sunday. october 29 2oo6

here's a picture dump: [ 10.19.06 ] -- boys soccer vs rosslyn. the guys would go on to beat RVA the following wednesday (5-4) [ 10.20.06 ] -- i was invited to a sleepover at hanbeen's with chang hwan and luis. this is the next morning i was not invited to this surprise bday party. thanx rebecca! [ 10.23.06 ] -- joe's family treated me to carnivore. here's me, joe, and joe's adopted brother ricky. they have grills full of various meats in the center of the restaurant. then they come around and serve you off of giant skewers and swords. when you're stuffed and can't eat anymore, you put the white flag down. this is probably the most meat i've eaten since coming to kenya. [ 10.27.06 ] -- i stayed at the kamaleson's till saturday morning. i didn't have much time to take pictures because the boys are so active and want me to participate in everything. here's cade. he's in 3rd grade. he told me that he has enemies at school. i asked, "who?" and he said, "girls". sometime last week i got a package from sam's dgroup. thanx for all your letters! thanx for all the chocolate! (which i haven't seen here) and thanx for the comb and toothbrush??? ::: :::

wednesday. october 25 2oo6

october seems to be the most inconsistent month of the entire school year as far as having regular school days. the madness started last week on wednesday with halfdays and parent-teacher conferences. i might as well give a rundown of what's been going on. -- thursday :: halfday. boys soccer vs rosslyn (9-3). hanbeen invited me, chang hwan and luis to a sleepover (another one! =O) we played halo ALOT! -- friday :: i needed to get my laundry done, but the maid never showed up because it was kenyatta day. i rested alot that day in attempts to make up for staying up so late the night before. -- saturday :: it rained alot, and yet there was no running water in my place. again, no maid showed up for laundry. i began conserving with boxers and socks =P. i got online to catch jason and niki. -- sunday :: it's still pouring, and the running water was on and off. typically the maid doesn't work on sundays. i spent some time meditating on all that has happened since i arrived. i ended up journaling, which is not typical of me. -- monday :: regular day of school, except it felt longer than usual because i tutored joe after bball practice. we finished tutoring around 630. i don't think i've stayed at school that long before, but i was treated to a touristy restaurant called carnivore afterwards. i ate ostrich, camel, crocodile, pork, beef, and chicken. that was a great way to end a long day. -- chooseday :: eid is a muslim national holiday that was recognized today, so again there was no school. i ended up tutoring joe in social studies at his house. his house is located in the world vision compound, and they have really big yards. across from joe's house is the kamaleson's house. what's in store for me this week: -- wednesday :: girls A and B bball teams & boys soccer team travel to RVA for a game at 400. afterwards, i will come back and stay at the kamaleson's. i'm looking after the three boys while the parents are outta town. -- thursday :: i am staying at the kamaleson's again. hopefully i'll be enjoying dsTV and wireless internet in their house by then. i get the feeling the boys wanna watch naruto and advent children. -- friday :: hopefully it'll be a normal day, but by looking at the way things are going i highly doubt it. ok so why did i mention laundry so much? well she didn't come on friday because of kenyatta. she didn't come on saturday because there was no running water. she doesn't work on sundays. she picked up all my laundry on monday. she didn't bring it back on tuesday because it was a holiday. on wednesday and thursday, i'll be staying at the kamaleson's. i walked out to the yard around 800pm tuesday night to grab some of my clothes off the line. it's a good thing i did because around 10pm it started raining again. so all my clothes got soaked. there's no way i would've lasted 2-3 days longer with no socks and boxers. sorry no pictures at the moment. i'll do a picture dump later this week. ::: :::

friday. october 20 2oo6

it's thursday afternoon, and we have parent-teacher conferences. since i normally share a room with another teacher, i decided to have my conferences in the computer lab. i mainly chose to come in here because i was given the responsibility of taking an inventory and reformatting all 24 comps =P there's about an hour left before i get to leave this room, and i haven't gotten a single parent visitation. i guess they all came yesterday. so with my free time, i decided to wish my good buddies back at home a very happy birthday! =] To jason & niki: since i'm way over here, i can't celebrate with you even though i wish i could. so the best i can do is celebrate your bdays by myself. how did you two grow up so fast? well i'm writing this to tell you how proud i am of yall becoming mature christian young adults. i'm always excited to hear about what yall are currently doing. with college on the horizon, i can't wait to see what God has planned for yall next. i thank God for blessing me with you two all these years. i love you two very much, and on that note i wish you an awesome weekend of celebration! someone send me some cake =] ::: :::

