Habari zenu? Which is Swahili for “How are y’all?” We are fine – at least as fine as world circumstances currently allow. I’ve been meaning to sit down and write an update from my (Nancy’s) perspective. With all that has transpired since 9/11, I’ve been hesitant to write of more ordinary things, but the ordinary does continue in the midst of the greater picture.

Many of you have asked about our good friend Grace. Yes, she is again working for us and helping us out with cooking & cleaning so we can do all the things that RVA has asked us to do. It has been wonderful to reconnect with her and get caught up on our year apart. Because Fred has been hired by the school, we have a new young man helping us with our extensive yard here at Twiga Dorm. Many of you will remember when I wrote of walking home from my friend Florence’s house the last time we were here. It is a 7-kilometer walk and it is not all flat. Her son Joel walked most of the way home to show me the way and to protect me. He graciously took a lot of ridicule from Kenyans wondering why he was walking with a white woman. At that time he had finished secondary school – quite an accomplishment here in Kenya – but he was unable to find any work. As we returned we were thrilled to be able to hire him to work for us! (Florence was thrilled too!) He’s a great guy, and we are enjoying getting to know him.

Let me tell you a bit about our new home. It is attached to a dorm, but is much more a separate house than our previous dorm since our dorm guys are junior highers who need less hands-on attention. It has an incredible view of the valley. After 5 weeks the view can still stop me dead in my tracks. In design it is a bit like a ski lodge in Colorado with huge windows all across the front. We love that part of it. The rest is a bit rustic. It is wood paneled in the living room and has wooden floors in about half of the house. Those wooden floors are so old and have such big cracks between the boards that when you sweep, by the time you get to the other side most of the dirt is gone having sifted down between the boards! I guess that’s a nifty self-cleaning device. Where it is not wood paneling it is cement – walls and floors with copious cracks for character. The kitchen has character, which is another way of saying it is very unique! But for the most part, and since we have ousted most of the roach community that inhabited prior to our arrival, I like it.

The bathroom also has character, an aged character. The counter-top (which I am grateful for!) is a floral Formica such as I have never seen before. The sink and tub are blue matte (not gloss and not matte by origin). The toilet is white and only fully flushes solid waste about once every 15 flushes.

But it is home and we are feeling at home in it. We are together here for three meals a day, and I’ll trade my gleaming chrome and shiny porcelain for that any day. God has been so good to us. We laid aside some things (but they were just things) and He has blessed us with that which is more valuable.

Last week I went to visit my best friend here in Kenya. Her name is Olive and she is a college educated single woman of 35. She is highly respected in this community and in an even larger area of Kenya’s Africa Inland Church community. She works mornings in the RVA high school library and afternoons in the elementary library with me.

She invited me to her home on Wednesday. It’s about a 15-minute walk from RVA campus. On the way a rat ran across our feet. Her house is perched on the side of a hill too. She rents it from the family that lives just up the hill from her. Her “house” is an 8′ x 8′ room attached to two other same-sized rooms. It has no electricity; she uses a kerosene lantern at night. There is no running water. She cooks over a single gas eye stove – no oven. Her bathroom is outside and up the hill. In her room she has a single bed, small sofa, one chair, two cupboards and one small shelf. That’s all. One of her neighbors is a doctor. He lives in a similar 8′ x 8′ sized room. She loves her house. As she says, “I live a simple life. And I am very happy. God has blessed me.”

We do miss all of you and think of you often. And we would love to hear what you did last Wednesday!

Love,
Nancy