GOOD BYES

I love greeting people, meeting people, getting to know them. But I hate good byes! It is by far the hardest part of this journey. I sit here in this room, I hear the sounds of the beautiful people in this home..the children laughing and playing, and little Sara in the middle of it all, laughing and running and playing. Little Sara. I have known her the least of the time, but will miss her the most of all. Always, a part of my heart will stay with Sara. I'm trying to think of how I will bring all these feelings back to America. I'm wondering if anyone will ever really understand unless they come. You truly can't know unless you dwell here for a bit. I don't think any video or picture can take it all in. To see a little 4 year old streetboy alone, crouched under an eve of a building to keep the rain off at night. To feed two little street girls breakfast one morning and then leave them sitting on the hotel steps, not knowing what will become of them. Then there was the grandma who lost her son-n-law and daughter and she came in from her village to try and take care of her grandbabies with no income and no money to feed them. To leave Bible Baptist and know they have so many needs and trying to figure out where to start??? And to know all these precious people that dedicate their lives to trying to find a place for all these chilren and to educate them when there is no money. And then there's Sara..... Oh dear Heavenly Father... please fill these needs. Bless these people. But most of all, Father, bless and care for these little children! And God... Bless and Guard over sweet baby Sara....
~LOURA

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't believe its over... but its not. I will be back. This is where my heart is. I will miss Sara so much, I feel she is my own child. I have done all I can do to love her, pray over her, feed her, kiss her boo boo's, change her diapers, to show her what love is, etc. so that one day she can understand what love is, and that she has a Father who loves her more than I ever could. There is so much work to do. I will be back. This is my calling. To show the love of Jesus. To be His hands and feet. God help me to be obedient.
Jenni

Well this is our last week in Kenya. As many of you know this is my home almost as much as east Tennessee is. There is this two year little girl names Sara that I have recently grown attached to. She is honestly one of the most precious and sweet children I have ever know. She is a new orphan as of about two or three weeks ago when her mother died, leaving behind Sara and her 9 month old baby brother. This week I have been and will be taking care of her: bathing her, feeding her, changing her diapers, loving and playing with her, and she even is sleeping with me. Spending so much time with her, she just seems so sad. She may smile from time to time when I get her belly or throw her in the air or make silly noises and dances, but other than that, she is so idle, just sitting. She seems so alone and so helpless. It breaks my heart to imagine her out on the streets with so many of the other orphans, just idle, sniffing glue, stealing, sleeping on the streets, starving. So in comparison to them, she is a very lucky little girl. She is at Afwai's house with us until they move her to the safe house with the other children. These are the children that I am here for, the orphans, that is where my heart is right now. The ones that God says to care for. And there are so so so many. I love this little girl so much.

                                                         My sweet Sara...

This week we are back at Fred and Alice's house. Yesterday mom and I spent the day at Candle Light teaching CRE... teaching about Moses and Pharoah and teaching the Pharoah Pharoah, Oh baby, let my people go, Ooooo, Yea Yea Yea Yea song and dance. It was really fun. Then came back to eat and take care of the sweet babies. Today and tomorrow, Alice is taking mom door to door to pray with people and invite them to church while I stay at the house and watch the babies with Nellie, the house girl, then at evening when the safe house kids get home from school, we will be doing crafts and games with them. Then Thursday we are going to San Dota School to visit and then to take pictures of construction site of the new school. Friday we will go back to Candle Light and say goodbye. Then there is the weekend, then we leave Monday morning. I miss home, I won't lie, but i will miss it here too so very much more. I was reading another girl's blog yesterday, and she is young,I think 21. God called her to Uganda full time. She had planned on only staying one year to teack Kindergarten and then going back from time to time, but now she is there full time. She left her family, disappointed them, hurt her little brother, left and lost the love of her life, quit school, quit her job, quit her American comfort, all to carry her cross and obey God. She said it was hard and is hard, but she doesn't regret it and never will because God's love is so wonderful, and He is always there for her, encouraging her and comforting her, and she knows that one day she will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven with her Lord. She has a huge heart for those precious little children. She started a children's home and now she calls her self a single mother of 14 girls and in the process of adopting them all. She began a non profit orgnization and has sponsors for her kids plus many more for feeding programs, school fees, and medical care. I was very encouraged with all that she had to say, and all her work for God. She sacrificed herself, her comfort, her life, and gave it ALL to the Lord. God spoke to me through her. I am still not committed enough. I am still too comfortable. I am NOT doing everything I can to live my life for God. No one is perfect, but we can still do more, try harder, be more generous, commit more of our live to God. I know it's something I am praying about and will be working towards. I don't know where God is leading me or what exactly my calling is, but whatever it is, I want to fully commit my life to God. One thing this girl said that I can relate to and know what partially what she means is this:

