We're Home!

...and we have been home for just over a week. I look forward to seeing most of you sometime in the near future. I wish I could have been at church in Bow Island this past Sunday, but I will see you all soon enough. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. It really meant a lot and I am so thankful for you all. I just thought I would leave a quick update in case you were wondering if we made it back.
This is my class and I when we went to Nairobi Museum and City Park for a field trip. Aren't they great?


This is the clinic that is nearly completed. It will be used to provide the medical care for the children at the home as well as provide care to the surrounding communities. This will be such a huge blessing to have!


This is one of the classes showing off the text books that I was able to purchase for the school with the money raised by you to help me go to Huruma. They were unbelievably appreciative so I pass on their thanks a hundred times over. Thank you!

I apologize for not writing in a while. Can you believe that two months has already almost passed?! I'm so used to life here, I have a hard time imagining life without these kids. Some quick updates:

1. Nicodemous had his eye surgery. We took him to the hospital and he had it removed. His first few days were really painful and he had a hard time dealing with it, but he's healing well and he's doing really well now. The plan is to put in a goats eye (yep i said goat) after it has completely healed.

2. I took my class on a field trip where we learned about all the deadly snakes in kenya and how long I would have to live if they bite me and where my camera was stolen by a baboon. (don't worry, one of my pupils chased it down and got it back)

3. I ate a goat.

A lot more has happened, but I've got little time on the internet right now. I'll share many more stories when I get home. Sarah and I leave the home this Sunday. It's going to be a sad day having to say goodbye to all of these kids, but I know it will be good to see family and friends again. Thanks for praying for us. See most of you soon!

Joelle

Praise and Prayers!

Hi! What a busy and crazy week. We have so much to be thankful for here, and still so much to pray for. Good thing God loves hearing us talk to Him! James 5:13 (you can check it out yourself, because I don't have my Bible with me right now) says that if any of us are sick we should pray and if anybody who has reason to be thankful they should sing praises to the Lord. (once again...look it up, but you get the point) This verse is the theme of this home and especially of this week.

First of all please pray for my good friend Doreen. She is a 23 years old and is a teacher here. She has been my saving grace as far as learning how to lead my own class and we have become good friends. But the past couple of days she has been really sick. She is an epileptic, and her seizures have been getting worse and more frequent. Please pray for healing.

Also, please pray for Cassidy. It was such a blessing having her here with us, but yesterday we had to say goodbye to her. She'll be arriving tomorrow morning in Calgary so continue to pray for her safe travels. Ps. Don't let her tell you all the cool stories on us.

Another prayer request, is for Zipporah. She is one of the girls here at the home who is involved with Gospel Dancers, Acrobats and scouts. She was given an opportunity to come to Canada for a scouts camp but as would be expected it's really hard to get the permission and proper id for an orphan child. So please pray that she gets her papers before the end of June, which would be when she flies out, so that she can take advantage of this awesome opportunity.

Exciting news for the home is that the vice-president of Kenya has informed Mama that he is coming to visit the home on Sunday so we have been busy cleaning and preparing for his arrival. This is such an honor and I haven't heard one kid complain about all the work that they've had to do, all they talk about is how excited they are that he's coming and how they are even more excited that he's coming in a helicopter. The gospel dancers have been preparing songs and the acrobatics team has been perfecting their flips. It's going to be such a great celebration.

The gospel dancers and myself went to Nairobi on Monday and recorded the song. It was such a neat experience and the song should hopefully be on the radio really soon. It sounds awesome. I'm bringing a copy of it home with me.

The time here has been so amazing, and the longer I stay the more worthwhile my time seems to be. It's been a month and now all the time that I have spent here investing into these kids lives seems to be opening them up. The older girls called me their big sister the other day...I'm taking that as a good sign. I pray every night that God just continues to fill me with more love than I can imagine so that I can in turn give it away to these kids and I feel like God is answering my prayers. It takes a lot of relying on God's strength here because when you hear a kid tell you about how thier family hates them or see a kid come who was beaten so badly that he has to have his eye removed, it honestly breaks your heart, but makes you just want to love more.

