We are Not Home Yet

Hello All,
I am back from a day and a half on tour with the band.  The RVA band goes out into Nairobi each year for 3 days and plays from 5-6 concerts at different venues.  This year they are doing 5 concerts.  We left yesterday morning (Friday) with 73 kids and 3 chaperone's to The School of the Nations.  It is a small school with about 100 kids from K - 8th grade.  They really enjoyed seeing a real High School band playing.  We had a bit of rain so had to move around some (those woodwind instruments can be a little picky about water!) but all turned out well.  After the performance, we had a wonderful Kenyan lunch (stew, rice and cabbage) and headed to the next venue at Africa International University.

Getting ready at The School of the Nations (notice the dark sky!)

Mr Taylor is a great band director

The trumpet section (yes, that is Trevor)

The kids from the school

The kids love to sing!

We got to AIU with plenty of time to spare and had another great concert, this time indoors!  The acoustics in the chapel where we were set up were wonderful.

Setting up at AIU

All set up and ready to go!

The theme of this year's band tour is "We are not Home yet."  One of the kids had a great quote (from somewhere else, she could not remember where), "As Christians, we are not citizens of this earth trying to find heaven, we are citizens of heaven enduring this life on earth."  I loved that!  What we call "Home," can be lost here in an instant or even not exist.  Another kid gave a devotional along those lines.  He is Korean and has lived in Africa many years.  When he was little, he was the only Korean kid at RVA (now the Koreans number about 17%).  One of his "friends" told him he did not belong there and he should go home.  As time passed, his family went back to Korea on furlough.  He was so excited to get to go to a Korean public school.  Once the kids there found out that he was from Africa, they told him he didn't belong and that he should go back.  He was not accepted anywhere.  This is common among MKs (Missionary Kids) because they don't fit into the culture their parents are ministering to, and they don't really know their "home" culture.  Once this Korean boy thought about it, he was comforted to know that he belongs to God and his home is really not here on this earth at all.  1 Peter 2:11-12 says,

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
NIV

Even though we live here, life is just a breath, and will be over in an instant.  We are here to do the works He set out for us and then "go Home."

Our CT Scanner is set to come on Monday.  And the crowd cheers!  It will come on a 40 ft container truck and hopefully fit into the parking lot.  The truck also has wheelchairs and microscopes (5ft ones) and other sundry things.  many people will be happy that it is here.  The room is almost ready to receive the scanner, but we still don't have the electrical gear that we need.  It will be another 3 months or so before we can hook it up and test it out.  This is a shame because the man who was behind it all is leaving in July and will not be here to see it operational.  But, he will leave a legacy here and we are very grateful for that!

The kids at RVA are constantly busy with things.   Today, the little kids had an outreach.  They all go to different venues and do whatever.  Timothy's group stayed at RVA and the children of some of the Moffat Bible College students came up to play.  They were little kids and they had a ball.  Timothy said he was kind of bored, but he realized that he wasn't there for himself, he was there for the kids.

Next week we are going out for tender with the Bill of Quantities for the pediatric wing.  Once we get the bids back from contractors we will know whether or not the BK board will be able to afford it!  Please pray that this final process of picking a contractor will go well.

We are not Home Yet, but we will be coming "back to our Michigan home" in August.  We are looking forward to the visit and getting some shopping done (especially for chocolate chips as I am at the low level alarm)! 

In His Hands,
Jullie T.

Birthdays and more Birthdays!

Hello All,
I am sorry I got this going late today.  It has been a busy week end!  Sallie and Trevor had their birthdays yesterday (Friday) and we usually celebrate pretty much all week end! Also, we ran out of Internet time on Friday and could not get it restored until today.  Things are just not as easy to deal with here.

We had a horrible tragedy happen this week here in Kijabe.  A Kenyan woman's house burned down with her 2 youngest children inside.  They were home alone and could not get out when the fire started.  Our good friend Njoki is very close to her and has had a very difficult week.  This happen last Monday night and the funerals were yesterday (Friday).  Her name is Mama Grace (her oldest daughter is Grace) and she could use prayer.  She is so distraught that she can not function.  I read Psalms 34:18 yesterday, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."  There is nothing else to say.

