Hurray, we made it to RVA!
After years of prayer and support from all our friends and family, we made it to RVA! The flights to Kenya went very well. The kids did wonderful and they enjoyed watching movies and getting juice every hour or so. When we first arrived, we stayed in Nairobi at the AIM guesthouse for a couple of days to start recovering from the long, long, long flights. From there we went to Machakos to attend our African Based Orientation at Scott Theological Seminary. Here we got introduced to many native Kenyan dishes, including chapatis, beef stew, and Cadbury Chocolate!
At ABO, we were in class from 8:30 to 5:00pm and the children had their own classes. We learned about "African Worldview,"African culture, spiritual warfare, healthy living, safety and security, and an introduction to Islam. There were a lot of families on the floor we lived on for 3 weeks. A total of 15 kids under 5 were on our flour. You can imagine between buzzing mosquitoes and waking up to your kid crying or hearing another kid crying and thinking it is yours, that there were many sleepless nights. God definately helped us through.
Part of the ABO was making relationships with the people around us. We went into town a couple of times and got to meet some of the Kenyans. We even went to a mosque and talked with a teacher there. You could probably cut the tension with a knife, imagine 60 mwazungo (tourists) and one teacher who knows we probably disagree on about everything, but the discussion was good and we did not get into any arguments, but walked away with an agreement to disagree.
After 3 weeks, we finally left for Kijabe to settle in our new house and figure out what we are doing. In short, Amy will be teaching a Spanish 4 class in the morning, Kevin will be teaching two English 7 classes in the afternoon, Anika will be in half day kindergarten. We have inside and outside help during the week to help do cooking and cleaning around the dorm.
In a couple days the boys will arrive. We will have nine 5th-6th grade boys in our dorm. We are very excited to meet them and start this new journey together. The biggest part of our job will occur after school when we go to afterschool activities, and then after dinner when they have instrument practice, studying, dorm devotions, snack time and making sure they get to bed. On the weekends we will have activities and outings with the boys. Each week, we prepare and share three meals with the boys. Since there is no Wegmans around the corner and we have no car, when others take us in we have to shop in bulk! So basically, we have enough food that if some disaster happens we are coverered for a month or more.
All the staff has been very helpful getting us settled, from stocking our house with food, to giving much needed advice, to watching our kids. We feel very blessed to be at RVA!
The students come back a week from now so please pray as we prepare to welcome them and design lesson plans to start out the new year.
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