Just a quote for today...

"I was born to drive in Kenya. The drive out to the Baby Center was scary, but the way back was awesome! I love that there are no rules and you can just zip in and out of cars...."     

- My lovely Colleen, after driving by herself for the first time on the free-for-all roads of Kenya. 

I think we're going to do just fine here. : )

Thanks for your prayers! 

The Baby Center

We spent the afternoon at the Baby Center yesterday, which was so much fun!  This gorgeous little girl is named Ida. 

   

Here is Colleen sitting in the shade surrounded by the kids... we're trying to learn all of the names, so I think this is Andrew, Joshua, Precious, Meshak, Daniel Owiti, and Ida.

Click on the photos to see a larger version.

Colleen went back to the Baby Center today to start to work with the kids in the classroom.  It was a great experience, but a bit difficult to keep order and communicate with the caregivers/children.  It would be very beneficial for the kids to have some structured learning and one-on-one attention, so pray that Colleen learns Swahili quickly and can be assertive in setting up a program.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." ~ James 1:27

A picture of a baby!

This picture was from our first trip to the Baby Center where Colleen will be working.  This little one is named Precious Angel... most of the 30 children have Biblical names, but Precious was named before she got there.  Colleen starts work at the Baby Center this week doing education and development with the children, so keep her in your prayers! 

In other news, I (Cason) drove for the first time today on the busy roads of Nakuru, which was quite an experience.  I managed to stay on the correct side of the road, but didn't always know the proper edicate for the alleyways and free-for-all roundabouts.  I think I am going to need to drive a bit more aggresively to be a real Kenyan.  This week is also full of on the job training for me, and there is alot to keep up with and remember, so I appreciate your prayers for that as well. 

That's all for now!  Thanks for your prayers and support, and for checking the blog!  We miss you all (almost as much as Colleen misses Papa Johns...)

Verse of the day from our morning devo:  "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."  What am amazing thing to be able to say!  That is what we are striving for day after day - to completely submit to His will.  God Bless!

A few pictures...

Here is a picture of Colleen and our dog Tucker (he came with the house), with the back of our house in the background.   We love the upper balcony off of our bedroom and the lower porch that overlook our backyard.  

Colleen loves the mosquito net over our bed… 

Colleen on the swing in our backyard… even though it is a bit dry, our yard really is amazingly beautiful.  Colleen has seen all kinds of birds while sitting out on her porch.   
Our little gecko friend that Colleen couldn’t resist trying to touch… see the post below for the story about how chaos ensued.  

Colleen's Take

What an amazing experience.  Cason said it all when he described the beauty along side slums, dirt, and filth of Nairobi.  When we flew in from the airport it was dark and so I did not see Nairobi well until the next day.  What a shock!  I was very intimidated by number of people and the hurried city life.  Thankfully Nakuru (where we live) is a slower paced town and not quite as overwhelming as Nairobi.  I am thanking God he did not send us to Nairobi! 
 

The people here are caring and welcoming. We have been very blessed to meet Cate, the assistant treasurer, and her husband, Meshach, who is the pastor of our church.   I am excited to get to know them!   Jim and Alice Vanderhoof have taken us under their wings and have made these first few days so wonderful. It has been great having them with us and answering our questions constantly!
 

I have been floored by the incredible birds here!  We have seen so many bright and neon colored birds, which has been a striking contrast to the somewhat brown landscape.  We are excited to see how the rain transforms the color of everything though.  We have been told there hasn’t been rain for a long time, but when it comes everything turns green and lush.  Like Cas mentioned yesterday, I did get to see Zebras and Baboons on the drive in, which was great!  We are hoping to go the park right by our house, but have to wait until Cason’s work permit comes in. 

 

Our house is such a blessing.  All of the noises from the city are carried up the mountain and through our windows and are oddly relaxing combined with the exotic birds singing to each other.
 

To all those who were worried about me touching and picking up animals… I have already disobeyed the warnings. It’s actually quite a funny story…

So, last night we were alone in our house for the first time.  I was going to close the curtains when Cason pointed out a small yellow gecko stalking bugs on the window outside, so naturally I went running out there yelling for Cason to come look.  Well it was a bright yellow lizard with red spots and common sense says to not touch bright animals b/c it typically means poison… so naturally I wanted to touch it.  So while Cason stood beside me telling me repeatedly to leave it alone I slowly reached my hand up to touch it’s tail.  The lizard the promptly kamikaze back-flipped off the window at my face, ran down me and off into the night.  Needless to say we were both screaming, which turned to laughing, which turned to hoping that our screams didn’t alert the guards.  What a great first night.  Cason hasn’t completely forgiven me ;)

In other news I visited the baby center today!  It was a quick visit but very fun.  The children are beautiful and lively - I can’t wait to start working with them.  A little 2 1/2 yr old named Timo climbed over the playground fence and into my arms within the first few minutes of being there.  The older children (2-3 year olds) seem eager for more stimulating activities… but figuring out how to teach them and keep them interested will be challenging.  I really need to learn some Swahili!  But I am up for the challenge and can’t wait to begin.  God has given us both strength and joy since being here, so we can praise Him for that. 
 

Tomorrow (Friday) we leave for Tenwek for a field meeting… it will be great to meet all of WGM’s missionaries in Kenya, and to see some more of the country. 

We Made It / We Love It

Thank you so much for your prayers as we were on our way to Kenya. We made all of our flights, and all of our bags made it except for one, so we can praise the Lord for that!

We arrived in Nairobi on Monday night (afternoon in Eastern Time) after traveling for almost 24 hours straight. It took us a little while to get our luggage situation straightened out once we figured out that one of our bags didn’t make it. (Side note: We added a bag last minute, taking our total from 5 to 6… and 5 out of our 6 bags made it. I think that we prayed hard for those 5 bags, but apparently not hard enough for the last one. Lesson learned. : )

After a great nights sleep, we ran some errands in Nairobi with our Field Directors, the Vanderhoofs, which was quite an eye-opening experience – especially for Colleen. Nairobi is a big dirty city, with beauty/luxury right next to ugliness/poverty on nearly every street. As she and I discussed last night, I think that will be a theme for our entire time in Kenya – scenic tranquility and magnificence, good times, and laughter on one hand, and abject poverty, filthiness, difficulty, and fear on the other. Which I guess is just like life anywhere else. My prayer is that our perspective on life/Kenya would include both extremes, and that above all we would remember why we are here: Because of the Love of Christ – to live it and share it.

As Paul says, “For Christ's love compels us…”  2 Corinthians 5:14

From Nairobi, we drove to Nakuru, our new hometown. The drive has some incredible views and Colleen was so excited to see zebras, gazelles, baboons, and all kinds of exotic birds along the way, as well as some fantastic views of the Rift Valley. In Nakuru, we started to move in and had dinner in town. We also met some of the incredible other WGM missionaries in town with whom we will be working – we are so excited to get to know them more and to start work. Everyone seems quite pleased to have a field treasurer again, which makes me a bit nervous; hopefully I live up to expectations!

I’ll let Colleen tell you more about her perspective of Nairobi, our drive to Nakuru, and our house since she is seeing it all with fresh eyes. I will just say that our house is amazing, and we feel so blessed to have such a beautiful place to call home – we might never want to leave!

We are still trying to get our phone/internet situation sorted out, so at present we don’t have good internet access. We’ll let you know more information in a few weeks, but once we are up and running we should be able to email, blog, and skype on a regular basis – our skype moniker is casonandcolleen, so send us a add request if you have it.

Thanks again for your prayers and support! Colleen is going to post more of an update later tonight I believe, which will be afternoon for most of you.  Hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures soon!