Progress, Mustaches and good food!

 After Tom and Bryan left... I started painting our kitchen. I had drive, inspiration and a determination to get cranking!

 Ever since we have lived here the walls have been only painted with the primer coat and I am so thankful I could start painting on top of it!

 Our kitchen was in disarray for a couple of weeks since we are still working on school and could only get to it on the weekend!

 On another note... I did get this fun design and paint on our veranda before Tom and Bryan arrived.

 I hung up this tapestry which used to hang in my grandparents house! So fun to have it here.

 So much fun on the new playground!

 Another project knocked out in a day! I had some design contact paper in my art stuff just enough to cover the top so I painted the rest white!

 Complete!

 Levi and Lucy hanging out in the yard.

 Lucy tracing her hands and drawing on her legs!

 Back in 2013 when I was dreaming about our house being completed the Lord gave me a lot of inspiration for various rooms in our house. A honeycomb pattern in our kitchen was one of them! It was so fun to see it come to life!

 I also wanted to paint one wall in the kitchen a different color from the rest and I thought it would be green. Something was just not quite right about it so I was thinking and praying and God gave me the idea to do it a bit darker than lavender.

 Levi loved the transformation in the kitchen and was such a sweet encourager!

 Epic blanket fort in the living room with dining room chairs!

 Lily is showing off this ring from my grandmother, Granzie.

Moses and his beloved dump truck with 3 wheels!

 This sandbox has been hours of fun for the younger children! Wow! They have gotten into making roads, towns, etc!

Lily loves how all of the swings work so well!

Sunday school children loving the tire swing working again!

 These mustaches are from my sister, Heather! We found them while cleaning up my desk and had so much fun with them!

Haha! Lily, Levi and Lucy!

 The water tower got some new baseboards to hold it up well on the tower beams. Also a roof and covering were added to it so the tank would be able to last longer in the penetrating African sun!

Lucy and Lily Selfie! 

 The kids and I found this quite funny with the donkeys as the caravan for the presidential reelection campaign!

 Also found this gem of a place in Eldoret with real tasty American type foods!

Lily really enjoyed the hamburger!

Coming soon to Eldoret.... KFC!

 One night we had a cozy time of sitting at the fireplace in our home reading books! Lucy loved looking through her books and cheesing for the camera!

 Just this week we had visitors all the way from Chile! They were here for some running races and touring around. Their tour guide was a Kenyan, Steven, who moved to Chile 12 years ago and has settled there and has a family and who speaks Spanish fluently! These dear people brought us Cadbury chocolate bars, 2 tubs of ice cream, lollipops, corn flour to make ugali, cooking oil, etc! What a blessing and fun treat to have them!

 The visitors loved playing on the playground!

 We also played a fun game with our visitors from Chile where you run around bases playing rock, paper, scissors against the other team to advance to the next base! Crazy fun and lots of laughs!

 I was trying to clean up in the art room and Lucy just had to get into the paint!

 From these pictures though she does not look too thrilled! Ha!

 Another project we are working on is planting more in our garden since all of the children are on break from school until January!

 All the green you can see in the picture is our potatoes growing nicely which should be ready the end of November!

 And this is today... lots of playing on the playground... Levi and Kipchumba

Lucy cannot wait every morning to get out to the playground and swing! Also, she is always on the lookout for Moses her best buddy!

 Another part of the garden was hand dug today to plant some traditional vegetables kind of like kale or collard greens. A dark leafy vegetable called sujot.

Lily loves growing and planting things! She loves to learn from Grace family all about it!

Day 7 small but o so helpful projects

Day 7 was filled with various projects that we had identified on Monday from people in the community needing help with or here at the property needing repair. Tom and Bryan helped fix the Big house dish rack that was falling apart in place, they made a new table for my kitchen, worked on fixing one of the big slides, delivered blessings to some women in the community....

 Bryan and Tom were able to make Sheila a great dish rack to help with their utensils. We have been helping this family ever since moving here. The Lord has knit our hearts together. Sheila and her brothers lost their mother at a young age and sweet Sheila has been supporting her family ever since while she went through high school and just last year completed college! She is a brave, hard working woman who knows God has good plans for her life.

 Here is the other Single Kogo who was identified as needing help with a mattress and some blankets. This is inside her home where she was sleeping on top of her clothes.

Time to make the bed with new blankets. 

 Bryan, Kogo and Tom
So this Kogo heard how well Tom, Bryan and their team of men had fixed the new kitchen for Kogo and Kugo down the road and requested for a new house also. There was not time or funds to help Kogo at this time but we hope in April when Tom's team comes back that we can tackle more community projects! 

 Another project that was completed today was a revamping one of the big slides. We thought it was going to be pretty simple by just putting new metal on the slide but no..... most of the boards had been rotting and had to replace almost everything! Sorry Tom and Bryan... we thought it would be a quickie! It is so fun to have a new fast big slide!

 You can see the moon in this picture peeking over the big house!

Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! 

Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm 

so that I will be free of pain. 1 Chronicles 4:10

Day 6 Community Project!

This where the men went off to help with the full tractor and truck while all the little ones played and played on the new playground!!

 The house of Allan Kipchumba's Kogo and Kugo that we had identified the day before as in desperate need of a new kitchen. It was a group of 6 men that started the tearing down and rebuilding.

 They said it was quite easy to tear down as the house was made only of sticks, mud and dung.

 Now they have smoothed and cleared the area and they are ready to install the poles.

 Many people from the community came to the home to help re-mud the other part of the house, help with building and clearing or just stand around and watch everyone work. People were curious about all the power tools that Tom and Bryan had brought to the property. It made the work go so much faster! Thank you Lord for your provision of a great generator to help with all of these projects and the amazing power tools that Tom has brought over the years! Wow! He knew all that we needed and He knows how to care for us so well!

 Here is the back of the house and the new kitchen! What amazing work that was accomplished!

Some community kids coming by to see the great work! and as you can see in the background all of the cleared sticks from the previous kitchen.

 As you can see what a difference it makes for this family to have the other part of their house re smeared with mud and dung to make it more warm and the new kitchen! What great work when people come together for God!

Kogo and Kugo were telling us that they will not use the new room for their kitchen but since it is so much more insulated it will become their bedroom! Also, there was a nice dish rack that was made outside for them and all of their dishes to dry in the sun! Kogo kept telling the team how much it made her heart happy and so blessed to have their help. She has been feeling quite discouraged and overwhelmed with caring for her husband 24/7 who has a stroke. We are trying to look into different options of how to help them in this way. We started by bringing a bag of corn and potatoes to help them with food as it is hard for Kogo to plant anything with all the care she gives her husband. May the Lord guide us as to how to continue to support them.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

1 John 4:11