Prayers for Kenya and a Request for Help

Friends, if you know me, you know how much I love Kenya and more importantly the Kenyan people who are like family. We have been in contact with them all since the violence started in Kenya, but I recently recieved this letter from our friend Fred. He is so wonderful and has taken in his family's orphans and treated them as his own children. He makes $128.55 a month... (9000 shillings). He has eight children. You do the math. Here is his email.

Dear Anderson

thanks for taking your time and going through your contacts and hence being able to see my email. Am very happy together with my family. I havent yet forgotten your appearance because i can remember the day you were going back to USA you give me some money about 300 kenya shillings which you hadremained with and through that i can still recognise you. These is part of the responsibilty i do hold in the family. I have children who are orphans after their parents who were my brothers died leaving them without mother and now they aregrowing and now three of them are doing their grade 8 exams this year which by next year they need support to join high school or grade 9 asyou call in America. I have sent their pictures though they are on different negatives.

On the left hand up are from L-R top my children MICHAEL the big boy 8yrs small is MOSES 4yrs and our first born girl EVELYN top right corner L-R are JUDITH 15yrs the one who joined secondary school form one or grade 9 and this one i have struggled and enrolled her in secondary which i pay the fees. EVELYN our daughter grade going to grade 7, ESTHER 15yrs grade 8 our necie and the one scorching boy is JAFRED 17yrs did his grade 8 exams last year 2006 and unable to pay his school fees. Bottom left are are nephews and nieces am taking care of after their parent both mothers and fathers died in between 1998 and 2001 leaving them as orphans.

Now they are growing and they can be able to take showers on their own. Now what is worryng me is how they will get their high school education. the fees is ksh 24800 ($354.22) per year without the stationeries and uniforms. The rest are still in primary level so their school fees is mainly needed in 2009 for three of them That Esther, Dennis and Moses who are doing tyheir grade 9 in 2009 and with salary of 9000 ($128.55) kenya shillings per month you cannot feed , cloth them and be able to save for them for education. I remained alone in the family with my small sister who has 3 children and her husband too doesn't have a job after all our parents also died due to oldage. My father died in 1994 and my mother 2004 leaving alone. God willing the group from Baylour University will be coming to Kenya by May this year, my request isthat please see how you can help me even if it means looking for some clothings for them or any way you see can help. (But Baylor isn't because the violence makes risk-management think it is too dangerous).

Standing JUDITH and JAFRED and scorching L-R DENNIS 14yrs grade 7 MOSES 14yrs grade 7 the lady standing is my wife Salome the picture was taken after being baptisedin 2002 at Naivasha where our Bishop baptises church members and anyone willing to be baptised.otherwise am fine i will send one whole picture of the family together when the family gets together

Thanks and may our ALMIGHTY GOD give you wisdom and strength so you get sponsors for this family

Looking forward to hear from you
Fred kuboka of Gracia Guest House

Breakdown:
I would like to send him at least $1,000 or more to help with his expenses.

I don't like to make people feel compelled, so please do not feel compelled. I want you to give to this only if you feel that God is tugging at your heart. However, I do know Fred well enough to know that he is one of the strongest men of God that I have ever met. Your money would be met with joy and heartfelt appreciation from Fred and his family. If you feel you are compelled to give a little or a lot, email me at carrie_anderson1@baylor.edu

We will be coordinating the money efforts in the next few weeks or so to try to get it all figured out. We have other friends here who also are helping Fred with getting Judith to school currently so we will be talking to them too.

If nothing else, pray for the violence to cease and the tribal warfare to stop. This country is such a beautiful place and it is beautiful because of the love the people have for one another. The idea of tribal warfare is literaly ripping apart families and neighboorhoods and communities. Pray for them.

I'm Stressed Out

Pray... This job search/trust God/take one day at a time thing is really hard. I am so frustrated!

Christmas Eve at our House

The fun has just begun... here is installment one of Christmas Eve! The stockings come next. :)

"Christmas is a feeling in your heart." -Johnny Cash song (not so theologically correct, but funny none the less).

