**Easter Break **

For those of you that will see me this summer you'll have to ask about my very African traveling experience to get me to Mbita. Once in Mbita I watched the sun set on Lake Victoria. As you can see it was gorgeous.



I also rafted on the Nile River. The morning of rafting I got up about an hour before everyone else. My body wouldn't let me sleep late all break. The place I was staying at had a deck that overlooked the Nile River. It had rained and as I looked across the river there was a beautiful, vibrant rainbow. It was a pleasant time to spend with just me and the Lord. I sang praises to my Savior and opened His Word for some daily bread. The quiet time spent alone with Him was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. That's not to say rafting the Nile wasn't amazing because it definitely was.

Sadly I seem to have picked up 2 parasites from my adventures. I missed school Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I was back today, but had a headache for about 5 hours of the day. :-( I'm sure by tomorrow I'll be 100% back to normal.

School got out last Friday and Saturday I went to Kiambethu Tea Farm. I had a lot of fun!











Today I leave for Mbita, Kenya which is on Lake Victoria. Then Friday I leave for Jinja, Uganda to raft the Nile. I'm pretty excited about it.

I had a few girls stay with me who are doing something called the World Race. It's a trip of 11 countries in 11 months, 11 months of ministry. They were so much fun to hang out with!

traffic & the BIG picture

Last night a few friends and I went to Westlands to meet another friend of ours for dinner. It rained and we got stuck in some majorly heavy traffic. What should have been a 15-20 minute drive turned into an almost hour drive. While I was sitting in my friend's car surrounded by too many vehicles to count I reflected on the Lord. I was thinking of what it would be like to view the traffic from a helicopter. From a helicopter one would easily be able to see what needed to be done to clear the traffic. Someone could say, "oh this car needs to take a left, these cars need to continue straight, this car should wait for these three cars to pass then turn, etc." The possibilities of how to fix the traffic are endless I'm sure. If you were looking from above you could see the big picture. God sees the big picture of our lives. He directs our steps and guides our thoughts. He's there telling us when to stop and when to go. He is sovereign over all things and there's peace and rest in that simple fact. It's not sufficient for me to just know that God knows all things, but to know that God orchestrates my life is a satisfying thought. He will do a much better job directing me than I ever could do on my own.

car lights and headaches

The other night someone turned the light on in my car. I guess I turned it off a while ago and forgot all about it. I actually thought it was broken because it had been so long since I'd used it. The whole time I could have switched it on, but I failed to remember that it was available to me. At times I even used my cell phone to provide light to find things in my dark vehicle at night. This, oddly enough, made me think of a spiritual application. How many times am I in need of God's working in my life or God's comfort during difficult times. His Word is always readily available to me and yet I turn in so many different directions other than straight to His Word. The truth that He imparts is far greater than any earthly wisdom.

Two Sundays ago I had a migraine. These headaches continued from that Sunday through this past Sunday. Saturday was the only day I did not have a headache. Yesterday I went to a chiropractor here in Nairobi. She was excellent! All of my bones are now in position where they're supposed to be. When she began adjusting me she couldn't finish until she loosened my neck and shoulder muscles with a heating pad for 15 minutes. She said she could tell I haven't had an adjustment in a while and that I'm stressed. It's a good thing Easter break is coming up. I can't wait to go out of town and relax.

Last week was spirit week at school. Thursday was career day and this is what the 4th grade teacher dressed up as - an old British rocker.
















This past weekend I had a sleepover with some single ladies from church. Seven girls spent the night! We had a lot of fun hanging out.




Tuesday evening my friend and I babysat Micah. He has to be my favorite baby in Africa. The poor kiddo was so exhausted, but we kept him up so he wouldn't keep his parents up later. He fell asleep while I was feeding him dinner. After food we tried teaching him how to climb the stairs. We got bored with that activity faster than he did. We distracted him with another activity to get him away from the stairs. We also got to give him his bath and get him ready for bed. He's absolutely precious!

God is GOOD!

