We have been grateful and blessed by your prayers and emails and chats and thoughts over the past 10 weeks since we’ve returned to Africa. We have been trying to find time to get an email update written, and are very sorry it’s taken so long! Please know that you have been on our hearts and minds as well, as our goodbyes this summer are still fresh in our memory.

Over the past 10 weeks we have:

• flown across 8 timezones and eventually conquered jetlag
• Lost 2 friends in the AIM AIR accident (http://brownfamily.ws/2009/08/17/the-update-i-didnt-want-to-write/)
• Did what we could to support those 2 families who lost their husbands and dads
• Moved into a new house (our 5th house in Nairobi!)
  

  Kids, in front of our latest house

• Lost all the weight we’d gained over the summer in the US
• Struggled with electricity and water rationing, often both at once!
• Started having health issues and had a colonoscopy (Andy), the 2nd in 3 months!
• Started over at a new school
• Saw our little girl become a schoolgirl (Sydney- kindergarten)
• Saw Lesa’s return to full-time teaching
• Celebrated a birthday (Robbie- 11)
• Started regularly leading worship on Sunday mornings (after a 2 year hiatus)
• Spent 5 days in the Northern Frontier District filming (Andy) (http://brownfamily.ws/2009/10/16/worship-from-the-desert-place/)
• Driven over 600 miles through Nairobi traffic on a motorcycle (Andy)
  

  Andy, rainsoaked, and his motorcycle

• Are 8 weeks into the 11 weeks of rehearsal for The Diary of Anne Frank (Lesa)
• Praised God over and over that He has placed us here, doing exactly what we were made to do

Over the next 10 weeks we will:

• Celebrate two more birthdays (Lesa, Oct 30 and Sydney, Nov 11)
• Direct 3 HS performances (Lesa) of the The Diary of Anne Frank (Nov 5,6,7)
• Take over the leadership of On-Field Media (Andy) while Ted is on home assignment
• Spend a week as cameraman with Billy Graham Association (Andy)
• Spend 8 days in Lesotho (South Africa- Andy) on filming a documentary on the nomadic, underclass shepherds of this mountainous country

The first month of our return to Africa was a rough one. Between our friend’s deaths, the funerals, moving houses, starting a new school, not to mention being terribly jetlagged, we were a mess. Through that time we held fast to God’s promises, that he is faithful and compassionate and understanding and works all things together for our good. All things… every single thing.  We are still holding tight to Him, as life is completely different now in many ways and we are all still getting used to the many changes.

We are finally seeing some rain after a severe drought here in Kenya. People and livestock have been suffering terribly over the past few months and it seemed as if the rain would never come.  We’ve never gone without water completely here in Nairobi, but the city has been rationing water so that most of the city only received water a few days a week.  Everyone stores the water when it comes, so while it has been inconvenient, we have been okay.  The electricity was also being rationed (off 3 days a week) because of the water shortage.  The rains started up this past week and haven’t let up too much.  The rationing appears to be over and we feel quite spoiled to be able to turn on the faucet and see the water pouring in every day!  Our prayer now is that there won’t be flooding all over Kenya, which can be destructive as well.

Lesa has her 3rd drama production coming up, the The Diary of Anne Frank. She is also teaching 2 high school drama classes and a middle school drama class.  She will direct a middle school play second semester, as well as a musical production for the high school.  Returning to work has been challenging and tiring for her – teaching at 35 with three kids is much different than teaching at 23!  Despite the sharp learning curve, she is loving her time at our school and feels a deep sense of purpose in mentoring and equipping these students to use their gifts for God’s glory.

