Houston, We have a Go!

Hello All,
Well, we have great news!  The Bethany Kids Children's Center (official name) is a go!  We got the word late last Saturday night and were very excited.  There are some financial constraints, but we can certainly work with those.  God is Good!  His timing is amazing.  These last few weeks, Jim has been feeling like the hospital wants us out of their knickers, so now we will have a full time new focus.  We are scheduling talks with the architect and administrators to chart the way forward.  There are many things to do to prep for the ground breaking.  For one, we need to move a building that we call the Quonset Hut.  It looks like an airplane hanger and is about 40 meters long.  We think we can move it piece by piece to its new location, but that adventure is still waiting for us!  At this point, the architect will get the construction documents ready for tender, which means, he will get them ready to go to contractors for bidding.  Once they come back, we will be able to pick contractors and move forward.  The building should take about 18 - 24 months once it gets started.  But for now, we are just happy that the board has chosen to continue and we would ask for your prayers that Jim and I will be able to manage the project for them with patience and wisdom.

We finally received the truss material for the MCH building!  The engineer should be here in a few minutes (it is Friday morning here) to train our guys how to put them together.  There are only 17 trusses so we should have them together and up on the building by the end of next week.  Jim is taking some pictures and maybe I will get time to add them later.

I am heading off to a ladies retreat this week end.  I am looking forward to getting away for a few days and enjoying the company of other ladies.  My birthday is tomorrow (Saturday), but Jim has promised me a nice meal on Sunday when I return!  There will be chocolate goodness in the form of brownies with frosting (I hope)!  Jim and the kids (the little ones) are heading out to the Suswa Caves to go camping for the night with our friends the Sorleys.  Craig Sorley has hired a Masi man to guard the cave for the night and help them explore and not get lost!  I hope they have a great time.  Trevor will be here because he has to take the SAT exam tomorrow.  Not fun!  It is his first time taking the exam.  He doesn't appear outwardly to be nervous, but he could use your prayers I am sure.

In our ladies bible study we have been talking about missions and the importance of going out to unreached peoples.  Here we are a little different.  People come to us.  We are a hub for the people that go out, to come and rest and find comfort and healing, if necessary.  So, that has put some doubt into some people's minds that we are not "real missionaries."  It is comfortable living here, not like in the bush where many missionaries serve.  But, being able to provide for the missionaries and all the Kenyan peoples that come here for various reasons is a true blessing - for them to be healed and for us to serve.  Each person's role is different. God has called our family to be here to help this building become real in order that the children of East Africa can be helped.  We felt that strongly and will continue to do the best we can.  I believe that missions can be carried out anywhere in the world.  There are always people everywhere that need the love that God can provide and He accomplishes this through Christians that can feel His grace everyday.

Thank you all so much for being there for us.  You don't know what it means!

In His Hands,
Jullie T.

To Build BKKH or Not to Build

Hello All,
We have had a good week, but can't believe it is Saturday again.  The time here just flies by (as it does everywhere)!
I have spent most of the week going over the material and procurement problems.  They have a new procedure that I have been reviewing and wanting to change (with a capital "C").  All my time spent with Westinghouse and at the shipyard writing and reviewing procedures, has made me annal about it.  I want to make a flow chart of the process but not sure if they will appreciate (or use) that. Something happened just yesterday that sent Jim (once again) into full Navy Commander "How can you let this happen" mode!  There was an order of materials that is very important and we still have not given the company the money to be able to make them.  We discovered this problem almost 3 weeks ago!  Pole-Pole is the saying here (slowly-slowly)!

We went up to South Kinangop last week to visit the orphanage called Into Abbas Arms.  We are helping with their kitchen project.  Good news:  We have permission to keep going!  We were directed to stop once the building is "high and dry."  We are about at that point and the organization seems to now have the money to be able to carry on and finish the project - Praise God for generous donators!
Here are some pictures:

Jim and the guys looking at the roof

the kitchen is almost high and dry

Making the windows

Here is a finished window

Today is the big day for the Bethany Kids Wing project.  The board is meeting in the states today to decide the fate of it.  Please pray that they will be in God's will about the whole thing (and that God's will is to proceed with the project so that many more kids in this part of Africa can be served)!  That may be a bit prejudiced, but you can understand why, I am sure.

The weather here has been wonderful lately.  The rains seem to have stopped and it has been truely summer.  I took some pictures of the garden around my house and the house itself.  Have you ever seen poinsettia trees?  There are 3-4 around here and they are huge.  I never knew that if you didn't have a wintertime to stop them, they would just keep going!

 

 

 

 

Here are a few of the inside of the house:

 

Mom, I know how you like pictures, so these were for you!

We have to get going up to Titchie Field Day.  They have 2 hours of games set up with lots of water involved up at the school.  Tomorrow, we are heading to another water park with a crew of boys to celebrate Timothy's Birthday.  He will be 11 on Monday.  That is hard to believe!  Jim and I are going to try and stay dry though.

Love you all  so much!  Thank you for all you do!

In His Hands,
Jullie T.

