Life here.

Lily holding her baby in her dress

New chairs just their size! They were so excited... Lily wanted to act like she was sleeping:)

OOOO sheep.

Whoooo hoooo! Dirt! A new slide to play on.

A stop on the way back home to Kaptagat to look at the valley.

Please, Baba, let me have your phone!

I am going to get you chicken! One day I will outrun you!

Picture courtesy of Lily

Playing at Kogo's with the neighbors.

Waiting to drink some chai

Almost everywhere we go there is a cat... Lily feels at home when she can find a cat and get a hold of it!

Come take a look inside GOGCC

Sarah our matron working on cleaning the dishes outside

The beautiful home the Lord blessed the children with!

Come on inside through the front doors as you can see it is very spacious.

Here is the look from the front door to your left.

A look from the front door to your right.

A look into the kitchen where the kids pick up their food.

A look inside the kitchen where we have running water to the sink and cabinet space.

Entrance to the girls dorms with their hand prints on the wall

One of the girls bedrooms.

The bathroom on the girls side.

Shower stalls

Toilet area

One of the boys bedrooms

Entrance to the boys bedrooms.

As you can tell from the pictures there is a lot of finishing work.
We would like to do the following:
- Tile the floor of the common area $3,000
- Tile the floor of the bathrooms $2,000
- Tile the floor of the kitchen $ 1,500
- Complete painting various areas of the entire home $2,000
- Add doors to the entrance of the dorms, bathroom stalls, shower stalls, etc. $2,000
- Complete lighting the home especially in the children's rooms $1000
- Finish up the kitchen to have more cabinet space and better counter space$1000
- Add gutters to the house to collect rain water $500
- Add facia board to the outside of the house$300
- complete ceiling for the entire house $1,500
- Add Chickens and complete the chicken coop outside so the chickens lay their eggs and stay warm $1500
- Buy an extra, extra large water tank to put on the water tower$1000
- Purchase a bike for the home $120
-Add garden for all kinds of vegetable $600
-Add a small canteen to generate some income for the home $3000
-Add 4 cows for milk $1,500(350 per cow)
-Build storage for food at the home $1000


Please pray with us as we finish up and that the funds would be provided for this finishing work. The total estimated amount to cover the work is $23,000. You can donate towards the specific needs by using the general donation button on our website wwww.graceofgodchildren.org. We thank you for how you have supported us and helped us out already! Prayers and much appreciated, as we feel quite overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done. We pray the Lord would give us wisdom and help us to prioritize want the immediate needs are. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Thank you so much for your prayers, donations and support to the ministry. May the Lord bless you in a mighty way!

David and Laurel

A look inside our home!

 The kids room! They have bunk beds with rails that they just got yesterday. The mattresses had been on the floor but it was getting too cold.

 Here is the sitting room that we would like to make more homey eventually. Has the basic needs right now.

 Master bedroom. Still settling in as you can see. I would love to paint the whole inside of the house and we would like to put down tile everywhere for easier cleaning.

Bathroom with shower. We don't use the shower because you have to have the generator on to have hot water so we just heat water and throw it on ourself for a bath. We also bought big basin so the kids can have a bath.

Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the outside of the house!

Girls

Winnie Kiptoo, Eunice, Brenda, Winnie Awino, and Sharon. 5 of the 7 girls at the home. When we arrived they were so shy and would just giggle a lot. Here is also a picture of our regular lunch. We have beans every lunch for good protein and rice every other day. The other day we have rice with corn(maize). It is hard to get used to such a repetitive menu but I am thankful we are well fed and provided for. God is good and the children are growing well and are healthy. I have to get out of the American mindset of variety at every meal and just eat the portion I have been given. Let me tell you the portions that they give us are way too much and they still don't understand that we don't need a heaping bowl of food. I feel bad when I can't finish it so I am still working with them to know good portion size and if someone wants more they can come back for seconds.

Thank you for your prayers and sending us encouraging mail. We thank you for your love and support.

Finally some Pictures!

 Lily is an animal lover. Whenever she sees dogs, cats, cows, sheep, goats, etc. she wants to pet them or pick them up. One of the things that Lily loves to do at the children's centre is to open the gate in the morning for the chickens to roam the yard. She has told me a few times now if she sees the chickens still in their home that they look sad and she needs to let them out!

