We have been moving along in our Swahili studies and have recently gone through some reviews by our tutor. Just for fun here are some examples, 10 points to the first person who can translate these tongue twisters from Swahili to English!

1. Mwalimu wake atakuja pamoja na mke wake.
2. Wake wake wake na mke wako.

We have been attending Nairobi Chapel on Sunday mornings and recently started a membership like class called, Mizizi. Well, one of the first classes they decided to have some ice breakers for us to get to know each other. As it so happened they wanted those whose name started with an “A” to get up and sing, dance or tell a joke. Silly me, I thought I could blend in but with us being the only Westerners in the class I kind of stood out. With little time to prepare I was up in front of a group of 40+ people being told to sing the American national anthem! Let me just say that I have a voice that is “cute” in the little kid choir stage but not for long after that. What makes it even more humorous is that another lady after me sang a FABULOUS worship song in Swahili and got the others to follow along and start dancing a bit….yea I have a long way to go!

As some of you know, I have been able to take on a new role since our move to Kenya. I wanted to share a bit more about it. SIM Kenya has a short-term program called SIMPact. It was set up by our country director’s wife Dorothy. She is an amazingly detailed, organized and passion filled lady. It has been such a treat to get to know her a bit more and now try to help out a bit with the program.
While she is on home assignment and the new coordinator, Trish, finishes up raising support, I get to help out.
My main duties are administrative that I try to squeeze in during Avery’s nap times and a morning when we have a wonderful lady watch Avery for us. More about Miss Maria in another post. These tasks include working with SIM sending offices around the world in placement of short-termers, helping spread the word on changes that might be happening in the program, helping a bit with orientation and getting the short-termers settled.
I am very grateful to have the talented Daniel Ondere continuing his hard work as the field officer. This means that he visits our current ministries, helps in setting up new opportunities, visits our SIMpacters on the field and helping us with a million other details.
Part of the SIMpact program and really SIM Kenya in general mentoring plays a big part. Each person that comes to Kenya is assigned a mentor. I have really enjoyed getting to know all our SIMpacters but it is special to dig deep with just a few. The picture above is of my friend and first mentoree, Tabera. She is a great gal from Switzerland who recently returned home.
It has been a joy to be able to have another ministry besides being a mom and language learning during this season.

…brother! Today we had a more detailed sonogram that showed everything developing well and we also learned that our son will be arriving mid-December! Avery is still saying that she will have a little sister so we will try to work on that.

This weekend we took a day trip with some other AIM and SIM missionaries up to a private game park. Along the way we got to be tourists and get our pictures at the Equator! It was so neat to see Avery enjoying seeing zebras, an elephant, giraffes, warthogs a plenty and many other types of animal. She has been cracking us up with her stories about the trip. We had breakfast at a small airport and she keeps telling me she wants to go to the airport. Little does she know she doesn’t have to get on a plane for many months, a rare thing so far in her short life.

Avery is loving being back home and enjoying playing with her friends. Here are a few pics of a normal Avery day. She loves to play games with Thomas

or go exploring with Rehema.

But the best part of her day though is when Baba gets home and can play or read to her!

Ramadan starts today and lasts until September 9. This is a great reminder to pray for Muslims in their search for Truth. A great resource for a daily prayer guide can be found by going to www.30-days.net.
You can find a place to sign up for daily emails, order a prayer guide, or download a pdf version of the prayer guide.

Thank you for praying. The recent vote went relatively smoothly. A good percentage, around 70 percent of registered voters, turned out to vote. The results were tallied and show approval for the new constitution.