Workin' It

Well, I am officially another year older! Here's what it looks like to turn 25 in Kenya... nothin' else to do but stuff your face with a home made brownie cake! *smile*
We hit the ground running when we arrived back in Kitale from our Christmas vacation on January 1. We have been extremely busy settling into our new compound, which is a beautiful, peaceful blessing in our lives. Our two homes are surrounded by magnificent flowers, banana trees, and lemon trees. We have a dog, who we have lovingly named, “Loco,” because, well, he’s basically crazy! He doesn’t really bark, but he loves us and he’s fun to play with. We are looking forward to purchasing real guard dogs when we have the money. We still have a lot to do to make this place home, like purchase furniture and hang curtains, but we are just so grateful we have a nice place to live!

Our work at the Children’s Home as kept up extremely busy as well. We are now in the process of hiring new, permanent parents for the Home, as the ones we have now are only interim. This process is very important to the success of the Children’s Home, so please pray that God will provide the right people and that we will be sensitive to His will. Also, our work as “administrators” is basically a full time job! We are still becoming familiar with all the normal expenses of the Home and learning how to make and stay within a budget. This is much more difficult than I ever imagined it would be, but I’m so grateful for this experience. Not only is it for a worthy cause, but we are learning valuable life lessons (particularly in the area of finance) that we will be able to carry with us throughout the rest of our lives. We have a few renovation projects at the Home starting this month as well. We will be replacing the roof on the Home this month, before the rainy season starts at the end of February. The kitchen will also soon receive a new roof, along with a new stove for cooking and re-plastered walls. Currently, the cook uses an open fire to cook on INSIDE the kitchen. As you can imagine, this has created a much less than desired environment for the kitchen. The walls, beams and ceiling are coated black with soot! Also, we are hoping to construct a water tower with a well underneath very soon. We have had many problems with the (corrupt) water company here in Kitale. We already have a bore hole on the property, which we will construct a water tower over with a large tank on top. The water will then be pumped from the well up into the tower, and then from the tower down to the Home. One of the missionaries who helped found the Children’s Home has risen over $13,000 to fund these projects. Praise the Lord!

If you would like to receive my email updates/prayer reports & requests, please email me at alita.tombleson@gmail.com. Thanks for reading! :)

Holidays...

Hey there! Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. The holidays here are just about as busy as they are at home! We finished out the first year and our first quarter as missionaries very well. We were able to purchase many gifts for the Children's Home and celebrated with them a few days before Christmas. The girls got new dresses, the boys got new jeans and shirts, and we also purchased some soccer balls, candy (of course!), and some other items the home needed, like kitchen wares. The kids and the staff alike were very happy to receive even the simplist of items. This is Gina & Brenda with their new Christmas dresses. The kids were very excited to get their pictures taken with their new clothes on. (Notice the tag still on Gina's shirt?!) After we "wrapped up" Christmas at the Children's Home, we loaded up and headed off to Uganda to spend Christmas with Shawn & Linda Tyler and their team in Mbale. We have grown very close to this team and were looking forward to spending time with them over the holidays. Our Christmas was complete with caroling on Christmas Eve night; fresh, homemade eggnog; stockings on Christmas morning; and a BBQ Christmas supper with a White Elephant gift exchange.
During the week in between Christmas & New Years, we went to Jinja town, where the source of the Nile River is. (This is Rebecca Evans, a teacher for the Mbale team's kids, with me at the source of the Nile.) There is another Church of Christ missionary team there who we had met and wanted to get to know better, so we crashed with them and enjoyed pizza (delivered!), mexican food, real espresso drinks, and white water rafting down the Nile River. The couple days we spent with them were very refreshing (emotionally as well as physically... nothing like getting dunked by a class 5 rapid on the Nile to revive your life!!!)
For New Years, we headed back to Mbale. We spent the last few hours of 2005 eating and visiting before we prayed in the New Year. It was a very calm, but fun way to ring in the New Year. We got up New Year's Day and headed back to Kitale. We have now officially moved into our compound, which has kept us very busy. We are so greatful for how God has blessed us with such a beautiful place to live. We still have many things to do and to purchase to make this place "home", but we're on our way. Yesterday Carrie & I baked our first batch of cookies (peanut butter!) and made pizza for dinner. There's nothing like home cookin' to make a place feel more like home! :) Well, I guess that's all for now. We are in the middle of doing a lot of work at the Children's Home, so I will update you more this coming week on how that's going. Blessings!