Renewal

Aaron and I had the pleasure of attending the Medical Missions Conference and the Prescription for Renewal Conference this past weekend. It was our third time at the event, and it will be our last…at least for a couple of years.
We left all four kids in PA! Yes, that’s right! My mom had the little two, and Aaron’s mom had the older two. From Wednesday afternoon until Sunday evening, Aaron and I felt like newlyweds. 🙂 We drove the 10-hour trip without anyone crying or having an accident in a carseat!
While at the conference, we met lots of people who serve at Tenwek (that’s the name of the hospital where Aaron will be working). We asked tons of questions, were challenged by the speakers (who included Dr. David Jeremiah and Will Graham), and realized that we really don’t have much longer until we leave! The following is a short list of what we learned about Bomet, Kenya:
1.) Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are available. I should buy them in Nairobi, not locally at the market. However, they will cost me approximately $10/lb!
2.) Ground beef, on the other hand, is not available. I will buy beef and grind it myself…I forget how expensive beef was, but I know it was A LOT more than here in the U.S.
3.) We will most likely NOT be able to stay in the same house the entire 2 years. Tenwek is a busy place, and we’ll probably move into one house before being able to move into our apartment. Flexibility is key on the mission field. 🙂
4.) Tenwek (and our house/apartment) is located at 6,000 ft elevation. I will have to learn to bake and cook at high altitude, and we’ll have to adjust to less oxygen in the air.
5.) Lunch is served at 1pm. Aaron will have an hour for lunch most days, and it will be from 1-2pm. Currently, we eat around 11:30am, so I guess I’ll be instituting a morning snack once we get there. Otherwise, my forever-hungry boys will starve between breakfast and lunch!
6.) Most importantly, Nairobi has a Walmart-like store where we will find almost anything we need and/or want. Unfortunately, Nairobi is 4 hours away…

Please continue to pray:
1.) Housing. Pray that God will work out the details of both our house in the States and our housing in Kenya.
2.) Money. Pray that God will provide the financial support we need. Specifically, we’d really like to see more monthly donors.
3.) Wisdom, endurance and faith. It’s overwhelming. And the closer we get to our departure, the more stressed we get. There’s so much to do, so many decisions to make, so many unknowns.
Please, please keep us in your prayers. Thank you!!!

Stage Fright!

I know it’s been a while since the last post. We’ve been busy trying to purge MORE stuff and get ready for today. You see, today our realtor came to tell us what to do to stage our house!!

As if raising 4 children (ages 6 and under, no less!), homeschooling, cleaning, laundry, leading a Bible study, cloth diapering, cooking, attempting to be a wife once in a while, etc. isn’t quite enough to drive me crazy, let’s add trying to stage this house! Fortunately, God has blessed us with a wonderful realtor who always leaves us feeling encouraged and confident that our house is marketable. She gave us a list of things to do that would make each room look better. Nothing she said was major or unexpected. In fact, some of the items on the list have been on my wish list since we moved in (i.e., no TV in the bedroom). We will have to say ‘goodbye’ to some of our favorite things, but we knew this process wasn’t going to be easy.

Over the next month, we will be hermits trying to patch holes in the walls, find our basement and garage, re-organize the kitchen and make those increasingly hard decisions about what to keep and what to let go. Please keep us in your prayers.

Here are some other prayer requests and praises:

1.) Levi is potty trained!! Praise God! It’s been a long, hard road but he’s finally telling us when he has to go. Woohoo!!

2.) The housing market seems to be turning around in our area, so please pray that we can sell our house for the right price at the right time. We know God is MUCH BIGGER than the housing market anyway, but it’s encouraging that market is looking better for the seller these days. 

3.) The selling of our cars. We’ll need to keep the van as long as possible, but both cars need to be sold before we leave. Please pray for the timing of this as well.

4.) Now, I know this will require a miracle, but I’m praying that Noah will be night-trained before we leave. Jacob is already in underwear at night, but Noah still wears Pull-Ups. It’s a long story, but it would be sooo much easier if we didn’t have to worry about wet beds from the older two. (If you’re into praying really big prayers, you could pray that Levi is night-trained too!)

5.) We have a mission conference coming up. We’ll post more details about that on our facebook page, but for now just pray for us as we prepare to go.

I think that’s it. Thank you again for always uplifting us in prayer. We serve an awesome God who loves to hear His people prayer.