A Truss or a jigsaw Puzzel?

Hello All,
We are slowly getting back in the groove of things.  It was not just us that took time off in Dec, it was just about everybody here!  Therefore, not much got done in the last month or so.  We got the trusses for the MCH building finally ordered this week.  The company is going to rush them so they might be here by a week from Monday (we're hoping)!  They are metal trusses that come disassembled.  It is like that big erector set you got as a kid.  You have to put them all together, matching part A with A, B with B, etc.  It is really rather fun!  Here are some pictures that we took of the trusses that we helped with at the Into Abbas Arms orphanage.

Hopefully, we will show you pictures of our Mother Child Health building with these on it in 3 weeks.

Another Mission within a Mission:  Jim has committed to go to Rwanda at the end of Feb on another design trip with EMI.  They have a team going for a second time to a hospital in Kiborgora.  It is about 5-6 hours drive from Kigali (where he will fly into).  They will be finalizing a master plan for a Christian hospital, just like we did when we came here in June of 2010.  Our experience on the ground here will be invaluable to the team.  I would like to go also, but I need to stay with the kids and manage the projects that are on-going here.  Will let you know more details later.

The plums are in full season right now.  Everyone is trying to sell us plums!  Here are some that Rose brought for us.  She has a tree in her yard and they are very good.  The kids love them.  They are a bit bitter for me.  But, they sure look pretty sitting on the table!

Today is outreach day at RVA.  All the kids go on an outreach project somewhere.  There was a dorm group that was going to "our" orphanage in Naivasha (the one we got the cow for).  I gave them all the provisions that we collected from you all over Christmas.  They are going to take them to Joel today.  There was about 100lbs of stuff (cloths, books, games, etc).  There was some really great stuff in that suitcase!  I am sure they will get good use out of it all.  Thank you all who contributed!   Sallie's group was going to bake cookies and deliver them to Moffit Bible college students.  Timothy's group was going to plant trees up at the school and Trevor was out to do some kind of building project.  He did not have many details this morning (just like a teenager)!  Timothy's group was being guided by Craig Sorley.  His ministry is very different then most of the mission here.  His ministry is called Care of Creation (www.careofcreation.net).  He is here to help with the environmental crisis facing Kenya.  He educates and promotes the care of God's creation, using the bible as the main resource.  Since they are not "main stream" here (meaning doctors), like for us, there are challenges.   Please pray for them as they face all the challenges of being here and running an organization.

The weather here has been very tropical lately.  It is absolutely beautiful in the morning, but by late afternoon it is raining.  Yesterday, it even hailed!  You can hear the storm rolling in and then it will start and just pour for about an hour.  Then in the evening when the sun sets (around 6:30) the wind starts to kick up.  It will blow sometimes till dawn, when the "beautiful" part if it starts all over again!  The roads are barely passable (thank you God for our Prado), but we get by.

Thank you all for everything you do for us!  We so much appreciate that you are behind us.  We couldn't do this with out the support of family and friends.

In His Hands,
Jullie T.

We Have Arrived Back in Kijabe!

Hello All,
We are back!  Things went well over the Christmas break but we definitely need a vacation from our vacation!
We certainly enjoyed seeing everyone.  If we didn't get a chance to see you, we apologize, but we love you anyway.
It took Jim only 3 days get over the jet lag - the Cad!  It took me 6 days or so.  I sure do not like that part! 
Here are a few pictures of our time in Michigan:

Jim's Beautiful Mother - Bernice

Sallie and Her cousin Lillie

Jim and His brothers and Dad (all together - Wow!)

Sallie and her American Girl Doll on Christmas Day

Sunrise in the cold Michigan morning

We have had a time this week.  Everyone is just getting back to work and it is taking some time to get back up to speed.  We have had a major setback with the CT scanner.  The trusses for the roof did not get ordered as planned in early December, so we ran around on Friday trying to get them ordered.  Hopefully, we will have the trusses by the end of January.  This should put us back by about 3 weeks.  Jim went into full Navy - "How could you let this happen" mode!  He is over it now and we are just trudging ahead.

The kids started school last Wed.  Timothy and Sallie complained a bit before the day, but when they got home, they were so happy to be back in school.  Amazing how that works!

Here is a picture of Sallie with her new doll and her friends.  You can see why she wanted one for Christmas!  They are so cute!

We have been bombarded with people coming to the door this week.  It is amazing how the locals all know you have returned.  I am sure they have a network!  It is time for the new school year to start for the Kenyans and people are out asking others in "their circle of friends" for money for school fees.  We seem to be in many peoples' circles!  We have a plan and want to help a few selected people.  Education is so important to the kids futures here, that we feel this is a good cause.

We hope you all had a great New Years celebration.  We were 35,000 ft in the air and trying to sleep.  I am currently trying to figure out how to use Mail chimp and I think I will be able to send the link to my blog straight to your email address.  Give me another week and I will hopefully have it! 

Thanks to all of you for all you do for us!  We so appreciate the family and friends that are in our lives.

In His Hands,
Jullie T.