Caleb's Birthday

Last week Caleb turned 11!

This boy wanted a Big Foot birthday this year.  He's continually fascinated by imaginary creatures (think Loch Ness, Godzilla, King Kong, and Greek mythological creatures like Cerberus, Minotaur, and Scylla).  So it felt right that Caleb wanted a Big Foot birthday.

We started the celebrations the night before with a pancake supper - Sasquatch pancakes, that is!  Let me tell you, trying to make pancakes in the shape of a Sasquatch is not a natural talent of mine.  There were several iterations, but thankfully our kids had marvelously low expectations and marvelously high enjoyment of whatever I flipped out of the pan.  Caleb was delighted!

We began the morning of his birthday with a present (as all birthdays should begin, in my humble opinion).  His first present was a book.  Caleb is a huge bookworm.  He reads constantly, and when he's not reading he's usually writing or telling his own stories.  So the easiest thing to get him these days is books!

I always have the birthday boy help to make the cake.  My rule is: you help bake the cake and then I'll decorate it for you!  They like helping with the cake anyway.  Who doesn't like seeing their own birthday cake come together and then licking the batter off the spoon when it's done???

While the cake baked, Caleb opened another present: more books!  Our collection of African wildlife books continues to grow.  Caleb is a fount of knowledge when it comes to wildlife in general, and a guru of African wildlife in particular.  He's basically a walking encyclopedia.  And his knowledge keeps growing.  For instance, he started reading the Primates book right away and learned about a colobus monkey in West Africa that differs from the kinds we have here in East Africa.  He's floored to keep learning about wildlife!

We still homeschooled in the morning, but finished earlier than usual because Mama had to focus on decorating the cake.  I was praying I wouldn't completely mess up the Big Foot.  Thankfully Big Foot's shape can be a bit amorphous and still be identified as Big Foot (see pancake pictures above).  By God's grace the cake turned out well!  

I always put the birthday boy's name on the cake somewhere, as well as their age.  This time I hid the "11" a bit because I wasn't sure how else to obviously incorporate it.  The two pine trees represent the number 11.  I totally forgot about needing to put candles on later, and so I didn't have a plan for incorporating candles into the scene, but Caleb didn't care and was happy to put candles on the cake wherever he wanted to when the time came.

He really loved the cake, and I really loved that he loved it.

He chose pizza for his birthday supper, so I got the dough rising as soon as I finished the cake, and we devoured the pizza right before some friends came over to eat the cake with us.

Caleb was adamant that he did not want a birthday party.  He was just as adamant that he didn't want anyone to sing for him (not even us).  But he did want to share his cake, so we invited the expats over with clear instructions that no one could sing Happy Birthday, and it was a lovely low-key evening with some very good cake!

I convinced him to open one present while his friends were over, and he was floored to get this book from us: Mountain Dragons: In Search of Chameleons in the Highlands of Kenya.  I learned about this book from another homeschooling missionary mama who loves chameleons, and I knew we needed it in our library.  Gorgeous photos accompany the text and we've already learned some interesting new facts.  The most fascinating is that apparently there are subspecies of the Jackson's chameleon!  Jackson's are the most common species of chameleon in our area, and the males have horns while the females do not, but apparently the females of another subspecies can sometimes have horns too!  We had no idea.  So now we're wondering if we've ever encountered a female with horns...  Who knows?

Books, books, and more books!  Between us and the grandparents, Caleb was extremely spoiled with the number of new books he received this year.  And I love it!  Of all the things we could be collecting in this house, books are the most important.  I regularly remind the boys that reading is incredibly valuable because reading increases our knowledge and wisdom, and hopefully, more than anything, increased knowledge and wisdom will lead to an increased love for God.

So bring on the books!

A couple days after his birthday we had a Mom/Dad/Caleb movie night.  We set up a movie for the other boys in another room, then the three of us snuggled up in our room to watch Mighty Joe Young.  None of us had seen it before but it looked like the perfect Caleb movie because it's about a giant gorilla and wildlife conservation.  To say that Caleb loved the movie would be an understatement.  He was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement!  It will undoubtedly be in the regular movie lineup from now on.  Eli and I liked it too - plenty of action and an interesting plot overall - but a particular perk is that in the beginning of the movie, which takes place in Africa, a lot of Swahili is spoken!  It was so fun to recognize some of what the characters were saying in Swahili.

Caleb is an incredibly imaginative kid.  He lives in his head much of the time and it can be hard for him to focus on what's right in front of him, but his creativity is inspiring and we love how much reading and creating his own stories informs how he thinks about the world.  Caleb makes connections between stories and real life and he asks good and thought-provoking questions because of it.

His heart is so kind, and his affectionate nature encourages our hearts daily.  Caleb still loves to snuggle with us, and he'll still hold my hand when we're walking somewhere.  We greatly appreciate his gentle side.

And of course he's still insanely passionate about wildlife and all of God's creation.  That is the first thing everyone associates with Caleb: wildlife!  We are so proud of his love and respect for animals and we have learned a lot about how to care for creation because of this precious son of ours.

More important than anything, Caleb loves the Lord.  He listens eagerly when we do Bible lessons at home and he remembers what he learns.  He enjoys listening to worship music, and he likes rereading our devotional books and citing them in random conversations.  We are so proud of this kid and we continually pray that Caleb will follow the Lord wholeheartedly and that he'll have a different spirit about him (as his namesake did) - a spirit of devotion and faithfulness to walk in the ways of the Lord.

Happy Birthday, Caleb!  We love you!

Retreat at the Coast

Every year our WGM Kenya field has a retreat.  It's a wonderful time of fun, fellowship, worship, and renewing our hearts and minds.

