Rooting for your rivals

As a basketball coach and sports fan in general, I appreciate the value and excitement of a good rival. My UNC Tarheels have Duke. My Penn State Nittany Lions have Michigan and Ohio State now. Here at Rift Valley Academy, we have a strong rivalry with another missionary school in nearby Nairobi: Rosslyn Academy.

While our victory over Rosslyn on the basketball court this week was sweet (highlights forthcoming on YouTube), we're glad to have reason to cheer alongside our rivals as well.

A former teacher at Rosslyn was kidnapped in Somalia in October, and various U.S. agencies worked diligently at freeing her. A few days ago, the United States employed the same Navy SEAL team that captured Osama Bin Laden last year to rescue Ms. Buchanan and a male Danish hostage. The rescue was successful, with nine captors as the only casualties.

We're overjoyed to be rooting for Rosslyn in their human victory this week.

Read more of the amazing story here.

Happy Birthday Audrey!

My niece turned one today! We can't wait to meet her in person in July!

'Tis the Season

Christmas is the great shopping holiday in America, and Kenya--like most of the world--follows along with American customs and culture like a line of reindeer hitched lockstep to Rudolph. Commercialism is spreading like an avalanche, even here. The mall are getting bigger, the advertising glitzier. I wanted to share a few of our experiences as we try to celebrate an American Christmas here in Africa.

--Our fake plastic tree does indeed have presents under it, coming from two primary places. One--grandmas in America. Two--an annual "Thanksgiving-time" yard sale among missionaries. The yard sale is a great chance for missionaries to trade their junk between households, and it gives us a chance to buy something affordable for each other. The grandma gifts arrive in the mail, and while everyone know grandmas love to SPOIL grandkids, our grandmas also have become VERY savvy.

Last year, the Kenyan post office ran out of money to pay their workers in December. So, anything that was sent in late November--which normally WOULD have arrived by Christmas--didn't get here until late January. This year, they've budgeted better, but the mail truck drivers went on strike last week. (Wouldn't we all like an extra week off around the holidays?)

Our grandmas outsmarted them this year. They shopped early and sent oodles of presents in late October and early November. A few packages didn't make it in time, but most did, making this Christmas more enjoyable in the "material" sense.

--The malls here in Kenya are growing bigger and more plentifully stocked, for sure. But imports still carry a hefty price tag. (For example, Micah and Asher emptied out their piggy bank a few weeks ago to buy a "CARS" car. It cost them about $18 in a toy store here. The same car would have been four bucks in America.) We can't justify buying very many things at our Nairobi malls at import prices.

The malls do boast of some American traditions. We found one with Santa Claus posing with the children. The kids sat with him and told him what they wanted. Santa gave them a small gift as they left--a gag gift every little boy would love, a fart in a cup.

(Notice the unorthodox and non-Nordic St. Nick in the pic above.)

--One last observation: as malls have grown, parking has become more difficult. The malls are capitalizing on entering shoppers by installing gates and meters, forcing you to pay a few dollars upon exit. These "automated" devices have been around parking garages for a long time in America, but I'm not sure Kenya grasps the concept yet. They employ one person at every machine (the ticket-taking machine by the exits and the pay stalls inside the mall) to "help" you pay. It's quite comedic watching employees stand next to the very machine that was supposed to replace them and doing the job anyway.

--As we drove down into the Great Rift Valley yesterday to celebrate the holidays at an orphanage, I laughed as "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" played on the iPod. Blazing sun, dirt roads, and cactus trees aren't what Michael Buble was talking about.

We hope you enjoy your holiday season with family and friends. And to ours in America, we'll echo the lyrics, "I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams."

Buzzcut Babies

I realize that my blog the past few months has consisted of more pictures of our kids than actual insightful insight into missions in Africa. I'll try to meld the two today.

If you haven't noticed, Kenyans don't really have long or straight hair usually. However, whites do. So, when little white babies come out with no hair (or very little of it), our Kenyan friends often ask us why we cut our babies' hair. They assume that since their babies come out with short, tight hair and then it remains similar to that throughout life...then we whites must have babies with long, straight hair like ours as adults. If babies' hair is short, then it must be because we cut it for some cultural reason.

To date, we haven't put a blade to little Claire's head. This is her natural look at 8 months old.

Leftover turkey...or chapatis?

While leftover turkey sandwiches with mayo are a seasonal delight, missionary kids from Kenya--no matter where they are in the world today--would love to be eating a chapati more than anything else. Thank you to this Kenya music artist for bringing the good news of chapatis to us all, both in song AND in visual media!

Be sure to look for the guy who stuffs one in his pocket...

Thanksgiving Cartoons

Apparently we have a budding cartoonist in our family. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Forever hold your peace?

A little known but highly embarrassing fact about me: I like a fair amount of country music.

That said, one of my favorites is Taylor Swift. (Quit your smirking...) Her latest album--in case you were wondering--was called Speak Now. The title song is about an old girlfriend interrupting her beau's wedding to a less-worthy lady. She decides to not "forever hold her peace," instead speaking up and providing a romantic alternative for her long lost love.

Sitting in our local church last week, I was reminded of how Kenya's wedding custom differs from America. In Kenya, during the weeks leading up to a wedding, the church will announce the couple's intentions and state that anyone who objects to the union should speak up.

This system makes sense in their culture--a rural setting where legal documents are sometimes scarce or absent altogether and word-of-mouth discussion of reputation carries greater importance--but it makes sense in America's too.

Think about. How much do weddings cost these days? The dress, the food, the venue, the official--all roll the cash register numbers up into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. So, for someone to legitimately have an objection to the marriage at the ceremony is quite an extravagant interruption. People may indeed have objections to a marriage--for who knows what reasons--but no one asks. Not until, the exorbitant ceremony, the worst time to speak up.

Wouldn't it make more sense to ask people to "speak now" week before rather than the day of? I know "public opinions" aren't really welcome inside of connubial bliss in America these days, but Kenya sees value in society's input.

If Taylor lived here, she would never even need to make a scene at all.