saturday. october 14 2oo6

yesterday the boys soccer team played a home game vs a kibera team. at first sight, i thought we would get killed because the boys from kibera looked like upper classmen. but we ended up winning 5-1. ian scored twice, and brandon got a hat trick. congrats wns! i was also invited to sam's sleepover bday party. i couldn't resist because the guys had been asking me over and over again throughout the day. the party was nonstop. first we played vball. then it was time for dinner, which was provided by hanbeen's mom. bday cake and ice cream came next. knockout and bball followed. then we played a game called detonate, which is like hide-and-seek in the dark with a flash light. since they can't get enough, we played soccer. and finally we all crashed watching ocean's eleven. here's us the next morning after a loooong night of fun L-R back: chang hwan, austin, sam, simon (sam's bro), hanbeen, luis, taek (chang hwan's bro), james-marc, clay L-R front: ian, joe, cj my day could actually continue with the X zone concert at nairobi baptist that zam invited me to from 200-400pm. and the chili cook-off at school from 300-700pm. but i had to choose one out of all these three activities, so i could leave time for taking care of schoolwork. it's the end of the first quarter, and it's time to send out report cards. i can't wait to have all this stuff squared away with nothing hanging over my head. it's quite the blessing to have been here for about 2months and already have students inviting me, a teacher, over for a sleepover bday party. i hope it's God and not so much steven that they see when they look at me. ::: :::

wednesday. october 11 2oo6

the past few days have been quite eventful with things outside of school. hopefully i can remember everything that i did. -- friday :: i decided to check out a middle school fellowship that's held on fridays called king's kids. they change locations each month. this time we met on a porch outside someone's house. alot of the kids from school showed up, so it was nice spending time with them. -- saturday :: i was invited by the lims to go to a mid-autumn festival hosted by the chinese church. they held it on the roof of the china centre. it was weird seeing so many chinese people. you tend to forget they exist in kenya when you're the only chinese at your school. they had some performances, games, and of course food. actually, i was most excited to see pastor daniel, hannah, and nathaniel. we all stayed overnight at the lims. it was fun hanging out with jeremy, joel, hannah, and nathaniel. -- sunday :: i went to church with the lims and the lais. we ate at java house around where they lived, then jeremy, nathaniel, hannah, and i picked up benson (the dude jeremy freaked out about seeing when we visited RVA) to go watch the devil wears prada out at junction. the movie was good, but i wondered if anyone in kenya would get it because it talks about the fashion industry. -- monday :: my day started out with school as usual. then the B teams for boys soccer and girls bball had games against the nairobi japanese school. we sent our B teams because they had alot of younger kids. after the games, i went straight back to my place to pack up stuff. i was invited again to spend the night over at the lims because they were having a bbq on tuesday. oh right, tuesday is moi day (national holiday for the 2nd president). so marc and i decided to walk from valley arcade out to sarit centre. it took forever to get out there. since it got dark, we took a cab from sarit to village market. from vm, we walked past the u.s. embassy and the u.n. to jeremy's house. we had fun singing karaoke for the majority of the night. afterwards, jeremy, hannah, and i insisted on watching a funny chinese movie. we stayed up sooo late that i think i'm still feeling the effects. -- chooseday :: we woke up, and people started coming over for the bbq. after the bbq, we went to village market to go bowling and play pool. talk about making the most of a holiday. shortly after all the fun, pastor daniel had to head to the airport to fly back to uganda, and hannah and nathaniel had to be back at RVA by 700pm. so we all left, and i crashed as soon as i got back. it messed me up because i woke up around midnight with nothing to do =P -- today :: i was sooooo tired throughout the entire day, and it was picture day =O we took a group picture with the entire staff. i was sitting all scrunched up on a bench, and i have a feeling i'll end up looking weird in the picture...we'll see. i also took an individual pic, and a group pic with the 7th grade class. actually the highlight of today was getting to talk to jason, niki, jennifer, and daphne online, even though it was so brief. i miss being able to do that. because of the switched time zones, it's hard to catch people online. i'll either catch yall when you're about to go to bed or if yall wake up saturday mornings. alright i should shower. the water is hot now /no1 *POKE niki h4x0rz!!! ::: :::

