The Gibson Family in Kenya

A day that changed my life

2010-08-01T03:38:00.001-07:00

Today is the one year anniversary of my friend Ryan's plane crash in Kenya. It's hard to believe that it has been one year. This year time has not gone by quickly, it has seemed long. It doesn't seem like yesterday that the accident happened it seems like a long time indeed. August 1st last year was a day I will never forget and one that changed me as a person.

One year ago today I was in Minnesota staying with our in laws packing up our bags to return from furlough. I got on email and someone had posted something about a crash with pilots involved. It's one of those moments when you say "It's probably someone I don't know", isn't that the way it usually is. A day later I got a reply as to who had been involved and was just shocked. That whole week I desperately tried to get in touch with my good friend Dawn to find out how badly her husband had been injured. During that week Ryan continued to go down hill and eventually was airlifted to a burn hospital in South Africa. It was there that he succumbed to his injuries on August 7th. We tried to get back earlier but it was just too expensive to change flights. We got delayed in Chicago overnight and I ran down to a Starbucks to connect on the internet and I had a feeling of dread. I learned then that Ryan had died and now I had 16hrs of being on a plane back to Kenya to think about it all. I was so angry I couldn't have gotten there sooner for my friend but it was just the beginning of realizing God's bigger plan for me and how he wanted to use me in my friend's life last year.

We arrived Monday night and Tuesday morning I went over to my friend's house. I can remember not wanting to go, being afraid of what I would encounter, and mostly not having any experience with this type of situation I had no idea how to be. Isn't that how it is with God and our journey with Him. Him calling us to do life with others and seeking Him in the midst of it. Being open to what he has to teach us through difficult things in life and letting Him work through us. And so my year with my friend began with many tears and deep felt anguish. I can't remember crying so much in life as I did at Ryan's funeral as I'm sure as many of us in those situations realize that this is how life would be for us if we lost someone near and dear.

My life will be forever changed for knowing Ryan. From his death I have only just begun to learn about a new side of God. One of compassion and provision. A God who mercifully takes those who are suffering to be with Him. A God who provides for those that are left behind, one who leads and protects the widows/widowers, and one who calls us to Him in the midst of our deepest anguish. Romans 5:3-5 has come to me a lot this year. We rejoice in suffering, not because we like pain or deny its tragedy , but because we know God is using life's difficulties and Satan's attacks to build our character. Thank you Dawn for showing me how to continue walking with God in the midst of severe anguish and for Ryan's example of a Godly man pursuing God on the missions field. Ryan you are still missed one year later and you would be proud of your wife.

Living Simply

2010-07-12T20:12:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone

As always it’s been an eventful several months since we last posted. In April we had an awesome time with our seniors down at the coast of Kenya. After 5 years of raising money we took off on an hour long airplane ride to a town called Malindi. We stayed at a great resort called Turtle Bay. We left the kids in Nairobi so this trip was also an anniversary celebration time for Eric and I as we celebrated 13 yrs of marriage. Our seniors had a great time hanging out by the pool, boating in the ocean and snorkeling. Eric and I had a much needed rest and it was the longest we had ever been away from the girls so we soaked up our time sleeping in and laying on the beach. Our last night there we had a special poolside dinner for the Seniors . It was a trip we will never forget!

May found us frantically finishing last minute details for graduation as well as packing up our house to move in June. As many of you remember we have had many problems with our last house in regards to the water. In April our landlord tore up the backyard and left a huge mess for three months without fixing anything. On top of that she wanted to raise the rent again so we said to ourselves that we would rejoice for the blessing of that house the Lord provided for us for three years but it was time to be finished living there. After a lot of searching we finally decided that we would move into a brand new three bedroom apartment. We are continuing to learn that sometimes in life God has another plan for you and we might not understand it but it’s His best for us right now. We didn’t really want to be moving in the summer but this past month living here has really cut down on our daily stress of living here.

