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! :)