Category — Kids

(While posting a couple days ago, I discovered I’d written this post and forgotten to post it – so here you have it. It’s related to this post about Rob and Liz’s visit.)

Last week (actually last month) our good friends Rob and Liz were visiting from Tanzania. One of the reasons they came to Nairobi was for their 4 month old’s routine doctor visit and immunizations. Since they were picking up her 6 month old shots to take home with them, I asked them if they could pick up the shots my kids also needed.

Rob is a doctor, and recently took a tropical medicine course, so it was good to pick his brain about what shots the girls should get living here in Kenya (he recommended the meningococcal vaccine.)

Lauren got make up from her Aunt Pam - I think she needs some lessons in putting it on!

My bed was the shot table, and a cooking tray the place to arrange all the shots. But Rob and Liz did a great job – all the shots were organized and labeled for each kid. Here’s what the girls got:

Lauren: Hepatitis A #2, Meningococcal
Meredith: Hep A #2, Meningococcal
Coriena: routine 4 year old shots (DTaP, MMR, Varicella), Meningococcal

Total price: $317

The total to have these shots at the clinic I used to work at (who gives immunizations basically at cost): $540 (and that doesn’t include the 2 Hep A vaccines.) Hurrah for vaccine prices here (and for Rob and Liz who were willing to give them!)

Meredith and Bridget at Village Market

• This morning I was woken up at 5:40am by Cheza banging around the house with her head-bucket. I never really went back to sleep.

• Erik goes tomorrow to South Africa for a week.

• We had no water downstairs since the previous evening, and and only a trickle upstairs. We’d had 8 people over for dinner yesterday, and every plate (dinner, dessert, kid) and almost all the silverware were dirty. And Erik needed clean clothes for his trip.

I was sitting outside in the early morning, praying about about all my woes. And then I read the next passage in Philippians (I’ve been reading through it for a few days.) “Rejoice in the Lord always. . . Do not be anxious. . . in everything, by prayer and petitition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God. . . will guard your hearts and minds.”

My first thought – “real funny God. How am I supposed to rejoice in these things!” But then I realized that I needed to pray about these requests again, but this time with thanksgiving.

(This picture of Cheza was taken by our friend Jon.)

• Thank you, Lord, that Cheza is healing well, and only has 1 1/2 more weeks of her cast.

• Thank you that Erik loves his work, and is doing so well with it. And thank you that he’s been home for about 5 weeks, and after this week will be home for 2 months.

• Thank you that we had water for the first week in our new house. (and please help us to get it again this morning – OK, that part wasn’t said very thankfully!)

After praying, I figured I should investigate our water issues some more. So I wandered around our yard, pulling up man hole covers. I discovered we have 3 underground water tanks, all of which were full. So it wasn’t a problem of no water. Next I wandered the house, looking for switches that might be water pump switches. By the dryer hookup, I found a switch that looked like a circuit breaker. I turned it on, and voila, the water pump started!!

An electrician had come on Friday to hook up the dryer, and turned that switch off. He either forgot to turn it back on, or didn’t realize it was for the water pump.

I felt so thankful to the Lord, for providing the water, and for reminding me that I needed to give thanks even when I feel overwhelmed by things going on in my life.

This last week or so we had a friend, Jon, visiting who was doing some photography/videography work done for Ushahidi. So I asked him if he would mind taking a few pictures of our family.

My parents gave the kids a trampoline for Christmas. We didn’t have room in our old place to set it up. But now we do (by the way, we moved last weekend – more about our new place later. But it’s really great!) The kids play on the trampoline for hours a day – jumping, reading, playing with toys on it. Thanks, Dad and Mom!!!

Thanks again for the great pics, Jon.

Here’s a short video of Lauren on the motorcycle (for some reason, it wouldn’t show up on the other post.) Sorry about the sobbing in the background – Coriena had just fallen down, and of course this was the only video I took!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brXK-g77OnI

(if the video isn’t imbedded, just cut and paste the link and it should open.)

Today we went with our friends Markus and Lindsey (Erik knew Markus from high school) on a family outing near the Lukenya Hills. Our base: the house/yard of Erik’s former English teacher.

Markus’ 4 year old son has a 50cc motorcycle with training wheels on it (how cool is that!) So he and Lauren swapped off on that all day. Lauren LOVED it. Markus and Erik went off-roading on their motorcycles.

Our friends’ 15 year old son (yes, he’s already been driving for 2 years – off-road), took Lindsey and I and the kids on a game drive. We sat on a mattress on the top of their Landcruiser, and had a blast. We saw giraffe, gazelle, ostrich, zebra, wildebeest.

I feel so priviledged to be living here, and to be able to have these kinds of adventures. I can’t wait to get a 4WD vehicle, and be able to do even more!