Andy, filming in northern Kenya last month

The children have been busy at school with activities and getting to know new friends.  Robbie is now playing the trombone and will also be in the upcoming elementary Christmas production as a shepherd.  He and Avery are taking piano lessons at school and are both doing quite well.  Sydney is… well… still Sydney.  She loves school and is as social as ever.  She has a wonderful teacher, whom she loves.  We feel very blessed to be able to have our children at such an amazing school.  Our house has been a blessing too, though quite a bit of work for Andy as he has been working on some plumbing issues ever since we moved in.  Living so close to the school has made all the difference in the world for Lesa and the kids – no more hour-long bus/car rides.  Now we can get to school in under two minutes!  And of course, Andy loves riding a piki piki (that’s Kiswahili for motorcycle).

Lesa, leading worship on a Sunday morning

Us, with Wyclif, Selina, and Brian

We would love to hear from each of you to know how you are doing since we saw you last.  Please drop us an email and keep in touch!  Thank you again for all of your prayers and support.  We couldn’t be here without you.

In His Precious Name,

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, and Sydney

Prayer requests:

• Lesa’s show – that the students would do their best, that God would be glorified, and that our family will survive the stress!
• Andy’s trip to Lesotho – for safety and opportunities
• Kenya’s drought – that the rains would make it throughout the country (but not too much!)
• Andy’s health – please pray that the Ulcerative Colitis, which reappeared after our stressful month in August would go away again (last time it was gone for 8 years).
• AIM AIR – please pray for our friends at AIM AIR as they are still putting the pieces together after the accident.  Also, please pray for the Williams and the Toew’s families who each lost a husband/father.

Things are slowing down for us a bit.  Andy has returned from his trip and had quite the tropical island experience!  They had some incredible opportunities to film in this creative access country at locations which are usually closed off.  Check our website soon for stories and photos from that trip. His team doesn’t have any more trips planned for the near future, but will settle in to work on several video projects that they have been assigned, including one about their last island trip, an AIM orientation video, an AIM medical ministries video, an RVA (AIM’s boarding school) video, among others.

The boys’ school is wrapping up this week with Christmas parties and such.  Robbie’s class gets to take a field trip to an orphanage to share in Christmas activities with the children there, which should be a memorable experience for him.  His first band concert went quite well, too.  He’s quite the budding saxophone player!  Sydney and Avery are as busy as ever – we just keep the band-aids flowing.  We stay busy leading worship for various events, helping to lead a youth group, and meeting once or twice a month with the “Inbounders” (short-term and first-term missionaries with AIM) at our house for fellowship. We are all looking forward to the visit of our friends, the Lang family, in January.

Lesa’s first play at school is over (click here to see photos of Little Women) and she is taking a break before next semester, when rehearsals for the next show, The King and I, will begin.  There will be nearly 50 students involved in the cast, which is quite a daunting, yet exciting challenge.   Our family is looking forward to the next school year, which will bring many changes, as our kids will begin attending this school and Lesa has been asked to teach drama/fine arts full-time.  We will keep you posted on all that this will mean for our family, as we are in prayer about if and when we may need to move nearer to school.

We also want to bring you up to date regarding our friend, Wycliffe, and his 5 year old son, Brian, whom we told you about in our last letter.  Much has developed since our last letter!  We had known that Brian needed some medical attention to address possible hearing problems, as well as developmental problems, so we have been taking him to doctors.  As far as the hearing issue (which the doctors advised us to tackle first), we are actually picking them up from the hospital today after surgery to get tubes in his ears.  The ENT doing the procedure thinks that this will potentially solve his hearing problem.  If it does, then the next step will be speech therapy, followed by physical and occupational therapy.  We will be looking for a special school for him (special education is not typically a part of the schools here).  Including this surgery, Brian’s medical expenses have reached $1,000.  In faith, we have been covering these, but need help after this surgery (it’s on our credit card)! A few of you have indicated that you would like to help with the costs (thank you!) and we are praying that God would raise up more to help sponsor Brian on a one time or on a regular basis.  If you, your church, or someone you know has a heart for children with special needs and would like to help out, please email us.