We are no longer constantly worried about when we will run out of water , how long of a shower we can take, and if we have enough water to do laundry. We feel like God has given us a new theme for our lives this year and that is “living simply”.

At the end of May Kara’s mom was able to come out for three weeks and help us with preparations for Graduation and to pack up our house. It was fun having family here to celebrate Graduation with us. Graduation day came and it felt like we were graduating our own kids. We were proud to see 18 of our seniors walk down the aisle in their cap and gowns. Many of those students we have had since 8^th grade. Eric delivered an address on “Greatness” and what it means to be great in the world and then in the kingdom of God. It was a special time for us as we have been working hard towards this for 5 years. Afterwards we shared a nice meal together at an Italian restaurant with the students and their families. At the end of May I also said goodbye to my good friend Dawn and her family as they head back to the states for a year long furlough. We have become like sisters this year through all that we have been through and I will miss her dearly. I have come to realize in this missionary life that you don’t always live close to your dear friends but it sure is wonderful when you can.

June found us packing up and getting ready to move. In Kenya you have to paint the entire inside of your house before you move so that was a new experience for us as we were scrambling to paint and get painters to help us finish before we moved. We can now add varnishing wood floors to our resume of skills. We have been excited to be in a new place it smells great and everything is brand new. There is a sand playground for the girls, a pool, and best of all lots of water for us to use and not have to worry about. Moving helped us to pare down on some of our stuff and ultimately funded our summer fun this year. The beginning of June we also celebrated Kayla’s 7^th birthday.

The middle of June we got away for a Kenyan adventure to a place in Kenya we haven’t been before, the Aberdares National Park area. We stayed at a unique hotel called the Tree tops hotel . It is an old and rustic place built into the park in trees. Queen Elizabeth II stayed there and it was there that she found out she had just become queen. The hotel is near a watering hole so animals wander in and out throughout your stay. At dinner time we had a big herd of elephants come to the hole and they stayed in front of the hotel for at least 4 hours. Soon after they came they were joined by a rhino. The hotel had 3 levels of viewing the animals, ground level, mid level, and outside on the top deck. After our hotel stay we drove through the park, we didn’t see many animals but found 3 great waterfalls and a cave.

The month of July we are getting ready for our new teachers to arrive. We will be having 8 new single ladies coming. We have been looking for housing for them, getting furniture moved into their new places, organizing orientation materials for the sessions, and meeting with the principal to plan logistics. It’s been a quiet summer as many of our close friends have left for the states for awhile. So we have had lots of time to just be together as a family. The other day we found a compound near us that is a gated community with smooth roads. We loaded the girls and their bikes in the car and had our first family bike ride.

We pray this finds you doing well and that your summer is spent being with family and enjoying a little down time from the normal hectic school year.

A very full life

2010-04-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Our First graduating Class, our students

since 8th Grade.

Hey everyone

It's been since November that we have updated our blog but our life has been so full this year and all consuming. The thought of trying to put everything down on text was at many times overwhelming the past few months but here goes.

In November my friends Dawn and Tiffany returned from their bereavement leave. It was a busy time of helping them get settled back into life here along with getting their kids enrolled in a school for the first time.

In December I hosted an event for them and I called it a "Blessing Fellowship". Back in October I really felt the Lord calling me to plan something for these ladies that would be a good time of everyone coming together and just heaping blessings on them. So on a Saturday morning we had about 40 missionary ladies come together for food and fellowship in our home. We bought the ladies bags and each lady who came brought a little gift to put inside, they had the opportunity to speak a blessing over them or just give them a little gift. I do not have the gifts of teaching so this totally stretched me as I felt God leading me to give these two ladies and the other missionary ladies who came a message. It was an intense and vulnerable morning but how awesome to be apart of their lives in this way. My friend Dawn walked away saying she felt like she had just had her feet washed by 40 ladies.

