Baby School / New Babies

So much has happened in 400the last few weeks!  Four of the beautiful Baby Centre kids now go to baby class, which is the equivalent of preschool or kindergarten.  I got to help do the"back to school" shopping for Andrew, Malachi, Angela, and Wycliffe, and they were THRILLED to have their own backpacks and uniforms.   I was a nervous wreck on their first day, and after I dropped them off I checked the clock every 15 minutes until it was finally time to go and pick them up!  Malachi came running up to me when I arrived and yelled "I love school!  but I had to draw SO much!"  Andrew just said "they let me drink tea!"

We are trying to raise money to send two more of our toddlers to the school.  Brandon and Johnny have been quite jealous of the others!  The school fees and cost of uniform can add up to $100 or more per child per term.  The school they are attending is incredible, and completely worth it. The children are learning so much and their teacher has been riding the bus home with them to make them feel more comfortable.  They have only been going for two weeks and their verbal skills have already improved drastically. 

I was surprised that I was so emotional about the kids going to school.  I was scared that they would be in shock or afraid of being away from the Baby Center for the first time -  some of the children here have issues from being abandoned and I was so worried that they would think we were leaving them for good.  But when they ran to me talking about how much they loved school I thought I would burst with pride - I cried I was so happy at their reaction!  I think the Lord blessed both them and me with extra grace for the transition. 

The fact the older kids are attending school has been a huge blessing, because we have taken in four tiny new babies!  So even though the Baby Center capacity is 36, we now have 40!  But when you see children that young who are in need, you just can't say no.  It really was such a miracle that the school offered scholarships to the four older kids right after we all started praying about being over capacity!  Below are some pictures of the new babies!  Ezra and Adam are about one month old, Christian and Ezekiel are a little over 2 months. 

Little Ezra:

Christian:

Ezekiel:

Adam… check out that amazing head of hair!:

“Abandoned Child Male 2”  - that is what was written on Adam’s hospital bracelet.  Look at his little hand in Cason’s! 

Thanks so much for reading!  Please pray for these kids if God brings it to mind. 

Colleen

More new babies! + Cas at the Baby Centre

We have another New baby!  Teresia left for court to be adopted yesterday morning at 6:30am, which opened up room for another little one!  We welcomed 7 month old Shadrack to the Baby Center.   He is very light skinned, we think from lack of sun exposure and has a few health issues that will hopefully be cleared up soon!  He is a beautiful little boy and will improve quickly now that he is in a safe place with so many people looking after him.  Click on the pictures if you want to see larger version. 

 

Thank you to all who have been praying for Sammy (see previous post), who was struggling to adjust.  The last few days he has improved drastically and has been smiling and playing with the other kids!

Cason stopped by to play with the kids before going to soccer practice.  Sammy was unsure of him and was staying pretty far away.  Andrew came over, took his hand, and walked with him over to Cason and the other kids so that he would know it was okay.  I nearly cried when I saw Christ's love being shown through Andrew to Sammy… here’s a picture of Andrew and Sammy:

The kids love Cason because he tosses them around and lets them maul him.  In the picture below they are playing one of their favorite games… “Cason a la la” (Cason is asleep).  Cas pretends to be asleep while the kids climb all over him, then he wakes up with a yell and tickles them as they scream and giggle… they always beg “La la tena!” (sleep again!).  I think they’d play all day if he’d let them. 

As always, thanks for reading1

Colleen (& Cason)

Baby Center Update

The Baby Center has recently opened its doors to two more babies, and we are now busting at the seams with more kids than we have ever had before!  We welcomed 6 week old baby Mercy last week and only a few days ago brought Sammy home, a little boy who is about 18 months old.

Here’s Baby Mercy sleeping in her crib: 

Little Mercy is adjusting quickly and easily, but poor Sammy is struggling with the transition and everything being so new.  It breaks the hearts of all of us at the Baby Center, and everyone is going out of their way to try and make him feel at home. Please pray for him!  Here’s Sammy just after arriving at the Baby Center last week:

On Monday the Baby Center nurse, Joyce, asked if I would join her when we took a few kids for some physical therapy work at the local hospital.  It was great for me to see how the professionals do it here and I am now able to do a lot more with the kids.  The kids don’t usually like getting the PT work done, since stretching and working their muscles can be painful, but I try to make it as fun as I can for them.  Cason joined me last Wednesday at the Baby Center, so here are a few pictures of us working with the kiddos...

Here is Elijah trying to squirm out of Cason’s grip… he doesn’t enjoy getting his legs stretched, but it is helping him so much!

I primarily stretch them, do balancing or core building exercises, and practice sitting/standing/walking.  Some of them love the attention, and others hate being made uncomfortable.  The picture below is me working with Joshua, who only wants to flirt and play. 

Elias is usually a happy camper, but he gets a bit grumpy when I try to make him work… it is helping him though!

Thanks so much for reading!  We love and miss you all.  We’ll be back in the US in less than two months for my sister, Adrienne’s, wedding… but just for a few weeks and then we come back to Kenya.  Hopefully we’ll be able to make time to see many of you! 