We have had some down time with the projects around here lately.  Jim is involved with the water committee (long and short term solutions for our lack of supply water), but we are waiting on our architect to send us tender documents so that they can be reviewed and then we can send them out to contractors for bid.  Most of the other projects that I was involved in at the hospital are now being taken care of by the hospital.  Once our pediatric wing gets going, things will pick up tremendously, but for now I am able to read and study and only spend a few hours a day working for the projects.  I have told myself to enjoy this time as it will be very busy later, and that is what I am trying to do!  We had a major step of success this past week with some negotiations with the hospital on money matters.  This is a big relief and we hope that we can now move forward with the projects and not have to worry about how Bethany Kids and the Hospital will work out the money matters.  We are grateful to all involved!

Here are a few pictures of our Bethany Kids fundraiser from last week:

Amanda and Erik Hansen with us at the table

Ambassador Gration and Jim

It seems to have turned out to be a success according to the people that arranged it, so they were all very pleased.

So, we started with Birthday celebrations yesterday at 7am!  That was present time (the day was fully orchestrated down to the minute)!  I made this cake for Sallie that I took up to her class at 2:00.  The kids all had blue, or orange or red mouths when they were finished:

Sallie and her Horse of a different color cake!

Sallie and her class on her birthday

Jim and Timothys' blue tongues after eating blue icing!

We had some of Trevor's friends here for Pizza last night and cake, then we headed up to the school to watch some presentation from the Junior and Senior classes.  They were presenting clips from their interim trips.  Every year the juniors and seniors go on "Interim," which is a week long trip somewhere.  They all go to different venues.  Some went to Uganda, some on an aviation learning experience, some scuba diving, some climbed Mt. Kenya, etc.  Trevor gets to go next year, so we wanted to get a feel for what they would be doing.  It was fun to watch.  Birthdays continued today with taking Sallie shopping and to lunch with some birthday money that was burning a hole in her pocket!  Getting to town is quite an adventure here and it is at least a 1/2 day experience.  And the roads are getting terrible because of all the rains we have had lately.  Six months ago, this one road was decent, now it is riddled with potholes.  It is amazing how fast the roads go bad.  Tonight we have Sallie's birthday dinner planned and tomorrow will be Trevor's.  I will be glad when Monday comes and I can eat just vegetables!

We are making progress on the Palliative Care building.  They poured the slab last week.  Here are a few pictures:

Tonight we are getting together with the food committee for the sophomore class to make pizza crusts for the restaurant on June 9th.  We are making 100 crusts and will freeze them.  They have a huge mixer (picture a kitchen aid on steroids) at the cafeteria and we will mix all the dough in that. 

I have to go to make dinner for Sallie and then head up to the cafo.  Love you lots and please keep us in your prayers.

In His Hands,
Jullie T.

Water, Water Everywhere But not a drop to drink!

Hello All,
The ladies and I headed to Naivasha today to ride horses.  We rode out into the fields with the Giraffe, Zebra, Water buck and Impala.  We even saw a blacked backed jackal.  It was great being able to get so close to them.  My friend Christina got some pictures that I will try and post next week.

If you didn't read the last post, you might want to go read it.  There was a major situation that arose last week with our supply water.  We (the Hospital and resident housing) lost our main supply header due to land slides.  This also took out a good section of our main road!  It is still passable but, it looks like it may get worse.  On top of that, RVA (Rift Valley Academy) lost their main bore hole pump!  When it rains it pours (no pun intended)!   Thankfully, RVA has about a 10 day supply, but they are working on getting the company here quickly to repair or replace the pump.  But, as Jim said in the last post, there was a commission established about 2 months ago that was looking into the short and long term water solutions here on the station (Kijabe).  One of their short term solutions was to get the Bathi Dam to supply more water to the area.  They currently supply a little to a selected few, but they have the supply and are willing to sell us more.  They started this week with what they can get to us with the small existing pipes.  This has saved us from losing a large percentage of what we need.  God in His providence has helped us avert a major crisis.  Not to say that it is over by any means!  The long term solutions involve getting grants in order to pay for it, because it will be pretty pricey.  We need large water tanks and lots of pipe and new pumps, etc.  Please pray that the rains will subside (we have had 2 days with no rain!) and that we will solve our lack of water in the faucet issues.  It is crazy to be flooding outside and not have enough water in the pipes to flush the toilet!

We went to a benefit dinner for Bethany Kids last night in Nairobi.  It was very nice and we got to dress up!  It was the first time Bethany has done a benefit and they hope to do it annually.  Ambassador Gration was there.  He is the Ambassador to Kenya now and he was Jim's boss back when we were in Stuttgart.  So, we still call him "General."  It was nice to catch up with him. 

