December has been a whirlwind of a month.  This is the first opportunity I have had to sit down and share about our Kenya trip.  Thank you for your patience in the past few weeks and for your expressed interest in hearing how everything went.

Kenya was amazing.  The people are incredible and just thinking of how their white smiles shine through the darkness literally makes my heart beat a little faster.  I wish I could say that we are still planning to move our family across the world to Africa to begin a new life there...but that, sadly, isn't going to be the case.  At least not now.  My prayer for our trip was that God would make his will known and open my eyes.  That IF we were to move there, He would fill me with such anticipation, excitement and peace, but that if we weren't supposed to move there, that He would give me he exact opposite.  We arrived into the airport late at night, and arrived at our hotel after quick customs and visa lines. Upon arriving to our hotel, we learned there we no rooms available.  Boo.  So began the 2.5 hour drive through back roads on unsafe and unlit Kenyan roads searching for a hotel.  My nerves were shot. I was so uneasy, nervous and kept repeating to Daniel under my breath "My dad would so NOT be okay with this!!!"  We finally found a place to stay and settled in for the night.  THe next day we started our 8 hour drive to Kendu Bay, where we would be staying in the village for the week.  We literally stayed IN A VILLAGE and it was such a break from reality.  The people were so welcoming and shouted out "MZUNGU!" everytime they saw our white skin. I kept praying for that "feeling" that "this is where we will be living"...it just wasn't happening.  I waited until day 4 before asking Daniel what his thoughts were.  I didn't want my feelings, or lack thereof, to influence him IF God was speaking to him.  He just looked at me and said "we are not moving here."  So I guess he felt it too.  Sigh.  When we saw the hospital, which would have been our home, I was hit with mixed emotions.  The place was huge and their vision for what it would be was incredible.  The donations that were received blew my mind and made me so excited for the care the people were going to receive!! God really and truly has big plans for that place!!  We met with all the staff of the hospital and had a meeting.  The meeting was an opportunity for the staff to express their concerns or challenges.  THE moment in which I knew it wasn't His plan for us to be there, was when the askari, the guard that protected the hospital, explained that he just didn't feel safe.  He repeated over and over again that several other guards had been killed lately and he just didn't feel safe doing his job.  WAIT, what?!?!  HE would be the man protecting us...and HE doesn't feel safe??  That was one of our big concerns, was the safety aspect and it was just laid out that there it wasn't safe, especially for "the white people", as they called us. I knew that HE would keep us safe if He wanted us there, but again, I felt nothing other than a "not now" urging.

Towards the end of the week, we went to a 4th grade graduation at one of the small schools in the village.  Daniel was the "Chief Guest of Honor" and got to give an encouraging speech to the kids.  Most of the children had never seen white people before, so we were truly honored by them.  Visiting the school was probably my most favorite part of the trip.  Seeing all the children run around, squeal with delight and those big, bright white smiles...there is just nothing quite like it.  The graduating class of 15 did a dance for us and sang songs for us...it was quite the traditional Kenyan celebration and I felt honored to be a part of it!

The village we stayed in was a completely self sustainable village.  We can learn so much from them! They have a huge tank that collects the rain water and that is the water they use.  During the dry season, when it runs out, they walk miles to the closest pond to fill their buckets, but most of the time, the convenience of rain water is right there.  They had about 8-9 cows and about 15 chickens/roosters directly inside the circular perimeter that the huts made and that was their main source of food. They would travel into the market once every few weeks to get anything that they didn't have and needed.  The had electricty that ran off solar power...again, not costing them any money.  Almost everyone had a cellphone, which I found hilarious.  But anyway, they would buy phone cards with minutes on them whenever they needed it.  In the main house, where we stayed, they had a power strip where about 10 phones, the TV, and one overhead light bulb were all plugged into.  It was so crazy to see!

