Smile!

This week was a milestone week in smiling. Over the past month the girls had started to smile, especially Lizzie, but only on rare occasions. This week has been a smile-a-thon. The girls love to smile at mom, at dad, while playing patty-cake, when changing diapers, when playing on their playmat, basically all day. What a joy to see them express themselves and learn the art of non-verbal communication. Alongside the smiles, they've been making a lot more sounds this week. Coos, squeals, squawks, giggles, now fill their vocal repertoire. They even have started to have conversations with us and each other, listening and then responding to various sounds. Parenthood sure is fun!

Fruit

The past week has been one of fruit, in work, at home, and in the community.
Last week, my passion fruit vines finally started to produce fruit. They were flowering earlier but I was pessimistic about them actually producing. I knew it takes some months for plants to mature, but the passion vines at the demo farm had been fruiting for months (though they dump copious amounts of water on them while I try to conserve every drop). Each day, I've enjoyed watching more and more fruit weigh down the vines.
At work, I've been seeing a lot of progress as well. After a few months where I was wondering what the impact of our work would be once we leave, I've been seeing growth in each partner. A donor visit last week really emphasized how much things have improved and its been great to get a lot of affirmation from superiors about my work.
Finally, the community has received a great blessing of rain. Three nights this week have seen heavy rains. Our tanks, previously half full, have now been filled with rainwater from our gutters (another one of my projects producing good fruit). The land is now bright green with grass and new hope springing everywhere.
This time of fruit was like a word from God to me. I feel like He is saying that despite times of opposition, failure, and barrenness, He will be faithful to bring fruit in His time. We've seen God at work throughout our time here, and believed that He would use our time and work to bring about good fruit in this community. Now, our faith is beginning to be as sight as the first green buds of hope turn to sweet fruit.

Sleep

The girls have their sides of the bed: Lizzie the left, Sophie the right

After a night of being woken up by mice in the kitchen cabinets (again!) and other Najile night noises such as hyenas, bats, and various bugs, I was praising God for our good little sleepers. Our girls didn't seem to notice or care about any of the noises that woke us up. Both Sophia and Elizabeth have learned to settle themselves to sleep at night and for naps. Do they cry when we put them down? Sure. But they know the routine and soon they have wiggled, fussed, and sucked on their hand (they haven't consistently figured out where their thumbs are yet) or blanket until they are fast asleep. They can even sleep through each other's cries. Not always. But every little bit counts.

Cumin Mouse

On friday we took time to clean up the kitchen, specifically our spice and silverware drawers.  The spice drawer had recently been looking a little dirty but when we opened it friday it looked like a spice bomb had blown.  We realized a few of our spice containers had been gnawed through and the spice was then distributed throughout the drawer by some creature.  The strange thing was the main focus of our drawer destroyer was cumin.  Why this animal wanted cumin and not say, basil or paprika is still a mystery.  Fortunately, the identity of our "visitor" was soon revealed when we cleared out the rag drawer.  A mouse was waiting for us and had to be shown the door via Matt's fast-action with a push broom.  Hopefully that will be our last encounter with the "cumin mouse."

Najile Goodwill Center

As much as we work to live up to the Mennonite standard of "living simply", our lifestyle produces a measure of inevitable garbage.  Some of it is easily disposed and unusable, wrappers, used tissues and paper towels etc.. Yet we also produce some garbage that is less easily gotten rid of (read: burned).  Things like old shoes, plastic bags, broken toasters,  empty bottles, rags, clothes of the wrong size, and various "gifts" from visitors like 5 calenders, boxes of matches, mesh laundry bags, random baby stuff, arithmetic flash cards, extra hats, and tons of toiletries.  Sure we could try and keep these things and use them, but we've realized they're more likely to take up space, collect dust, and eventually become homes for mice (see upcoming blog: cumin mouse). 
So, we decided to consolidate all this junk and create the Najile Goodwill Center.  On our porch we have a table where everything is free to take.  You never know what will be a "hot" item and what will sit on the table for months.  Electronics stay put, but used plastic bags go like hot cakes.  The water purification tablets went pretty quickly (though I don't think the people who took them understood what they were), but mosquito coils (like citronella candles) were never taken.  Having so much stuff has brought great joy to the various children who now visit our house daily to see the babies and get any new stuff that's been put out.  It has also brought great joy to us, like when an 8-year-old wore one of Steph's old dresses to church.
In the pursuit to live simply and de-clutter our lives, God has reaffirmed the truism that, "one man's trash is another man's treasure"

Nolkiteng

Over the past weeks, we've had literally hundreds of visitors come to see our girls.  Often, we're blessed by their generosity as they regularly bring fresh milk for us as a gift.  By far, our favorite gift so far is a beaded necklace/collar called a Nolkiteng.  Its traditionally worn during celebrations and is extremely well-made.  Our friend Pastor Stephen gave this one to us and we immediately hung it on our wall.  We have been given many pieces of beaded jewelry, but this was by far the nicest and one we could showcase wherever we live. 

Goodbye Miltons

Today our dear friends, the Miltons, will be leaving Kenya.  They worked for three years with Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) and are our close friends.  Matt knew the Miltons from his time with Nate at Eastern.  God truly blessed us by placing them here as we adjusted to life abroad.  Having friends our age, people who were from similar backgrounds and generally wonderful people nearby was a joy making the hard times brighter and the good times better.  They regularly opened their house to us and we especially enjoyed mooching meals from them.  As a way of reciprocating, we'd also eat any leftovers they had which they wanted to get rid of, so it was a mutual relationship or sorts.  Surely, the Miltons will be missed and we pray blessings on Nate, Jill and Rielle as they travel home.