"A few days ago an American woman who had spent about three days of her life in a third world country looked at me and said, “I would SO love to do what you do. I would do it in a heartbeat. Oh, I would take 14 kids in a second!” It is a good thing that I was having a graceful day, because I said, “Aw that’s nice.” But my not so graceful heart was angry. And the not so graceful voice in my head wanted to say to her, “Ok then, do it. I can have you 14 orphaned, abandoned, uncared for children tomorrow. So here is what you have to do: Quit school. Quit your job. Sell your stuff. Disobey and disappoint your parents. Break your little brother’s heart. Lose all but about a handful of friends because the rest of them think you have gone off the deep end. Break up with the love of your life. Move to a country where you know one person and none of the language. And when you are finished, I will be here waiting with your 14 children!” I wanted to ask her what was stopping her, knowing that the answer would be her comfort. I wanted to look at her and tell her that my life was full and joyful and WONDERFUL, but I also wanted to tell her to COUNT THE COST. Because my life IS full and joyful and wonderful, but it is NOT easy. My life is NOT glamorous. I do not expect it to be. I do not think that anything about carrying a cross was easy or glamorous either.

Which brings me to my point. I am not actually that angry about what that woman said, it was just an offhanded comment. But it got me to thinking… How many times to we grieve our sweet Savior’s heart because we refuse to COUNT THE COST? How many times do we choose comfort instead of the cross"

She also says "I do not claim to have the answers. I do not claim to be doing it right. I do claim to believe that the words of Jesus are absolutely true and apply to me, right now today. I want to give EVERYTHING, no matter the cost. NO MATTER THE COST. Because I believe that nothing is sacrifice in light of eternity with Christ. (Katie Davis)"

I don't know how many times I've heard "Your doing a good thing" or "I appreciate what your doing" or "If I could, I would do that too"... and thought the same exact thing this girl did. "Then do it" or do something. I know not everyone is called to go to the other side of the world, but everyone can still take their part and help out, even if its just a little bit. I would really like for anyone that has time to visit her blog, it is really encouraging for me and may be encouraging to you. I'm just thinking, what would this world look like if every true Christian really gave their life up for living for the glory of Jesus Christ, to carry their cross, to love Him with all they are, to love their neighbors as them self, to GO and make disciples of all nations, care for the less fortunate, the orphans and the widows! What would this world look like if every Christian looked like you? Think about is.


 If any one is interested in reading Katies blog.. this is the link:

http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2010/02/she-was-eighteen-years-old-and-she-had.html

Back at Kawangware, preparing to head back to USA

(Post by Loura, my Mom)
We have had an awesome few weeks back here at Bible Baptist in Kawangware!! We have taught, done alot of crafts, sang a lot of songs, shot some hoops, jumped some rope, worshipped with the kids, worshipped with the teachers and worshipped with the family! We finally got to meet the rest of Pastor Edward and Alice's children last weekend. They took us to meet their two oldest daughters at their universities and we had a great visit with them. Their oldest son, Stephen, had been home from High School previously to visit. So we have finally met them all!!! They are a great family!

In eleven days, we will be home. Today we said goodbye to most of the kids at Bible Baptist. We will see some of them tomorrow... some come on Saturday, but they have a Friday worship and Jenni and I got up to speak today and could hardly say anything because we were both crying. We just love them all so much!! We will be returning to Kayole and Pastor Fred and Alice on Sunday evening to go to visit Sandota and the new building site this week. We are hoping to get by and visit Carolyn's daughter, Emmanuella one more time! We have a few loose ends to tie up and some goodbyes to say, and then we will once again cross the big pond back to America. We both have so many things and soooo many pictures to share. We made a video last week that we tried and tried to upload on this blog site in hope that everyone could feel firsthand what it was like to stand outside the Bible Baptist compound and enter its gates. We made a quick visit to a couple of classrooms, but they were empty! We walked toward the church to find Pastor Edward and Alice outside the doors, waiting on us. After introducing them, we entered the church where the kids were attending their weekly worship and testimony time. It is a beautiful and precious time! I really wanted everyone to hear their beautiful voices!! It would make you cry! It is like the sound of angels. It really is! BUT, we just could not get that video to upload, no matter how hard we tried. We tried to email it to Pastor Jeff, and even tried getting it onto face book, but it would go nowhere!! So I guess it is to be shared later!!

We miss you all! We will miss our sweet Kenya children and our Kenya families, but we are now ready to be home. Leaving is hard and we hate, hate saying our goodbyes, but we are ready to come home and rest a bit and then get hard to work!! Like I said, we have much to share and there is so very much to be done. I hope that everyone is ready to roll up their sleeves, again, and get in there with us on this!!

Kwaheri !!Loura