Volleyball try-outs and Biking Interim 2012

It is that time of year again.  Time to start winding up for next term sports.  The volleyball program is such a highlight for Todd.  The teams have been made.  Hopefully the athletes have been training so that when they come back it will not be hard to get right into the swing of things to play.  We start almost right away with the international school league and then we head into a national school season where we try to find up and coming volleyball teams to play.  We also plan to go to a high security prison to play the inmates and guards for our outreach games.  That is an experience that we do not forget too easily.  Having other staff to help coach seems to be the biggest hurdle.  So… if you feel particularly called to be a volleyball coach (among other things) please think about coming out to RVA.  He sure could use some coaching depth.

Interim is another fun activity that happens at the end of this term.  It is a great program that has our junior and senior students head out on specialized educational trips for one week.  This year, along with two other staff members, Todd got to lead the biking interim for the third time.  The adventure and challenge of riding many kilometers and through areas of elephants, hyenas, rhinos with seventeen students is always both exciting and anxiety filled.  Some of these students have not ridden on a bike for as many days as we ride for so the first few days are interesting.  This year we rode about 150Km. It is a great trip and gives the students a sense of accomplishment by the end.  Here is the video that the students produced to show the rest of the school of what we did.  It is a fun time and we hope that the students learn much from the trip.

 

 

Senior re-entry weekend

There is a unique aspect of working here at RVA.  We experience a high number of transitions and changes in our environments that it is easy to forget just how these things affect us.  Transition never occurs in a vacuum.  It involves people at every turn and junction of our lives.  Transitioning well means learning how to say goodbye well.  This in turn allows us to say hello well.  We work with children who may experience many transitions during the course of a year.  Just sitting back and counting the transitions from family to school and back again a student could go through a minimum of twelve of those types of transitions in one year alone.

Each year Todd has the privilege of starting the process here at RVA by presenting material to the senior students in health class about what has been termed “Third Culture Kids” (TCKs).  Granted, the students are much more of the experts in this area than Todd is.  However, the idea is to provide a starting point for the seniors to start dialoguing about their experiences and the upcoming transition of moving from high school across the world and re-entering their “home” culture.  For many of these students they probably consider the “host” culture their home.  It can be a particularly trying time of adjustment and acceptance of a new way of life.  In order to help them start leaving well, which will help them enter well, we dedicate a weekend for the seniors to leave campus and spend time as a class working through the important material. 

Please pray for the grade twelve students graduating this year.  It is important to leave well and we are hopeful they are processing the importance of this next transition as one that will help them set the course of the next few years on their lives.  Please pray that they will build their RAFT through Reconciliation, Affirmation, Farewells, and Think Destination.  We are excited that they will be leaving us soon to disperse around the whole world taking with them the knowledge that we have spent many hours instilling into them.  We are also beginning to realize that for many of them these last few months will be the last time we get to see them.

Lightning strikes twice?

There is probably never a day that goes by that is not full of some sort of crazy event.  Just the other day it was an intense lightning storm that had a bolt of lightning strike right in the middle of our campus.  Thankfully no one was hurt but it certainly left people scurrying for cover.  People described it as a white blinding light with instant deafening noise.  Some kids were even thinking that the school was under attack as the sound of the lightning sounded like machine gun and artillery – only something these kids would be able to think of when an event like this happens.  The only problem is that just when we may have started thinking that the Internet was improving this bolt of lightning fried about $25,000 – $30,000 worth of equipment and putting us back to the age of having to communicate face to face.  It may mean that we will have to wait a few weeks to communicate effectively with everyone we know back in Canada.  Right now we have to use the time our connection to the outside world is working efficiently.  Hopefully, lightning does not strike twice.  Please pray for wisdom for the tech guys working here to get things up and going enough for us to carry on our teaching here.  Amazing how dependent we can get and the shock it is when it is taken away.

Post Election Trial News

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has just ruled today that four prominent Kenyan politicians will be tried for their part in the post election violence that gripped the country in 2007.  Even to this day there are thousands of people “displaced” and having to rebuild their lives.  We can even see a few camps from here at the school.  Even five years later there are people who are just starting to build more permanent structures and moving out of tattered and ruined tents.  It is hard to believe but we are sure that even the Kenyan people do not believe that this day has come.  Yet the rhetoric that still comes from these politicians is even harder to believe.  Even in the face of being convicted of serious crimes against humanity they still claim to still be in the running for the presidency in the next election that is supposed to be held later this year.  There seems to still be a very large disconnect with reality and the seriousness of the crimes.  We have included a political cartoon that was in a recent newspaper.  Even though it may seem funny, the truth is that it really does seem to work this way here. Please pray for the people of this country.  Pray that they will be able to see the seriousness of the situation and demand that those who are in positions of power be held accountable for everything from how they represent them in the government to how they spend the money.  Pray that they will not resort to violence again because many could be angry that some popular politicians will be facing these accusations.  We are so glad that something is being done and that there will be justice for the approximately 1,100 people who lost their lives and thousands more who suffered horrific physical and mental pain because of the selfishness of those in power.

