Family

Farewell Kenya, Africa!

4 comments Written on July 21st, 2009 by Rusty
Categories: Family, Journal, Kenya, Life, Updates

Farewell Kenya and Africa!! You have been an incredible and gracious home. You have taught us how to love, live, and laugh all at the same time. It is with sadness in our hearts that we leave, but with joy that we know we will see you again. Africa, you have rooted yourself deep in our veins. Our love for you and your people will never cease. God is present with you. To our family at RVA, we look foward to the day that we will see you all again. The friendships that have developed, the memories that have been made. They are now a part of who we are. It is with much gratitude that we thank everyone who shared their lives with us this year, and God willing, for many years to come. We will miss everyone. God Bless and Keep You All!!!!!

MUNGU IBARIKI AFRICA!!!!! (God Loves Africa)

Kwaheri (Goodbye), for now!

Posted in Family, Journal, Kenya, Life, Updates

Finishing Strong – Quick Note!

1 Comment » Written on July 6th, 2009 by Rusty
Categories: Family, General, Life, Prayers, Updates

As I sit here, I realize that we are on our last two week in Kenya and I have not posted anything on this website in over a month. Sorry! This month has been filled with lots of ups and downs. There has been a lot of sickness going around campus, therefore we have not had a full dorm much this month. It has been a very busy time as we are preparing to return stateside. There are lots of emotions that come with this and you have to give everyone time to process.  We need to remember that we must finish strong and say our good-bye’s well in order to leave this place that we have come to know as home. Hopefully, we will be able to return here as soon as possible. It is our hearts desire to minister to these student and we believe that God is calling us into continued service in Africa and at RVA. Please pray with us that all the transistions and changes happening over the next month will go smoothly and that everyone will adjust quickly. Thank you so much for all your prayers and may God bless you in everything you do. We will be sure to write more in the coming days!

Posted in Family, General, Life, Prayers, Updates

Living The Life

3 comments Written on May 21st, 2009 by Rusty
Categories: Dreams, Family, General, Life, Missions, Newsletters, Passion
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The last time that I wrote, I wrote about passion and excitement. Living passionately and pursuing fervently after God and what He has for me. I believe with all my heart that I am in the right place and that I am doing exactly what God wants me to. I believe that I am Living The Life! You may ask, how do I know this? Well, let me tell you.

When you are living a life that is full of passion and you are constantly pursuing God and what He has in store, Satan does not particularly like it. For the past few months Satan has been attacking our family physically. It all started when Brooks got sick and has continued to have a cough and achy body. She has been to the doctor here and they have given her antibiotics, but it only seems to help for a while, then the cough and aches come back. Secondly, for the past few day our little girl has been running an extremely high temperature. The medicine that she has been given helps bring her fever down and she is a bundle of energy for a while, but then after it wears off she is lethargic and just wants to cuddle under a blanket. And last but not least, for the past 2 days, I have had a huge splitting headache, runny nose, fever, and chills. Just writing this post is making me feel better because I know that my God is a healer and that He will see us through this.

God has always been faithful to us and He continues to answer our prayers when we come to Him with open hearts. Thank you all so much for your continued prayer for everyone here in Kenya. May God bless you richly for your prayers.

On a lighter note, during the past few days God has given me a lot of new ideas about how to network missionaries, missionary kids, supporters, and churches all together. I am currently in the process of developing a plan to make this happen and hopefully very soon, we will begin to see the fruits of the vision that God has given me. I believe that in order for missions to be successful, everyone must be involved. I know that in the U.S. right now with the looming economic crisis it is easy to just put missions to the side and not send any money because it is needed elsewhere. The one thing that I would challenge everyone to think about is how you can give just a little, because every little bit helps. Rather than going out and buying a meal at a fast food restaurant one day, why not take lunch to work with you. Set that $6 – $10 dollars aside and send it to missions. I am not even suggesting that you send it our way (unless you feel led to). Send it to the missionaries that your church supports, write them an encouraging note, mail a care package, send an e-mail that tells them that you are thinking about them. You woudn’t believe what a pick-me-up it is to many missionaries to just know that people are thinking about them.

Let us continue to strive after God and seek Him with our whole heart. Let us truly live the life that God has for us. Let us walk on the path that God has set before us and not try to forge our own.

LIVE LIFE WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE!!!

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Posted in Dreams, Family, General, Life, Missions, Newsletters, Passion

Hell’s Gate National Park

2 comments Written on March 31st, 2009 by Rusty & Brooks
Categories: Family, Kenya, Updates
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Hell’s Gate National Park Streaming Audio

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As I awoke this morning, I heard the faint sound of water droplets hitting the tin roof over head. I thought to myself, it should be a nice day to go to one of Kenya’s finest National Parks. Kenya has been in an extreme drought lately and many people are suffering, so the sound of rain was not going to hinder our first family outing during this break.

After getting dressed, eating breakfast, and packing a lunch to take with us we headed over to our neighbors house. We had just decided to go to the National Park not but 2 day before when talking with them about how much we would like to go see it sometime this break. They had said, fine, let’s go this week sometime. That sounded great to us. After getting into the vehicle and driving down the hill to the valley below, we arrived at the main highway. The Hell’s Gate National Park is about 35 km down the main road, so we had fun in the vehicle on the way there. Our family, our two neighbors (John and Dan) and another lady (Sarah) were all in the vehicle together. As we were driving, we thanked them for inviting us to go along with them, because there are many times that families or individuals who are doing fun things will ignore our family and think that we don’t want to do anything because we have kids. (This is far from the truth, because our kids love adventure).

