Grammar is the most boring subject in the world to teach, and certainly to learn. But my daughter has given me great inspiration. She is the most beautiful girl in the universe, but before she does the deed she grunts in a manner that people miles away are aware of what she is doing.

So, when we are doing drills in class to identify irregular verbs, what do I make self-conscious eight grade students do? You’ve got it; they have to grunt before every irregular verb. It certainly has made the class memorable.

The babies are doing well. Both Ben and Katie’s first words were `Da-Da’ but it can mean `I’m hungry, I like to be carried, or an irregular verb is coming forth to the world.’ They haven’t connected it with me yet, but it is still a thrill. They both came to one of my English classes this week, and how they reacted was interesting.

Ben will go to anyone. Anyone is a potential food source or has something interesting that he can take apart. Katie is a little more particular, and several times cried for her Daddy to pick her up. Part of the fun of being at this school is that Nancy could bring them by easily, and that in the course of seven minutes, they were held by a Dutch kid, a Swiss kid, two Kenyans, four Canadians and two Americans.

This has been a week of learning how failure can bring success. Katie doesn’t always sleep well during the night, and getting up with her along with the rest of the schedule has been exhausting. About every other year, I throw my back out, and last week, I couldn’t get out of bed, so I went down to the hospital.

The Kijabe hospital is always an interesting place. The doctor was fine and thorough, but then it was time to prescribe medication. Since most of the hospital is run on donated medicine, he was handing me stuff and saying `This hasn’t been expired THAT long’ and `This will PROBABLY still work’; stuff you don’t generally hear in the states.

It was great medicine; I slept 16 hours a day. My family loved it because I was incoherent when I was awake, and (according to them) told them three different times during the same meal how muscle relaxers could lead to constipation. But with twins and lots of other duties, it wasn’t fair for me to continue on this schedule.

So after five days, I stopped using the medicine, and I realized how truly tired I was. I didn’t go into adoption naively, but nothing can prepare you for how much time twins will take, and I was trying to do everything else without realizing that it wasn’t possible.

And I was embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t do it all, that by the end of every day I wanted to give up. The principal of the school, a kind man, ran into Nancy and asked her how she was doing, and she started weeping. Another administrator came over to the house later and said the school would like to offer us the day off on Friday.

And my response to that was `I’ve really screwed up, haven’t I?’ He kindly said no, this wasn’t about screwing up; it was about sometimes you need a break, and we want to offer one to you. I was so embarrassed; it was like the big secret was out.

But once it was out, it was so freeing. I was reminded of how little I can do in my own strength, and that He delights to be strong in my weakness, and suddenly it felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. Nancy and I are going away for the whole day tomorrow, and it is wonderful to realize that we need it and can do it.

I don’t like to admit that I am weak, but I am, and it is so liberating to be able to admit it. It’s not like it’s been a secret to anyone else, but I feel better than I have in a long long time.

It’s like this whole year; nothing has been easy. Everything has been worth it.

Your pal,

Steve Peifer

Our favorite photo from Northern Kenya