With four sons, I have never found them with the slightest interest in what they wore. And they were easy to dress. Woman’s clothing is different. Sometimes you button it from the front; sometimes from the back. There are NEVER instructions.

It’s worth it all when I finally get Katie’s dress on correctly. She wears one on Sunday, and as we walk to church, there is no other word to describe it. She STRUTS. She looks good, and she knows it.

It’s FUN to have a daughter. And to be fair, whenever I tell Katie her hair looks nice, Ben puts his hand on his head, and I say `Your hair looks really good too.’

We have a new group of dorm guys this year, after three years with the other group. As hard as it was to say goodbye, having new guys has reminded me of the sacrifice that their parents make.

One of the guys is a foot shorter than the other 17 other guys in the dorm. He is an eighth grader, like all the other guys, and it is first time away from his parents. The first week he struggled so hard to keep it together. We went for a walk one day, and he told me that his Dad is a pilot who flew sick people to hospitals in remote areas. His dad is the only pilot in an area that has hundreds of thousands of people in it. If his dad were to leave, people would not be able to get emergency help. And there are no schools around there…

He started crying. He felt like his dad was doing the right thing, but it was so hard to be away. I’m so inadequate in this job, and the only thing I could think to say got lost in my own tears.

The great thing about 8th grade guys is a week later, this guy is running and playing and doing well. When you are where you are supposed to be, things work out.

Which should have NO bearing on the following information: we are officially in an epidemic!!

We have discovered that if 90 or more people catch the same virus and suffer the same symptoms, it is considered an epidemic. It is something to be an epidemic in a large place, but when 100 people get it all around you, you look at it a different way. In our dorm, 14 of our 18 guys came down with high fevers and horrible persistent coughs. Matthew got it, Ben and Katie got it, and I got it.

It spread SO swiftly, and so many people were so sick, that the head of disease control in Kenya came to campus to make sure it wasn’t SARS. (It wasn’t) He was rather gleeful because he could trace the virus from the person who brought it to campus, and the progression to every dorm.

We are recovering slowly, but the babies got it bad, and they haven’t slept through the night for almost a week, so we are hopeful for a full nights sleep soon.

We are restricted from being in the community until this passes, because I can’t imagine how tough it would be to go through this without medicine. But I can report to you that because of your kindness, we were able to deliver over 100 tons of food to 20 schools. We delivered much of the maize when school was in session, and children were cheering when the truck drove up. You’ve fed 6500+ children for three months.

I went down to Kijabetown to see how it was going, and some of the maize wasn’t dried, so they were going to dry it for a few days. I wasn’t feeling good and delivery NEVER goes right and there were more glitches than usual and than I noticed him:

His soccer ball is a bunch of plastic bags you might get from the grocery store tied together with some twine.

It may have been a rough couple of weeks, but I’ve got it so easy. It’s a shame I keep having to be reminded.

Your pal,

Steve