Birthdays

Two days before my birthday was a little girl named Lucy's birthday. Not the famous little Lucy Lu out at Mattaw. This Lucy is the daughter to Violet. Violet is who helps during the week to take care of Elisha and Claire and also cleans some around our house. I'm not sure what I'd refer to her as... um, God-sent-amazing-woman? Yeah, something like that. Anywho, Violet has three kids and her youngest is Lucy. We've known Lucy the past four years and have watched her grow up fast. She just turned 7 and is in the 1st grade. And she loves white babies. Every year I make her a cake and we give her presents. It works out great because she is on break from school so she'll come spend a few days at our house, playing with Elisha and watching movies. She is such a precious little girl. Elisha would just follow her around the house, playing and laughing. They'd jump on the trampoline, run inside and watch cartoons, run to Eli's room and play with toys, run outside and jump, you get the point. Eventually I'd have to lay Eli down in his bed and have Lucy watch a movie in the living room, otherwise he'd never get a nap and be a heck of a mess in the evening.

Today Bud went to pick up the man we bought the brick machine from. This guy designed and built the brick machine. He's very particular about people purchasing this machine and it was mandatory that we paid for him to come and train people how to use it. So the next 10 days will be extremely busy for Bud. We're so thankful for this machine and having this man here to train. It'll be great to start making and selling our own bricks. In the long run this will help with self-sustainability for Mattaw Children's Village. This also means that house three will start being built SOON. Yay!

We got a surprise visit this weekend from our friend Mercy. She used to live in our guesthouse with Hollie. She moved back to Nairobi after being here over a year. We've missed her SO much. It's her first time back for a visit. I'm glad she stayed one night with us. It's been great catching up with her. I've tried to convince her to move back but she's a city girl and thankfully following God's voice, not mine!

We're starting to get back in shape with running. I'm so excited for this. I've really missed being able to hit the trails running and being able to run for miles with my headphones in. It's definitely "me" time. My escape from the stresses of life here. It's me, Jesus, the open skies, and my ipod. We're currently searching out which 1/2 marathon we're going to train for when we're back in the states next year. I'm looking forward to finding one and setting new goals. It's one of the most amazing things to train, set goals, and pass that finish line. It's not about racing other people but accomplishing personal goals. Some days when it's too sloppy muddy on the roads, we'll go up to the golf course and run it. You wouldn't believe me if I described how beautiful that run is. You run over green hills, through a forest of eucalyptus trees, over little bridges, and often through swarms of butterflies. Not to mention the occasional herd of cattle that you have to dodge through. But that's not often and that's not the part of beautiful I'm talking about. Anywho, hopefully we'll know which race we'll be running soon.

Here's a slide show with pictures of Lucy and Elisha and also some of Claire and I taken the day of my bday.