The children who attended church our first Sunday there. David gave them a challenge to bring a friend or sibling the next Sunday and there were 70 in attendance. He also said that he would give them candy if they brought someone ;) Praying we are able to reach our community for Jesus.

 The children were so curious about the new family in town after the first Sunday School! They wanted to touch Lily, Levi and I. Lily and Levi were quite wary of all of the attention and touching. I would sit down in the grass and children would flock around asking me our names and teaching us a few Swahili words.

Teresa and Christine are such good helpers at the home. They are the older girls who have taken on the responsibility of making most of the dinner and making sure everyone is well fed. They are willing helpers and such a joy!

Are you stuck in the mud?

We were able to finally travel to see Kogo and Kugo (David’s mom and dad) it has been raining more here lately so it was quite an adventure! We have a yellow truck (dubbed the yellow submarine) that we have been traveling in. We are thankful for the Lord’s provision for this truck. As we traveled yesterday we got stuck in the mud twice. I think sometimes we get stuck in the mud so that the Lord can connect us with certain people. Whenever we have gotten stuck there are men that come to help us out! I am amazed by their generosity and how they will get so muddy helping us. The first time we got stck yesterday God brought 4 men by. One of them was David’s classmate from high school. He was so excited to finally see David again after 13 years! Once we got unstuck his classmate rode with us up the road for a while and he and David were able to catch up. I love how God works to connect people again!

Repetition is the key to learning

In junior high my siblings and I had a Bible teacher, Mr. Beall, tell us “Repetition is the key to learning, the key to learning is repetition” This has stuck in my mind ever since and never has it been put more into practice than right now! There is a lot of repetition in living in Kenya. Everyday you have to sweep and mop your house or else you will be inundated with a lot of mud and just crazy dirtiness. It is so hard to get used to. You take a shower here and once you step outside your feet are already dirty again and one of my little ones wants to be picked up who have mud on the bottom of their shoes so my clothes are dirty. Shoo weee I thought I enjoyed getting dirty but this is just a bit much! Haha.

I feel like I am also constantly doing laundry here with the help of the ladies at the centre. With 2 little ones under the age of 3 they are into all of the water, mud, and anything dirty possible! Levi goes through about 2-3 clothes changes a day! It is exhausting but makes me have a new appreciation for washer while we lived in America.

I am thankful that for the first week that we were here I was able to stay at the children’s centre with the little ones so they could get on a good sleep schedule and get over the colds they have been battling since arrival.

Please pray for us as this is quite an adjustment for all of us. We are thankful for the Lord bringing us here and just needing to be patient and flexible through this time. We are thankful for your encouragement and verses that you have sent to us.

In Need of a Bike

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We are in need of a reliable bike for the chidlren’s home. Our watchman, Wilson, uses the bike a lot to travel to get things at the market and various other odd jobs. The one that he is currently using needs maintenance each time he uses it and even during use. David told me that a good bike goes for about $150-$200 here. This would be a bike that could transport things on the back of it

Arrived

Greetings family and friends!

We have safely arrived in Kaptagat, Kenya on Thursday morning (where Grace of God Children’s Centre is located and also where our home is). When we arrived at the airport there was a billboard that said “You call it Africa, we call it home”. My first reaction was like yeah right…I don’t think so… my heart is still in America and most of my family is there! But I see the Lord changes my heart and attitude when I am open to Him. I already feel myself settling into a slower pace of life. I really enjoy living on a farm where we have a garden of various vegetables growing, chickens roaming all around the yard, cows grazing nearby, little dogs who are curious, and a cat who loves to beg for food.

The children at the Centre are quite shy at first. Some of them just observe you and others love to involve you in a game with a ball. Our Lily has enjoyed playing with the girls at the Centre and she loves to get anyone around to chase her! Levi is having a hard transition as he has not slept or eaten well since arrival partly because of a cough and lots of teeth coming in. David has been busy getting things together for our family in town.

We pray this finds you well. Keep us in your prayers and let us know what we can pray for you about! Enjoy the weekend! Much love, The Bee family