Thanks for your prayers!

Colleen

Links to photos

Michael and those enormous eyes:

We’ve haven’t posted links to our photo albums in a long time, so here are the links as well as some of our favorites below.  Enjoy!

Some from the Baby Center

Lake Nakuru with Erika

Some great ones of flamingoes

More from the Baby Center: Baby Moses and some great ones of Michael

Youth group overnighter at our house

A Sunday in March…

Masai Village on our way to Masai Mara with Erika

Masai Mara with Erika… mainly elephants so far… we’re still adding to this one

And finally… some of Colleen and her new puppies.  The brown one has already gone to her new home at Tenwek, but the white one is in training to be our new guard dog. 

Here’s the best 50 cents you’ll ever spend on a meal.. green grains, beans, potato, and chapati!

Masai girl and man:

 

Masai lion headress:

Erika with Joshua, who was just adopted!  Praise the Lord for that!:

Phyllis in mzungu arms:

Winnie and Malachi:
 
 

 

Manu proving that it is not all fun and games at the Baby Center:

Elephant at Masai Mara:

Rainbow over a dirt road:

Thanks so much for visiting our blog!  We really appreciate all the support we receive.  If you’re so inclined, please try to get a hold of us via email (casonandcolleen@gmail.com), facebook (see links on the left), or skype (casonandcolleen)… we’d love to hear from you!

God Bless,

Cason & Colleen

Retreat + Flying Ants + A new puppy

Hi everyone!  Sorry about the lack of posts lately! 

Cason and I recently returned from our missionary retreat in Malindi on the coast.  It was a wonderful time of respite and relaxation... but I have never experienced heat like that in my life. It was very humid and at night never got below 80 F at night so you can imagine the days!  It had everything a good vacation should have, heat, sand that gets in everything, great food, beautiful lodgings, water to swim in, monkeys, lizards, wild hedgehogs, snakes, and lots of birds :)  My ideal vacation!

While the missionaries attended spiritual renewal seminars during the week Cason and I took over Vacation Bible school for the middle school aged group of missionary kids.   We discussed parables and how to live your life for Christ.  We were so impressed by their depth of insight and passion for the Lord.  I think Cason discovered his calling to minister to that age group since his sense of humor pretty much fit in perfectly ;)  Here’s a pictures of us with our kids:

And here’s the kids trying to dunk Cason in the pool… he said it was the best workout he’d had in a while!:
It was a great week for us to spend time together as a couple  We really needed some time to ourselves after a very busy last couple months so after VBS in the mornings it was wonderful to just spend time relaxing together in the afternoons. 

Upon our return we were greeted by rain... which brought back thousands of flying ants to our house!  Every once in a while after a big rain, these bugs will hatch out of the ground, fly around for a bit, their wings will fall off, then they mate on the ground and die.  Whenever it happens, we try to seal up our house with towels and sick the cat on any of the ants that do make it inside!  The picture on the right is our back porch covered in dead bugs and wings… 

We also have decided to get a puppy since the dog at our house is getting very old and arthritic… by we I mean me : )  So I (Colleen) went and found  some very cute puppies to choose from… it was supposed to just be a scouting mission, but I couldn’t help myself.  They were so cute!  We are loving having a puppy around, although it is a lot of work.  He is super cute and follows us and our cat everywhere we go. 

So that's a sum up of our life now and we'll write about the Baby Center soon.  We love you all and appreciate your support so much!  

Colleen (& Cason)

First one in a while

Friends and Family,

We apologize for not writing more often.  Life has been so hectic lately but we will try to catch you all up.

Erika Ressler left for the states last week and arrived home to a fresh blanket of snow.  The kids miss her a lot and we are hoping that she’ll come back soon to visit!

We have three new babies at the Baby Center James, Rose, and Moses.

James came to us at 5 days old

Rose was about a month old

Moses is about five months old but only weighs 6-7 lbs.  He is gaining weight quickly and even laughed at my efforts to get a smile out of him.  It is so wonderful to see how quickly these babies improve upon arrival at the BC, thanks to the loving care they receive. 

Cason is wrapping up the books for the year-end and has been very busy with all he needs to do amidst power outages, multiple computer crashes a day, and then all the everyday tasks that still need attention.  Please be praying that he is able to stay positive and patient while trying to do so much work. 

Next week the mission has their yearly retreat so we are both looking forward to a bit of a break. We would greatly appreciate prayer for spiritual renewal for both of us.  The stresses of living in such a different culture can weigh us down and cause us to loose site of our purpose here in Kenya.  While we are really enjoying life here it can also be very difficult and frustrating at times, especially when we get so busy.

Adrienne (my little sister) is getting married in June so we are getting very excited to be home for a couple of weeks this summer.  We have started making a list of food we will eat as soon as we can… starting with Papa Johns :  ).  I’m already dreading leaving my beautiful children here for that long though! 

As always, thanks for reading.  Hopefully we’ll be able to update more later. 

Colleen