Once we arrived at the entrance to Hell’s Gate National Park and payed our entrance fees we drove into the park and found a fun place to stop. The first of two stone towers that jut straight out of the earth. What many people do not know about Hell’s Gate is that underneath the ground, there is sulfuric activity and at times, you can see the smoke coming up from the ground because of the activity underneath. Hell’s Gate is on the other side of Mt. Longonot, the dormant volcano that you can see from RVA. The kids had a blast climbing on and around the rocks and even saw an animal called the Rock Hyrax.

Eventually, we got back into the vehicle and started driving to the canyon that we were going to hike through. (If you have ever seen Tomb Raider II, at the very end when they are traveling through the Canyon’s heading up to the cradle of life at night, that is Hell’s Gate. It was filmed there). On the drive we saw Warthogs, Zebras, Thompson Gazelles, an Eland, lots of Cafe Buffalo, and one Giraffe. As the car stopped we realized that it was about time for lunch and we decided to eat before going on our long hike. We even had some fun feeding the birds that were flocked around the picnic table. Once we were done with lunch and packed up our lunches, we began the fun hike into the canyon. Hiking through the canyon was an amazing experience and one that I will not forget. There were many places where you could find springs of water coming straight out of the rocks. Most of the time, the water was almost too hot to touch because the sulfur and volcanic activity made them so. The kids had a blast and there were many times when we had to help them down from high ledges but with 5 adults, we made sure that they stayed safe. The kids also had so much fun just running down the river in their shoes. By the time we were done, there shoes and socks as well as their pants were soaked. Being able to see God’s nature and majesty even here on such a dark continent made me realize so much more that God loves us very much. To end a great hike, God saw it fit to open up the heavens and send rain down on us as we were heading the last 3/4 mile back to the vehicle. The kids did great and were awesome troopers.

And for our final stop of the day, after hiking we went into the town of Naivasha and ate at a place called La Belle’s. They had great food and the kids enjoyed sandwiches, hamburgers, and french fries. A well deserved meal after a hard, yet exciting day of adventure and fun.

(*As soon as I get the pictures off of my camera and upload to the web, I will edit this post and add them in*)

- RM -

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Posted in Family, Kenya, Updates

Things I’ve learned (Part 1)

3 comments Written on March 11th, 2009 by Rusty & Brooks
Categories: Family, General, Journal, Kenya

Life in Africa is always full of lessons and new experiences. Recently I have been learning or relearning some of these invaluable lessons. Although it may take a couple days to share them, I’ll start with this one:

I have learned the value of being focused!

I can hear someone saying, “What, don’t you have to be focused to do what we’re doing?” Yes, but just like living anywhere else, if we are not careful it is easy to be caught up in life around you and not to be focused on what really matters. Living in the community we do, working with the students, and parenting our dorm boys can be all consuming. These past couple weeks have had both some fun, amazing times as well as some really difficult ones.

In the last week alone, NOT including what we do with Micah and Kayla (although they did participate in some of these), we had a mystery dinner in place of our typical dorm dinner, taught devotions in both 6th grade classes, had another huge sleepover (23 kids total), given quizzes and tests in our classes, worked our other jobs with the computers lab and Titchie office, watched sport games that our kids were playing in, helped half of our boys through some degree of homesickness, worked with at least 10 of our 12 on poor decisions that they made, helped with homework, listened to band practice, checked dorm jobs, made breakfast, helped those who have been sick (there is always a bug/virus of some sort traveling around campus), and so much more. Oh! All this while Rusty has a pretty bad sprained ankle and I’ve been fighting a head cold that won’t go away! It is easy to see how life can get consuming without noticing it.

The downside to being immersed in life is that for a little while I lost focus on why I do what I do! Losing focus makes it easy to get tired and discouraged. It’s a gradual process and yet suddenly, I found myself exhausted, both mentally and physically. It was shocking to see the state that I was in and know that its not an easy place to get out of either! Something had to change and I really couldn’t do it on my own.

I purposed to spend more time focusing on the Lord and seeking His help to realize how I got where I was. It took some time with the Lord and some hours away from the dorm and all other responsibilities to see that I had lost my focus. I was reminded that even though I am here to love on, nurture, disciple, mentor to all the kids we are in contact with in addition to being a ‘mom’ to our dorm, its not the reason why I am here. I am here because this is where I know God wants me to be. I am here because this is where I want to be. I am here because I want to help the parents who are working with, educating, and loving the African people all over the continent. They need us here to help their children in ways that are unavailable where they are. I get to love these students so they can get a great education and their parents can give help and assistance where it is so desperately needed on this dark continent!

I am amazed and humbled that I get to live in Kenya, help people daily, and see the amazing power of God work through the lives of those around me – from the students to the teachers and all the nationals that we are with daily. Yes, I have relearn the value of staying focused on what matters and what is important, instead of just what is needed for day to day life!

~BM

Posted in Family, General, Journal, Kenya

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