Day to Day Life

I thought I might give a little insight into what our days looks like here now that we’ve been her a little over a month. The boys and I are starting to get in a rhythm- On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have started teaching a 3 year old preschool class for the missionary children. There are five 3 years olds (including Cooper who will be 3 in a few weeks). This is the 3^rd week I’ve been teaching them and they are starting to get the hang of our schedule and gelling together as friends. We do calendar time, letter of the week, color of the week, snack, craft and singing. They are a sweet group and I can tell Cooper really loves having “his own class” and is so proud of all he is learning. During this time, Lane goes with Krista (wife of a family practice doctor here) with 3 other 4&5 year olds and they do a kindergarten social studies curriculum and have playtime. I also do kindergarten reading and math with Lane and another little girl Charley on Wednesday afternoons. On other days we play outside, hike down to the waterfall, do crafts inside (I really never used pinterest until I moved here!) and of course…our life saver legos! We are getting to know all the long term missionary families here more everyday and are looking for opportunities to encourage them in any way possible- it is not easy to move your family overseas and homeschool your children full time!

Recently an opportunity fell in my lap to teach Bible 2 days a week in a Kenyan school right up the road from the hospital. This has been a highlight for me as it gets me off hospital campus for a bit as well as introduces me to local life in the surrounding areas. I’m currently in a classroom with 60 (yes 60!) 3^rd graders crammed onto benches who only have a pen and some tattered books. Such limited resources and so many children is definitely stretching my creativity as a teacher but they are sweet and respectful and always very excited about anything we do that day. I am following the schools curriculum but have complete liberty to teach it how I want. My favorite part of everyday is when I read them whatever Bible story we are learning from The Jesus Storybook Bible and we discuss how every story points back to Jesus (if you don’t have this Bible for your kids please stop reading this now and go order it! It’s the best!) It just so happened that today’s lesson was the story of the cross- what a privilege to be able to share the truth with them that Jesus loves them enough to die for them and true life is found in Him. Please continue to pray I can communicate these stories clearly and give these children a better understanding of the gospel each time I go.

Drew is getting more acclimated to the hospital. He has 2 days a week where he operates and the others he is in clinic. He has Kenyan medical residents with him that he is teaching as he goes and has really enjoyed that aspect of the work here. He comes home for lunch most days and does call from home so that is really nice change from residency. There are definitely days  where he feels overwhelmed (see previous posts) by all that he is seeing and the shear amount of loss that happens here but I’m so proud of him and how he is stepping up to the occasion and turning to the Lord in each moment of weakness. The care at Tenwek is much more compassionate and dignifying to women than most government hospitals as they see many woman who have come in mistreated or ignored when seeking medical care elsewhere. Definitely continue to pray for him as he’s tackling some pretty tough surgical cases.

Finally, we are asking prayer for the presidential election being held in Kenya on October 26^th. Kenya already had an election on August 8th but the supreme court decided to nullify the results due to corruption in the voting process. Kenya does have a history of rioting and violence during elections so we will be under a travel ban for most of October. – this complicates things as this is right when Drew’s parents were supposed to come. This also makes it more difficult to get food/supplies etc as Nairobi is the main place we get all of that and we won’t be allowed to go. You can specifically be praying this election would pass peacefully as there is a high likelihood people will not be happy no matter what happens since the first election was nullified. We are learning a lot of adjusting to the ways of 3rd world countries and how there’s really nothing you can do except pray!