A Day in the Life of a Missionary Kid

Our kids love Kenya.  They definitely still talk about Michigan and Minnesota, but this is home now because that's just how little kids are - their whole world revolves around the present.  Our life is so different here, but our kids are adaptable and have found wonderful new things to love about our life here while also being anchored in the familiar routines we've always had - playing, eating PBJ sandwiches, playing, napping, and playing some more.

We've officially been in Kenya for five months, and it's amazing to realize how much our kids have grown in that short amount of time.  Little kids change quickly anyway, but our kids in particular have undergone a lot of change and development as they've experienced new people and new places within a new culture.  We've had so many conversations with them about what they're experiencing and routinely attempt to help them understand things that are beyond their comprehension!

So, without further ado, here are multiple snapshots of our three little MKs: Caleb, Kai, and Asa.


Crazy About Chameleons
Chameleons are everywhere around here, and all the MKs take joy in finding them and watching them eat flies.  Caleb and Kai absolutely love these little guys!

The Waterfall
Tenwek's electricity is provided by a hydroelectric dam placed in the Mara River, which is down the hill from the hospital.  The boys love to walk to the waterfall and throw rocks in.  This particular picture was taken during the dry season.  The water really roars during the rainy season!

Homeschool

I work through a preschool curriculum with Caleb and Kai about 2-3 times a week.  We work on letters and numbers, plus a bunch of concepts.  Every so often I'll pull together a craft or hands-on activity to go along with the curriculum.  The boys love when it's time for "a lesson."

Exploring Outside
Tenwek is the Land of Eternal Spring, as we like to say around here.  The weather is virtually perfect all the time: sunny and mid-70s during the day (with some rain during the rainy seasons), and down in the 50s overnight.  All that to say, it's a great place to be outside!

The Garden
We have an amazing garden right behind our house.  We share it with a couple other families and have been growing things like lettuce and green beans and zucchini.  The boys love helping us pick green beans, and also love to help water the garden.  It's the first time we've ever had a garden, and we're particularly grateful since some things (like lettuce) cannot be found anywhere around here unless you grow it yourself.

The Balcony
We live on the second floor of a 5-plex building and have a great balcony with locking gates on either end.  It's perfect for sitting outside and reading a book while remaining within earshot of napping kids.  It's also great for being outside with said kids while also keeping them contained!

Safari
We live less than three hours away from Maasai Mara, one of the most popular places to go on safari in all of Kenya.  We've been twice already, once just for a day trip and once to stay overnight during the Great Wildebeest Migration this past month.  It was amazing!  When you live this close to one of God's greatest creations, it's imperative to take advantage of it!  The boys talk about safari a lot.  Caleb's recent repeated phrase is, "I can't believe we saw the big cats!"

Nairobi
We've gone into Nairobi a few times for supplies and to get a break from the hospital.  Usually we try to do something fun in the midst of our supply run, like taking the kids to the Giraffe Center to feed giraffes or taking Caleb to the Snake Park at the Nairobi National Museum, or simply eating chicken nuggets at KFC.

Betty and Ebenezer
Betty is one of our househelpers, and she and Asa became fast friends.  She adores him and he adores her!  Betty's son is named Ebenezer, and he's the same age as Kai.  Caleb, Kai and Ebenezer can often be seen chasing each other around the house or finding trouble outside.  Even though Ebenezer barely speaks English and our kids don't speak any Kipsigis or Swahili, they play together really well.  And Ebenezer loves Eli too!  He quickly learned from our own kids that when Daddy comes home for lunch it's time to run and jump into his arms.  All three of them do it every time Eli walks in the door!

Trips to the Hospital
All three boys have been up to the hospital exactly once.  Asa was the first, with a weight check when he turned 9 months old.  They still use an old-fashioned scale here, and Asa had fun hanging out and getting weighed!  Caleb was next, so Eli could check his ears with an otoscope for a suspected ear infection.  He was excited to go because I said he'd earn a sticker on his Culture Chart for it.  (Caleb and Kai each have a sticker chart for having new cultural experiences.  We've discovered that it helps to motivate them and keep them brave when they're nervous about new things here.)  And lastly, Kai made his debut trip to the hospital for an x-ray, which thankfully showed no broken bones after he jumped out of a tree and injured his foot and was limping around for over a day.  After the x-ray was done, he proudly claimed, "I did a good job working at the hospital!"

