• Matthew started college and had a great first year at the University of Richmond.
• I had eye surgery and went from 20-2000 in my left eye to 20-40.
• We used our hotel and airline points to take Ben and Katie to Disney World.
• I received the NACAC Educator of the Year award, which caused the superintendent of RVA to remark, “They never observed your driver’s ed class.”
• JT graduated from Wake Forest and two weeks later married the lovely Janelle, a woman he had met the first month of college. They are living in Charlottesville, VA, where she is working on her PhD in clinical psychology. When Matthew applied to Richmond, we had no idea that both the older boys would end up 45 minutes from each other.
• Because of the issues with the famous book 3 Cups of Tea, I was asked to replace the author as a keynote at an educational convention, which was sort of like winning lunch with Angelina Jolie and having me show up instead.
• Nancy presented a well-received paper on integrating biblical truth into curriculum, which made me even more impressed with my impressive wife of 26 years.
• We used part of the advance for the book to take a cruise to Alaska, which was a miracle that we didn’t expect to be able to do once we entered the mission field. The book has been delayed by circumstances beyond our control, but we are hoping for 2012.
• I got to give the commencement speech for CCA, a dream so unlikely that I could never articulate it to anyone except Nancy. The generosity of CCA to allow the twins to attend CCA is a gift that can’t be measured by us.
• People gave us cars, food, clothing and so much more. We don’t have the words to express how much it meant to us.

The big theme of this year was being broken. Issues with the tough things that being abandoned can bring made it a hard year, but we saw wonderful progress being made and we are so grateful. We think we better understand how to avoid burnout and protect ourselves and our family.

More than anything, we realize what a privilege it is to serve the poor of Kenya, and we are so grateful for your help. We are way behind on the food donations, so we are contemplating going to only offering food M-W-F. The gentleman who built the computer centers has left the mission field, so we are going to try to maintain the 20 existing centers we have and see what is next.

Our mission headquarters has moved! The new address is:

AIM
PO Box 3611
Peachtree City, GA 30269-7611

The new link for giving on line is www.aimint.org/usa/give.

We leave August 13 and hope to be in Kenya for three years. We are having a thank you at Milwaukee Joes in Colleyville at 33 Main Street on August 5 from 7-9. Hope you can come by and let us say thank you for how richly you have blessed us.

Our prayer requests:

1. That we will know what to do with the food program.

2. Saying goodbye to JT and Janelle was so hard. Please pray that we find a way to return once a year during a school break to be with them. Our mission allows Matthew to return once a year, so we are fortunate that we will get to see him, but it is hard to make peace about not seeing your oldest for three years.

3. That we serve Him in all we do.

Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again. We are so grateful to you.

Steve, Nancy, Ben and Katie Peifer