Ahhhg the Lord has taught me so much about grief this year and seeking Him in the midst of it. The biggest lessons I have learned and will continue to learn is just how to listen. How to be in the moment with someone and just feel their pain with them. Not to fix it but just to experience their life with them. Being a nurse this is so hard for me to do because I just want to fix things. Every Thursday night I go over to Dawn's house and just be with her as we put the kids to bed it's gotten easier to just go and be a part of her life in this way over the past 6 months.

January our family was able to get away to South Africa for a special trip to the very tip of Africa in Cape Town and also to Jo'Burg to visit our other team of OCI missionaries. It was a much needed trip for our family and we really enjoyed the beach as well as connecting with old friends. The highlight of our trip was swimming with penguins in the wild on a beach in Cape Town. Never thought I would do that. The end of January brought tragedy again as Kayla's teacher's husband was found dead at home. This whole situation just tipped the bucket for us as we had been feeling more and more burned out and tired. I had a hard time saying goodbye to her teacher as grief just continued to be a part of our lives. Kayla loved her teacher and Mrs.Key was great with Kayla. I think it took about a month for our spirit's to recover and some of our strength to return. Mr. Key was the athletic director at our school. The loss of his presence was felt by many.

In February I became head of the graduation committee and we started planning for our school's first graduation. We had to figure out many graduation firsts for our school as we had to come up with graduation gowns, hats, how to get diploma covers and tassels. It's taken quite a bit of leg work on our part but the graduation ceremony is coming together.

In March our family traveled the farthest we have been out of Nairobi with the kids. Kayla has had issues with the bumpy roads but we decided she might be old enough to try a longer trip. Nakuru town is about 3 1/2 hours outside of Nairobi and we were able to stay at a missionary retreat center. We travelled with friends and had a fun time just relaxing. The kids loved playing on the cement tree house in the rain, having an Easter egg hunt , and finding out how to milk cows. At the end of our time there our family traveled to the local national park and had a great time seeing tons of rhinos, a huge lake full of flamingos, and many giraffe. Also in March I had a good time getting away with my friend Dawn to a local hotel in the country. It was her first birthday without Ryan and I think we had a good time. My life and hers were full of many firsts this year but I felt God with us. He has been a comfort this year and I have seen him provide in so many ways.

April finds us this week continuing to make plans for graduation as we decide how our ceremony will happen as well as packing and getting ready for our Senior trip down to the coast of Kenya. Eric and I are so excited for this time. We are not taking the girls and are really looking forward to resting and reconnecting with the Senior class. We are saying this is our anniversary trip as we celebrate 13 yrs of marriage in May. Eric is going to do some scuba diving and I might just take a nap on the beach :) I hope and pray it will be a great time for us and the Seniors as this is our last big event with them.

We thank you for your constant support of our ministry this year we have felt your prayers in the midst of this difficult year.

Prayer requests

1/ Pray for this Saturday-Wednesday as we leave on a plane with 20 seniors to the coast, pray our girls will be safe in Nairobi and nothing eventful will happen in each situation.

2/ Pray for strength to finish the year strong we have many events left we are in charge of (Graduation, baccalaureate, grad night and helping my friend Dawn pack up and leave)

Coming out of the tunnel

2009-11-17T08:25:00.002-08:00

There are times in your life when you can look back and say wow! How did I make it through that? Then you turn to God who is standing next to you and realize you did it only with His strength. The first 3 months into our new term were tough. We felt challenged at every turn. Towards the end of October we started to feel like we were finally coming out of a dark tunnel and November felt like we started living again instead of just surviving.

September found us continuing without Power 3 days a week and not muchwater. Every year near us the city has a local fair and much of the city's

water gets diverted to this fair. So we continued to order water from the water trucks each week and planned our week according to the blackouts. We bought a generator to help us run our fridge for a few hours during the day so that our food wouldn't go bad. I began the Bible study at our house on Tuesdays again and Sept. and October seemed to be filled with helping people in need. I think God revealed to me that is His plan for me right now, to be available for people He brings me whom I can minister to.