Ambassador Gration, left and Justus Marete, our Bethany Kids Africa director, right

 The hardest part about the evening was driving home in the dark.  We have mentioned how difficult it is here to drive at night.  We came up behind at least 2 trucks moving very slowly with no rear lights, and many times the people coming at you only have one headlight and of course it is on bright because they can't see very well due to just having one headlight!  There are no lines on the sides of the road to follow and very few street lights.  That is something we sure take for granted at home!  One of the speakers was a lady who had been helped by Bethany Kids as a child.  When kids are born here with disabilities, they are shunned at best.  Sometimes they are killed with a poison that is mixed into their food.  This was about to happen to Francesca as a baby when her mother ran away with her.  She was eventually brought back and lived a very difficult life.  She has spinabifita.  Many times, when a child with spinabifida comes in, it is the the first time that the parents have had any information about what it is and how to deal with it.  In mild cases, the children can live fairly easily, but they need to know how to empty their bladders and how to deal with other issues (walking!)  When Francesca was about 12, she was brought to Kijabe and had surgery.  She was also taught for the first time how to keep herself dry.  This was life changing for her.  She could now be out and be accepted in society.  She now has a wonderful husband and a child.  She is a wonderful example of how Bethany Kids is helping children with disabilities gain Independence and a sense of worthiness.  For the first time, they see themselves as loved and accepted. 

Francesca telling her story

The Joy Town choir sang at the event also.  Joy Town is an orphanage for disabled kids.  When they have been abandoned to die, they have a place to go to be loved.   We have not been there yet, but would like to visit soon.

Joy Town Choir singing

There has been some activity lately over by the "dormant" volcano, Longonot.  Some fissures have developed in the ground near there that are not due to the excessive amounts of rain we have been having.  It is all the talk in the local papers whether or not the mountain is waking up.  We have been told that it is not, but will keep an eye on what the experts are saying.  Here are a few pictures of the fissures:

We are still "patiently" waiting on our CT Scanner to arrive.  That container also has very large surgical microscopes and wheel chairs and other things that are anxiously anticipated!  It has been sitting in Mombasa since about the last week in March.  Please pray that it will clear the port soon.

The kids had Titchie field day today.  They had a great time.  It was a carnival theme for about 2 hours up at the school.  Here are a few pictures:

Sallie chasing a Donut

Sallie with a "Duma" (Cheetah) face

As many of you know, Sallie is a BIG Eeyore fan.  She has had this particular Eeyore since she was 10 months old.  This week he had a much needed bath!  Here he is hanging on the line to dry.  Sallie was very happy to have an Eeyore that had a whitish nose again!

Hope you all have a great week.  We sure appreciate all that you do for us.  Email when you get a change.  We love to hear from you.

In His Hands,
Jullie T.

Water Worries, What GOD has prepared us for

Dear all,
I am writing this blog post as an urgent prayer request and as a praise GOD.  Kijabe Mission Station has been beset with a water shortage since early January this year.  As the shortage became acute to most the residents on this station, the station management desired to take action and commissioned a team of technical people representing the different departments serving here. We have the Hospital (about 2000 patients and staff), Rift Valley Academy (about 1000 students and staff), Kijabe boys and Kijabe Girls High Schools (1200 students each), Moffat Bible College (about 400 students and staff) and the community (about another 2000 people).  In April our team (9 people) started looking at short term and long term actions necessary to get us out of this water shortage and prevent it from happening again.  We provided our findings to the Kijabe Station Board (run by Africa Inland Church) last week and they accepted all of our recommendations to move forward and start fixing the problem.  Well, we have had an unprecedented amount of rain over the past 42 consecutive days and this morning it finally took its toll.  Landslides in the area damaged one of our main water supplies.  This supply represents about 40% of our water coming into Kijabe. So, the problem is now fiercely worse.  In fact, it is the spring that was founded by Engineering Ministries International about 12 years ago.  We met today and realized that even though we are in a serious water crisis, our planning and actions are not neccessarily a crisis because our team had already done the lions share of the work of coming up with solutions.  GOD was preparing our team for what we now face.  We now realize that we will need to be extremely aggressive with some of the fixes but they are doable.  We do need your prayers though.  The eMi spring may not be repaired for several weeks at best due to the danger of doing anything on the side of the mountain when all the soil is saturated and loose.  We are going to start asking for government assistance and help from other outside organizations as a means to help pay for and progress the solutions.  Government assistance is not easy to come by here in Kenya.  So, we just ask you to pray with us that we will be wise in how we approach the solutions, organizations and even the leadership here at the mission station, and that water corrections come in quickly.  This problem has the potential of affecting not only our community of about 7000 people but also the thousands of people living nearby and in the region of East Africa who come to Kijabe for healing.