God has been so faithful to put it on many of your hearts to pray for us continually and to support us financially.  Thank you so much for your faithfulness, it is what encourages and keeps us going.  At this point, though, we are under-supported around $1,500 per month.  We have an AIM savings account of sorts that makes up the deficit each month, but that will run out by May or so.   What this means is that if we don’t find more people to support us monthly, we will not be able to return to Kenya after our trip to the States next summer.  Will you pray for us that God will lay it on more people’s hearts to commit to supporting us monthly?  Would you also consider talking to your church about potentially supporting us (if it doesn’t already)?  We completely believe that God has placed us here for purposes of His own and that He will make it happen.  He proved it before when He got us out here and He will do it again, we know!
Upcoming events:
5-Jan: Andy’s birthday and the 1st half of the Lang family arrives.
19-Jan to 23-Jan: We’ll be vacationing with the entire Lang family on Kenya’s coast
24-25 Apr, 1-2 May: Lesa’s 2nd show as drama director: The King and I
15-May ?: We begin our 3-4 month home assignment, setting foot in America for the first time in almost 2 years (for most of us, anyway)

Only five months until we’re back in the States for a few months and we know that we will be so busy that the time will fly.  We can’t wait to see each of you!  Have a very Merry Christmas!

All our love,
Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, and Sydney

The summary of our first year in Africa, what it’s like to pack up and move across the world, orientation, culture shock, what it’s like to live here, and the ministries we are involved in.

Barbara just called and Sydney is done with the surgery..she did great..her eyes just look like bad pink eye..swollen and red…no bandages. They have just now got to go back to talk to her…she is happy and wanted some apple juice and some Teddy Grahams. The Dr. said she might be sick to her stomach..but so far so good.

They said it was so cute…they put her in little yellow scrubs and gave her a little car to ride around in to get ready and when it was her turn…she drove her little car to the room. Then they gave her a balloon to blow into (that was the “gas”). Barbara said she just told them that the balloon smelled very funny!

So there you have it. Driving under the influence at age 3.

We praise God for the success of this surgery, as well as for the safe travels they’ve had so far. Please continue to pray for Sydney’s recovery, and for their return to Kenya next week.

Speaking of Kenya, please take some time to read some of the articles coming out of our On Field Media team, which are currently featured on AIM USA’s front page.

Kenya Crisis Fund has ways for you to give to the recovery efforts going on here, and has a slideshow of photos I took over the past month, most of which you’ve probably already seen.

Message of hope is a story of a bishop in Kibera, and the cross-tribal efforts he is involved in to offer hope in the polarized slum.

Blurring the lines was written during a trip to Kijabe to a couple of camps for IDP (internally displaced people)

First of all, thank you for all of you who have been praying for us and for the country of Kenya during this time. Since our last email we have been so encouraged and blessed by your emails to us. It’s good to know when we click “Send” it doesn’t just go out into the vacuum of space, but that people are actively following what is going on and praying along with us. Thank you! Secondly, sorry for the long email, we’ve been trying to keep these things short but we have had so many things happen in the past 30 days we needed to tell you about.

Things were pretty tense at the beginning of January, and have fluctuated wildly since then. Threats of riots, sounds of gunfire, and constant visitors to our door from Kibera remind us that this situation is far from over. A lot of forgiveness will need to happen first, and that is a supernatural act that can only come from Christ and his power to transform minds and humble hearts. AIM is continuing to monitor the situation for the safety of all of its’ missionaries in Kenya and we still feel confident in their experience, judgment, and guidance for us during this time.

Lining up for food in Kibera

The Body of Christ in Action

Despite being in this difficult situation, we have been blessed and encouraged to see the body of Christ at work around us and through us. Many churches here have stepped up to the challenge to take care of the displaced and hungry and wounded.We had a unique opportunity to partner our sending church, Dulles Community, with a church in Kibera that was housing 300 refugees but had no way to feed them. At the time Kibera was (and still is, depending on the day and the violence) a very desperate place, because food vendors had been looted and chased out of town (or killed) and it became very expensive and dangerous even to possess food. Dulles Community was ready to give, willing to share (1 Tim 6:18) and provided 3 meals a day for those 300 people for 2 weeks during the most desperate time. We were just blessed to have been a part of connecting the body of Christ to each other.