I have been in charge of planning Retreat for the past three years.  It's a lot of work to plan a multiple-day event for a hundred people or so, but it's also a task that suits my personality and skillsets well.  I'm good at pulling all the details together and I'm good at emceeing and I'm good at making things fun.  Event-planning is something that uses a variety of my skills - the super organized part of me, the strong communicator side of me, and the camp counselor and youth worker side of me.  In another life I might have had a future in event-planning.

But I do not have another life and this is definitely not something I have the margin for most of the time.  I actually don't really have the margin for it even now, which is why there were so many late nights working on it because there was no other time to fit it in except to sacrifice sleep in order to do it.  But alas, all the hard work and lost sleep paid off because Retreat was fabulous this year and everyone had a great time.

We stayed at a place along the Kenyan coast, with amazing views of the Indian Ocean.  It is hot and humid, however, so everyone just sweats their way around the resort and gets in the water or A/C whenever possible.  But if you can handle the heat and humidity, the scenery can't be beat.

I don't have as many photos as usual because I was too busy running around.  I actually never even made it to the beach the entire time, literally.  But we did spend time at the family pool where our boys happily practiced their swimming skills.  Asa is a good and confident swimmer by now, Kai is almost to the point where he can be trusted alone, and Caleb has room to grow but is well on his way.  It's taken so long for these boys to learn to swim because they simply haven't had much opportunity to practice swimming.  We don't have easy access to a pool in rural Kenya, so they only get to swim once or twice a year and it's belabored the project of learning how to swim.  But the light is at the end of the tunnel and they are finally almost there!

I ended up in charge of the Fun Night on the first day.  Finding activities for a large group of adults and kids alike is no easy feat, but it turned out well and memories were made!

The speaker and worship team who led our sessions were amazing.  Dr. Matthew Sleeth is a physician-turned-author-and-speaker who happens to be the father of one of our colleagues, and it was great to have him join us and meet the whole WGM Kenya family that his kids and grandkids are a part of, as well as to learn from his wisdom and insight.  He spoke a lot about Sabbath, sharing stories and pointing us back to Scripture, and it was a meaningful time.

The worship team came from a church in Nairobi and they blessed us beyond belief!  They did a lot of familiar songs and somehow they were particularly meaningful and impactful.  Many people commented on how much they appreciated the worship.  It was mostly in English, with a few Swahili songs thrown in, and it was just wonderful.  Also, I never knew I could enjoy singing "This Little Light of Mine" so much!  That must be a sign of a truly talented worship team!

This year we celebrated a colleague, Robyn, who is retiring after living and serving in Kenya for 42 years.  Yes, 42 years!  It's incredibly rare to hear of people staying on the mission field for that long anymore, and we were humbled and inspired to hear many of her stories over the years as she shared reflections during her retirement party.  It was also fascinating to think about how much Kenya has changed in the past 42 years - what the infrastructure was like then compared to now.  We certainly arrived at a different place than Robyn did four decades ago.  We showed up with the ability to call our family in an instant, and even video chat with them.  Robyn had to travel hours and pay an arm and a leg for a 3-minute phone call to say hello to her family on her birthday.  There were many other examples, but the sacrifices she has made over the years was indeed humbling and inspiring, and we were so grateful to celebrate with her as she prepares to leave her adopted home and return to America and transition to the next chapter of her life.

This picture shows Robyn receiving one of her retirement gifts - her original work permit that was granted in 1982!

Another celebratory night was the graduation banquet for our high school graduates who are preparing to leave Kenya and return to the States for university.  There were two graduates this year, both of whom have grown up in Kenya since they were 2 and 3 years old.  Kenya is home, and they're about to embark on a major life transition.  Retuning to their passport country is always a major transition for TCKs, but it also represents a huge accomplishment of growing up cross-culturally and becoming wise and mature young men and women with a broader understanding of the world and God's kingdom at work within it.  These kids have carefully cultivated worldviews, which our world needs more of, and they have incredible potential for positive and meaningful impact in the corner of the world God leads them to.  I have a special place in my heart for missionary kids, having learned intimately what unique challenges they face, as well as unique blessings they experience and bestow.  Celebrating them and their lives - past, present, and future - is something we take seriously and is one of the most cherished times of Retreat every year.

This year Eli had the honor of being asked to speak over and pray for one of the graduates, Isaac, who has been a friend to our family ever since we moved to Kenya.  His parents were our on-field mentors during our first year on the mission field, and the three boys in that family have been role models to our own three boys and have displayed an intentionality with our kids that has been an ongoing gift to us.  What a joy to be able to bless Isaac in return and pray for him as he looks toward leaving Kenya and going on to university in the States!

Eli's prayer moved me (and others!) to tears.  I'll share a part of it here, because I want to remember the words that express Eli's heart over these missionary kids.

"I pray for his future to be bright, and not bright in the ways of the world but bright in the ways of You and Your kingdom, which will shine anywhere.  And I know that we stand together when we pray these things for Isaac.  When he is struggling, may he be reminded of the community that is behind him.  We're not always going to be in touch with him, and that's okay, because You always will be.  I pray that he would feel that, and when he doesn't feel that, I pray that he would know that, and when he doesn't know that, I pray that he would still believe it.  And in this way You will carry him."

*tears!*

The other graduate is someone we adore as well.  Bella's family were our neighbors when we lived at Tenwek, and her dad and Eli still work together for the Family Medicine residency program and we have a great love and appreciation for their family as a whole.  So the entire evening was one of joy and pride.  I love how well our WGM family loves our missionary kids!  Our hearts go with them wherever they are in the world.

So, Retreat was a great success and I thank God for His provision and protection and blessing over it all.