The coolest thing that I took away from everything, is that the people we were around truly loved the Lord. Not the way I feel like many Americans love the Lord, but LIVING it out.  The children from the non-Christian academy we visited for the graduation had the choice of memorizing something and presenting it to the audience.  All but one out of the 15 chose a Bible verse and presented it beautifully.  For the Kenyans we were around, loving God and living for Him made them who they are...people who depend on and are lucky to know a God like Him.  It was such a blessing to witness and such a humbling experience.  Do they know Him better than I?  Is that why they are such a happy, peaceful, and caring people?

I'll wrap this up, since it is already way longer than I'm sure most want to read.  While we don't feel that God is moving us to live there, we definitely feel the need and desire to continue to support the hospital and the school we visited.  Our work isn't done in Kenya, nor do I think it ever will be.  This trip reaffirmed our love for the Kenyan people and deepened our desire to make a difference there. God has opened some new doors for us and we don't feel like this trip was a waste.  He showed us both that He is real and has real things in store for us as long as we keep listening to His prompting.

And a few random pictures...

 bed in the hospital

 the "choo", or the potties in the hospital

how women carry everything...so their hands are free...makes sense to me!

where our home would have been

the room full of donations

our host cooking dinner

Daniel talking to one of the workers at the hospital

Daniel and the Doctor

Baboons on the side of the road. 

Tomorrow is the day!

 I need to begin by apologizing for not updating the blog more often.  I am a horrible blogger.  Step one is admitting the problem, right??  I am going to work very hard at updating the blog more often.  That said...

I can't believe the time is finally here!!  Daniel and I will be boarding our plane to Kenya tomorrow morning.  I am excited, nervous, anxious, humbled, and filled with anticipation of what God will show us over the next 10 days.  If you would come alongside us in prayer, it would be so appreciated.  My prayer has been that we would go into this trip with our eyes wide open.  I am praying that we would hear God's voice and be able to discern his will.  I am also asking for prayer for my children.  This will be the longest we have been away from our little ones...and I know the time apart will be hard on all of us.  I just pray for protection of their hearts while we are gone...and that they would have an incredible time of fun and joy!!

So here we are, the night before we leave.  Our bags are packed.  Passports have been issued and now we wait.  We wait for God to continue to move in our lives and show us his path and his design for our future.  We are so thankful to everyone who has made this "Vision Trip" possible.  Without the prayer, support, and sacrificial donations, we would not be able to do this.  God is so good!!  We raised, TO THE EXACT DOLLAR, the money that we needed for this trip.  We were able to pay for our flights, our passports, our vaccinations and our visas with the money that was donated.  We are beyond grateful!!!

I look forward to updating this blog when we return on December 15th.  Thank you again for supporting our journey!!

Spiritual Warfare

I have hesitated posting the past few days because my heart has been so tortured. We are under some serious spiritual warfare right now. I am taking the brunt of it at the moment, and I just feel attacked. But as I sit and reflect on all the things that are happening around us and to us, I am comforted with the thought that "we must be doing something right if the Evil One is so threatened by us to attack us". It's almost like confirmation, in a backwards way. I read this verse in my Quiet Time this morning and I was so encouraged.  Deuteronomy 1:30 "The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes".  I feel like we are stepping out in the wilderness right now, and while I am being attacked, all I need to do is be still, REST in his peace and have confidence that He will fight for me.  Nothing that happens in our lives are surprises to Him, nothing shocks Him.  

Our "nudges" or rather "giant shoves" in one direction...Kenya.

There have been so many ways that God has shown us that this is His will for us. The first and foremost for me, is the incredible PEACE I feel. It is a “peace that surpasses all understanding”. I have a million things to do, and while it is stressful, I am at complete PEACE that we are doing the right thing. There are other ways we have “seen” His hand over this. Some of these probably seem like minor coincidences, but when you look at them all together, it is hard to not take a sharp breath and say “Wow! He is working!” Here’s a quick list of all the “hints” we’ve received: 1-The mere fact that I needed a new doctor, and the one I found just happened to be from Kenya, and just happened to need a Psychologist the SAME week Daniel lost his practicum site from school. 2-The day I got home from my second appt with the doctor and we started “talking” about Kenya, Gage asked to play a song on Daddy’s iPad. I pulled up a program and the song that popped up was “Little Shepherd” with the outline of Africa as the background. I ran to show Daniel and he said “I’ve never even seen that program on my iPad before!”