MK Tie-Dye Day
Another missionary family hosted an event for all the MKs to do tie-dye T-shirts.  It was a blast!  In the end I had to do all of our kids' shirts for them, but they loved the end-product and proudly wear their shirts with all the other MKs here at Tenwek.

Crazy About Chameleons, Part 2
These creatures really are everywhere around here, and our kids really do love them!

Cooking from scratch
Most of our cooking has to be done from scratch, and occasionally I let the kids help me.  They love to stir and taste test and make an absolute mess!  But they're learning a ton about cooking, which is a good thing.

Madison
There's a 12-year old MK that lives below us and she quickly became a very important part of our life.  Madison officially babysits the boys once a week for me, and unofficially helps out in all manner of ways the rest of the week.  She is amazing and our kids absolutely adore her!  In fact, Caleb has a complete crush on her.  He talks about her when she's not here, he gets shy but excited whenever she comes over, and he boldly declares, "Mom, I reeeaaallly like Madison."  She's like a part of our family.  I honestly don't know what we'd do without her!

Solar Eclipse

Just this morning there was a partial solar eclipse that could be seen from East Africa, and we joined all the other MKs for "science class" and saw the phenomenon through special glasses.  Another mom made donuts for the occasion and it was great fun to see all the kids admire the moon blocking the sun.  Caleb never actually looked through the glasses, and Kai wouldn't do it more than once, but they've been talking about it all day, so clearly the event made an impression!

These kinds of things cement the MK experience - learning and exploring and playing together in a unique setting, and watching them help each other and love each other through it all.  These kids are living a unique but extraordinary life, and we're excited to see how our own kids will grow and develop continually through their own journey as an MK.

Why It's Worth It

Last month I was asked to write an article for the upcoming issue of The Call (a WGM publication) about the question, "Why is it worth it?"  I'd been piecing the article together in my mind for awhile but didn't get a chance to sit down and write it until today, the due date.  There's nothing like last-minute motivation!  It's just a short piece, but I wanted to share it here.  These have definitely been thoughts/issues we've been reflecting on regularly since arriving in Kenya nearly five months ago.

Why It's Worth It

            We’d been in Kenya just over two months when I uttered the words, “I want to go home.”  They were spoken not with a murmur or sigh, but with an emphatic sob.  After more than a decade of preparing for the mission field, it was jarring to feel such negative emotions after finally getting here.  But the transition to living overseas was harder than we expected.  The daily grind of learning the culture and adjusting to ministry and helping our three young boys adapt had taken its toll.
            The straw that broke the camel’s back was a missing dump truck – a missing toy dump truck.  Our son’s cherished toy was a small and seemingly insignificant thing, yet its disappearance tipped the scales and I found myself sobbing for the comfort of home.  It had “walked off” with another kid, meaning that a Kenyan playing in the sandbox with Kai had either mistakenly lost it or outright absconded with it, both of which were known to happen.  When Kai asked where his dump truck was, and when a thorough search produced no results, and when reality hit that I couldn’t run to Target and replace the construction machine that someone else lost, I broke down.  It was simply too much to handle.  Processing the value of material things, plus wrestling with the socially acceptable activity of walking off with someone else’s stuff, plus helping a 2-year old cope with the loss of a beloved toy, plus weighing the merits of justice vs honor/shame when face-to-face with the culprit…it was all too much to handle that day and I just wanted to go home.
            But rather than give up and actually go home, we are allowing God to use this time of transition and stress to refine us and strengthen us for the years ahead.  When Eli struggles with the death of yet another patient, God reminds him that He is faithful even in the midst of death.  When I realize I’ve made yet another cultural mistake, God reminds me that He is sovereign and can do His work despite my faux pas.  When our kids cling to timidity in this new culture, God reminds us that He is wise and has brought them here to grow in confidence.
            Living and ministering overseas is not easy, and it’s clearly not the easiest way to raise our children either.  But it’s the best thing we could be doing because it is God’s will for us.  Being in the center of God’s will is worth every stress, every lost dump truck, and every desire to go home.  He is worth it all, now and forever.