Water plus a hot sunny day equals…

Titchie Water Field Day!  This tradition dates back many years as part of titchie weekend and gives the young kids a chance, or excuse, to douse each other with water.  There are many stations of water related activities – water pants, dodge sponge, musical buckets, splish – splish – splash (duck, duck, goose), balloon/sponge launcher, dunking booth, and shaving cream wash.  It ends with a large slip and slide that is set up on the hill.  All of the elementary school aged children have a great time.  The parents are busy going around taking pictures and visiting with one another. 

This day also coincides with the start of banquet asking.  We will be writing more about this later if you do not know what this is.  Most of the junior and senior students are wondering who is going to ask who to the banquet that happens later this term.  There is a lot of drama around it but one year a student went so far to have his dad, who was a pilot, make a flyby of the school dropping a bag of candy and the note to ask a girl to the banquet.  It was a cool idea but ended up being more crazy than anticipated.  People were scrambling to get away from this “candy bomb” that was thrown out of the airplane as it barely cleared the rugby poles over the field.  It sure made a memory which is talked about to this day.

So titchie water field day is a memorable day full of water, laughs, and more water.  Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what it is like.

The BIG Bus

Well, it is official.  I have joined the prestigious fraternity of bus drivers at RVA.  After having my license endorsed to drive big vehicles in Kenya and a half an hour of instruction I got behind the wheel of the bus with 42 people in it and roared along at the paltry speed of 80 Km/h.  I have to admit that it is exhilerating and very scary at the same time.  There were so many things to remember and pay attention to.  

Driving a forty foot vehicle that can only go 80 Km/h (fixed with a speed governor because that is the law in Kenya) kind of makes other drivers, who feel the need to go 110 Km/h, think that they have to get by it as fast as they can.  It is not uncommon to have vehicles passing on the shoulder of the road or trying to get by and just swerving in front in time before oncoming vehicles crash into them.  The best way to describe it is that it is chaotic Indy car racing in both lanes – that is the exhilerating part.  The scary part is that you never know when the next big pile-up will happen and you just hope and pray that you are not involved in it.  Thankfully, we had a good trip.  Anyway, there is always a need for drivers for the big bus and hopefully I will be available to help in this area. 

Who knows, since we do not have a vehicle of our own that maybe the bus will be a form of transportation that we can use to do our shopping and traveling in.  Now we just need to find 42 other friends to offset the cost :).

What not to do in Kenya, plus ten thoughts

Well, we have now lived in Kenya for about ten years now.  There are many great things to do here but we cannot say that we have not made blunders along the way in learning how to live here.  We thought that we would pass on some things that we have found to be not so high on our list of repeatable experiences.

1.  Do not throw metal objects onto unshielded power lines.  In the process of trying to cut down a dead branch without actually climbing the tree the metal saw attached to a rope flew through the air with the greatest of ease, over the branch and directly onto the 240 volt power lines.  Accidental but it produced a pretty amazing spark show.  Chalk that one up to experience – not to do again and call an expert.

2.  Do not disqualify a sports team for being late to a tournament.  OK, it seemed to be justified at the time when the team showed up three hours late.  Pool play had almost finished so they would have had to play every game back to back.  Time is relative here in Kenya so telling a team that they cannot play because they did not make it “on time” is a major blunder – at least they made it and we should be happy. 

3.  In additon to time we have found that age is relative as well.  In Canada when we say we will play your high school team we generally believe that we would be playing against like aged students.  However, here in Kenya when we say we will play the high school team that could include “students” of any age.  So be careful when you invite another school to play a game.  School is fluid so you can drop out for a few years and then come back to finish and enjoy the benefit of whooping younger kids with a more developed body.

4.   Do not expect that the common sense rules of the road exist.  If you do then it is most likely that you will be left sitting in one spot for a very long time.  Even though time is relative (most of the time) it seems as if when a Kenyan is behind the wheel of a motor vehicle watch out, it is every man for himself.  At least it appears that they drive like they should have been some place twenty minutes ago – all of the time.