GOD's richest blessings to you all and thank you for standing with us in prayer and hope.
Jim

BTW.  If you know of any organization who might be able to help us in this crisis, please provide any info you have to JimT@AHC123.com

Birthday the Kenyan Way!

Hello All,
Remember when I wrote a few weeks ago about the lack of water?  Well, we have plenty of it now, but all outside in the yard!  The long rainy season has started and it sure feels like it.  Every afternoon the thunder starts and the rains come in sometimes continuing through the night.  The hospital is occasionally still out of water (and us too) but it is not quite as bad as it was.  Kijabe does not have a good water collection system, but that will hopefully be addressed with the long term water solutions.  The new water project has a line item for rain water collection.  But, we are still seeking grants to fund the project and that will take some time.

I wanted to give you an update on Yvonne.  She is the granddaughter of our house help, Rose.  Her mother died of a brain tumor 2 years ago now and her father was never in the picture.  Many "friends" of Rose have told her to let Yvonne go, meaning to an orphanage, but she just can't do it.  This time last year, we took a collection from you all and Yvonne is now in an excellent school and doing very well.  She is diligent about getting her homework done and she really likes it.  She was number one in her class for term 2 (Sept - Dec).  There are maybe 36 kids in her class (first grade).  That is a lot!  We still have enough money to get her through 2nd grade and maybe into her first term of 3rd grade.  The school year starts in Jan here so we are talking about enough money through about Dec of 2013.  If you would like to help with this fund, please let me know.  Whether you want to donate now or will just plan on it in the future that would be great.  It works out well to send a check to my mother-in-law and she deposits it into our account and we can access it from there.  This school is a life changing event for her.  If left in the government schools, things would be much different. In Integrity school, she will get computer class starting in second grade.  The public high schools don't even have that advantage!   It breaks down to about $36 a month right now for her tuition and sundries.  She had a birthday last week and we had a nice celebration. Thank you all so much for caring about her.  Her life will be different (in a great way!) because of this!

Yvonne has a great smile

Yvonne (left) and some friends

Rose and Yvonne

Sallie taking pictures of herself!

eating stew and rice and chapatis

The neighborhood kids come out of the woodwork when there is a party!

Yvonne gets a gift

Sallie and Yvonne cutting the cake.

Well, we were expecting our CT scanner to arrive yesterday (Friday) but it never came.  We are now told to look for it next Friday.  It is very difficult to know what is going on so we just wait (not very patiently I may add)!  Below are some pictures of our CT Scanner room and the waiting area of the Mother Child Health section.  The floor should be going in today (Saturday).  We got a sheet laminate product that we are hoping will give the room a warmer feeling.  We plan on using some chalkboard paint on one wall so the kids can draw while waiting.  Anyone have some chalk??

waiting room for MCH

CT Scanner room

They started to pour the concrete pad for the second floor of the palliative care building on Friday.  They had some issues with getting enough concrete (they were out getting more bags as the pour was going on), but they did it.  Great job to the crew out there:

There is a beetle here known as the Nairobi Eye.  It is a pesky little thing!  They are prevalent in the damp weather we are having right now and they come into the house because they are attracted to light (especially fluorescent lights which are most of ours).  They are very colorful and are not harmful if left alone.  The problem comes when you crush it on your skin.  Its body fluids are apparently ounce for ounce more toxic then a cobras venom!  When they get on you, you are supposed to blow them off and not try to brush them like you would a mosquito.  As long as they are whole, they don't bite or cause harm.  Here are some pictures of a few:

Jim got it a week or so ago and the marks boiled up and became like burn marks.  Nasty!

Jim and I have problems with waiting as evidenced by him getting into trouble a few times. I too am not immune to this issue!  Just wanted Jim to not feel alone!  Please pray for us as we continue to muddle our way through the issues.  We are moving forward on things but it is hard work to make any progress!  Jim is planning on updating the project page of the blog today sometime, so go to that tab on the top of the page to see what is going on.

Take Care and we will see you next week!

In His Hands,
Jullie T.