Thursday, December 4, 2014

African Holidays


Merry Christmas!  Our family hopes you had a great Thanksgiving and are ready to enjoy a wonderful Christmas celebrating Jesus.

Our Thanksgiving was a sweet time with our “family” of coworkers here in Nairobi.  We had a large group over to our house and enjoyed volleyball and football after lunch with the kids.  Sarah cooked two turkeys and they were delicious!  Others brought many sides and we had a large spread that would make any American proud.

Saturday we were invited to a tailgate party with friends before the Clemson/Carolina game.   They are big Clemson fans from Greenville so we tried hard to be nice!  It was a noon game in the USA so it was 8:00 pm here – we had fun making it as American as we could!  The only problem was that the Gamecocks could not get it done on the field – but it was a fun day to enjoy some American football.

School continues to go well for the kids.  Rainey is on the worship team for the middle school and leads their chapel service and her basketball team won the region championship!  Asa is doing well in school and he is playing softball in after-school intramurals.  I am currently down 5 milkshakes to him because of his proclivity to hit home runs.  Below he is dressed up to be "Principal for the Day" as part of his leadership team duties.

Nehemiah and Benny are doing well and ruling the compound – making trouble and climbing trees.  Benny had some stomach troubles since our last blog but they have cleared up and Nehemiah received a few stitches for a fall off the bed.  But all of that is par for the course with these two.

We have decorated for Christmas with our 5’ artificial tree and one strand of battery powered lights.  Our stockings are hung on the security bars in our windows, along with candy canes on the tree. 

Our work in Nairobi has been gaining traction as we have been meeting people from all backgrounds and developing relationships that have allowed us to share what is most important.  Those relationships have taken us to different areas, from the slums with tremendous poverty to middle class Kenyan churches that don’t look too different from your church in America. This past Sunday I had the opportunity to preach in a small rural church and challenge them to share the good news they have received with people that are different from them.  Like in America, the church here has to work hard to overcome barriers and reach out to people that are not like them.  People from other faiths in Nairobi look different, dress different, and live in different areas of town.  It takes intentional effort to be obedient to the great commission!




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