3-The Friday we had lunch, Daniel went to the gym shortly after. It was raining, and Gage was far ahead on the sidewalk, but Daniel saw something that made him pause – even in the rain. He stopped to look at what was a crack in the cement. He saw THIS. Mind you, he has gone to this gym 4 days a week for the past 3 years and parks in the same spot every time. Coincidence? I think not.

4-I volunteered at the Women of Faith conference this past weekend. I went alone, not knowing anyone who would be there. The leader put me in the World Vision Booth, selling African jewelry from orphans. It was the only booth at the conference.

5-Daniel and I went on a mission trip together in 2005. The small village that we went to is called Kakamega, and borders BORDERS the village we will be serving in. Of ALL the villages in Kenya...we will be neighbors with the Kenya people who first captured Daniel's heart. I guess the Lord began working 7 years ago on this plan!! 6-Another way we have seen His hand in this is by moving us to our new church home, Cornerstone. We have been welcomed in with arms wide open and have felt a Christian love unlike anything we have ever felt before. These people are truly "doing life with us" and walking alongside us through everything. Not only does this church have a BIG focus on world missions, but it's members take on that world mission, too. Out of the initial 4 couples that we met at Cornerstone and forged friendships with, 2 families are moving to Vietnam this summer, 1 just got back from a China mission trip and will likely be moving there eventually, and the other God is calling to China as well. Crazy? No...it's simply answering the call to GO! But their willingness and obedience has made it easier for us to accept that maybe, just maybe, God really DOES want us to move across the world!!

From There to Here

About a month and a half ago, I had an appointment with a doctor. After talking with her for a few minutes, I asked her where she was from. She was clearly African, but I couldn’t place the country. Turns out, she was from Kenya! We engaged in a reminiscent conversation about Kenya and life over there, and the fact that the world is such a small place. She shared that she was opening a hospital over there to give back to “her people”. I was excited to come home and tell Daniel about our conversation and the coincidence that my new doctor was from Kenya. At this point, that’s all it was, a coincidence and a neat conversation. Over the course of the next month, Daniel and I become to be disgruntled with “life”. At one point, Daniel even shared with me that “he feels like a slave to life, to the chase to get ahead, the nice cars, nice house, better job, etc”. He said he was just ready to leave the US. We joked about moving out of the country, but it wasn’t a real possibility, just conversations to relieve the stressors of the reality we were living. So one Sunday night, I started looking at mission opportunities online, just to see what was out there. I looked up my old school in Kenya, where I’d always wanted to go back and teach. I prayed to God that I was frustrated and didn’t know how people “got into the mission field” because there were SO many organizations and I didn’t even know where to start. So I just closed my computer and went to bed. I had a doctors appoint early the next morning. That Monday morning, I met with the same doctor I had met with the previous month. She started the appointment asking how life was. I proceeded to tell her that it wasn’t great. We were struggling. Daniel’s unemployment had run out. His student loan money was on hold. And he had just been let go from his practicum through school. So we had no income, no way to pay our bills and just a bleak future. She just shook her head and said “Alicia, I just wish you weren’t my patient so I could talk to you about something!” So, I proceeded with… “Doc…you’re fired!” No seriously. I fired her. At this point, she said that she had prayed for a miracle yesterday at her church. Her pastor said that so often we pray for little things, but that we serve a BIG God and we should pray for BIG things. So her prayer, was that God would bring her someone to open up and run the Psychiatric ward at her new hospital. She asked me if I thought that Daniel would be interested in heading up the program, and if we would be willing to move to Kenya. My jaw dropped. I told her I needed to talk to Daniel about it and we agreed to meet for lunch on that Friday. I went straight home and shared everything with Daniel, not sure at all what to expect. His answer was “let’s GO! I’m ready!” He was so excited and it was torture waiting until Friday.