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

Our backyard

Greetings once again from the city of cold water (that’s what Nairobi means in Kikuyu)! At least 4 days of the week that is true, the other 3 days it is the city of “hakuna maji”, or no water. Which is why we have 2 giant tanks in our back yard to store up water to get us through the dry days. Which means no laundry and few showers during half the week, making up for it on the other end.

Not that things are dry here, quite the opposite in fact. The short rains (one of two rainy seasons here) have started this week and everything is muddy and wet. It’s even cold, which helps us remember that back home people are getting their turkeys and raking leaves and thinking about Christmas. It’s going to be a weird Christmas for us here, the start of summer and probably the 1st time we’ll have been hot since we left the US at the end of June.

On Field Media

Andy in the northern Kenya desert

The last time we wrote an update I (Andy) was just starting my job with the new On Field Media team. Mike and Ted and I have had a great time the past couple months pulling together our first video project and building our website to host all our content.

Andy and Ted in front of a Rendille hut

Our 1st video, Psalm 40, is a worship video. Ted and I shot all the footage, in Kibera slums at a literacy class, in another slum at a health clinic, in Machakos at Scott Theological College, and in Korr, Kenya, in the remote desert northern frontier. After weeks of planning, 2 weeks of shooting, and 1 week of editing, we finished and are now presenting it for you, our friends and family, as an opportunity to get a glimpse of life throughout Kenya, as well as worship God in a greater understanding of the work he is doing here.

You can watch the video and check out the OFM website (also by me!) here: http://aim-ofm.org.

Kibera child

I also had the amazing opportunity in each of those places to take some incredible photos. Not that the photos are incredible as a result of my skills, but really the result of a great camera (thanks again Andy Peterson!) and a country full of beautiful people and children just waiting for a camera to tell their story. You can see the best photos on our website.

Teaching ministry

As you know, I (Lesa) have been waiting on God’s direction for ministry here. He has opened up a few doors that have, honestly, surprised me, including a chance to speak to some women at our friends’ church about the Discipling ministry I have been involved with since college. In preparing for my talk, God pulled together many pieces of my experiences to see how this ministry truly transforms lives (including my own!) and could transform a church, and clarified more how this ministry is optimally organized – based on my own experiences and on a great book “Transforming Discipleship” by Greg Ogden.

Now, I have another opportunity to get together with some of these women, a mixture of Kenyans and missionaries, again to go into more detail about it. Along the same lines, I also have a chance to do a workshop at our January AIM ladies’ retreat on “Breathing New Life into Your Daily Time with God.” I would love to see this all grow into a broader ministry here – but know I must wait on God to orchestrate it. Please pray for me that I will follow God’s direction and be patient with the results.

Worship ministry

We will also be leading a workshop at next week’s regional conference called “Guitar and Piano for Worship.” We hope to equip people who find themselves leading worship for Bible studies, meetings, or church, but who don’t feel confident in their abilities. Andy will also teach a workshop at the conference called, “Using the Internet as a Tool to Communicate with Supporters.” As you know, Andy is so amazing and creative at this, and many people are already asking us how he does it.

We are excited, also, that many doors are opening for us to be “worship leaders to missionaries” as we had originally envisioned. We have been leading weekly at a youth group, Lesa has been leading for her ladies’ Bible study, we are leading at the conference next week for two of the main sessions, and a few more upcoming opportunities.

Church

24 Sundays ago we worshiped with our home church who loved us and knew us well. The past 24 weeks we have worshiped at 18 different churches, and while that has been wonderful for some reasons, it has been hard for others. It has been hard to sit on the sidelines after being in the game for 10 years, every Sunday. And we long to fellowship with a church that knows community like our home church and where we can experience that community with Kenyans, and are still waiting on the Lord to find out how we might be involved in serving in a local church. Please continue to pray for us as we are searching for a church home and how involved we should be at the local church level.

Family

The kids at the Maasai Ostrich Ranch

Robbie and Avery have been enjoying West Nairobi School – making new friends and doing well at their studies. African life is becoming more and more “familiar” to the kids, which is a relief to us parents. Robbie had his 9th birthday in September, Sydney turned 3 in November, and Lesa turned ?? in October, so we’ve had a good time celebrating for first birthdays here (though baking cakes in our somewhat sketchy oven has been an experience)! We have been enjoying our house, but have struggled since we moved in to find a place for our office/studio equipment. God is so faithful and has provided us an opportunity to move into a different house at the end of this year that has a room for an office AND an extra bedroom for guests! Now you all have no excuse not to visit us!! It also has an extra big yard for the kids to play with our new German Shepherd puppy who has been providing us all with hours of entertainment.

Finances

Financially, we are blown away each month by the gifts that have come in. Blown away at the size of this task, each and every month, and that God is faithful to answer it, through you!

We’ve found out, during the past month or so, that we are slightly undersupported, and that the support rates for missionaries in East Africa are going up, across the board, at the end of the year. This is mainly a cost-of-living increase, and we are thankful to see the support rates going up as we have realized how hard it is to feed the ever growing appetite of our children (Robbie now eats more than Andy!). We also try to have enough “excess” funds to be able to help our Kenyan friends when needs arise.

Anyhow, we need around $500/month more in support by the beginning of next year. Clicking the green AIM banner on our website is probably the easiest way to do it. Like we said, we have been blown away each month at what God has provided, and know that he’s not going to send us home over such a small thing as money. We trust completely that he will provide, and ask you to continue praying with us for our trust and his provision.