Because There's Hope in Jesus

A young man was brought into the hospital by his family.  They had found him after an attempted suicide by drinking pesticides, a common form of suicide here due to its accessibility and affordability.  The man was apparently involved in a dysfunctional relationship, which the family disapproved of, and seeing no way out of his predicament he therefore decided the best solution was to end his life.  That was the story of this despondent young man's story when Eli first met him in the ER at the hospital.  Thankfully, his attempted suicide did not succeed.  And thankfully, his story was about to take an incredible turn.

After resuming consciousness, it was obvious this man held little hope for whatever lay ahead.  His face was drawn, his posture limp, his eyes weary.  He had hoped to escape his life, not return to it.  Being rescued from death, it seemed, was not good news.  Eli was concerned for this patient, wondering if he'd be discharged only to make another attempt to destroy his own life.

But later that day the young man was visited by a hospital chaplain, a kind Kenyan man committed to nurturing the spiritual needs of patients.  That chaplain boldly but lovingly shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News, and it was a turning point for this young man.  What he heard was a story of love and grace and hope that could be infused into his own story and alter it for the better forevermore.  The man decided to believe in the saving grace of Jesus, and the change was instantaneous.  Eli showed up the next day and could scarcely believe it was the same man he'd seen the day before.  It was obvious this man held great hope for whatever lay ahead.  His face was glowing, his posture confident, his eyes joyful.  He had hoped to escape his life, but was now thankful he'd failed the venture.  Being rescued from death, it seemed, was suddenly good news.  Being rescued from Death was even greater news!  The young man's life was outwardly transformed because of the inward transformation done through the grace of Jesus Christ.

The man was eventually discharged and went home to a life with circumstances that looked much like they had before, but he went home with the ability to perceive those circumstances differently if not change those circumstances altogether.  Because when Jesus enters a life there is hope.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace 

as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope 

by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Romans 15:13

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A girl, maybe 13 or 14 years old, was brought into the Maternal and Child Health clinic.  She wasn't performing well in school, her mother said, and despite moving her around from school to school her academics weren't improving.  They came to Tenwek to see if anything could be done to help her.

The staff at MCH called Eli to assess the girl.  Probable causes for her poor performance ran through his head as he walked toward the building.  Did she need IQ testing?  Was her vision okay?  As Eli met with the girl and her mother, however, it quickly became apparent that her issues were not clinical/physical, but social and emotional.  She was a social outcast at school and was being bullied and was struggling with low self-esteem.  No wonder her grades were suffering.  But what was to be done?  A prescription or procedure wouldn't solve her problems.

A Clinical Officer (the equivalent of a Nurse Practitioner) volunteered to do a more thorough counseling session the next day, and during that time she shared the Gospel with the girl, who chose to accept it.  The girl went home, not with a promise that her school situation would automatically improve but with a promise that Jesus would walk with her every step of the way.  She now has Someone to turn to when other kids at school shun her.  She now has Someone to believe in who holds her future in the palm of His hand.  She now has Someone to cling to for hope.  Because when Jesus enters a life there is hope.

"This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance 

(and for this we labor and strive), 

that we have put our hope in the living God, 

who is the Savior of all men, 

and especially of those who believe."

1 Timothy 4:9-10


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It is a blessing and honor to be part of something that helps turn stories of despair into stories of hope. It's a true joy to know that the ministry of Tenwek Hospital, the ministry we are presently fully invested in, is sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with the people who come here seeking help.  May His name be made known among the nations, including the nation of Kenya, and may He be continually glorified through the small role we play in making Him known.