Transitioning Kayla into a new school proved to be more intense than we had hoped for. September and October were trying months as we had to figure out a routine that helped her the most. At the end of September we met with her teachers at the school and the plan was to put her into the special education program but we asked if she could have one more month to settle in. At the end of October we all reevaluated her progress and she was greatly

improved in her attitude and functioning at school and didn't need special education assistance at this time. We finally have her completely on her special diet and feel like we have the gluten free

cooking under control. Thanks to a friend who came out in October we were able to get

a bread maker and now are able to make special bread each week that she will actually eat. The Lord just continues to amaze me in His provision for Kayla each day. Where else but in some few countries in Africa would we be able to find a health food store that provides all the special flours we need (gluten free, potato, tapioca, rice flour) and special rice milk. He has provided a lab where we could get all her special tests done for the new medications she is

on and He has provided a new therapist for her that will come out to the school. This therapist just moved back from another country in Africa and is the only one around who can travel and lives near us. God's provision for Kayla these past few months has just been overwhelming to me, it is confirmation again that we are right where God wants us to be. We have always said if we couldn't get the right help we need for Kayla that we would have to think about leaving the field. Our God is the ultimate provider.

Also in September we were able to work with Mama Kennedy and her family again as they were evicted from their home unexpectedly and the families they worked for went on furlough

unexpectedly and so they were left without food, home, and provision for their kids to go to school. We had several supporters of ours who stepped in to help them. They jumped up and down for joy as they saw God providing for them through us. I visited them at the end of September and they had found a house to live, new jobs, and their boys were now in school. Their house is really small but they invited me in for a small meal and to tell me about how God is providing for them. It's a pleasure to help several Kenyan families through your support.

In October our power outages just stopped one week and we realized how appreciative we were of the power that we do get. We also found out someone had almost closed the valve near our water meter to off and this was mostly why we weren't getting a whole lot of water. We were still having water shortages in Kenya but our house was getting even less water because someone had turned this valve off :( argh I didn't even know we had this valve. Till one day the water

meter guy came,opened it to full force, and amazingly its been three weeks and we haven't had to order awatertruck yet. So I am now able to tell you that I truly appreciate water and that it is extremely valuable to life :) thanks Lord for that reminder. Hope I don't need that lesson again soon. We also had Fiesta night party with our Seniors. We made a pinata, had a taco bar, and played board games. We have been working hard with the senior class to do fundraisers to raise money for their senior trip in April.

November found us very thankful that our utilities were all working, Kayla was getting more balanced in her daily life, and we felt more rested. For thanksgiving we visited our friends at Rift Valley Academy about an hour north of Nairobi . We cooked turkey, had homemade pies, and played American Football. The kids enjoyed sledding down the grass hill on plastic sleds....sorry for those of you in the midst of winter our sledding is on grass under beautiful sunshine as we move into nice summer days.

Eric finished up the final requirements for accreditation this fall and he felt good getting the bulk

of that work done so that he can rest over Christmas. We had several fundraisers for the Senior class as they are preparing for their big Senior trip to the coast of Kenya in April. Eric organized a school wide selling of West Nairobi school sweatshirts as the first fundraiser and then the seniors put together our first talent show. We had lots of kids tryout and had a packed room full of parents, staff, and students. Eric was the host and also wrote skits for the teachers to perform in between the acts. If our internet was faster I would upload his skit as Craig the lame high school cheerleader from Saturday night live from the 90's. He was a great MC and their performance was hilarious. It was fun watching the high schoolers be a part of this night and for me to see them having fun as sometimes we can loose perspective as to why we came in the midst of the daily work.

We hope that your family is doing well and we pray that as you move into this December and Christmas time that you would not forget the reason we live.....Christ. May He move in you this Christmas in a new way.

