Habari yako, Subscriber First Name?

We use this phrase over and over each day, which means, “How are you?”. It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Kenya now for over two months! Although life here goes at a much slower pace than it did back home, the days still seem to fly by and we are exhausted at the end of them. As I thought about the best way to share his past month, I decided it would be best summarized by giving you a quick recap on what an average day here has looked like so far.

A Day in Our Life this Month

On good days, Jack and I wake up just before sunrise to have a bit of solitude and prayer before the kids are up. I relish in the early morning stillness on our back porch, with the gorgeous views of the mountains and birds singing all around me and some great Kenyan coffee waking me up.

The kids are up (or, should I say, allowed of bed) at 7am. We eat breakfast which is oatmeal on weekdays, and pancakes (with real Canadian maple syrup!) on weekends. Every morning, there is prayer and a devotional at one of the doctor’s houses at 8am. We don’t make it every day, but we do our best.

At 9am, our wonderful house helper Beatrice is at our home and ready to begin language learning with me for two hours. Jack then begins his lessons at 11am. Our blog shares more, but our language times consists of using pictures to learn basic nouns and verbs, and practicing different combinations of the phrases. Today I was practicing combinations of words like “I/you/he - was/will - bake/fry/boil - carrots/potatoes/garlic/onion/etc”. This allows us to practice both listening and speaking in natural sentences rather than focusing on textbook work. 

Learning a new language is not for the faint of heart. It takes lots of motivation and willingness to sound like an absolute fool whenever you open your mouth. But, Kenyans are so encouraging and happy whenever you at least try to speak Swahili. They will excitedly applaud you and say, “Unajaribu! Utajua!” You are trying! You will know! 

The kids eat lunch and go down for their naps around noon - which gives Jack and I time to practice and review the language we’ve been learning or a miscellaneous task that needs to be done.

At around 2:30 or 3pm the kids are up. Jack and I continue to swap who watches them on which day, so that one of us can work on house projects in the afternoon. We’ve had a *long* to-do list on things to get done around the house, from fixing the sky lights so that we didn’t get a sun burn in our living room, painting virtually every surface of the house, and putting a fence and pathway around the house. Some of the projects we need to do, others projects we are happy to employ Kenyans to do. But regardless, they all seem to take about 5 times longer to accomplish here than they would back home given the resources available. So our patience muscles have been growing leaps and bounds.

During the mornings and afternoons, the kids are playing, usually outside. It’s currently the colder and rainy season here, and given our 7500 ft altitude, the high here each day is somewhere in 70’s and lows in the 50’s. No complaints!

There are always Kenyan and Western friends outside to play with which is fun for us all. We spend a lot of time on the tire or rope swing, scooping and piling dirt and rocks, feeding the neighbor’s pig with our compost bucket, going for walks in our new stroller, or reading books outside. There aren’t many toys here to play with, but it’s a delight to see the kids so creative with whatever’s around them. And when there ARE toys - well, you’ll have a crowd of about 15 kids in about 5 minutes ready to share.

By 5pm we’re usually inside and starting dinner. I wish I could impress you and say we’re eating authentic Kenyan cuisine every day - but in reality, we eat quite well and many of the same dishes we ate at home - tacos, pasta, pizza. We might not have *all* the ingredients we’re used to, and they might not taste exactly the same, but we get pretty close. The struggle is really the time it takes to make so many dishes from scratch, not to mention the time it takes to clean and bleach all of our produce to make sure it is safe for us to eat. 

6pm is bath time and cleaning up the explosion that was dinner. We don’t have a bathtub here, but someone recommended buckets which has worked exceptionally well and the kids enjoy!

At 6:30pm both kids are winding down with “Go, Dog, Go!”, which is Micah’s favorite TV show (the kids have a nightly ritual of dancing together to the theme song) and we read books. Both are in bed by 7pm.

Jack and I take the evenings to talk over the day, get something done, or just wind down streaming a show.

From never being in the same time zone as our loved ones, to seeing sheep in front of the hospital gate, from being stared at the whole walk to the market, (especially now as we rock our double stroller) it’s quite obvious we are no longer in Kansas, err, California anymore. And yet on the other hand, much of our day feels the same as is consumed by watching, playing, and caring for the kids, as it was back home.

Whenever we feel frustrated or exceptionally worn out, we remind ourselves - we recently moved to a developing country, we are doing a mild renovation on our house, we are learning an entirely new language, and we are still feeding, cleaning, and caring for two young kids. And all of this is a new context that is unfamiliar to us in many ways. We can cut ourselves some slack. 

You may be wondering - “What about the hospital?" Isn’t that why you came"?” Great question! Serge wisely requires us to prioritize language our first three months, as few people actually learn the language unless they have dedicated time to study it before getting sucked into work. However, we have begun to wet our feet as Jack has worked a couple of weekends and goes up to the hospital for consults on difficult cases. I’ve begun to strategize communication plans for the hospital with others. But until mid-August, learning Swahili is our main goal.

There is *much* more I could go into on what each piece of our day entails and random stories throughout the weeks. So, if you’re curious to know more, I’ve written a more detailed blog post you can read with lots more photos!

None of this could be possible without the support of those praying for us and making it possible for us to be here. I was explaining to Beatrice, our house helper, that we are not here in Kenya without paying jobs because we are independently wealthy, haha! Rather it is the sacrifice of many people back home who are making our being here possible. 

Lastly, we had to take an emergency trip to a Nairobi hospital last week when Sage was scratched and possibly bitten by a cat. It was unlikely she was bitten, and unlikely the cat was rabid, but you can’t rest your head on the pillow at night when it’s “unlikely” your child could have rabies. More on this in the blog. But it made us realize how much we would love a thread where we could message people quickly about urgent prayer needs. If you’d be willing to join this prayer team, send me a quick message on WhatsApp and I’ll add you to the group. My number is +1 954-560-1501.

Many, many thanks for your prayers, support, and love. As we’ve begun to feel more settled here, we are so excited to begin sharing more about the work we can’t wait to dive into soon. (In fact - check out my first video on the blog!) The needs here are very real, and we feel so grateful to be here to serve and love others in the name of Jesus.