Sarah says that she hopes you are all doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather and that each day would be a new adventure spent with God (I hope I got that right). We thank you for your prayers and support.

Ps. Thanks to those who've supported us, class 4, 5 and 6 are finally getting the much needed textbooks that they've needed! Thank you so much! Praise God!

It's under a month now until we return...crazy how fast time flies!

Love Joelle

Praise and Prayers!

Twasonga Mbele

It's pointless for me to write the song out in Kiswahili since I'm not sure that any of you are fluent in it...but these are the words to the song that the Gospel dancers are singing translated of course. I think the words are so fitting and so amazing...watching these children sing makes my heart melt. I know when you get the chance to listen to the song it will do the same to you.

We're Moving Forward

We're moving forward x3
Us children of God
We're moving forward

It doesn't matter what problems we've been through
It doesn't matter what difficulties we've experienced
The Lord has taken care of us through it all
That's why we sing that we are moving forward

We are grateful to Mama Zipporah for hearing our pleas
Our parents left us when we were young
Others died and left us with problems
But despite all of that, we are moving forward!

We're moving forward x3
Us children of God
We're moving forward

Safari's, Schools and doing things Spur of the moment

Finally blogger is cooperating with us. I pray that you are all in good health and good spirits. We definitely are here. Thank you for your prayers. I would first of all like to say that my burn is in it's last stages and is almost completely gone!

A lot has happened since we emailed last. We have recieved a few more children to stay with us at the home. One of the boys has a severe eye infection and will be going to the hospital to have his eye removed before it spreads to the other eye. So please pray for him as this will be a life changing surgery. Another girl was brought by the police just last night. She was found abandoned and the police dropped her off at the home. She is so tiny and so precious. They are guessing she is a couple of weeks old, but there is no proof of her birthdate. Please pray for her health and survival. If she makes it through these next few weeks there is a good chance of her being adopted...like most of the infants that come to Huruma.

The Gospel Dancers have the opportunity of a life time here. A Kenyan artist has decided to write a song and this Monday they will be recording it. If everything goes as planned it will be aired on the radio. It's a Kiswahili song, but I've learned all the words and on Monday I will be going to Nairobi with them. These kids are so talented and the song is awesome. I will bring a copy of it home with me!

This past weekend, Sarah, Cassidy, Channel and Stephanie (two new volunteers) and myself wen to the Masai Mara for a safari! It's the 7th wonder of the world and it definitely lived up to its reputation. It was a 6 hour ride on the worst roads imaginable, but worth every bit of travel. We even went on a hot air balloon ride over the mara...it was unbelievable! We almost got charged by an elephant and we got our safari van stuck about 10 meters away from a pack of lions and we got out and pushed! It was awesome! We saw zebras, giraffes, hippos, lions and so many more animals. We got to visit a Masai community and experience a whole new culture within a new culture. We slept in tents and ate food cooked over the fire. It was so good to see parts of Kenya and I felt so refreshed when I got back to Huruma, I was ready to be with the 150 children again!

My class is awesome. My feelings of being overwhelmed have left me and now I am just loving it. I was at a staff meeting the other day (which are interesting to attend because they start speaking English and then they naturally go back to Kiswahili or their native tongue and then remember I am there so they go back to english) and I learned so much more about the Kenyan culture and school system. Class 4,5 and 6 do not have any text books for science and for the other subjects they share 1 book between 2 or 3 of them. This makes it difficult to teach and to learn, especially because other teaching materials are not readily available. So I have learned a lot about doing things off the seat of my pants and just saying, no worries, it's ok.

Cassidy only has one week left with us. Time has been going by soo fast! I am so thankful to God for the relationships we are building with the children and staff and the other volunteers. And for any of you that know me well and know that I'd never get up and sing in front of the church. I wish you were all here to experience it! haha. It's funny here, because if you are a guest they invite you to come up to the front, greet everybody and then sing a song. So we must always be prepared to get up in front of anybody at anytime!

