No, we haven’t, in case you’d wondered. Yes, we know we haven’t sent an email since March 5. No, it’s not because the rainy season knocked out the internet to all of east africa. Yes, it’s because we’re busy and sometimes lazy and forgetful, and often both at once. Consequently, since we skipped a month, we have a TON to tell you about!

During the past two months, we have moved to a transitional home on a AIM missionary compound. Also, Lesa had her wrist surgery which ended up being fairly significant and is taking a while to recover fully. Praise the Lord that it is doing better every day!

Overlooking Rift Valley

Mom & Dad

We began our journey over the past few months with the visit from Andy’s parents over Easter. We had a wonderful time with them, somehow squeezing in trips to Kibera, an overnight ride on the Lunatic Line (go rent “Ghost in the Darkness“), a few days at the beach, a move, visits to the Rift Valley and Kijabe, and a game drive. Read the full story here.

Filming in North Africa

On-Field Media

The OFM has been PDB (pretty darn busy) serving AIM throughout EA – East Africa (we are an organization that loves abbreviating).

Andy’s got a few more stamps in his passport, and some great photos and stories as well.

North African man

In March, Ted and I (Andy) went on a trip. We met some amazing national believers, some amazing Christian workers there, got spat on, rocks thrown at us, and all kinds of frontier-missionary kinds of stories to tell. Get our photos here, and read Ted’s story here.

Earlier this month, we went to northern coastal Mozambique, to work with a family there who are working among an unreached people group there. We flew about 3 hours to Pemba, drove 6 hours (way past the end of the paved roads!), and spent 2.5 days among the Mwani people there. Get photos here.

Mozambique hospital

We are very very excited that Tim Lang will be joining OFM as an intern this coming fall. The Lang family are great friends of ours, and we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Tim quite well over the past 6 years at DCC. Tim will be spending his gap year with AIM, doing videography and traveling with OFM. Please pray for Tim as he is raising his support over the next few months.

Lesa’ Ministries

My involvement in the Inbound Program, which brings/receives/trains short-term and now also full-term missionaries from around the world to AIM International Services is growing and going well. I’m so grateful to now have a team of 3 others working with me and we are in prayer for the Lord to send us someone with administrative skills/time to lend to the work. It is such a blessing to introduce people to Kenya and to missionary life.

A new development for me (Lesa) was just finalized yesterday. I’m going to be volunteering as the high school drama director at a school similar to the Robbie and Avery’s school (yet larger and older). It has an international student population made up of Americans, Kenyans, British, Koreans, etc. Their current director is returning to the States and leaving behind a well-established program. We are excited about this as a family – to be involved heavily again in the lives of teens, have an outlet for our creativity, and to be involved in teaching/promoting the arts in this community where exposure to the arts can be limited.

Rehearsals will be 2 – 3 days a week after school and we’ll produce a play in the fall and a musical in the spring!! I’m seeing this as a move back to my original vision in college of teaching the fine arts on the mission field. Isn’t God incredible?

Avery & Sydney

The Kids

Robbie and Avery have one week left of school. They have both had an amazing year at West Nairobi School. We have been so impressed with the quality of teaching and how much the boys truly like school! Robbie will be going to summer camp for a week this summer, and all three kids will be attending VBS at their school for a week. Sydney has been doing some home-school preschool with Mommy at home. She loves learning and calls Lesa, “Teacher.” It’s so cute! All three kids have loved living on the compound, as there are many other children here and they run and play all day long.

How We Are Doing… Really

The past two months haven’t been the easiest, but things have been getting better. When we lost our last “permanent” home in April, the adjustment to living in yet another house, along with Lesa’s surgery, and some other random incidents, our spirits dipped pretty low. But, He has also remained faithful through it all. We’ve been learning more and more of His great love for us – even when we doubt and especially when we struggle. He has provided for us what we see as the just the right home to settle into (of course, permanence takes on a whole new meaning here). It is located near our old neighborhood, and is the home of some of our new friends who unfortunately are leaving the field. They have done some amazing improvements to it during their time here! We will be moving there in early June.

Robbie piloting the DC3

Support

It takes a miracle each and every month to keep us here. It’s really amazing and encouraging to us to see how God provides the $5500 each month that is required to live here. Thank you to all who have continued to give sacrifically.

Truthfully, we are slightly undersupported, as the support rate was raised this year in accordance with cost-of-living inflation… including the boys’ school tuition. We trust God to continue to provide. In addition, if we raise any extra monthly support, we would like to put Sydney in a Kenyan preschool here in the fall – we think she would greatly benefit from the social interaction – especially getting to know Kenyans. Some of you supported us abundantly last spring with a one-time check when we were leaving for the field. Would you prayerfully consider renewing your gift this year to help us continue our ministries here?

Also, thank you to all who have given to our vehicle project. We have almost paid for the 1973 Land Rover we agreed to purchase from the Delorenzos. You’ve provided $4500 of the $6500 we need to finish paying it off and making some necessary repairs (radiator, fuel tank, rear shock). If you’d like to give to this project, click here and type in our name, select “project” and enter “Vehicle” as the project name. Thank you!

