In my continuous quest to be hip, I actually have a recording of someone YODELING the William Tell Overture. I get to do the music for skate night, and I played it, and it is the FIRST time that someone actually REQUESTED Neil Diamond.

There is an uneasy peace in Kenya right now which seems to threaten to break out into something heinous every few days. When I was in technology, there seem to be a fair amount of people who struggled with drugs. I discovered to my dismay that unless people really hit bottom, they never dealt with the issues that caused their problems. I saw people sweep real problems under the rug, and for years they might be ok, and suddenly they had terrible relapses that caused enormous problems.

Kenya is like that right now. The issue of tribalism has never been seriously dealt with in the country, and so it keeps reappearing. People who have lived in a certain area for 20 years or more fled to their tribal homelands. It is rare that the leaders have expressed outrage at this, and until the country gets serious with this, it is going to go beneath the surface for several years and then get even worse.

There is such a chance for this country to turn around right now if they get serious about repenting of tribalism. Nancy wisely pointed out that we couldn’t change the country, but WE could repent. And so we have repented of all our judgmental attitudes, our insensitivity, and our unkindness.

We pray for peace and justice. Things have settled down, and the peace agreement is a positive step. But the cost of this has been huge for this country. Over a thousand deaths, hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and the Kenya everyone thought they knew is gone.

I was visiting a school that normally has 1000 students, and they have increased to 1400 with four hundred students being displaced students; that is, they have lost their homes and most of their possessions. Every time I think it can’t get worse for people here, Kenya always surprises me.

I was taking pictures of some of the new students, and they were so filthy that it was depressing. Most Kenyans don’t have running water, so staying clean is a challenge, but they do a good job of it. These kids have nothing, and it showed.

I asked one of them how they were doing and she told me `I didn’t have food or computers in my old school; I am doing well.’

I’m amazed at how much people here can take and keep going. The kids were so happy at this school.

They eat more seriously than before, because there is less in the area.

But they aren’t giving up.

Their attitudes have inspired me, but it has been a hard time at RVA. There have been some horrific things that have happened to the children of staff members who are back in the states, and that has been so sad and made it easy for the rest of us to fret about our own children.

JT and Matthew are doing well, but it has been a reminder to pray for them, and ask you to pray for them and us. It is a challenging time in Kenya.

Tuesday is a duo anniversary for us. Stephen Wrigley was born ten years ago, and Ben and Kate were officially adopted five years ago.

So many changes in ten years. When you lose a child, you always wonder` What if he had lived?’

I still wonder. After ten years, I still wonder.

Your pal
Steve