I would always rather hear the bad news first and then the good news. So I'll talk about the bad parts of the past two weeks then the good ones. Last week, as well as this week, have been trying. I had an hour and a half meeting with some parents last week where the director and I let the parents know that their child's last day would be March 15th, the last day of the 3rd 9-weeks. Then my internet was cut off because I didn't pay the bill because I couldn't get a hold of Zuku, my internet company. The bank where I have to pay the bill closes at 3:00 p.m. so with my work schedule there's no way I could pay the bill without taking off work to do so. Then the power cord for my computer had stripped and the electrical wires were cut causing it to not work at all. So that means that I couldn't charge my computer without the help of other people who let me use their cords when they weren't using them. I have a washing machine that has not worked for a while. A friend came over and fixed it on Saturday. Then on Monday when I went to do a load of laundry the machine wasn't working right. On Tuesday morning a parent took a comment that I said the wrong way and no matter how much I apologized for how I came across she gave me quite the tongue lashing. That evening I received a hateful e-mail from a different parent. Then the next day I got my water bill and according to the bill the last day I could pay the bill before them turning off my water was February 23rd. I received the bill on March 3rd. Now mind you I had tried to do laundry and apparently almost completely emptied my water tank doing so. With that I had to boil water in a kettle and put it in basins to bathe for the past few mornings because there wasn't sufficient water coming from the faucet. Then March 4th when I went to pay the bill the system was down and I could not pay the bill. On top of that I found out my rent is going from 30,000 shillings ($400) to 40,000 shillings ($535) per month.

You can imagine that after all this is was overwhelmed. A year ago my reaction would have been to sit down and cry. What I did instead was get together with a friend and pray. I knew that any of the above things that stressed me so much would not have done so on their own. It was the culmination of it all that was difficult.

Music has been a huge comfort to me these past months. I've sung the following hymn almost every day for a week now:

I need Thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine
Can peace afford.

Chorus:
I need Thee, O I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee!
O bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour,
Stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their pow’r
When Thou art night.

I need Thee every hour,
In joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide,
Or life is vain.

I need Thee every hour,
Most Holy One;
O make me Thine indeed,
Thou blessed Son

You might be wondering if anything has been resolved. Now to the good parts of this week. Well a friend took off work to pay his internet bill and was able to pay mine as well. The IT guy at school was able to fix my broken computer power cord, saving me $100 which is the price of a new one. Our go-to guy at school was able to pay my water bill for me. My friend told me what to do to fix my washing machine situation and I hope it will work now. I talked to my director about the first parent who gave me a tongue lashing, and he assured me not to worry about her. Then someone helped me to kindly write back the other parent (my original e-mail back was not kind). I am hoping to get a roommmate next year and that should help with rent.

All in all I'm ready for Easter vacation. I'm not sure what I'm doing yet, but I'm sure I need to go out of town.

Kibera and then some...

So much has happened since I last posted.

I started a new ministry in Kibera this last Saturday. Kibera is the largest slum in east Africa. It is an AWANA program that we are trying to do with some children in the slum. Please pray for us because we have many kinks to work out. I'm not running the program, which I'm thankful for, but I am going to be a helper. It will run for 5-6 weeks. It will end because soccer will begin and that's a whole different ministry that many of the AWANA leaders are involved in.

I have also starting attending a Sunday evening Bible study with a few ladies I know and some that I don't know. We're studying through the book of Esther. I'm enjoying it so far, and I'm sure I will continue to enjoy it.

Please continue to uphold West Nairobi School in your prayers. On January 27th our Athletic Director/Community Development Coordinator passed away. His wife was our kindergarten teacher. She is now back in America. Please pray for her.

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. My students showered me with gifts and good behavior.

As you can gather it's been a busy time. In all of this God has been near and dear to me. I see over and over His sovereignty in all things. Even when I don't understand the details or can't see behind the scenes I know He is at work. There are circumstances that I can't write about that I am continually taking to the Lord in prayer. While I can't control these circumstances or even have a say in them I have to trust that God is in control. He's proven time and again in my life that He's able to do exceedingly and abundantly above what I could ask or think. I've seen Him change me in ways that I never thought possible and I'm confident that He'll do the same in these circumstances. He's so good!