Kisawozi

On Sunday, I went with Phillip and Chrysostom (one of the rural ministry counselors) to the village of Kisawozi for church. It was so much fun! I love praising God with Africans. They just put everything that they have into it! At one point during the worship time, Phillip leaned over to me and said, "It's kind of like praise aerobics isn't it!?"

Phillip preached an interactive lesson about different reasons why you should be baptized. It was so fun to see everyone, from small children to elderly men and women, doing the hand motions to help them remember each reason. It was great to watch Phillip interacting with them as well. He was really getting into it! Who says church can't be fun?


After the service, there were several who had come that wanted to be baptized. So we loaded up many more people than should be squeezed into a truck, and headed to the river (which was 30 minutes away).

Sipi Falls

A couple of weeks ago, some of my housemates and I went out to explore more waterfalls! Sipi Falls is actually three waterfalls. We saw the first one from the camp where we got our guide, and then actually hiked to the second and third one. I was the only one that had not been out there before and I had been looking forward to a chance to go for some time. I think waterfalls are just so amazing. They are so powerful! We spent the morning hiking around and enjoying the beauty, creativity, and power of God's creation. It started to rain on us as we hiked back down from the falls, but it was only a light rain. The real rain held off until we were eating lunch under shelter back at the camp! After lunch the rain cleared off for a little while and we got play on this awesome swing that looks out at the waterfalls! It was such a great way to spend the day!

I'm Missing Out On An Incredible Ice Cream Cake

It's this good-looking man's birthday today!


This means that, as part of the celebrations, there will be an incredible ice cream cake! It has become somewhat of a tradition for my Dad to make cakes for the birthdays in our family. They are so good that he's even making his own! That may sound sad, but seriously, you haven't had one of these cakes. They are much better than store bought! For those of you that know my father, make sure you wish him a Happy Birthday today!

Happy Birthday Dad! I hope that you have a fantastic day! You are terrific and I love you so much!

Welldone Family Vacation - Kenya Church of Christ Children's Home, Kitale

Jennifer does administrative work for the Kenya Church of Christ Children's Home and visits there at the end of each month to make sure that everything is in order. Since the end of the month corresponded with our trip, we all decided to go with her and spend time with the children and the house parents there. The kids were so much fun! We spent all day just playing with them and having a great time. The house parents there are wonderful Christian mentors for these kids. It is so great to know that the children there are receiving God's love from those parents! I hope that I will have more opportunities to visit and spend time at the home in the future.

Welldone Family Vacation - Captain Davie's, Kitale

Our main reason for going to Kitale was to visit the Kenya Church of Christ Children's Home. However, we also enjoyed a morning at Captain Davie's, which is basically an overgrown petting zoo. We got to play with giraffes, look at zebras and rhinos, and met a one-horned elan named John. I even got to ride an ostrich! It was crazy! I'm working on getting a video of that uploaded soon.

It was quite an entertaining morning! I'm always amazed at God's creativity when I see His animals that live here!

Welldone Family Vacation - Lake Baringo

The first stop on our family vacation was to Lake Baringo, which was about a two hour drive from Sunrise Acres. As we drove, we crossed the equator. We decided it was time for another family photo!


At the lake, we stayed in a cabin that made me feel like I was in the Swiss Family Robinson. It was great to walk by the lake, hang out, and play around outside!

The afternoon that we arrived, we rode camels!

This was quite an experience! The camel that Heidi and Jamie rode had very bad manners and, after a while, sat down and refused to go any further. They got off and had to walk for a while. Eventually Jamie got back on, but Heidi had had enough!

The camel that Laurie and I rode was just fine. A camel is an awkward animal to ride, but I wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to say that I've ridden one!


We spent a relaxing evening enjoying the cool night, and watching for hippos. We had a great view of the lake and some of my housemates actually saw a hippo walking across the lawn.


We saw several hippos the next morning when we went on a boat ride around the lake. We also saw lots of birds, and got to watch the guides feed fish eagles. The fish eagles swooped down to get the fish right in front of our boat! We expected to see a lot of crocodiles as well, but we only saw one small one. We did see a big monitor lizard that probably wasn't much smaller than the crocodile! The lake was probably the brownest I've ever seen, but the area was still very beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed our boat ride.

When we got back we loaded up our stuff and stopped at the restaurant for lunch on our way out. The only reason I mention the restaurant is because it was called "The Thirsty Goat." The name is pretty funny by itself, but it also had a great sign to go along with it!


We set off from Lake Baringo and headed to Kitale. On our way, we drove through some amazing scenery. We stopped at a lookout point on one particularly curvy road and took a family photo with the incredible Rift Valley in the background.

