A Zoo for the Misfits

Jambo Sana from Kenya. After 36 hours of travel, we have arrived safely. Friday we got setteled into our "new"/rented house in milimone. It is a beautiful old colonial home built in the 1930's and sits on 4.5 acres. It is comfortable and home for now.

Saturday we met with the Building Hope Committee and 4 of the new loan recipiants. There were 8 loans in total given over the last few weeks. Building Hope is moving forward with great success. We visited 4 of the businesses. 2 had vegetable and general item kiosks, one had a chicken farm with 200 baby chicks (they were soooo cute) and one had an electric milling machine used to grind maize. This is a cool business. She buys maize to grind, and then sells it. This is used to make Ugali. She also grinds customers maize for a profit. She showed how it all works- way cool!

We picked up Lucy yesterday afternoon and she will be with us until the 9th when she starts tuition (summer school). We took her to dinner at Pinewood (shocking) and we had actual conversation. Her english is unbelievable!! We literally conversed the whole time there. We laughed and talked about school and friends. We were amazed! It was so awesome. We always dreamed of a day when this would happen and often wondered if it would. It was such a special time. Today of course, she was a moody, hormonal teenage girl!! She is not a morning person!! We will take the precious sweet moments with her when we can get them. We love her so much.

Today we went to church at AIC Nuru. It was great to see everyone again. This is our home church in Kitale. Sammary, our new administrative assistant invited us over for an early dinner. First let me say, Sammary is the bomb!! She is intelligent, organized, professional and efficient. I am not into human cloning, however if I could clone Sammary and take her home to manage my life in the US I think I would do it. We went to her house this afternoon. She and her roomate Esther made the most amazing meal for us. It was one of best meals we have ever had. They were so excited to have us over and to cook for us. We talked and laughed and got to know each other better.

We all then headed out for an outing at the Kitale Animal Conservatory. Wow, what an experience. It is a animal park for abnormal animals. They are out in the open and you walk right up to them. Oh and me without my camera!!!! We saw an amaphrodite sheep. It was a pitcher and a catcher if you know what I mean. Oh the jokes!!! We also saw a bull that had 4 horns and 3 functioning eyes! This was one messed up Bull. there were 2 donkeys born with no tails. Talk about a pin the tail on the donkey party! There was a cow that had one of it's four stomachs kind of hanging on the outside. Everytime it walked, it kicked itself in its own stomach. There were way too many animals to write about. My personal favorite however was the pregnent cow with a testicle growing out of the top of it's back. I kid you not!!! You just can't make this stuff up. Only in Kenya. You have no idea how hard it was to be appropriate in an evironment like that. Mike and I kept cracking each other up. Lucy, Esther and Sammary were just laughing at us. I know, we are here for ministry but everyone needs a break now and then. Besides, it was good bonding with Sammary and Lucy.

Tommorrow we meet with our employees and will get an idea how things are growing on our 5 acres. It has been an unusually dry season which is not good for the maize. Our beans have been harvested and I guess we did ok despite the whether. We will get more details tomorrow. We head up to the mountain for the first time on Tuesday. Mt. Elgon is calling us. We can't wait to be at the place we love with the people we love.

We will update you all again as soon as we can. Please write back. It is always so great to hear from you.

Kwaheri for now.