Joy

This past Saturday we got a little, actually very “little”, surprise at  our gate.  The police were standing at our gate with a baby girl.  She was apparently abandoned in a bush not too far from the Baby Center.  She was found by two women who were walking by and heard her.  We are not sure how long she had been left there, but she appeared no more than a day or two old.  She was naked with nothing but a tiny little shirt and covered in dirt, grass, feces.  She looked terrible to say the least.  Our social worker got the approval for the Baby Center to keep her so we moved her in.  Her temperature was low and she only weighs 3 pounds, so keeping her warm without a warmer has been a challenge, but she is doing well.  One of our caregivers named her Joy.  The picture to the right was taken yesterday and already she looks so much healthier than Saturday.  She is a fighter to say the least.  ~Nicole

Flight (forgot to post so this is a little late)

We made it safely back to Nairobi.  We are staying overnight with one of the missionaries and will be back at the baby center tomorrow.  The airport in Malindi was one of those small, single airplane, high security types.  The check in was a kind of do it yourself check in.  I went through the metal detector, the alarm went off.  Nobody was concerned or even paying any attention, so I decided to take off my belt and go through again, but I don’t think it was really necessary.  They didn’t even check our IDs or passports.  We just showed our handwritten boarding passes which had the names Jeremy and Micola.  The plane arrived and we just sort of found our way to the plane to get on and then chose our own seats.  It was very relaxed to say the least.  Not what we are used to. ~ Jeremy (written just after our Malindi retreat)

28 Reasons

      First of all, in case anyone was wondering, we have been able to reclaim Jeremy’s email account and also have locked the “fake Jeremy” out of our bank account.  He was apparently having quite a good time spending our money applying for colleges and signing up for online dating services!  Luckily our bank has reimbursed us, so no problem there. 

  On the Kenya front, things here continue to be going well.  We just wrapped up April which was one of our busiest months.  The kids here do year round schooling and are off in April, August, and December.  So as the youth leaders here this meant a lot of work for April.  We had youth events usually 3-4 times per week.  I now have a new appreciation for my youth group leaders! 

  The Baby Center is doing well.  We have had an increase in Kenyans interested in fostering or adopting.  It is exciting to see the kids get homes, but at the same time it is really difficult to say goodbye.  Lately a few of our older kids (2-3 years) have left.  I worry about them the most because the Baby Center is all they have ever known.  I am sure they are so overwhelmed first of all to see the outside world and secondly not to be around anyone that they know. 

  We got a new baby last week.  Her name is Jessica.  We   guess she is 3 months old.  She is actually pretty healthy and only slightly emaciated, which is a switch.  I was excited to finally get a girl.   We currently have 21 boys and only 7 girls (including Jessica).  Needless to say, the girls here quickly become very tough having to live with 21 boys.  I’m really enjoying working with the kids here.  I told Jeremy that I definitely have 28 reasons to get up and go to work everyday!  ~Nicole