Anyone who has been in Africa for awhile has that moment. You hit the steering wheel and just yell `Why? Why does it have to BE this way?’
Most of those moments occur when I’m at a school. I know how much of a struggle it is for parents to afford to send their children to get an education. The issue is: what do they get for their money?
The sad answer is that they don’t get much. It isn’t that the...
We celebrated the twins 2nd birthday on July 6th. Last year we celebrated it on July 7th. It isn’t another quaint Kenyan tradition. The reason is pure Kenya.
The original documentation we had on the babies indicated they were born on July 7th. When we got closer to the adoption, we got information that one (we weren’t sure which one) was born on July 6th and one was born on July 7th. When the adoption was final, we were...
The students left for school on Friday at noon. They weren’t due back until Monday afternoon, so it meant a long weekend. In the states, we could go camping in Tyler, or go to Six Flags, or hit the pool.
In Africa, you can drive just a few hours, and go to the largest game park in Kenya. We left about 7:15am on Saturday and arrived around 1:30pm. It was about 120 miles away. Even with a thirty minute rest stop,...
Nancy and I had a meeting to go to, and the older boys volunteered to watch the babies. It is truly heartwarming to see them together, except when the deed is done, and then there is great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Apparently, while we were gone, there was a major deed done.
We met the boys and the babies at the cafeteria. After we had eaten, JT invited us to `sniff Ben’s neck. When we did, he informed us that...
Nancy and I had the opportunity to visit Empuet Nursery School, which is to our knowledge the only pre-school serving the Masai tribe. This is significant because the Masai are herdsmen, and do not believe in educating their children.
They do believe in free food, and because of this, many of their children are allowed to attend this school. It is special to us, because the church it is held in was built by one of our heroes, Jim Hoeksema, and...
It’s been a month since my last email to you all. To my college roommate who inquired, I will tell him that the combination of changing software and computer systems took much longer than expected, with more bugs than a reasonable person might expect. To the rest of you who enjoyed the break, it’s over. Anyone who is interested in how I handled it might get an idea from watching the Hulk in theaters next month.
I knew there would be...
Last week, I was pretty impassioned about one of the RVA kids getting into Harvard, and loudly proclaiming that he was the first kid at RVA to get into the Ivy League. I checked this with the former superintendent, the present superintendent, the guidance director and the principal.
However, I did not check this with the coolest person on the planet, the person who did this job before me. She informs me that lo, not even two years ago, a student...
We are having an identify crisis of sorts in our home.
Every Peifer male has gone through being called Bubba. It’s a Texas thing, and Ben really is a Bubba; just a big old sweet guy. Although most of us call him Bubba from time to time, that is how Katie always refers to him.
The problem is this: that is how Ben refers to KATIE. He calls her Bubba all the time. I’ve told him that if this continues, we would...
