First blog on blogspot

Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I? Right? And I'm talking about this blogging stuff.

I'm not going to go in to a who am I, what I do sort of thing because honestly, the people who will be reading this are people who already know me and know what I'm doing.

It's been awhile since I did an update on myspace, on facebook (yes I have those too!) and well, just a general email out to friends and family. This is what the blogspot is going to be used for. I thought that maybe it will be easier to jot down my thoughts, events more frequently on here, rather than sending out an email every few weeks that's an average of 6-7 pages long.

I hope I can keep up with this thing....actually I'm sure our interns, Kate & Amanda will make sure that I keep this updated on a regular basis. It's up to the rest of you to read it on a regular basis too.

Anyway, on to what has been going on the past few weeks.

Well, we had Jessica from Oregon, our first Transformed International intern come and stay with us for five weeks. It was awesome to have her here; to have someone else around here. Unfortunately the time of her stay went by way too quickly and she had to leave us Sunday night. I miss her already. :-(

Daniel went and picked up our two other interns, the week before - Kate & Amanda. They are a riot (from Texas) and I knew from the moment they got here that they were going to bring a lot of life to this place over the next few months. Kate is with us for 3.5 months and Amanda for 6 months.

Before any of you laugh at me in the below picture, I just want you all to know that I have been battling a crazy cold (includes really bad, sore, swollen throat, stuffy nose, water eyes and horrendous cough) since last Thursday. The only positive thing about it, for everyone else's sake, is that I have no voice. Thanks to Daniel, Amanda & Kate for taking such amazing care of me over the past few days.

Here is a picture of our team.

(Back: Todd, Amanda. Middle: Meredith, Kate, Daniel. Front: Jessica)

This was the day that Jessica was leaving so we were all pretty sad. Who knew that you could really feel a loss of a family member after spending only 5 weeks with them. We miss you Jessica!!

In less than three weeks, we gain another family member, my buddy Jared from my home church in Canada. Daniel is so excited to be having Jared here (so am I, of course). I think Daniel can only handle so many women around him for so long. I'm sure he's looking forward to some guy time. :-)

I finally got to meet the wonderful Lydia who is behind the start-up of Oasis of Hope.. Oasis of Hope is a street children rescue centre (and much more) here in Kitale, Kenya. Some of the children that were in the movie Glue Boys (http://www.glueboys.com/) are now living in the Oasis of Hope family homes.

I met Lydia via myspace (what an awesome invention) and she came to Kitale just a few weeks ago and we finally got to meet. Right away, we knew who each other were. We had her and the Kenyan director of Oasis of Hope, Geoffrey over for dinner one night and it was such a great night with us all. Lydia is a complete ray of sunshine and brings laughter to every place she goes. She's leaving on a jet plane back to the US tonight but she'll be back in the new year so we'll be hooking up again, I'm sure.

Other than that, life is going on well. There is so much going on with Transformed International (TI) right now, it's great. God is certainly moving around us and in us. He has revealed a lot to us these past few weeks and I find that He is wanting to work with me in areas that need to be worked in, which is what I want.

If you are looking for a child to sponsor, please check out our website. We have a few children in our program that have yet to be sponsored. You can go to http://www.transformedinternational.org

Also, you can put your email address under Subscribe Here on the right of my blog page. You will receive an email every time I update on this page and you will be able to link and read my updates. I hope this works.

If anyone wants to send me something with Jared when he comes in a few weeks, email me and I will tell you how to get it to him before he comes.

Blessings!

xoxoxoxo