Closing

Our street

As we say each time, we are so thankful to God, and to each of you who support us in your prayers and in your sacrifical giving. So thankful for the opportunity to be here.

Trying to be obedient, one step at a time,

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

Tonight we are sitting here in our new home, on the eve of the official “first day” of the new On Field Media Team, (of which Andy will be one of three members). We have been in our home for 12 days now and are very much enjoying having the freedom as a family to eat meals when we want to and come and go as we please. Our seven week orientation process, including Orientation School and a homestay with a Kenyan family, was very valuable, but definitely was trying for us all. We are focusing on settling in now, learning Kiswahili, establishing some sort of routine, and seeking some kind of “normalcy” in this new life here in Kenya.

We’ve been asked how we are feeling about everything now. Well, I’m not sure that we know how to answer that! If you have ever moved to a foreign country, then you probably know the state we are in now: feeling a bit upside down and trying to find our two feet to stand on. It’s interesting… before we left the U.S., we told ourselves and many others that we knew we would go through hard times on the mission field. However, what we imagined and what the reality is are two completely different things, (and we had been here on a trip before)! We knew we would have hard times in Africa. We knew cultural transition would be difficult. But we had no idea what was in store for us!

The first thing that we began to see was how every little tiny detail of life was different from our lives in America. We wish we could drag each of you across the ocean to show you that life can be so different from what we are used to! Everything – physical, social, cultural, language… everything is different! The light switches switch the other direction. The homes are made of concrete and plaster, not wood and drywall (lots of fun hanging pictures)! You can’t drink water from the tap… in fact, we have to filter and store “clean” water to use for drinking and cooking. The water isn’t turned on all of the time, so we have tanks buried in our backyard that hold water for the frequent times when the city water is turned off. We’re still trying to figure out the water pumps, heater and various valves we have to switch on and off daily! We’ve decided to add a little section to our newsletter each month to tell you about life here in Kenya. You’ll see it at the bottom of the page.

Our kids are doing well here. Robbie and Avery have started school at West Nairobi School. Robbie is in 3rd grade and Avery is in Kindergarten. They are each making friends here at school and within the missionary community. It has been good for them to see that they can make friends here, just like they did in America. We’ve been enjoying experiencing Africa together as a family, experiencing different foods, doing some sight-seeing (giraffes and elephants, so far), running away from wild monkeys, learning the lingo of life in Nairobi (such as, “security gate” and “matatu” and “duka”). Sydney has made “best friends” with many people here, including our host mom, whom Sydney called “Soso.” She is definitely our little ambassador to people here – she has a way of making everyone love her immediately.

We’ve been getting to know quite a few people here. The division of Africa Inland Mission we are in is “International Services.” These are the people who serve missionaries; some by taking care of administrative parts of their lives on the field, some by flying them with AIM AIR, some by caring for them and counseling them, and now Andy’s team will be telling the stories of what God is doing here in Africa through the hundreds of AIM missionaries who are spread out from Northern Africa to South Africa. We’ve already met and hung out with some really great people and hope to continue building those friendships. We can see already how important it will be to have a support system here in addition to the amazing one we have at home. Also, it’s important to have fun! Dulles guys, you’d be glad to know that Andy has finally bit the bullet and joined a Fantasy Football league with some guys here.

We’ve also been getting to know some amazing Kenyans. For one, we met some wonderful people in Machakos, where our Orientation School was held. We hope to go back and visit them soon, and possibly stay with them a couple of days. We hope we can be a blessing to them, as they are a family with great need. Then, we had a great time with our host family here in Nairobi. We were with them for four weeks. It isn’t easy to stay in someone else’s house that long, but they were great people to spend the time with and to call our friends. We learned so much there about the lifestyle and culture of Nairobi Kenyans. The life of a Nairobi Kenyan will have elements of their tribal culture, where they or their family is originally from. But, it will also have many “Western” influences from the city, as well. We also enjoy learning the language here. We have a private tutor come to our house for two hours a day for 10 weeks total. It’s coming along very well, surprisingly!

Emotionally and spiritually, this summer has been hard for us. The lack of routine and consistency made our family life rough many days. It was difficult to hold to boundaries and discipline with the children when they were in a hard time of transition, too, and when we were in the company of other people nearly all the time. So much togetherness also made it difficult for Andy and I to get our much needed alone time with God and with each other. Through all of those difficult weeks, though, we felt so loved and supported by friends and family who we knew were praying for us and those who wrote and called. We kept coming back to the fact that we knew we were supposed to be here, and so many of you reminded us of that, as well. Thank you!

Over the past week, we’ve been reflecting on a great deal. First, there are still many unknowns for us, including where we will go to church, what will Andy’s work look like, what ministries will I (Lesa) be involved in, what other directions will God take us in Africa in the area of worship leading, and much more. There are many possibilities for all of these things, and we are earnestly seeking the Lord’s will as we hear of various opportunities to serve. The other big part of this phase of our missionary life is for us to begin to feel “at home” enough here to get past thinking about ourselves and really love the people here. We would appreciate your prayers for us as we continue to transition and build our life here.

Please pray:

• That our children will continue to settle into our life here and grow to feel more at home.
• That we would all get over our various illnesses quickly (sinus infections, intestinal issues that are common to living here, coughs, etc.)
• That we will be listening to God’s leading as we search for and choose a church in Nairobi.
• That we will be patient as God’s will is made clear for the ministries He wants Lesa to be involved in, as well as worship leading opportunities for us within AIM and elsewhere.
• That we will continue to adjust to the differences of living in a new culture.
• That God will grow in us a heart of love for the people of Africa.