Kenya 2009 - Part 1

So Much Going On…

Wow, it’s been since December since I have blogged/wrote a note. The past few months have been a whirlwind.

As you all know, Sean and I left Kenya in December of last year to head back to Canada to visit with our family and friends…and to plan our February wedding. Our two months back in Canada was incredibly busy but it was great to spend those 8 weeks with our family and friends.

On February 21st, Sean and I got married in our church back in Canada. It was an absolutely beautiful day; the sun was shining and the ceremony and reception were perfect. We couldn’t have asked for a better day.

We spent our honeymoon in Niagara Falls. Now some of you Canadians may be thinking or saying, “Why Niagara Falls? Why not somewhere hot and sunny?” Well, for one….we didn’t care where our honeymoon was; we were together (cheese I know!) and two, it’s all about financial budgets and thirdly, we live in hot, sunny Africa….so going somewhere south…what would be the point? :-)

Sean and I returned to Kenya on March 2nd. It was weird being back as a married couple at first. Sean and I have moved our bedroom in to what used to be the girl’s dorm; the forbidden male area, so our first night, we felt guilty, like we were breaking the house rules…but we quickly got over it.

Being married here now, has its changes. I’m now considered officially a “mama!” and Sean is a “baba!” (father in Swahili). Even though we don’t have children of our own yet, being married now, gives us those titles. Also, we have gained even more respect here. A married woman or man is to be more respected than a single woman or man….we’ll see if that really happens! The other thing I learned from a Kenyan friend is that now that Sean and I are married, if there are situations to be discussed, people will go to my husband, not to me. Perhaps that’s how the hierarchy. In some ways, it’s kind of nice. Sean’s gets the text messages, “We need to have a meeting!” and not me. :-) Sean has really stepped up his role here; God is giving him a lot of wisdom in how to deal with situations and issues as they arise. It’s kind of cool to see it happening!

Since our arrival back home, it’s been non-stop busy. We’ve been catching up on things that we’ve missed the past two months; we’ve been visiting our projects that we’ve missed so much while we were away.

When we were going to visit HBF, we told the manager but asked her not to tell the children. We arrived with goodies to celebrate (juice and treats) getting to see the children again; when they saw us, they came screaming, “Auntie Mary! Uncle Sean! Auntie Mary! Uncle Sean!” We were bombarded by 30 hugs and kisses; in that moment, it made me realize just how much I missed my kids. They wanted to hear about the wedding and see pictures. Unfortunately we weren’t going to have the pictures until April so they had to be okay with the little pictures they could see from Facebook on our mobile phones. They said they had never seen a wedding dress like mine before (the traditional African dresses are VERY different). The girls giggled at “Uncle Sean in a suit!” so it will be quite interesting to hear what they say when they see ALL the real pictures in a few weeks.

We also went to visit our girls at Neema’s. They were also really excited to see us back; but a bit disappointed at the fact that we didn’t have real pictures of the wedding for them to see. I don’t think they liked having to settle for the small Facebook photos either. The girls are doing fantastic. We did an update and picture on the TI webpage of the girls. To check it out, go to: www.transformedinternational.org. And go to Update/Blog on the left hand side of the page.

The street kids were excited to see me back; running to me when they’d see me for the first time. They’d tell me in Swahili that I’ve been gone long and I tell them I returned from Canada and then point to Sean and say that we got married. The kids would start to cheer, smack Sean’s and my hands, saying, “It’s good! It’s good!”

It’s been great visiting our children at the different projects. And I’ll be doing a lot more of that in the month of April, as its sponsorship update month. We also have our friends Mike & Kristina and their 2.5 year old daughter, Kathleen, coming to visit Kenya for the month of April. Sean and I will be traveling to Nairobi next week to pick them up and bring them back to Kitale. Please pray for safe travels for them.

I’ll keep up to date on the blogs/notes from now on…

Meredith