Prayer requests

* AIM AIR incident: This past month, our AIM IS community had a shock when one of our planes crashed on take-off in Sudan. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. We do ask for prayers for the pilot’s family, friends of ours, who are continuing to process the incident, and also for the several passengers who were on board. Full story here.

* Kenyan people: Following the election crisis, life here has certainly returned to some level of normalcy. However, food and gas prices have sky-rocketed and the poorest people have been affected the most. Please pray for the inflation to cease and for prices to lower.

* Our upcoming move – our 4th house here. (Enough said).

* Our support needs

in closing

We close this, our 11th newsletter in 12 months, with the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 5:

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Amen!

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

Mom, Lesa, and Wycliffe in Kibera

Easter Sunday we went to Nairobi Chapel and then home for an Easter egg hunt and a big late lunch (photos here). Monday we had our friend Wycliffe take mom and dad and Lesa on a tour of Kibera, visiting the church that DCC helped sponsor and even making some home visits with Kibera residents. We wrapped up the day with Kenyan staple foods ugali and sukuma at Wycliffe’s tiny 1 room apartment on the edge of Kibera.

Robbie piloting the DC3

Mom, Robbie, Lesa at Nairobi Safari Walk

The next day we toured the AIM AIR hangar, home to International Services, our division of AIM. While the kids crawled in and out of the airplanes, we visited with pilots and mechanics. We wrapped up with lunch at the Simba Saloon.

The next day we went to the Nairobi Safari Walk, adjacent to the Nairobi Game Park. We saw pigmy hippos, albino zebra, a rhino, a leopard and a cheetah among other things. Then we spent the afternoon finishing packing for our overnight train ride to Mombasa.

Sydney eating breakfast on the Lunatic Line

Our private room on the train

The train was quite an experience. It takes 45 minutes to fly from Nairobi to Mombasa, or a bone-jarring 8 or 9 hours in a car, or a slow 16 hours by train. Honestly, if I had to do it again I still would have picked the train. If we could have been better prepared we might have slept better, but the kids had a blast, which is why I would choose it again (versus being crammed together in a car, stopping for potty breaks, not to mention riding in our Land Rover for that long would be guaranteed to give you a headache). The train, while slow and constantly stopping, at least gave us private sleepers, supper and breakfast, and the opportunity to go potty when you wanted. Not to mention getting to stretch out and relax, since I wasn’t having to drive!

Our beach house

Indian Ocean

Our time in Mombasa was great. Roger (dad’s brother) met us at the train station and drove us to the house they’d rented for the week. Just north on Mombasa, right on the beach, the house had a small pool that the kids enjoyed, and the immediate oceanfront was an awesome coral reef full of starfish and lionfish and jellyfish and all kinds of cool stuff. It was shallow enough that even Robbie and Avery could snorkel around and enjoy. The house even came with a cook, who prepared and cleaned up every meal for us. Now that’s what I call a vacation!

We flew back, because mom and dad had an early Monday flight to Malawi where they visited with good friends who have been in Africa for 30 years or something crazy like that. While they were away we packed and moved out of our house. We scattered all our stuff all over the place as the house we are staying in temporarily is fully furnished (and on a compound, not in a Kenyan neighborhood as before). Couches went to one house, dining room set to another, and a bunch of stuff went into a sea container for storage. Beginning of June we’ll move back to the estates (Kenyan neighborhoods) and try to remember where we put everything.

Overlooking Rift Valley

Lunch at Tumaini gardens

After mom and dad came back from Malawi, we spent the last week doing stuff around Nairobi. We drove up to the overlook of the Rift Valley, had a picnic lunch at RVA, drove some really rough roads down to the “lower road” and back to Nairobi. We also went to Roger & Shirley’s church and had a nice picnic lunch at Tumaini, where they live and work. One morning I even put mom and dad on a matatu by themselves and sent them out to Karen by themselves. They toured Robbie and Avery’s school, and had lunch with them there.

Mom taking photos

Mom taking photos

The last day of their time here we got up early and went on a game drive. We picnicked and saw a lot of giraffe, zebra, baboon, antelope, warthog, and even some crocodile. We wrapped our time up with them with supper at Java House, and then I drove them to airport. Exhausted, but very very happy. And a little sad that the event I’d been looking forward to since arriving in Kenya last June had come and gone, and we won’t see them again for another 14 or 15 months.  We’ll miss you, mom and dad.

It was a great holiday, getting to celebrate the resurrection with my jetlagged parents who arrived here Friday night. Today they’re headed into Kibera, Wednesday night we will take the overnight train to Mombasa and enjoy 3 days at the beach together. Next week they’re heading to Malawi for a short trip to visit friends, then back here for a few last days of game drives and seeing the country. We’ve been looking forward to having them visit for a long time…

Yesterday after church we had a little egg hunt in our yard…

And we awoke to a troup of at least a dozen vervet monkeys in our backyard this morning. Gotta love Africa!