Counting the Cost

In the story of the Rich Young Man (Matthew 19:16-30) we are challenged to count the cost of following Jesus.  For the eponymous character in the story, the cost was to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor.  "Then come, follow me," Jesus instructed him.  But the man went away sad because he had great wealth.  The cost of following Jesus was too much for him.

At least, we assume it was too much for him.  The story doesn't indicate that he ever did sell his possessions and give them to the poor and then follow Jesus.  The rich young man went away from that encounter with sadness, which indicates that he went away from that encounter with no intention of coming back.  But I'd like to believe that some people, maybe even the rich young man included, initially went away sad at the thought of the sacrifice required to follow Jesus, but upon counting the cost decided to follow Jesus anyway.  It's certainly not everyone's first reaction to jump for joy after counting the cost.  In fact, I'm inclined to think that most of us (myself included) are weighed down with a degree of sadness when we truly realize how much sacrifice is required of us.  I'd also like to think that despite our tears and hanging heads and outright sorrow, Jesus is still pleased when we choose to follow Him anyway because a willing heart is a heart that's able to be transformed to all He wants it to become, which is the ultimate reason for following Jesus anyway.

Here is my honest confession: I had a Rich Young Man moment right before we came to Kenya.  It was Easter weekend, two days before our departure.  We had traveled across the state of Michigan to spend the day with my dad's family and I knew it would be a day of mixed emotions.  My family was excited for us to be on our way, but also sad to let us go, and I knew it'd be particularly hard because of one final goodbye: my grandpa.  My Grandpa Clark was 90 years old and his health had been rapidly declining for awhile and I simply knew that once I said goodbye I would never see him again.  I kissed his cheek and said "I love you" and subsequently threw myself into my cousin's arms and wept.  Let me tell you, in that moment my heart understood what the rich young man felt like.  My wealth was not in material possessions like his, but I am incredibly rich in the blessing of my family and I counted the cost that day and felt an immense sadness at what is being required of us.  Jesus has asked us to give up the proximity of family and the opportunities for family gatherings and the joy of making memories with them.  And after all this He said, "Then come, follow me."

And we did.  We followed Jesus all the way to Kenya, where He's been busy molding us and teaching us and stretching us and transforming us.  I do not regret following Him, and I never will.  But yes, I got on the plane and followed Him with a degree of sadness in my heart.

Then, last Friday morning after being here nearly three months, I got the news: Grandpa Clark had died.  I knew it would happen, and I knew it would be sooner than later, but it still came as a blow.  I sobbed.  I ached for the loss itself, and also for the separation of an ocean as I attempted to grieve in isolation from the rest of my family.  I'm still aching because of this.  My grandpa is gone, I won't be at the funeral, and trying to grieve from afar has proven to be an odd experience at best.  I long to go home, to just be there and participate in the communal grieving with my family and also the celebration of a long life well lived.

But alas, I am here in Kenya and going home is not an option for several reasons.  And so I am grieving from here and trying to stay connected with my family as best as I can.  Friday was a rough day, and by the end I decided to take a bath to soothe my aching muscles.  As I sat in the hot water and thought about my grandpa, I penned a poem in my head.  It allowed me to put into words what I'd been feeling all day:

Knowing that the end was near

reflecting on the past

Watching, waiting, wondering

and then he breathed his last

Hearing from across the world

of his ascent to glory

Now we know the final chapter

of my grandpa's story

Grieving nearly all alone

far from those gathered near

Weeping for the painful loss

of a man held dear

Longing to go home again

and grieve collectively

To cry within a realm

of familiarity

Aching from the struggle

of what we've sacrificed

Clinging to the promise

of the hope we have in Christ

Knowing that the end was near

reflecting on our call

Submitting to the One who knows

the cost of giving all

What we have sacrificed is real, but it's a fraction of what Christ Himself gave up for us.  He has led by example and asks that we follow Him.  May any degree of sadness accompanied with counting the cost never be enough to keep us from faithfully following Him anyway!

