The Container Has Arrived

Wow! How exciting to open up a container and see the contents. It was like getting a GIANT Christmas present. We are so incredibly blessed to have you as friends and partners in ministry. We have plenty of macaroni, peanut butter, cereal, candy, cakes mixes and icing, and syrup. Yes, lots and lots of syrup. We go through a lot of syrup here because our favorite breakfast is banana and coconut pancakes. We make them from scratch and they are very good. However, we were always stingy with our syrup because a small battle was about $5 and we would go through a bottle in about 2 weeks. Pamela had been making syrup from scratch so that we would have some, but it was not as viscous as store-bought syrup. Well, we have enough syrup now to last us for several years if God leads us to stay that long. We also have many cake mixes and icing, which will be a treat for our family and also allow us to bless many others. They love to get cakes on special events here, especially the students. We will use the many, many toys to bless orphans and the many other children of need here. They are everywhere you go and have so little. This will be a very practical way to show them the love of Christ.

I was amazed to see the many items on the container. The boys were running around and so excited. It really was like Christmas, but more extreme. It is so wonderful to receive the American food products that we cannot get here, or if we can, are just not affordable. It is kind of funny to see how excited they were just over a bag of cereal. They even had cereal for dinner the day that the container arrived. They are already enjoying the pool toys, basketballs, and footballs.

I was also surprised to see new tools, a very nice lawnmower, and weedeater. We will put these to good use. I am also going to try to help a Kenyan friend start a lawn service business, so it will not only bless our family, but him as well.

You have blessed us incredibly and made our stay here much more pleasant. Going to the mission field is supposed to require sacrifice and some suffering, and missing American things is part of that. It was still nice, however, to get a reprieve and get some tastes of home.

We will use the foosball table, ping-pong table, and X-Box in a game room of the student center. Also, we had no idea that we went be getting so many books. These will be heavily used by the students when we put a Christian library in the center. We have all of the equipment to start a top-flight gym. God has not yet provided the right place for the student center, but we know that He will. The students go on break next week and return in mid August. We are praying and trusting that we will have the center up and running when they return. We would greatly appreciate if you would join with us in praying about this. We got a glimpse last Friday of how much these items will be used when I had my men’s discipleship group over for dinner and hanging out. They had never played foosball before, but they had a ball playing for several hours that night. (We have the table set up in our house until we find a place for the student center.) Some of them have already come back to play again. It is a huge hit! We have not even had a chance to set up the ping-pong table yet, but it is a game that they are familiar with and anxious to play.

I mainly wanted you to know how much we appreciate your sacrifice in blessing us and the people of Africa. Thank you to the men and women who packed the container. Thank you to the many people who bought items to ship on it. Thank you for the personal notes and encouragement on many of the things that were sent. But most of all, thank you for the chocolate! It is a rare treat here. Seriously, though, we are most thankful that you still continue to demonstrate your love for us and encourage us through your service and giving.


Blessings from the Tribe...Kevin