It's been such a long time since we last wrote a blog, I almost don't know where to start. Life is pretty normal for us now (for normal read 'hectic!' - the same for any family life with children I'm sure!)
At Christmas we traveled home to spend time with my mum who was sick during the summer months. It was great to see how well she was doing and it was lovely to be back in 'normal' Christmas temperatures rather than the heat of Nairobi. It just doesn't seem right celebrating Christmas in shorts and t-shirts! It was great to catch up with friends and family. We also went to the cinema a couple of times (something which we don't do here) and enjoyed staying in another of our friends' houses whilst they were away (thanks guys!) We were reminded of Christmas in February when we enjoyed reading some of the Christmas cards that arrived snail mail - literally!  |
| Elijah celebrating 1st place |
The second term at school has started with a rapid pace of swimming galas, play rehearsals, school residentials, singing festivals, scouts and school productions. If I had written this a while back I would also have mentioned (with a whisper) that the traffic was better, but it seems we are back to the erratic timings of the school run - anything between 5 minutes and an hour and a half for a 3km journey. The kids are settling ok but still miss their friends terribly in the UK.
Oh and did I mention that I celebrated a significant birthday! We are so grateful to live on a compound with a large garden as we celebrated with friends in 20's style. We had a lot of fun organising it and people dressed up really well. Two of our friends bought their outfits from a second hand market at the end of our road and were robbed at gun point on their way home. A familiar reminder that we need to always be vigilant about our security.
We are also enjoying watching the 6 nations rugby in the comfort of our garden - which is lot of fun! Inviting friends over, we project the screen onto the outside of the house. Again another joy of living in Kenya as it is always dark by about 7 and so watching movies outside is great entertainment for us and our friends.
MAF Kenya is working hard to begin the new base near Marsabit (more news of that in our next newsletter) which is really exciting to be reaching out to the isolated communities up there. Our friends (colleagues too) moved into their house last week. It has all the mod cons - outside toilet, solar panels, water tanked into the compound, one light upstairs and one downstairs! Luxury. They traveled up by car to take some of their belongings and had to pick up an armed guard half way through the journey for protection along a stretch of road notorious for banditry - a stark reminder of why the work of MAF is so important here in Kenya.
Ken has also recently been on a two day tax course (which was very taxing!) but glad to know he has more insight into the laws in Kenya.
So as you can see, life is pretty normal in so many ways. Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers - especially for our continued safety.