We have also realized that the greatest way we can make an impact here is to help those whom God puts us in contact with. We have people at our door everyday who are hungry and in need. It has been our goal to give out food to anyone who needs it – as there have been people across the country without consistent food for the past month. Also, just today we were able to help out some Kenyan friends – he was in western Kenya and unable to get home to Nairobi, as there are no buses running right now. We were able to connect him with an AIM AIR plane that was landing nearby and he is home now safe and sound with his family. It’s things like that which help us to know we are here for a reason.

Ministry

AIM AIR Cessna Caravan

The On Field Media team has been busy as well, trying to cover the stories of God at work during this time. From the secular news media, people are left to wonder how a country with such a rich, lengthy Christian heritage could do this to itself. Our current mandate is to declare God’s glory, and get out the stories of how lives transformed by Christ cause people to go against the status quo and embrace fellow Kenyans across tribal lines. Recently we have been in Kibera and in Western Kenya with AIM AIR relief efforts. Click here for more photos from these trips.

Last weekend Lesa spent 3 days at the annual AIM Ladies’ retreat with 70 other women. Since we shipped a portable sound system with us to Africa, she volunteered to run sound for the event, as well as taught 2 workshops on “breathing new life into your daily quiet time.”

Lesa has been serving in a new role at AIM this month, also. She has been helping out with Short-Term missionaries (here for less than one year) who are here to serve within International Services (our division of AIM). Many of these are pilots, mechanics, counselors and their families. She had a group of four new people come two weeks ago and enjoyed organizing their orientation and getting them settled into life here. We have started a Short-Termers’ Fellowship at our house every other week for worship, training, and fun for all short-term missionaries in Interational Services.

Avery’s arm

Last Tuesday night we were having supper at a friend’s house, and joking about how Robbie had broken his arm once, Avery twice, and Andy three times. The very next day Avery tied his dad, and is well on his way to breaking the record at this pace! He and Robbie were jumping off the swings at the playground at Tumaini, and apparently Avery must have won the contest.

In Kenya, getting treated for a broken arm is very different than in the US. We had to pay for everything in cash ahead of time, and it involved Avery having to go by himself to the “operating theatre”, and spending the night in the hospital with Lesa by his side. All told it was about an 18 hour stay in the hospital, and I think it might have slowed Avery down for a day.

Sydney

Sydney’s surgery and trip to US

For those of you who have kept up with our blog, it may not come as a surprise to hear Lesa and Sydney will be back in the US by this Friday night. And for the rest of you… surprise!

We knew before we came here that Sydney would need eye surgery at some point to correct her eye condition, strabismus. We had seen several doctors in the US before coming here, and had some recommendations. We were able to follow up here in Nairobi with another highly recommended expert in ophthamology who concurred that waiting till our next furlough (summer 2009) could cause permanent vision problems. We decided that Lesa would take Sydney, leaving Andy and the boys at home, so they could continue to work and to attend school.

They will be in the Dulles (VA) area the weekends of the 3rd and the 17th, and will be in Kansas with Lesa’s family in between for the surgery and recovery. They are looking forward to connecting with many of you in these places, visiting Dulles Community Church, and having some special time with Lesa’s family.

Vehicle fund

Our Land Rover?

We have been praying for the right opportunity to purchase a vehicle that is a better fit for our family’s personal and ministry needs. Our current vehicle is a station wagon that seats 5 and we need to drive more people around than just our family when we have visitors and when Lesa is driving around new Short-Term missionaries. We also needed a vehicle to drive outside of Nairobi, where the roads are REALLY bad – an SUV that is made for the type of roads you find in Africa. A vehicle has become available for us to purchase – our friends are willing to sell us their old Land Rover (you can see us with it on our little safari in pictures on our website). It can seat almost double what our current car can seat! We would like to purchase it as a second vehicle, to only use when needed, as our station wagon gets great gas mileage and is much better suited for city driving. In order to get it, we need to raise $7,000 for the purchase and necessary repairs by the end of February. If you would like to give to our vehicle fund, click here. Type in our name, select “project” and enter “Vehicle” as the project name.