Prayer requests:

Eric and Kara- 1/Would you pray we find rest over the 3 week Christmas break...we are tired. 2/We will be taking a family vacation in January pray all goes smoothly and that Kayla adjusts well to the transitions.

3/Kara's friend Dawn (her husband was killed in a plane crash in August) is back in Nairobi pray God gives her wisdom on how to be a good friend and strength as she supports her.

4/ we invited a few pastors from our church in California to be a part of our Graduation in May will you pray if God wants them to be a part of it that He will reveal it to them by end of January.

Blessings on your Christmas

A month that changed my life

2009-09-09T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone

We want to thank you all for your continued support for our minisitry and thank you to all of our supporters for helping us to return in August to continue our ministry. The Lord helped us to raise around $800 of the $1000 that we needed a month in order to return in August. We are still waiting to hear from a few contacts but once again the Lord continues to affirm that being in Kenya is where He wants us now. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us a great deal this past month.

I have sat down to write this entry so many times and I still don't think I have figured out how to convey all that the Lord has lead us through this past month. It has been a life changing month for us and a very intense return from our furlough this summer. For those of you who don't know what has happened in our lives, we lost two friends in a tragic airplane crash in Kenya at the beginning of August. One week before we were due to come back to Kenya I found out through facebook that my friend Ryan was in serious condition in the hospital due to an airplane crash. I tried desperately for days to get a hold of my good friend Dawn who is his wife to find out exactly what was going on. After a few days in the hospital in Nairobi Ryan was airlifted down to a special burn hospital in South Africa. One week after the airplane crash Ryan passed away due to internal injuries and burns over 70% of his body. In a quick moment he had decided to take a short airplane ride with his friend Frank, (the other pilot who died) they were taking 2 filmmakers over the slums to make a documentary on what life is like for Kenyans and living on $1.50 a day. The engine of the plane just stopped and they were unable to get it going again. Ryan and Frank both died doing what they loved best and living in God's will for their lives. I feel like God had great mercy over Ryan in those last days and took him to be home with him because he knew the great multitude of pain and suffering he would experience in trying to recover from his wounds. I don't think Ryan would have been able to return to the work he loved most and that was fixing airplanes. I have never really seen this side of God in this way and it was such a unique thing to experience.

We returned on a Monday night and by Tuesday at noon I was sitting with my friend Dawn supporting her through the first of two memorial services for the men. The following Saturday we had the service for Ryan. I don't think anything can prepare you to be the type of friend that a person needs when they have lost a loved one. I have never been so intimately a part of someone's deep soul wrenching pain. It feels even harder knowing that the loss is felt by 8 children who were left behind. I petitioned God for a ton of wisdom and understanding. I felt your prayers as I tried to just do life with my friend who had just lost the love of her life. God has taught me a lot this past month, there were days that I felt like I had aged 10yrs overnight. It has been an unforgettable experience to be a part of a missionary community that has surrounded these two women and helped them through the first difficult month. The two women and families were well taken care of day and night. My friend Dawn is currently in the states but plans on returning in November to finish out her term until June. After a year long furlough she is hoping to return to Kenya to continue her work as a missionary. If you want to read more about these two men and their story you can find it at http://www.aimair.org/page21/page21.html

On top of this emotional turmoil with my friend we were also dealing with a multitude of adjustments with Kayla. Honestly there have been days this past month where I just started crying out to God asking Him how much more Lord.... how much more can I take. I am broken.... I think one major thing we have learned with having a special needs child is that there are few things that are easy with her. This month has been a major month in transitions with Kayla and we had a difficult beginning with Kindergarten. Poor kid having to deal with jet lag, a new school, new friends, new medications, new diet, and on top of that a two week long nasty virus. Having to give Kayla 10 new supplements and medications 3 times a day has added a whole new level of intensity to our family life. On an emotional level we have had to work through grief again and accepting again that our child has special needs and we need to do life with her where she is at. It's humbling having your child at the school where you work and now other people you work with are invited into your own personal family life. We are hoping all of these new supplements and diet changes will start affecting her for the long term. We will know more in 6 months whether or not all the new things we are doing are actually making a difference. We also just recently started reading a book on understanding and parenting easily frustrated and chronically inflexible children. I am hoping for some new insights and more tools on how to live a more peaceful family life with Kayla.