Ham ham ham ham ham ham ham! That was for you Dad!

Cheesy potatoes!!! They aren't on the diet, so we took a hiatus from the diet for one meal. Corn!!!! (Not like Jim and Phyllis's, but still great.)

POP! :) Diet Dr. Thunder to be exact. :)

This next part is simply uncalled for but hilarious. The cat kept meowing and so I pulled out the chair because that seemed to be what he was wanting. Before we knew it we had a table guest. I might add that he sat there very politely and quietly throughout the rest of the meal and meowed mournfully when we left the table to do dishes. Our cat is insane... and we probably are too.

STOCKING TIME!!!

Smoke Signals...

Okay, so our apartment smells like smoke. Our downstairs neighbors are smokers... no... CHAIN smokers. I have a lot of tolerance for smokers as long as they don't smoke near me or my things. They have a right to smoke. I have a right to breathe. So lately (since July) we have been smelling their nasty bi-product on a daily basis in the bathroom and occasionally the living room, but it just crossed the line last night when it intruded into the bedroom too. So I have been struggling with anger today. It doesn't help that I was by myself all day since Marc was at work. I just feel out of control and taken advantage of. We tried to call the management but they are on vacation for Christmas. So then I checked on my emails and got this from Henri Nouwen.com.

"Life is unpredictable. We can be happy one day and sad the next, healthy one day and sick the next, rich one day and poor the next, alive one day and dead the next. So who is there to hold on to? Who is there to feel secure with? Who is there to trust at all times?Only Jesus, the Christ. He is our Lord, our shepherd, our rock, our stronghold, our refuge, our brother, our guide, and our friend. He came from God to be with us. He died for us, he was raised from the dead to open for us the way to God, and he is seated at God's right hand to welcome us home. With Paul, we must be certain that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power, nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39)."

It is humbling and a good reminder despite the fact that I am still very angry. I feel frustrated and yet amidst the craziness I am reminded of the joy of those who have no home at all. Having seen what we have seen in Kenya it is hard to reconcile my anger over our situation with reality for so many individuals.

A Break from the Craftiness

So I have been crafting up a storm in the last 24-48 hrs, but I decided to take a break and tell you about some great music you probably already know about (because I am always the last one to hear about great artists out there). I am currently loving (click and you can listen via YouTube):

1. Leslie Feist

2. Madeleine Peyroux

3. Eisley

4. Jem (no not from the 80s cartoon - although I thought of that too) :)

Here is a picture of the 80s cartoon for those of you who are confused. :)

Please do not read if you don't like cats... or at least Oscar

Today we recieved a Christmas package from my parents in the mail and opened it. Don't worry, the presents inside were wrapped. However, they were packaged with some lovely brown packing paper which Oscar immediately took a liking to. Please see the following videos to watch Oscar enjoying his "Christmas present." :)

So this was only part one. I know... *groan*. Part two was the discovery of the comfyness of the packaging material itself!

So, on behalf of all of us, Merry Christmas from Texas: the land of the paper-loving cat.

What I Do For a *ahem*... Living :)

So I may be on a grad student paycheck, but I do a lot of fun stuff at my job. And I thought you should know about it! One of my biggest jobs that is "solely" mine is Welcome Weekend. Welcome Weekend is the time when new transfer students and occasionally new freshmen, enter campus as new students in the spring semester. We have a mini-Welcome Week for them called Welcome Weekend. It is a weekend of fun and bonding to get them connected to the campus. My office also puts on Spring Orientation which immediately precedes Welcome Weekend. This year Welcome Weekend is January 11-13th, and I have been working on it since early October!

In an effort to get students more involved in the weekend activities we decided to do a newsletter to send out to new students to encourage them to attend Orientation and Welcome Weekend and to let them know about various campus resources for transfer students. So this job fell to me! Here is the finished project, my "baby." I hope you enjoy!