Welldone Family Vacation

I feel that there is a need for a bit of explanation before going any further. My Ugandan family (the girls that I live with) has become known as the Welldones to our team and some of the other ex-patriots in Mbale. This comes from the fact, that many times, when people here don't know what to say next, they just say "well done". It doesn't matter whether or not you have done anything worthy of being told this. In fact, often you haven't done anything at all. Also, it is quite common for this to be said run together as if it were one word. Anyway, it became a funny joke to us and eventually it was adopted as our family name. So, without further ado, on to the Welldone Family Vacation!

(The Welldones - Jamie, Heidi, Laurie, Me, Jennifer)

Following our Team Retreat, my housemates and I embarked on a family vacation. We had a blast relaxing at the lake, making friends with wild animals, and playing with Kenyan children. Before leaving Sunrise Acres we took a family photo on the tire swing. The bear has a sweater on that says Well Done, so of course, he had to be in the picture too!

Team Retreat - Sunrise Acres

After Come Before Winter, we met up with the rest of our team in Eldama Ravine at a place called Sunrise Acres for a team retreat. It was beautiful there and it was cold! We don't experience cold weather much so we all soaked it in! I got to wear long sleeves, sleep under three blankets, and sit by fires! Sunrise Acres is a working dairy farm so that meant wonderful fresh milk and homemade ice cream. There was also really great homemade jam. The agenda for the retreat was that there was no agenda. It was wonderful! We rested, played games, hiked around, and just enjoyed time together.

(Playing Balderdash - Emily was on my team)

(Team Picture)

(Mbale Team Singles)

Come Before Winter

My first week in Kenya took me all the way to the coast of the Indian Ocean. It was absolutely beautiful there. It was also ridiculously hot and humid! Anytime that I was not inside in an air-conditioned room (which was quite a novelty because not many places have air-conditioning), I felt like I was melting. But the beach was so amazing and our time there was such a blessing, that the heat didn’t matter too much.

16 ladies came from Texas to facilitate the Come Before Winter Renewal. I received a special blessing because 6 of the ladies were from RHCC! It was wonderful spending time with each of them!

(All of the RHCC ladies! - Laura Reppart was also there, but she wasn't around for this picture)

All 16 of these ladies were amazing and it was such a blessing to learn from and spend time with them. It was also quite fun that they came from Texas! They even threw us a party on our last night together and brought a little Texas to us all by giving us crazy cowboy hats and having hoedown! I laughed so much that night!

During the week, we spent a lot of time in study of the book of Philippians and fellowshipping with missionary women from all over Africa. It was incredible to hear stories of God’s work in these women’s lives. Through our study I was encouraged to spend more concentrated time studying God’s Word and to intentionally dedicate each day to Him. We also spent wonderful time in praise and prayer each day. These times were so uplifting and I am so thankful for them!

During the afternoons we had free time to enjoy our amazing surroundings. Our hotel was right on the coast so we were able to walk in the beautiful white sand, play in the waves as the tide came in, and even go kayaking!

It was a wonderful week, full of fun and blessings, spent in an absolutely beautiful place!

Happy Easter!

I hope that you all have a wonderful day filled with praise because our Lord is ALIVE!

I had a wonderful Easter Sunday that began with teaching the kids at MCC. I love those kids! It is always a blessing to be with them, even when they can't understand very well or are acting up! They just make me smile!

This afternoon was filled with community fellowship around the grill and an Easter Egg hunt for the kids. Though I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to join in on the hunting, it was just as fun to be in on the hiding and watching!

Yesterday, my housemates and I had lots of fun coloring eggs with a great kit that my parents sent us. It was a little interesting because our eggs are brown, but they turned out pretty well. Thanks Mom and Dad! We had so much fun that we saved the dye and bought more eggs today so that we can do some more tonight!


Happy Easter everyone!

RHCC Visitors

The second week of March we had visitors from RHCC come to Mbale! They were only here for a few days because they were visiting other mission sites in Africa as well, but we greatly enjoyed the time that we had with them. It was such a blessing to have them here and for them to be able to see our mission work first hand.

For the past few months, there have been a couple of building projects going on here and our visitors were able to see the progress of those projects. This is a picture of the building that will be used by Good News Productions International. There is also another building nearby that is being renovated for a conference center and dormitories.



The group also visited MTI, our theological school and home to my office.

And of course, we had to show them the beauty that we are surrounded by here in Mbale, so we all spent a morning together up at Sisiyi Falls!

Thank you so much for all of your encouragement Duane, Debbie, Marilyn, Ron, and Don! It was so much fun having you guys here!