In addition to the above difficulties if those weren't enough we have returned to a Kenya even more in drought than when we left in May. We came back to continued and worsened water problems and are now buying water from private truck companies to supply us with water almost every week. We are also under power rationing going without power throughout the day on Monday/Wednesdays/Fridays. Not a fun way to live but I am continually thankful that God is providing for our needs and we aren't going without like many people here.

This has been a heavy blog and it accompanies a heavy month. Our God is good and it has been amazing to watch him provide for us , for Kayla, and for my friend Dawn. His love endures forever. I am glad my hope is in God and that someday all of this pain and suffering will be taken away . We feel like we are coming out of this dark month and starting to adjust back to life in Kenya. Kayla is improving in school and making friends. Eric is concentrating on just teaching this year and I am slowly trying to find my way again. A death of a friend changes you, I will never be the same. My friend Dawn will never be the same and it feels like God is strengthening us as friends and taking us through this valley of grief.

Will you continue to pray for the two situations above for me and my friendship with Dawn and our life with Kayla. It seems like those are the two huge prayer requests in our lives right now. For Kenya would you pray again and continually for rain. Many are predicting heavy rains in the next couple of months and for the sake of people's survival here would you pray that as well.

Thank you for your prayers and your support they are constantly being felt.

Kara for the Gibsons

Gibsons in Kenya 09

2009-05-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

See what we've been doing the past two years

Enduring and Every day life

2009-03-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

Okay I think that I have sat down at least five times in the past month to write an update and then feel like there is nothing to write......I don't have any cool stories about trekking into the jungle and teaching about Christ or translating the Bible into an unknown language. We are just here running the race God has for our family. The past few months God has been teaching us about contentment and finishing the task of this year strong. We have been struggling with wanting to be finished and taking a break with family and friends. He is teaching us about being fully in the race He has given our particular family and not comparing our work with other's. So here is what we have been doing at school each day and in our daily lives.

We are excited to announce that our school and especially our high school has been accredited fully and for the maximum time frame of seven years. That is a huge accomplishment that we have been working towards the past two years. I can't tell you how many nights Eric pulled all nighters in order to make sure things were accomplished. Eric and the entire staff were excited to hear the news in February. In March we watched a lot of sports games at schools and helped with the referee duties, the girls enjoyed playing in the chalk lines after the game, they can't wait to begin playing sports at our school. We also had the 11th graders over for spaghetti and game night. It's been a fun year hanging out with them they are truly turning into some fun and gracious young people.

In April Eric had the opportunity to go on a 11 hour bus ride with friends from school to Uganda. They spent the night at a camp area and rafted the Nile River. From the pictures and video he showed me of their day on the Nile it looked like an incredible trip. It was a beautiful river to raft and the rapids were huge. The went down many fours and several fives. They had lots of safety river guides and watched one of the guys in the kayaks go down a grade six. He had a great trip but the bus ride wasn't that fun.

In April we had our first official banquet at school. I had fun planning out the details and setting up the venue. Our banquet theme was "All Decked Out". We had dinner and Karioke at a nearby restaurant in an open pavillion. We had a great dinner and about 30 kids turned out. Afterwards Eric and another high school teacher set up a stage with microphones and we sang karioke for awhile. Here is Eric and Jonathan singing Eye of the Tiger from Rocky 3. We haven't laughed that hard in awhile it was great fun watching everyone try and sing songs we grew up with but they didn't know anything about. You know that YMCA song is kind of weird when you think about the lyrics :) The kids were so thankful for the night and it was then as I was sitting back and enjoying the night that I looked around at all the kids and the Lord just reconfirmed to me again why we are here.