Shortly after the rich young man went away sad, Jesus said this: "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother [or grandfather or grandmother] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:29).  That is our promise, and that is what I'm clinging to in these days of grieving and reflecting half a world away.

Grandma and Grandpa Clark with Asa last Christmas

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We invite your prayers for us and our family during this time.  My grandparents' 70th anniversary is today, June 21, and Grandpa desperately wanted to make it to this day of celebration but was five days short.  The visitation will be held today instead, with the funeral tomorrow morning.

Adjustments

We knew that moving to a new country would require many adjustments, and we knew those adjustments would be hard, and we knew it would be exhausting to constantly manage those adjustments.  We knew it would happen, we knew it would be hard, and we knew it would be exhausting.  Yet, somehow, we are finding ourselves amazed that it's actually taking a toll on us, as if all the foreknowledge in the world should have been enough to cancel out the hard and exhausting parts of adjusting to life in a new country and culture.  But all the foreknowledge in the world has not canceled out the hard and exhausting parts.  We have been in Kenya for nearly two months and sometimes it feels like we know even less than when we first arrived because everyday exposes how much we don't yet know or understand about living here.

Knowing beforehand that living here would require numerous adjustments did indeed help to prepare us, particularly for the adjustments we expected to face (like being stared at all the time, or having difficulty communicating because our American accent is so different from their Kenyan accent, or not being able to pop a frozen pizza in the oven when that's all I can handle by dinner time).  But little could have prepared us for the adjustments we didn't expect to face (like brown water, or bug bites despite mosquito nets, or people knocking on our door multiple times a day).  And therein lies the irony: a huge part of adjusting to life in Kenya is learning to cope with the unlooked for, but necessary, adjustments.

Most of it is hard, but certainly not all of it.  Some things make us rise to the challenge (like cooking from scratch) while others leave us downright frustrated and annoyed (like our kids getting bug bites from an unknown source).  Some things we've adjusted to quickly (like washing all our produce in bleach water) while other things are taking a much longer time to adjust to (like having househelp in our home).  Ups and downs.  Pluses and minuses.  All of it summed up in one word: adjustments!

Let me highlight some particular areas that will further my point and also offer a peek into our daily life in Kenya.


Water

We didn't know until we arrived at Tenwek that the water coming through the pipes is usually a shade of brown.  It comes from the river and is filled with alum that taints the color.  It's not safe to drink, which we knew beforehand and is also why we drink filtered rainwater, but we still brush our teeth with it and wash our dishes with it and do our laundry with it and bathe in it.  This is what the water looks like before our dirty boys get into the tub:

Quite frankly, we don't mind bathing in brown water, or washing our dishes in it, or brushing our teeth with it.  What we weren't prepared for is what it does to our clothes in the wash.  It stains clothes and somehow makes them gritty.  We quickly had to come to terms with the fact that some of our clothes might not last the two years we are here.  After a couple weeks of frustration and staring at our kids' clothes while wondering how their shirts are supposed to last two years when they're barely lasting two weeks, we heard from another missionary that we can wash clothes by hand with rainwater to prevent staining.  So we quickly adopted that method for our light-colored clothes in an attempt to preserve them, which has done wonders.  Our househelp does laundry twice a week for us and washes half of it by hand with water from the giant rain barrel outside.  We've decided to keep washing the dark clothes in the washing machine because stains are hard to see on them anyway.  So we've found a middle ground and are adjusting to the water situation.  (On another note, whenever I wash my hair with water from the pipes, my hair becomes funky.  There's no other way to describe it.  It does something weird to our hair, and mine is long enough to be frustrated by it, so I wash my hair with rainwater instead, filling a big Coke bottle from the rain barrel before taking a shower.  Almost every other white woman does the same thing here.)

Cooking

Almost everything needs to be made from scratch.  Many modern food items can be found in Nairobi, but they come at a price and a 4-hour drive.  Some things can even be found here in Bomet (sliced bread, and most recently - butter), but most things need to be made from scratch.  Tortillas?  From scratch.  Muffins?  From scratch.  Guacamole?  From scratch.  There are no pre-made mixes or a frozen food aisle at the local market.  So we've been learning a lot about cooking!  It can take a lot of time, especially since we're trying many things for the first time, but it's also very rewarding to know we can still eat familiar foods if we're willing to put the time into making them.