5.  Along with the theme of driving do not think that 100 Km translates into 40 -45 minutes driving time.  One hundred kilometers here can easily translate into an all day trip.  It may also mean that you will probably have to change the suspension, tires, brakes, and maybe the whole engine…

6.  Women should not chase baboons.  Male baboons are not afraid of women.  Kylie says that even if a woman is holding a gun (not that we have a gun) they probably would not run away even then.  Baboons will think twice when they see a young boy – especially one holding a slingshot.  They will (typically) run away as soon as they see a man even if he does not have a slingshot.  So we figure that baboons exist to make men feel more manly.

7.  Do not think that when policemen ask for “chai” that they actually mean a drink.  Usually policemen will stop drivers not to cite them for breaking any laws but to see if they can get a bribe.  They have a lot of time on their hands and are not afraid to “wait you out” in order to get what they want.  They will make up some sort of excuse so that they can keep your license which they demand that you turn over when you are stopped.  One time Todd was told that he was pulled over because his license was “defaced”.  He still is baffled how that policemen knew that it was defaced while it was in his pocket.

8.  Do not miss an opportunity to buy a bag of sugar, marshmallows, peanut butter, …  One never knows if it is the last time it will be seen in a store.  Since most everything is imported into the country there is only limited supplies of items until the next shipment.  We have seen some items missing from shelves for weeks at a time.  It is amazing just how important things like sugar are – try it yourself and not buy it for several days.  We are hopeful that shortages like these are short lived and that they will reappear at the right time.  Otherwise, we might have to start refining our own sugar.  This might be tricky.

9.  Do not forget that 1000 Kenya schillings equals about 12 dollars.  It is easy to forget and all of the sudden the grocery bill becomes several tens of thousands of schillings.  Knowing the exchange rate is important and an ongoing reality.  So the next time someone comes up and says, “it is only 5,000 schillings”, think twice and ask yourself, “Is that piece of wood really worth $50 – $60?”.

 10.  Do not hit and kill wild animals with a vehicle.  Fortunately, we have not done that but we have been told that it is against the law to have an accident with a wild animal that kills it.  Apparently though we can hit all of the domesticated animals we want.  Kenyans will demand that they be paid for their donkey, sheep, goat, cow, chickens that roam on the road and are killed but jail time is to be expected for killing a wild animal.  Watch out for those giraffe!

Support and Vehicle Fund Review 2011

Monthly Support:

We have been very blessed to have such faithful prayer and financial partners in what we do here at RVA. We have had an interesting year and have been reminded again and again that God is in control and that He provides for all our needs. We do have a financial target that we hope to be at for a majority of our time but we trust that God provides as much as we need. We do not find ourselves with a lot of extra money to put towards retirement funds and education funds but we do our best with what we get and put as much as we can into those areas so that we can be responsible in those areas as well.

We would like to give you an idea of what happened this year in terms of our financial support and where we are at in our funds for a vehicle.
 
Each month we receive a statement from Africa Inland Mission which tells us how much came in for our support. We are just coming off a year long home assignment where we spent a lot of time traveling and visiting churches. We were so encouraged by the fact that we had receieved commitments for 100% of our financial target. However, over the course of the last few months we have seen a decline. Here is a graph of what we have seen over the past year.

A Vehicle:

We have also looking forward to the ability to purchase a vehicle. After purchasing a vehicle a few years ago and going through the disaster of the engining seizing beyond repair because of a faulty engine rebuild we would like again to find a vehicle that would suit our needs as well as the needs of the types of ministries that we find ourselves doing. Our goal is to find a vehicle that will be easy to maintain and provide room for not only our family but also for extra passengers as needed. Unfortunately even a simple vehicle like the 2002 van you see is approximately $18,000 – $20,000.  A 2003 Prado would cost closer to $30,000.  There are many reasons why the cost is so high but we do know that God provides just what we need.  As of right now we have .05% of the $20,000 amount raised for a vehicle.
 
If you would like to partner with us in either of these areas please contact AIM at financeassist.can@aimint.net.

Christmas Celebrations

Christmas in Kenya has a lot of traditions that we really enjoy. Besides running around in shorts and t-shirts we do several activities that we find meaningful during this season.  This year we carried on the tradition of having lunch with the men who work in the laundry here at the school. We roast a goat or sheep, spend time together, eat a lot of good Kenyan food, the men sing a few songs, we share a short devotional, and then we give them a small gift usually sugar and flour which have become very expensive here to get. We made a video of what we did this year so feel free to watch it to hear some songs sung in Kikuyu as well as some pictures of the event.

