Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a good week. Mine was tiring and long, but it was quite good. I'm getting to the point in my classroom where I can start doing more creative things, more projects, and I can set my standards higher now. That's nice. We have had 6 weeks of school now. There are times when I get overwhelmed with all the extra work I have to do since our school is in the accreditation process. I also have 5 ESL kids in my class, and it's hard to know what to do with them at times. I hit a low point on Thursday when everything felt like too much for me to handle, but that was the time the Lord shifted my perspective. I have a girl in my class who is not a Christian and whose mother is not either. Her grandmother was just diagnosed with cancer, which has been really hard for her family. When I heard this news, I realized that there is a very good reason she is at our school this year. My classroom of 6th graders can use this time to be an encouragment to that family and show them the love of Christ. I went in and told my principal what was going on, and he is encouraging our class to take a field trip to visit this student's grandmother, write her letters, and do everything we can to encourage her. So now I am realizing that my purpose here is much bigger than simply helping my students succeed academically. Be praying for this family, that they may come to Christ. I don't have time to write anymore, but I wanted to let you know about that. We have had no water in our house for the past couple days, which is a bit of a challenge. But luckily we were able to shower at a friend's house today. That will get us through for another 3 days... Love you all. Have a great week!

Hello everyone!

I just wrote a wonderful update on my week, and then the internet went down and it was all lost. So I will sum-up. Things are going well in my classroom. Probably the highlight of the week was making crystal structures out of toothpicks and popcorn. I originally wanted to use marshmallows, and when I asked the man at the store of they had them, he said, "Yes." So naturally I asked where I could find them, and the man said, "We don't have any right now." I laughed. The experiment was a little more difficult with popcorn, but everyone enjoyed being able to eat their structures at the end.

Yesterday my friend, Heather, took some of us out to Rift Valley Academy to visit for the day. This is the huge missionary kid boarding school that is about a 45 minute drive out of Nairobi. It was beautiful, and we had a really good time. We took our new car too! It is a Nissan Sunny, which is like a Sentra but with the steering wheel on the other side. It drives great, and we paid cash for it. 580,000 shillings, split 4 ways. That's about all the news I have for now. Hope you all enjoy your week!

I thought I would send along some pictures of the people in my life here in Kenya. As you can see, my students are the most beautiful in the world and at varying stages of development. Caleb is a whole head taller than Mark! The two girls with contrasting colors of hair are Priscilla (blond) and Stella (black-haired). Christine, Harriet, Naomi, and Muthoni are in the other one. The chap with the funny hat is my principal, Trevor Maxwell. And the lady wearing two sets of glasses would be Margo, our school librarian. She is the most wonderful lady, and she comes from Australia. I wish you could all hear her laugh. It's such a lovely sound.

I got this picture from one of my roommates last night. I thought you might like some actual footage of us chasing the giraffe. I am the one in the light yellow on the left. The one with the long neck and brown spots is the giraffe. The other picture is of Jen, Alison, me, and Kayla (3 of my roommates) hiding in the grass.

Here are some pictures from West Nairobi School's retreat to Lukenya. The picture on top is at the top of the hill where we had lunch. Jen and Heather are in the back, and Kaylan and Alison are in the front. Jen, Kayla, and Alison are 3 of my 4 housemates. If you look in the background of the second picture, you can see the giraffes we were chasing. That is Kayla with me in the picture. The next picture is of some more of us teachers on the hill, and the picture on the bottom is of Kayla and me in a cashew tree.