One of my first attempts was to make pizza.  It was a bold choice since the one thing I have failed at every single time is homemade bread, which is the same category as pizza crust.  And I failed yet again when I made my first pizza here, but Eli was gracious with my attempt and helped me salvage the wreckage, and by golly we ate it and it wasn't awful!  I made a Hawaiian pizza with ham I bought in Nairobi and pineapple I bought here at the hospital, and I've made several Hawaiian pizzas since (with varying degrees of successful crusts, but all edible).  We've also had pizzas with sausage from Nairobi, pepperoni from America, and peppers, onions, and tomatoes from the local market.  It's been an adventure that we're committed to continuing.  Friday Night Pizza Night is a Tenwek tradition and we are happy to adjust to that!

Another cooking success has been homemade chicken nuggets.  Caleb and Kai love chicken nuggets and we weren't sure how our transition into Kenya would go without access to them.  But I quickly found an amazing and easy recipe on the Pioneer Woman's website, and they were such a hit that we've made our own tradition of making chicken nuggets every Sunday for lunch after church.

Another adjustment in the realm of cooking has been to wash all our produce in bleach water before eating it.  It's not a big deal, but does require a bit of forethought.  When dinnertime comes, I can't just pull the apples out of the fridge and cut them up.  I have to fill the basin with water and a cap full of bleach, let them soak for a bit, then rinse them again before cutting them up.  We've gotten better at washing our fruit and veggies ahead of time, but sometimes it still escapes us until we're pulling a meal together and realize we didn't wash the carrots we're planning to use in the curry.  Maybe someday it will become second nature to buy tomatoes and wash them right away so they're ready to use!

Bugs

There are a lot of bugs in Kenya.  This was something we knew ahead of time, but it has been more of an adjustment than we anticipated.  Mosquitoes are annoying, but we sleep under mosquito nets and basically cope with them like we do in the summertime in the States.  Ants will occasionally creep into the house, but they can be squished or swept out of the house and soon forgotten.  The real adjustment has been dealing with the unknown bugs that bite us overnight.  We all have mosquito nets which mostly work (although the occasional mosquito does find its way into the net and buzzes in our ears in the middle of the night), but there have been a handful of times when one or more of us wake up with random bites that we cannot place where they came from.

One night I woke up to the feeling of something crawling across my face.  I flailed and freaked out and subsequently left Eli to fend for himself when Kai woke up crying a few minutes later and needed someone to snuggle with him.  Sure enough, in the morning I discovered two bites on my neck from whatever the creepy crawly was that found its way into our bed.

On two different occasions, Kai has suffered bug bites on his ear which have led to swelling and blistering and weeping.  We had to combat the symptoms with ibuprofen and Benadryl, and despite asking around we still have no idea what kind of bug did this to our poor boy.

Perhaps worst of all is when our completely innocent and defenseless infant gets bit.  A few times he's woken up with bites on his hands or face.  The most recent episode included bites on his forehead and throughout his hair.  They weren't mosquito bites but we have no idea what else they came from.  Spider?  Bed bug?  It's anyone's guess, and it's been hard to adjust to this enigma.

Househelp

Twice a week we have two househelpers working in our home.  One woman cleans the house and does our laundry while another woman cooks.  Once a week we have a third househelper who works in our garden and does other odd jobs as needed.  While there are many benefits to househelp, such as the obvious help with time-consuming tasks like meal prep and cleaning and laundry, it has been the most difficult adjustment for me.  I never imagined how awkward it would be to have someone in my home, cleaning the floors of the living room while I'm sitting on the couch reading books to my kids, or how invasive I feel in our own kitchen because I need to access the snack cupboard for the boys.  I also never imagined how stressful it would be to have my "safe zone" taken from me twice a week.  Our home is the only place where it's possible to retreat from the outside world.  If we walk out the door, there's nowhere we can go without being instantly on display because of our white skin.  There's no walk we can take where eyes aren't watching our every move.  There's no coffee shop or library or mall where we can blend into the crowd.  There is nowhere for us to go to avoid being the center of attention except our very own home.  Twice a week, when I am home with our kids like I am every day, the freedom of being in such a "safe zone" is taken away when our househelp enter our home for the day, and it's surprisingly stressful.

