Karibu Tenwek (our first week)

Tomorrow will be the end of our first full week here at Tenwek.  It's hard to know where to start when you sit to write something like this, when you have sensed, felt, and experienced so much in the past week.  It would probably be best to start at the beginning.  Here we are departing from Atlanta incognito.  My favorite comment on this picture has been that I bear a striking resemblance to one of the Mario Brothers, and that Josiah is looking "shifty" an apt description of him.  It made for some comic relief in the setting of good-byes, though we did our 'staches' off before heading through security.


The flights were long, and as smooth as can be expected traveling with young ones.  Our first night in this guest house we all went to bed early (in the morning), and slept through the night until late the next morning we saw the African sun shining on this little paradise in Nairobi.  "We sure are good at this traveling thing" we thought as the kids went back to bed smoothly that second night... to awaken again in about an hour and be up until 4 AM.  Since then, the 'jet-lag awake at night' time has gotten progressively shorter, until we are pretty well back to sleeping through again.  One advantage of being awake from 1-3 AM last Saturday with jet-lagged kids watching Lady and the Tramp was that we could listen to the University of Georgia vs. South Carolina football game radio broadcast online.


Our reception here has been overwhelming.  We have joked that it is an all-inclusive resort (for a few days), where other missionary families have cooked all our meals for our first few days, and there are so many people around to help us.  One night, as we were getting ready for dinner, Katie went out to our little garden to find a sweet potato for dinner.  She knelt in the African soil in her long missionary skirt and a kitchen knife in hand, dug out a sweet potato, and in perfect Scarlett O'hara, "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!"
Other big family news has been Josiah's first days of kindergarten.  These are his buddies: Jacob, Cooper, and Walter.  He has a song that he likes to sing, "You never get bored in Kenya!" is the refrain.


And I got to start doing some doctoring again earlier this week, and I know it's a cliche, but it's really a dream come true for me.  This life and work is what I've been preparing for my whole life.  I've had fantastic opportunities to learn about medicine in Kenya, and to serve some extraordinary patients, and to do some clinical teaching for some incredible Kenyan interns and med students and a Cameroonian resident.  I hope to post a case of the week series, so stay tuned. 

This is the good life!