We are OK!!

Just wanted to take a few minutes and post to my blog. I know many have emailed to ask how we are doing in Kenya. We are great! Unfortunately when we were in Mombasa the internet didn't cooperate all too well and the last day before we left for Busia when i wanted to post, Kenya Power and Darkness struck again. (the electric company is called Kenya Power and Lighting but we refer to it as above:)

We are now in Busia and have been here since last Thursday. We took a train across the country which took us two days and we arrived in Busia on Thanksgiving Day. Our actual thanksgiving meal was local sukuma wiki (collard greens) ugali (boiled cornmeal) and nyama ya ngombe (beef) but us American girls (me, Cynthia and Jill) couldn't go without cooking a real Thanksgiving feast. So on Saturday we cooked what we could find and could make up using the local food here. We had two chickens, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, banana bread and a yummy pecan pie substitute. Carb overload for sure!!! Oh but we were sure full and our tummies felt just like thanksgiving, even though the weather didn’t feel anything like it.

We are here in Busia to visit Dennis’ mom and family since his Dad passed away a few months ago. We haven’t seen his mom so happy to see us in a long time. Dennis sister Faith and her new husband have also been her with us. And we’ve been able to meet our new niece, Angela Grace Akinyi born to Dennis’ brother and sister in law two months ago. Auntie Allison has sure had fun taking care of her. We have really enjoyed our time with family thus far…and I’m adjusting slowly but well to being a part of the family for REAL now. t. People really laugh (with joy) when Dennis introduces me as Mrs. Omondi. (not many white Omondis around here ha!) We are also going to go and visit Naftali and Dorcas Onyango (Dennis’ Kenya parents at our wedding) and see the white cow they have given us as our wedding gift.

Have to make this short…but also wanted to tell you that the pastor’s conference that Dennis was a part of in Mombasa when we first arrived went very very well!!! Even better than we prayed for. Details to come later….Thank you for our prayers for us!! Time is really flying for sure. Please keep praying for us as we travel and begin to say bye again before we return to the States. Its been so good to see friends here again and going to be so hard to leave them again.
Ok more to come later……

Tumefika salama (We arrived safely)

Not going to write much cause we are so tired but wanted to let those who have been praying for us know that we arrived safely into Mombasa tonight. Our trip was long but uneventful and we even got to sleep on that last flight b/c it was so empty. We each got a whole row to ourselves. Felt good to sleep. We are headed to bed now...hoping we can sleep. Its about 1:30am. Our bodies think its 6pm now though. Thank God for Tylenol PM. And I Forgot how hot it is here! OH BUT ITS SO GOOD TO BE BACK IN MOMBASA!!!!

GOD is good and we praise HIM for answering our prayers and keeping us safe....

SAFARI NJEMA!!

Safari njema means "have a nice journey" in Swahili. Yep, we are traveling again...and the reason I haven't mentioned it to most before now is that we've wanted to keep it a secret from our Mombasa friends so we can surprise them when we arrive. So if you guys there in Kenya read this before we get there....SURPRISE!!! We are coming!

Dennis and I are headed to Kenya for a month. Now that Dennis has his immigration and travel documents he can travel out of the country and be able to return to the USA without problems. So we are taking a little one month journey back home to Kenya. We are going in order to spend some time with his family since his father passed away almost 3 months ago. We are leaving tomorrow (Nov. 6th) and will return to Texas on Dec. 7th. The first two weeks we will be in Mombasa and we'll hit the ground running. While we are there we will be catching up with old friends and looking into some new ministry opportunities that first week. Dennis will also be teaching at a pastor's conference in Northcoast the second week we are there while I follow up with some of the relationships i had with women there. We are taking several people with us. Cynthia, who is a new STINTER joining the SERVE Kenya team will be flying out with us tomorrow. She is going for the next few months and will be joining Jill who is already there. Then Drew Trenz, (served as a STINTER last year with us), and also Gayman Helman, (the father of Abby Helman who came short term with us last year,) will be coming from America to help Dennis teach in that conference for one week. Then the last half of our time, including Thanksgiving we will travel to Busia (western Kenya) to where Dennis' parents house is and where his father is buried. We will spend 2 weeks there in Busia just to spend time with his family! Jill and Cynthia will join us on that journey as well. Don't think we'll be finding any turkeys in Busia for our Thanksgiving meal but there's plenty of chickens thats for sure!!!

We are really praising God for this opportunity to go and praising Him for how He has answered our prayers in allowing us to return to Kenya to be with his family since his dad's death.

Please pray for our safety as we travel many miles by plane, bus, car, and even train.

Please pray for us as we unite with Dennis' family again. May that be a sweet time of fellowship and reunion.

Please pray that the Lord will use Dennis and the other guys to bring His word to these pastors in a simple and clear way.

Please Pray also for Dennis and I to set aside time for each other even during these busy times! Please pray for us to know and love Jesus more deeply and that we will worship God in knowledge, preach and teach Christ with passion and pray through the Spirit with fervor! That the Jesus we preach will be so evident in our lives that we dont have to work hard to prove that He ALONE is the way, the truth and the life!

This is an exciting time in life for us; we are learning to love and live with one another:) We love it! Pray that even our marriage will be a tool that our Lord can use to bless His people!

We love you and appreciate your prayer and support always!