Despite the stress, we've decided it's worth it because of the benefits.  I don't like having my space and privacy invaded, but I do like having fresh bread that I don't know how to bake myself.  I also like having the laundry that needs to be done by hand done by someone else's hands who knows how to work out water stains.  And I like having someone monitor our garden since I know nothing about gardening but would love to eat lettuce, for example, which can only be found by planting lettuce seeds in the soil.  So the benefits are real.  Furthermore, hiring househelp also offers employment to the people working for us, which is an important contribution the missionaries offer to the community here.

There are other benefits too.  For instance, because we have a Kenyan cook twice a week, we get to eat traditional Kenyan meals like this beef stew and chapati that leave us begging for more.

On the other hand, because we have a Kenyan cook twice a week, we occasionally discover the limitations of someone who doesn't have an oven in her own home trying to bake with our oven.  Yesterday H made this apple pie because we had extra apples and I asked her to, and when I saw it sitting on the counter after a long and stressful day of multiple confusing cross-cultural encounters, I could only think that is Not My Mother's Apple Pie and I wanted to cry.  Why does it matter that the apples were diced instead of sliced, or that it was more like apple soup instead of pie?  I don't know.  But somehow it did matter on a day like yesterday and I nearly lost it.  Caleb liked the crust, which is ironic since the top was burned, but at least there was a silver lining.

Other adjustments regarding househelp have involved sorting out their insurance and Social Security benefits which we're required to pay for.  We naively assumed that hiring househelp would simply require paying them cash at the end of the month, but there's more to it than that, and adding requests for advances on top of that (and wondering how to handle those requests mixed with wondering if we even have enough cash on hand to give an advance without prior notice) all makes for a stressful situation sometimes.  So it's been a huge adjustment on many fronts, one that was unlooked for.

Open Door Policy

Last but not least has been the adjustment to so many people coming to our door at all hours of the day.  We live in close proximity to many people, and some people pop over just to say hi or drop something off, which is nice.  But many people also knock on our door because they're selling something, or straight-up asking for money, and there's simply no way to avoid the oft revolving door unless I literally shut the door and close the curtains.  There's an Open Door Policy here, which can be a beautiful thing, but can also be an annoying thing.  I like having the door and curtains open because it lets in fresh air and sunshine.  But the cost is that the rest of the world knows I'm home and available, and there's no putting a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob.  If someone comes to our door hoping to sell me bananas, or a basket, or whatever, I need to answer the door.  Because if I don't, that person will wait patiently until I do, and Kenyans are very patient people.  Because my door is open, it means I'm somewhere inside and they are willing to wait if it means they can sell me something for a hundred shillings (the equivalent of a dollar).  And everyone who comes to the door is friendly and kind and greets me with a smile and a handshake, and often I'm actually interested in what they're selling, but sometimes I just want to remain in the house undisturbed because I'm busy enough with the kids and pausing whatever we're doing to answer the door and make an instant decision about pineapples isn't a convenient thing to do.

So it's been an adjustment of learning the balance between leaving the front door open but not the back door (because people come to both doors), versus leaving both doors open because the fresh air and sunshine is simply worth it in this place of idyllic weather.


And so we are adjusting to life in Kenya, which has required some coping skills and a willingness to learn new things and much appreciation for the way some things are done differently here that are better than the way we do things in America.  But we are adjusting.  Slowly but surely!  God has been good to sustain us through all of it, and He will be faithful to sustain us still.  All praise and glory go to Him for creating people and culture in the first place which require adjusting to and which stretch us to become more like Him as we see people and culture through His eyes.