retreat

Last month we went to New Mexico on a short pastor's retreat with Michael's co-pastor and his wife. We enjoyed a great couple of days together in cooler weather in the midst of the beautiful nature that surrounded us. Glorieta Camps where we stayed had lots of fun to offer and peaceful places to sit and reflect. 

can't go wrong with pbj sandwiches

prayer garden

happy birthday to my husband

kenya 2014

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to my amazing husband!

I am so thankful for this man and who he is. I'm so glad he was born. 

Love you!

team kenya 2014

Here are some team snapshots from our Kenya travels. Our team motto was everything is awesome! Yes, we all watched the Lego movie on the plane.... Thank you for being awesome teammates!

Celebrating Bailey's 12th birthday in style

lots of laughter

wordless wednesday

friends in kenya

One of the things I always look forward to when going to Kenya is getting to spend time with both familiar and new faces at Food for the Hungry. These people do incredible work on behalf of FH. They love on the people in the communities they serve and seek to advocate on their behalf. They work tirelessly always with a smile. And even though having a team come visit adds extra work to their job, they always welcome us in with open arms. We consider them great friends. 

Every morning we would start the day at the Food for the Hungry office with devotions and often before we left for Njuruta we would also enjoy a cup of Kenyan tea. 

We got to spend some extra time with Zipporah and Makena who hosted our team. We are so thankful for these women and all they did for us.

We of course also made other friends along the way.

Here are the sweet women who took care of us where we stayed by cooking and cleaning for us. 

Our driver in Meru/Njuruta, Paul!

At the end of our journey, when we returned to Nairobi, we got to see our sweet friends Loise and John. It was so great to see and catch up with good friends. We wish they lived closer.

building a new classroom

One of the projects we helped support while we were in Njuruta was the building of a new classroom. When we were there in 2012 we saw their new brick maker and one of the classrooms they had built with the bricks they had made. This year we got to witness (and help a tiny bit) as they started building yet another classroom. It is so encouraging to see how much they value education and making sure their students have a good environment to learn (see this post for pictures of their old classrooms). They seem to understand how important education is to the flourishing and future of their community. Nicer classrooms also help attract teachers to the area and since they have started building better classrooms more teachers have come. 

One of the days we were there we helped lay the foundation of the new classroom, which meant helping gather large rocks.  

As the days went by it was fun to see the progress as the community came together to help build the classroom.