Each year we deliver Christmas hampers to those who are less fortunate in the community. The Sunday school program takes the tithes that the children bring and put together hampers of food items to be distributed to needy people in the community. These people are picked by community leaders and have experienced some pretty hard times. Usually it is some older people with many children they are looking after since the parents had acquired AIDS and most had past away within the year. It is heartbreaking to see so many children having to be cared for by people who no longer work full time jobs. We hope that sometimes our hampers will alleviate some of the problems they have for a short time. This time we found a large group of children following us just waiting for their chance at stardom. Here is a short video of them wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Also on Christmas Eve we go to the hospital to sing Christmas carols. There is a large group of people that generally split up into smaller groups and go to the different wards to sing to the patients who cannot leave for the holidays. We give practical items and candies and everyone appreciates the time of singing and greeting those who cannot go to be with their families. This year there were not so many people in the hospital which was good to see. Those that were still there though were quite sick or recovering from surgery. We spoke to as many as we could trying to encourage them as they recovered from their physical ailments.

On Christmas day we also have the tradition of going to have “breakfast with the guards”. There are several guards who need to work on Christmas day so we go around and share some food and hot drink with them. Two other families joined us as we visited each of the gates to wish the guards Merry Christmas and give them a loaf of banana bread and chai.  We really appreciate the work that they do and try to express that to them by doing this simple act before we start opening presents and having our own Christmas dinner. Kylie got to cook her own turkey this year of which she was very nervous about but the rest of us were confident that she could do it.  It turned out great and we were all well fed.

Finally, we participate in the New Year’s Day activities that the AIC church holds on one of our fields.  People from the community come to play games and then have lunch together at the church hall.  Since Todd is a P.E. teacher he gets to help organize this time and usually get involved in some activity, like an egg toss, that will get him really dirty.  The church organizes a soccer game as well between the youth and the older men which can get pretty competitive.  It is a good way to enter into the new year and we all expect many people and many hours of activities.

AIM Conference 2011

At the end of first term each year AIM holds their yearly conference here at RVA.  It is such a privilege to host this event since we get to meet friends we have made before and make new friends of those who are new to the mission field.  This year Dr. John Talley from New Hampshire came to speak during the sessions.  It was so good to have a different perspective and his message was what we needed after a long, sometimes grueling, term.  It was so good that we thought that we would provide a somewhat quick outline of what we learned.

The theme of the conference was “In the Hands of God”.  The first day Dr. Talley compared the two stories of Jonathan and Saul.  Jonathan was faced with a difficult decision and he turned to his armour bearer and said,

“Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows.  Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf.  Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving whether by many or by few.” -1 Samuel 14:6 [emphasis added]

Saul, on the other hand, was rebuked by Samuel for his actions and he replied,

“When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’  So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”  -1 Samuel 13: 11-12 [emphasis added]

Notice the two very different responses.  As Dr. Talley pointed out we live life in a messy middle.  Many times we try to do things on our own.  But we ought to be willing to trust that God can deliver with a few or with many.  Are we willing to take that step out?

The second day Dr. Talley talked about Jeremiah and how he was called even before he was born.  By the twentieth chapter though Jeremiah claims that God has deceived him.   We have to recognize that we not only get to serve the people that God loves but to also suffer for the cause of Christ.

The prime example that we looked at though was the life of Joseph.  Genesis 37 – 50 outlines the life of Joseph.  He starts out by having this dream when he was seventeen that his brothers, mother and father would all bow down to him.  Then the first step was that he was sold into slavery by his brothers and taken into Egypt and sold to Potiphar.  Yet the Lord was with Joseph.  He was thrown into prison and it says again that the Lord was with Joseph.  He was forgotten in prison and 20 -27 years after he was sold by his brothers we start to see God’s plan for his life.  During all of that time never once was it indicated that Joseph questioned God or cried out in anguish.  Then there was the interpretation of the pharoahs dreams which started him to be in the position that his family ended up bowing down to him to get food during the famine.  Joseph’s perspective shows a patient endurance of the “messy middle”.     

Finally we looked at the story of Sennacherib and Hezekiah in Isaiah.  The story has three parts.  Sennacherib threatens Hezekiah; Hezekiah comes to the end of his resources; and there is a showdown between the King of the Universe and the king of Assyria – which is no match.

There is one very important word though that Dr. Talley pointed and that was the word “because”.  Because Hezekiah prayed God responded.  It was not anything special but it was a change in the posture of Hezekiahs heart.  But the word because was not only for Hezekaih but also for Sennacherib.  Because Sennacherib raged against God and was insolent in his words God dealt with him by defeating his army and turning him back to where he came.

If you read this far – congratulations.  Hopefully you have been blessed by what we have learned but unltimately we are here to accomplish His plan that was laid out before the world began.  We may experience pain and loss but God will accomplish what he wants.  It is hard but we need to learn that we should not rest on plans and worry about what may happen but get on our knees and change the posture of our hearts.

We hope that as we look forward to the Christmas season all of us will be able to slow down and maybe have a small glimpse into what God has laid out for us before time began.