friday. october o6 2oo6

yesterday was daylan's bday. we had cake and ice cream over at the girls' house. i added another video to the videos section. pay attention to the flying balloon and the girl who freaks out. hahaha...and daylan still couldn't blow out all the candles =P ::: :::

wednesday. october o4 2oo6

it's been nearly two months since i arrived, and my responsibilities have changed quickly over time. currently, this is what i have: -- Geometry (5 per week) -- 7th-8th Boys Bible (2 per week) -- Graphics/Web Design (3 per week) -- Remedial Teaching (5 per week) -- 7th FUN (1 per week) -- 8th FUN (1 per week) -- Take inventory, reformat, reinstall os & pgrms for 20+ computers in comp lab -- Develop new wns website -- Coach girls bball (3 per week) -- Tutoring apart from school (3 per week) -- Accreditation for ACSI i am thankful that God has been giving me guidance in juggling all these responsibilities. i must constantly remind myself that i can't do all of this on my own. please pray that i won't be overwhelmed and thrown off-course from my initial mission for coming here, which is to reach out to the MK's here. i am also thankful that life outside of school has been going smoothly. i have not felt homesick or lonely particularly because of the friends God has provided and because of all the emails and conversations i've had with people back home. i love yall! i find strength from all your support. each day i am able to press on because of all your prayers and words of encouragement. keep the emails coming! i enjoy hearing about your lives all the way over there. send me any of your prayer requests also. i love the fact that prayer is not limited to just you and your community. ::: :::

monday. october o2 2oo6

the week started off on quite an eventful day. we hosted our very first home game versus st.christopher's. the girls bball team is progressively learning how to play the game. their opponents were aggressive and fouled our girls alot. i saw it as an opportunity for our girls to build character. as a christian when you get smacked in the face a few times, what do you do? it was a good learning experience. even though we won 12-4, we still have a few things to work on offensively. i'm still proud of the girls for keeping their composure and having so much heart for the game. as for the boys soccer game, i showed up in the second half. the score was tied 3-3. the game became really intense when the other team nearly scored twice on us. gabe came up with a great save at the end, and austin scored the winning goal. congrats guys! wns is officially 2-0. gaaah...i keep forgetting to take pics of the boys soccer team...hopefully next time. ::: :::

sunday. october o1 2oo6

this past saturday and sunday, we took the 7th grade class on a camping trip to hell's gate out in naivasha. the students were responsible for preparing all the food and setting up the tents. we got a chance to hike through some deep valleys with hot springs and climb some pretty steep hills. some of the rocks we came across were obsidian, sandstone, and pumous (sp?) there was alot of variety in the hike, so that kept it interesting. each group was responsible for saturday lunch and dinner preparations. my group started up a fire and cooked ramen for lunch. there was also some pre-made kimbab which is a korean roll similarly made like sushi rolls. for dinner, we stuck some hot dogs on the end of branches or knives and cooked them over a fire. jay brought a huge chunk of cheese, and we attempted to melt it in a pan over the fire in order to make nachos. afterwards, we made smores. those were great meals. good job group two! =] (kate, jay, brian, luis, robert) we had a problem pitching our tent at first because it's a 6-man tent, but the poles for an 8-man tent were packed instead. we improvised and folded in one of the sections from each pole, so it would fit. it worked out nicely and ended up being really spacey on the inside. after dinner, we decided to teach them how to play mafia. it's fun watching such a big group play in the dark. they also play it completely different from the way hs/college/adults play. the rounds don't take forever, but there is still some strategy involved. i think i got them hooked on the game because all day sunday they were asking me, "can we play mafia mr. T?" so we ended up playing for the entire trip back on the bus =O here are the guys that i shared the tent with. they're a bunch of clowns. luis is from honduras. sam is from minnesota. chang hwan and hanbeen are from korea. i ride the bus to school with hanbeen everyday, so i've gotten to know him alot better than the other guys. he's hilarious when you get to know him. i find it interesting that most of these kids have spent almost their entire lives in kenya. they may come from different backgrounds and ethnicities, but more than anything they're kenyan. i'm mentioning this because there was a moment on the bus when they started recollecting about memories from 2nd and 3rd grades. even though they appear as just another american 7th grade class, they have their own culture amonst themselves. and i completely enjoy that because it's one of the reasons i came here. ::: :::