We thank you all for praying for us and thinking about us. We pray for you as well.

Love
Joelle

Class Is In Session!

I have a hard time deciding what to tell you all since a lot has happened in this past week. The major change at the home this week has been the fact that school has begun. They had just gotten off of their break and this week has been spent reviewing and preparing for the exams that they take before the next term begins to monitor their progress.

Cassidy, Sarah and myself went to morning prayers, which start before school each morning, and they assigned us classrooms to help in. Sarah is helping with the babies, Cassidy with Class 2 and I am with Class 5. The grades are different here and the students are placed on ability not age. I have kids that are anywhere from 9-15 years old in my classroom. Anyways, the one teacher got up after we were assigned classrooms and announced that he was resigning...which pretty much meant that I had to take over teaching that class that day without any prep! They said that another teacher was coming, but yesterday they informed me that I am the head teacher! It's official...I have my own class of 14 students. I was excited, but I am also very overwhelmed right now. There is a lot of prep work and a lot of time that is being put into this one class and as the head teacher, I need to be in charge of making official lesson plans, schemes of work and tests! Cassidy has another teacher with her but she has been doing a lot of teaching as well.

The students get up at the break of dawn, go to morning prayers, the older classes (which is one of mine) start school at 7 am and then go to assembly at 7:30 and then class till after 4 pm. It's really quite a long day. And as teachers, we are required to give the students homework in each class, each night. These students work so hard...but they have to here in Kenya if they want to make it at all. Before and after school they have chores to do. They are in charge of washing their own clothes and so on. One of the girls also named Zipporah, is 17 and she goes to school all day and takes care of the babies any moment she is not studying. She is the definition of responsibility!

The African way is so foreign to me though. They have all of this work to do and they pile it on and then say..."Don't worry, it's ok!" And the funny thing is that it always is ok...very unorganized and a little chaotic at times, but it always works out.

On saturday, the three of us and 7 of the big boys went to hike the Ngong Hills. We left at about 9:30 and got back around 5:30, walking the whole way. We were a little sore the next day. It was absolutely beautiful though. We bought the boys and ourselves food in Ngong and then carried it with us and had a picnic at the top of one of the hills...the pictures we took doesn't even do it justice! It was a cloudy, rainy and cooler day, so it was good weather for a hike. When we got back though and out of the sun I realized that I was absolutely fried! I guess that when you are sitting on the equator...even the cold days can burn you! I honestly think I have liek a 2nd or 3rd degree burn on my neck. It's peeled, blistered, pussing and is unreal painful! I have learned to put sunscreen on always!!!!!

The other day somebody sent some chocolate for the home! This was so much fun to be a part of. Each child got one banana and a small piece of chocolate at supper time and they were soooo thankful! Just from one tiny piece of chocolate.

Our meals consist of rice, ugali, beans and cabbage...all cooked in oil! I'm very thankful for salt and pepper and I think that you should all be very thankful for a variety in your menus! It's good though, and after working all day you become so thankful for anything you get on your plate!

We thank you so much for praying. We need it! Please continue to pray for us. I would appreciate that you continue to pray for my mom as well. Pray that God continues to heal her. Pray for the three of us as we are adjusting to the Kenyan school system's way of doing things. Pray for these children and that they stay motivated with their schooling, so they have a chance in life. Pray that God continues to provide for the home and that us girls are able to maintain the energy we need to continually show these children the love that they need. Pray for the highschoolers that are off to boarding school.

My Kiswahili is coming along. I can say basic phrases and pick up on what others are saying from picking out select words. Plus the three of us have picked up some pretty sweet dance moves! You won't even know who we are anymore!!!

Ps. Huruma means mercy in Kiswahili...how fitting!

Love,
Joelle on behalf of the girls