it's true! that is, in fact, a pic of mom in the Mara!

forgive me for the silence. my mom and sister are here and i am spending ALL of my time enjoying them! we've been to the Maasai Mara, elephant orphanage, giraffe center, baby orphanage, Church, celebrated Christmas, and they've met tons of lovely people. they leave on Tuesday. it's gone by too quickly. sad...

here are some pictures until i can add words to this crazy wonderful whirlwind of holiday celebrations month!

sunset on the mara

cass and me in the van on a game drive.

mom in the van on the way to the mara. she loved the crazy fast bumpy drive.

so we're having a great time. it's so good to have family here. this has definitely made my first christmas away from home much easier.

i am also really enjoying celebrating Christ in my community on this side of the world right now. today at Church one of my youth group kids was baptized. it was beautiful. beautiful! it is truly an honor to walk alongside these young men and women. most of the time i think they teach me more than i am teaching them.

i hope your Christmas has been filled with love, joy, and the Peace of Christ.

taking it a little slower

this is part of the ropes course. it has actually started to rain out there and it's turning from brown to green!!!

i'm at home alone right now with the back door open and it's raining outside. it's pretty nice: kind of cold, hard rain falling, a little windy. this has been the first weekend in a while that i haven't been crazy busy. i don't quite know what to do with myself. there's no youth group this tomorrow (finals week), i'm not teaching sunday school, and everyone is at home studying this weekend... or that's what they say they're doing. so i've spent today catching up on some reading, had lunch with one student, and laying around the house talking with the teammates. and tomorrow i will actually go to Church and sit inside the auditorium and be a part of the worship experience. and after that i may go out to lunch and maybe, just maybe take a Sunday nap or read some more. unbelievable, i know! this is not my usual weekend. it's weird.

i read some wonderful blogs about youth ministry and how many organizations are slowing things down this holiday season. one youth pastor suggested that we take some time to personally celebrate and enjoy this advent season. i totally plan to do that. i'll also be ordering cheer uniforms, planning the next semester of youth group, preparing for a trip to America, recruiting camp counselors, planning a staff retreat, choreographing a cheerleading routine, making up cheers, working on the ropes course, and entertaining my FAMILY! i will probably find some time for personal advent celebration. and thankfully there are sweet things like podcasts of my home church where i can listen to the advent sermons.

i'm coming to America!!!

a few weeks after Christmas, sometime in January or the first of February, i'm planning a trip Stateside. this is mainly for the summer camp staff retreat in Rome, GA. i'm also going to try to do some recruiting of camp counselors, personal support fundraising, attend a conference or two, and see family and friends. here's how you can help: i would LOVE to talk to any college students you may have an audience with. we really need quality camp counselors for summer 2010 who love God, love kids, and want to see Africa. do you know anyone like this? would they be interested in serving with us this summer? let me know and i'll be there!

also, i still need to raise some significant personal financial support. do you have a church gathering or small group or sunday school that might be interested in hearing about this ministry and how they can help? again, I will be there! :)

i'm also thinking of attending a youth ministry conference in Chicago. know anyone in Chicago who'd like to house me for a few days? ;)

and i would LOVE to spend time with YOU. so as soon as i know my official travel plans i will let you know and we can get some time together.

i'm looking forward to being in Georgia and seeing family and friends and enjoying the Southeast. i can almost taste chick-fil-a sweat tea now...

AND THE COUNTDOWN IS ON for Rhonda's trip to Africa. that's right, folks, my mom and sister arrive on SUNDAY night. unbelievable. i'm wayyyy excited, but trying to have an "i'll believe it when i see it" attitude in case something crazy happens and she doesn't make it. i will have pictures and updates. Kenya isn't ready for my family. it's gonna be awesome. haha! this is us right before i left Georgia on Easter this year. looks like i was really happy.

'tis the season...

