piled onto us in a pretty dramatic way. Ken and I are praying that we will, in the next few months, see some sense of normalcy come back to our chaos (as normal as a family of 7 can be :) ) I am realistic that my time will continue to not always be my own but that the expectations of it will be a bit more realistic. Feel free to pray for us as we make another transition year and I will do my best to get pictures up soon!

He's home!

Ken made it home safely this afternoon. Other than some jet lag, he is doing very well and we are happy to have him back.
More posts and photos to follow :)

In the Air!

Ken is on his first flight from Nairobi to London and will return home tomorrow afternoon our time. He had an amazing trip but we are all ready for him to be home. The kids and I had melt down Friday night - fishing a dead bunny out of the pool skimmer didn't help much (no it wasn't one of ours - one of the wild bunnies in the yard). My appreciation for those of you whose husbands are deployed has grown tremendously!! Hopefully in the next few days we'll be able to download Ken's pictures and he can add a few posts along the way (shock, gasp!).
Thanks again for all the prayers. We have survived :)

From Ken

Good morning! It is Friday morning and we are in our 5th day of our History Makers conference. It has been an incredible experience this week having this opportunity to teach, mentor and share with many people. Yesterday morning, we taught on evangelism. In the afternoon, we travelled to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa with an estimated 1 million people living there. I had done some research on Kibera but was not quite prepared for what I experienced. Kibera is located on the outskirts of Nairobi and is a poverty striken place. In the US, we would not want our family pets to live in the kind of conditions we saw. We walked through many alleys, down old rail tracks and even had the opportunity to go to a small church located toward the center of the slum. The church is an outreach of Global Outreach Assembly. There were a number of children there. We sang songs with them (in Swahili), prayed and I had an opportunity to give them some Chick-fil-A mini plush cows; if you could have seen their shining faces. We went to a "park" which was a large open area in the middle of the park. Just over 1 year ago, just after the Kenyan elections, there was much violence in Kibera and a massive blood shed and killings that occured in the very place where we were standing; an experience that I will never forget. We conducted a short worship service. In addition, many of the History Makers (the participants in the conference) went around the perimeter of the park and shared with many many people. Many of the people that we spoke with are orphans and many of them have been born in Kibera and have never lived in any other place. Some played football (soccer) with the children and youth, some just held young children and we ALL prayed!!! God answered your prayers and ours and we saw a total of 53 come to Christ! We will all need to continue to pray for them as they have much to overcome. I had a bag full of Chick-fil-A cows and cow pez dispensers and tried to hand them out selectively in the park. The word got out very quickly that there was a white man with gifts and I was completely swarmed by too many children to count. All the gifts were handed out (so to speak) and someone even took the plastic shopping bag that I had brought them in. The mini-cows were in plastic bags with a Chick-fil-A advertisement inside. At one point, I saw 2 small boys fighting over one of these advertisements; this moved me greatly that this would be so important to them.
I hope as time allows, I will have an opportunity to share with each of you about more of my experiences here this week.
I came here to teach and mentor but I will certainly not be coming home the same man that arrived here just 5 days ago.
Please continue to pray for our next few days. We will have graduation for the History Makers tomorrow/Saturday, going to church on Sunday (I will be preaching or giving my testimony which they consider preaching), going to Nairobi Game Park for a safari and leaving at 11:10 PM to head home.
Thank you for your prayer support!