Thursday, April 09, 2009

Rain Drops Keep Fallin' On My Head


So today something terribly exciting happened. After 6 LONG months of dust and dry, cracked ground, the heavens opened and Lord Poured forth RAIN :)

The clouds started to form in the late afternoon... dark and grey-blue, very promising... And so the observations started :) We stood out side for hours, watching the clouds form... watching them pour out rain in regions far away... the winds kicked up bringing dust and cooler air from the North - which I'm told is always the direction the first rain comes from... We stood around, did a little jig to encourage the clouds, laughed and told stories... and waited...

And then it happened... the first drop :) Then another, then another... then, an absolute downpour... you could almost hear the trees crying with joy :) - oh wait... perhaps that was the crazy Kawaja's running around dancing!

It's rather amazing what a little rain will do for your soul... the promise of Green, higher river waters, growth of crops, cooler temperatures... *sigh, our cups runneth over.

Remember the Mabaan in prayer - some of who have yet to get their roofs up and ready/repaired for the rainy season, that the crops (that weren't destroyed by last year's flood) would flourish, that Malaria would not run rampant but that this would be a year of decreased infections, that wells would put forth clean and abundant water for villages all over the province, and that above all these people would KNOW of the SOURCE of the LIVING WATER that NEVER RUNS DRY.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Flying By

How in the world did two weeks in Nairobi go by without me blogging ANYTHING! Heavenly days! May apologies people... I will try to do better! It certainly isn't because there is nothing to say!

I leave in the morning to fly to Lokichoggio, in Northern Kenya, where I'll stay the night and then leave from there to fly back into Doro the next morning (April 7th).

My time in Nairobi has been sooo nice. I think the most giddy I've ever been in my whole life was the 24 hours leading up to coming, and then the next 2 days after getting here! I know two months isn't really very long to be in the bush, but I felt like I was re-discovering a life I once knew... light switches that would stay on as long as you wanted, water coming out of taps that I didn't have to pump or scoop, SITTING to go to the bathroom... man! It was sure exciting :) I also was VERY happy to discover that my feet can indeed return to their natural pink color... the black dirt stains weren't totally permanent... it just took 3 baths and much scrubbing to find the pink again!

I enjoyed eating some foods that are absent in Doro, such as fresh milk (well, technically that exists, we just don't drink it...it's REAL fresh :), yoghurt, beef, cheese, broccoli (man, I was craving broccoli!)- lots of great treats!

My first morning in Nairobi I was standing in the kitchen by the sink (yay for sinks!) filling up the kettle (yay for kettles!!) with water for my tea, when I just got this big wave of joy, contentment and "homey" feelings... I pondered it for a few minutes to try and figure out what was feeling so wonderfully familiar as to make me this elated inside... I realized that it was the way the sun was coming in the window! Now I know that sounds rather crazy, but it's true. I hadn't noticed until that very moment that we have no "windows" in Doro - no glass... everything is screen or just open. And that familiar sort of "heat" created by sun beams traveling through glass was just an amazing feeling... I was over joyed :) Isn't that ridiculous!? I felt like I was on some sort of "upper" for the first few days back (I can assure you I wasn't)... but it was really fun.

Anyway, I'm really just posting a quick one to thank you for your patience and to promise more posts in the near future! I have spent so much time uploading pictures onto facebook (b/c it takes too much bandwidth to do it in Doro) that I've totally neglected my blog! But - I will rectify that as soon as possible!

Please pray for our flights and that my supplies that I'm trying to get back into Doro (on various different flights over the next month or less, hopefully) would find their way in quickly and easily and not take any detours to that "place" in Loki where things get lost (like my first broom attempt and Sandy's table!) :) Thanks everyone and I'll post again soon! Love ya's :)