HE is ALIVE!!!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

I hope as you read this you remember that Jesus died and rose again for everyone's sins. HE forgives you for everything and wants to have a personal relationship with you :) Seek Him!!

This weekend has been super crazy (I tried to post last night but the wifi was down), I will lay it out for you:

Friday:
Get ready for 9:45am to go to Easter Friday service at Overcoming Faith Church which starts at 10am. Waiting...waiting..9:59....waiting.....10:05....Then at 10:10 Winnie comes to pick me up. We pile the kids in the van and arrive at church at 10:30. Praise and Worship was amazing!! It has been a long time since I have been able to worship like I do at home in church so it was lovely. There was a group from a university leading and they picked songs like we have in church. Church was decent too, but it was long. It was supposed to end at 12, but it was done at 1:30!!! And then, Winnie and I piled all the kids into the van and started for home (down a one-way) when we got flagged down and told we needed to come back to church so the kids could sing a song and get videotaped. Remember how we were driving down a one-way?? yeah so we drove the wrong way down it to get back to church. While the kids were singing Winnie decides she wants to go home, so she gets someone else to drive us. This is fine only in the end I waited for a whole hour to get the kids in the van, then he wasn't there so we had to wait for him and by this time the kids where bored with sitting so they were gone and we had to reload them...it was the definition of GONG SHOW!!! It was crazy. So got back at 2:30 to Happy Life grabbed a snack for lunch and went down to feed the babies. Chilled in the afternoon and got to FaceTime Sarah Martens which was fantastic!! Then at about 7:15 it started thundering and lightning and raining a bit. I was like "sweet, I will just grab my handy dandy umbrella and go up onto the roof to watch the lightning!!" Let me tell you how bad of an idea that was!! I thought it was raining down, like normal rain, but it was SHEETING. I was soaked in seconds. Then, all of a sudden the power goes out, just at the time of feeding. I look down over the balcony to where the older kids are supposed to be getting ready for bed and I see a single light, so I went down there to bring them another one. Between the building I am living in and that building though is this open area, which was now filled with about 5 inches of water!! By this time it has been raining for about 20-30 minutes... I was down there for a while and then I offered to go up and feed the babies so they didn't have to get soaked too. So I went and fed the babies, and it was later than usual by this time, so I was feeding babies two at a time!! It was great :) Then as I was going to be, the power popped on. Story of my life!!

Saturday:
Slept in until 7am!! Haha. Got ready for the day and went to feed the babies just like a normal morning. Basically chilled all day and fed babies. I also met a wonderful girl, Ashara, from New York City, who is here for school. We hit it off right away and we were chatting for a while!! The elections are FINALLY over...it has been almost a month, but praise God it has been mostly peaceful. There was a court case against Kenyatta (the winner), because the loser, Odinga likes to cause a stink. In the end the court ruling was in favor or Uhuru Kenyatta and he will be officially signed on April 9th. It was super loud here again when the people found out!! There is a new two week old baby here named Lamual and he has become one of my favorites :) I spent a lot of this day cuddling him. I got to Skype Kenge :) and then the kids were dying Easter eggs with Mari and Andy which they loved. I went to feed the babies for the night and my day ended with being able to cuddle with Lamual. He is pretty much the only one young enough to fall asleep in your arms, and it is awesome!!

Sunday:
On Saturday, I invited Ashara to come to church as well as another friend Olivia, who invited one of her friends, Edith. They came over in the morning ready to go to church. Today was a BUSY church day. In the past little while we have had many new children; Daniel - 10, twins who don't speak any Swahili or English, Dominic and Peter - 3 ish, another 3 year old boy, Kennedy - 1 1/2, Ray (who I thought I named Erik, but they changed it..) - 1 and Lamual - 2 weeks. These kids all came to church with us to get dedicated, like baby dedication at home, and so that was interesting because we very rarely take that many babies... But we also have kids that are getting adopted so we brought them to get prayed for!!: Abidah - 2, William - 2, Ethan, - 1 1/2 and Tendai - 8 months. It was super crazy, but it worked out. And most of the babies didn't even cry in church, thank the Lord :) I kind of felt like the mom of seven though...because I was making bottles and getting diapers changed and being busy making sure all of the babies were okay. We got back home and fed the babies and then Andy took us all out for lunch; Mari, Olivia, Edith and I. It was a buffet, which was pretty amazing. Chilled in the evening and fed the babies before bed. Got back upstairs to hear that the youth group got back safely from Mexico!! I was so pumped and thankful that they are all safe and sound. I got to Skype with Erik before bed, which made my day :)

I am definitely going to miss being a "mom" to these babies, because I love them like my own. When one doesn't want to eat, I try to sit with it until it does. If one is sick, I cuddle it because that's all anyone wants when they are sick. And if they are crying I try to make things better :) They have become my babies and it is gonna suck to leave them. I might take a couple home in my suitcase!!! Just kidding. But I am already praying that God will bring me back someday soon because I love Kenya. I am excited to come home in 23 days, and yet it will be a sad time saying goodbye.

Thank you for all of your prayers for me!! I really appreciate them. And I am sorry that it has been a while since my last post, but the power has been out and wifi has been down, and it has been a crazy weekend!! I will try to post some pictures shortly. Of the new babies and kids too!!

Love: Rach :)