Crowd Funding

Hello All,
We have had another good week thank God!  Can't believe there are only 3 weeks left before we head home for a visit.  The seniors at the school are getting pretty anxious and restless as seniors do!  This coming week will be finals week and then the last one will be the typical nothing week.  Trevor had a big paper due yesterday that he has been working on for the whole term.  Glad that is over!

Many people are leaving at the end of the term either for good or for a year or so.  But, with all the commotion going on, it is hard to find proper time to stop and visit with these people and say goodbye.  We had a pot luck dinner last night to do just such a thing.  We are losing our radiologist that came here 2 years ago.  He and his wife are very nice people and they live in Waterloo Canada, near Michigan, so at least we will get to see them again.  Joshua Tjong was the person responsible for getting the CT Scanner project going.  He had found a used one and some people to donate to the cause and got the whole thing started.  There were many bumps along the way and it is still not operational (we are waiting on a piece of electrical gear), but as people here say, "In a years time from now we will have an operational CT and no one (except Jim) will remember that we were late by 6 months or so!"  They don't really say the "but Jim" part, but I do.  We will miss the Tjongs.  One good note out of it though, looks like we will be babysitting the dog that they are babysitting until the real owners come back in Jan or so. Here is a picture of the Tjongs from the potluck last night:

Felicia and Joshua Tjong

Here are a few other pictures from the get together (only because my mother demands that I add pictures - even if they are not great ones!)

The Teenage section

Good friends - Sue Bird, Tom Bouve and Thomas Renner

Sallie and her friend Miller

Have you ever heard of "Crowd Funding?"  I guess it is the wave of the future for small start ups and other organizations looking to raise money. It is using the social media aspect of our lives to reach lots of people and raise needy funds. I guess Social Media is even an educational degree you can get now days!  There is a pediatrician here that just raised over $6000 for some CPAP machines that are needed to be able to ventilate the new borns!  They put out a call on their blog and within 24 hours had enough money for not just one (which was what they wanted $2000) but 3 machines!  You can visit their blog and read about it at www.steeres.com  We have also seen this at work but would not have had the same name for it.  We put out the call last year to help Yvonne with her school fees and within a few days we had enough money to get her started and continue for 3 years!  And, when and orphanage in Naivasha needed a new cow, we had a donor very quickly.  I have seen that there are many people in the west that have extra money and want to donate, but have trouble finding the cause and the assurity that it is worthy or legitimate.  We are going to try a Crowd Funding campaign with the Sanitation Project through the doctors and other missionaries at the hospital.  We are moving forward with the project, but funds are a problem.  They have some money, but not all to complete it.  It will be interesting to see how that turns out!  We (the sanitation project team) took a long walk this week down the valley to see the out flow of our sanitation (or lack there of) system.  We did not see any snakes, Mungu Asante (Thank God!) but we did find that things are running amuk down there!  It was good to walk it with the whole team so that we are all on board with the why and some of the how of getting it fixed.

I mentioned earlier that we are going to babysit Pepper the dog for a while.  We are already babysitting another named Toby.  He is a great dog and we enjoy having him around.  This kind of things happens a lot around here as people come and go all the time.  We have decided that babysitting needy dogs is better then having one of our own!  This way, we get a variety!  Here is a picture of Timothy and Toby:

Timothy and Toby Dog

Last week, the Titchies (elementry school) had a talent night.  Timothy's whole class did a song and dance presentation.  If you would like to see it, you can go to this link at you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EimueQ9jhZM
He and his friend also did the song "There's a hole in my bucket, Dear Liza, Liza" and it was great!  Jim has a video of that one too, but it is not on you tube yet.  Timothy has a wonderful voice that he is just discovering.

We were reading in Luke this week about the parable of the ten minas (Luke 19:11-27).  It seems that when your relationship is right with God, and he has given you so much, that you need to do something with what he has given you and not just sit around with it in your own world or because you are afraid.  This theme has kept coming up with me in the last few months.  Looks like I need to get up and do something for God!

Thanks so much for all you do!  We love you all and can't wait to see those of you who are in Michigan this summer.

In His Hands,
Jullie T and the rest of the family:

Timothy, Jim, Trevor, Jullie and Sallie