Hello there!  I know it’s been awhile since my last blog post and I apologize.  So this post will update you on the past few days…including Christmas.

Needless to say this has been another “interesting” holiday for me.  It’s the second Christmas away from friends and family and that made things a little difficult for me.  Dealing with the emotional aspect of the holiday was certainly a drain, but as always God saw me through.

Chuck and I stayed in Nairobi just before Christmas and basically hung out there (with our friends the Brooks family).  It was a great way for me to relax.  We didn’t do much but what we did do was nice.  We sat at the Ya-Ya Center (a mall) eating Chinese food and as blacks, whites, Indian and Chinese people walked around not one person stared at us, pointed at us, yelled mzungu or Brit at us and not one person came up and asked us for something.  That in itself was a blessing and was emotionally relaxing.  You may not understand that but believe me, it was wonderful.  We also saw a movie (Sherlock Holmes 2).  I’m talking a real movie in a real movie theatre!  Although I was very tired from staying up until 2 in the morning because of the very fast internet where we were staying, the movie experience was great.

Returning home we began preparing for Christmas day at C4KK.  We took most of the food items to C4KK on Christmas Eve and basically organized stuff there.  We did however receive an unexpected visitor.  Our neighbors, Andrew and Ziporah, came by with a truck load of donated food items from Andrew’s employer.

Items included eggs, juice, bread, flour, salt, oil and many more yummy goodies!

The fridge is now full…at least until after Christmas!  Thankfully electricity is working – somewhat.  Some sockets work, others don’t.  Light switches turn on lights in other rooms and sockets work then don’t.  Yeah, bugs need to be worked out.

Christmas day arrived and we began the morning handing out the gifts…well let me elaborate, we wanted to hand out gifts around 10 but many of the kids were still taking showers (remember buckets of water needed to be heated up for each person) so we waited for a bit then finally told them to take showers after we were done.  I needed to get started on the chicken so we had to begin soon.  Everyone sat around the tables, I asked if everyone was there and no, 2 girls had walked to Joska for shoes.  Oh well, they would have to get their Christmas gift once they arrived.

Let me first give a shout out to Moses for helping me with photos. I taught him how to use my point and shoot in order for me to be in a few pictures!  He did a great job, thanks Moses!

Chuck gave a short message.

Then we handed out gifts, everyone received a backpack.  Oh and the 2 girls arrived just in time to hear the end of the message and get their gift with everyone else.

and yes that is a bug in the middle of my back! Don't know how long it was there before flying away.

And we bought one gift for the group, a boom box.  Boy did they like that and they like to listen to their music loud!

The boy next to Chuck is Moses...my photographer in training!

As I began making fried chicken the kids danced, had a snack and were having a good time celebrating together.

Nancy helped by making bread crumbs for the coating.

Since I was cooking I didn't get any video, sorry. Chuck got some on his phone and I'm hoping to download that soon.

These biscuits (cookies) were donated by a local shopkeeper (Sumil) from Tala. He has helped with many items at C4KK, thanks!

Finally time for lunch!  Lunch consisted of green grams, corn, chapatti, fried chicken and juice.

After lunch we took a walk around the compound.

thought it was nice of Moses to take this photo

Then it was time for more sugar!  Yup, Christmas cookies and milk.

Overall it was a great day for the kids, they really seemed to enjoy themselves.  We left for home around 5 and thought we’d be coming home to relax after a long day (again, it was emotionally draining for me) and skyping with our kids (and parents and siblings).  As I walked into the house I smelled something horrible and found that Bella had poo’ed in the spare room, not once but three times!  We’ve found that when Bella goes “carousing” for a few days he tends to lose his house manners.  He was immediately kicked out.  I cleaned up the mess while Chuck worked on his internet to get skype up and running.  But that wasn’t working out either…internet was terrible and wouldn’t connect, so no skyping.  But God granted us a blessing in that the network would at least work enough for an hour long conversation with the kids (and my mom and sister).

It really seemed satan was trying to sabotage the day, but he just couldn’t win…God was in charge of the day and He would be glorified even in cleaning up cat poo (He gave me the strength not to literally kick Bella out of the house!)

Though it was another year of celebrating Christmas differently the kids had a good time, heard the gospel message and hopefully saw the love of Christ.

Here we all are! God bless us, everyone!

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