... to stuff your face! :)

We had our youth group Christmas parties this past weekend. The high school youth group party was on saturday night at our house. Not our most fun party ever, but it was good. it was a little more chill than usual and a good opportunity to hang out with the kids. the leaders came over early to decorate our house and make cookies for the party. again, LOVE watching their leadership develop. they amaze me. sometimes i wish i was as wise as they are when i was a teenager.

decorating cookies around the table at the high school youth group party

the spread

eric and me at the party

middle school party white elephant

decorating cookies at the middle school party

the middle schoolers got all hyped up on sugar and went crazy. it was awesome! they stuffed their faces and then ran around the yard screaming and playing. i've never seen them like that. parents reported fast talking and hard crashing in the car on the way home. i call that success. :)

youth group meetings are over for 2009. it's a little hard to look back and consider if you've taught them everything you were meant to teach them. it is exciting to look forward, though, and think about the next year. each semester is different out here. some families leave and others return and some are new altogether. i've said goodbye to a few students and am looking forward to seeing others again. and there are some older siblings returning for the holidays that i'm really looking forward to seeing. some i haven't seen in years. it's just another reminder to make every day count.

i'm also looking forward to camp bluesky 2010. i'm headed back to the States in a month or so to recruit counselors and have a staff retreat. our camp staff team isn't very big as of yet. please pray that God would bring the right people to serve at camp this summer. and if you know of any cool college students, send them my way!

i'm still working on my Stateside schedule and will let you all know very soon!

thanks for reading about me!

let us bring Him silver and gold

"In all our trials born to be our Lord

He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger

Behold our King, before him lowly bend!"

(O Holy Night)

last night i attended the christmas concert at rosslyn. i was 30 minutes late and and by myself. i missed the handbells, which i why i went. some of the high school boys are in the handbell choir and hate it. and i really wanted to see them perform. :) but i did get to hear all of the choirs. it was beautiful. so beautiful. the congregation was invited to join in some of the songs. i had had a pretty stressful day (someone came into our house and stole some stuff while our house help was in the basement). let me say, it's been a pretty stressful week. it's a shame that the end of the year gets stressful. and i don't at all feel the stress of christmas shopping and commercialism like many of you in the States. that's one of the things i do not miss and i pray that you will all be able to get past it and truly celebrate Christmas. i just feel pressure to finish up the lessons for youth group, get in all the parties and hang out time before people scatter, and figure out camp staff stuff before college students go home for the holidays. and it seems like people here are falling apart. there are so many sick, tired, and stressed out families. everyone's just pressing on for like two more weeks. and i spent most of yesterday dealing with kenya police (a whole other blog post) BUT, for a few precious hours last night, we gathered to worship our wonderful King.

i wish you could have been there.

middle school, high school, and an adult choir performed and the congregation sang along to familiar Christmas hymns. when we sang the lyrics "In all our trials, born to be our Lord. He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger. Behold our King, before him lowly bend!" I wept with praise. i only thought i was sitting there alone. until i looked around and listened to the voices and realized that i was so accompanied. there were a couple hundred brothers and sisters around me and we were, for a bit, caught up in doing what we were created to do: worship. we were celebrating the most important moment in history: when God came to earth as a human to die for our redemption. everything that had happened in my day pointed to this moment. i was tired and weak and God reminded me that He knows. and that all my days are about Him. and no matter where i am and what company i am in (or not in) this season is about Him. and He sees me. and knows my need and my weakness is no stranger to Him.

let's celebrate Him with grateful and sincere hearts.

tonight is the youth group Christmas party and in a few hours the leaders will come over and decorate my house! we're going to eat pizza, bake cookies, and decorate the house! then everyone else will come over and we'll exchange white elephant gifts, play bingo, eat cookies, and sing songs. all of this to celebrate our King.

this is a picture from a party i went to last year. we spent like 2 hours working on this masterpiece. check out the candles in the windows. i haven't figured out how to do this in kenya. i'm spending some time today working on it.

i really miss all my family and friends in America during the holidays. and that gets me looking forward to the visits coming up! my mom and sis are coming here for Christmas!!! this is the best Christmas gift i've ever gotten! and then at the end of january i'll be headed to the States! stay tuned for details about that trip and how you can help!

i love you all! Merry Christmas!