Prayer requests

• Please pray for the still volatile situation here across Kenya, for our new Kenyan friends who are all affected by this, for the Kenyan church that it would be a light in this darkness, and for the leaders who need to come to a solution quickly. Thousands of Kenyans have lost possessions, homes, and loved ones in this senseless violence.
• Please pray for safe travel for Lesa and Sydney, for a successful surgery and recovery for Sydney, and for the guys and they stay in Nairobi for 20 days without Mom.
• Please pray for our family and other missionaries as this past month has been extremely stressful. All of the missionaries are feeling the strain of grieving the loss of this once peaceful country, concern for the Kenyan friends, and concern for their own family’s safety.
• Please pray for our ministries here – OFM, Short-Term missionaries, and our efforts to help our Kenyan friends and neighbors – that they would be able to continue, to bless others, and to bring glory to God.

In closing

Wow… sorry again for the long email. We just had so many things in the past month we had to talk about, and many more that didn’t fit on the page. We just wanted to close with saying despite the situation here, we are confident God has us (and other missionaries) here because we are needed. Maybe the things we are needed for are not part of our official assignment with the organization, but we feel confident that when times are tough, that is exactly when we are needed here the most. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here and serve this country.

In Christ’s love,

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

Click to see the photo album

Click to see the photo album

Click to see the photo album

It certainly was different experience this time… especially travelling with our 1 year old. Fortunately, Sydney did a pretty good job on the whole trip. She slept when we slept, and we brought a lot of baby food with us so she ate pretty well, too.

Lesa’s sister Katie came with us as well, and was a huge help with Sydney and our 8 suitcases and giant guitar flight case. We were quite a sight at Heathrow trying to ride the tube between terminals carrying all of our stuff and Sydney.

We arrived in XXXXX, Friday evening, and got checked into our hotel room around midnight. The next morning our group toured the medina, and went and visited with some other American workers there who run an college program.

Sunday we taxi’d somewhere in XXXXXX, and met with the youth group for an incredible time of bi-lingual worship. We played songs that were known in both english and arabic, and they sang a lot of songs in arabic, and I played along on the guitar. Afterwards we had lunch and spent the afternoon playing games and hearing their stories. Really amazing stories, every one of them. I remember one girl said she had been following Christ for 3 months, but she wished with all her heart it had been 3 years. She was the only Christian in her city.

The next day I was sick. I spent most of the day in bed or on the toilet, while Lesa went to a hospital ward for abandoned infants. Then she spent the afternoon hanging out with XXXXXX university students, in a relational evangelism setting. We called our XXXXXX friends later that evening, and met them at Carfourre, and they took us up to XXXXXX, then bought us brik (Fried egg pastry), and we hung out at their house until about midnight. This was the most important part of our time in XXXXX, where we could sit and ask questions about how we might get involved, what kinds of work need to be done to soften the ground there, and basically feeling them out for encouragement about coming.

The next day said goodbye to our group (who were staying almost another week), and taxid to the airport to fly back to London. At the airport, Sydney threw up twice, and on the plane to London, maybe 5 times. We knew we were going to land, run to our next flight, and make another overnight flight, so we were praying hard Sydney’s stomach issues would stop quickly! And they did… by the time we landed in London she was fine, praise God!

We got a good chuckle from the flight attendants as they announced the final descent into London, and the arrival on the ground in Arabic. I don’t know much arabic, but a couple phrases: enshallah (God willing), and humdullah (praise God). I could only guess the rest of the flight attendent’s dialog: “Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts for our final descent to London Heathrow. We will be landing shortly, God willing!”. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have landed, praise God!”.