We continue to be plagued with drought/water problems. Since January our area in town has been receiving little water. Water comes from the city to our house and collects in an under ground tank. When that tank is full it pumps to our house. If water doesn't come from the city then we don't have water in our house. When it gets really bad we take our little blue bucket and scoop the water from the very bottom of the tank. The girls love helping me "get water from the well". So we have been learning what it means to truly appreciate water and how to ration it. We haven't done laundry at our house since January, we have been using buckets of bath water to flush toilets, and check each day the level of water to see if we can take a shower. It's been a constant source of frustration but the Lord helps us keep it in perspective as we drive down a few blocks from our house and see people with no running water to their house at all carting water in containers on their head. We continue to be humbled by how much we have. Pray with us that the water situation improves for our house and the people in Kenya.

Will you pray for us as we travel home at the end of May for our two month furlough. We have about $1200 a month to raise before we can return in August. The task seems huge but we know God can provide if He wants us to return. Please pray specifically that our "Support a missionary for a year" campaign will really connect with people and that they will be moved to join our team. We are heading home in a time of recession but we know God can provide. Pray our faith in Him will remain strong. If we aren't able to finish raising that support amount then we won't be able to return August 9th.

2009-01-17T01:17:00.000-08:00

The past few months leading up to December were extremely busy. This was one of the toughest and busiest semesters we have had since working here. It's not one that we want to repeat again. In November the accreditation team from all over the world came and thoroughly reviewed the school and met with teachers and students. They gave our school a great review, especially the teaching staff. We will receive our accreditation but we are still waiting to hear for what length of time (between a five and seven year term). Eric worked around the clock this semester making sure the high school would get accredited. We were also busy getting our new Vice Principal settled and into his new role. By December the whole staff was worn out and burnt out.
We determined that our Christmas break needed to be a time of rest and recuperation for our family. We were excited to take Christmas to the Malasi family. This is the family whose house you all helped to build. It took us about two hours to drive there and we brought a Christmas tree, gifts, and food. We really enjoyed sharing a meal of yummy Kenyan food and they had fun opening their presents. Helping this family move into their own home and not live in a one room house has been the highlight of my time here in Kenya. It was a true joy to see our kids help wrap the presents for their family and then give them to them. This family continues to inspire me to persevere as really they are camping in their own home. They don't have running water or electricity. They both travel two hours each way in traffic to get to work now. We are looking into the possibility of helping them to open a small business (food shop) near their house so Priscilla doesn't have to commute so far to work. That is still a prayer in progress. The girls had fun chasing their pet chicken around the house and after lunch we went on a walk to see the animals in the fields nearby. Truly this day blessed us as a family and it was good for the girls to give of themselves a little as well.

Christmas Day since we didn't have family here, we made family. We invited some of the teachers to our house for Christmas brunch and then went to another missionary friend's house for an actual Christmas dinner. Homemade pies, stuffing, and turkey. The day after Christmas we went to the nearby game park. We had fun searching for animals. The exciting part of our trip was when we came upon a group of Buffalo and one of the males decided to chase after our car. The girls had fun making faces at him in the back of the car as we sped off so our car wouldn't get dented by a buffalo. These are the moments when I still can't believe we live in Kenya, unreal sometimes. We also went camping about two hours north of the city to Lake Naivasha. We were setting up our campsite when a few of our high school students called out hello. They were camping nearby and we had a fun time of connecting with them over the campfire and making s'mores. We were able to go on a boat ride on the lake and saw many hippos in the water. The guide also threw fish up in the air and nearby Eagles swooped down to eat. It was fun seeing hippos in their natural habitat for the first time.
The first week of January found us in Turtle Bay, a family friendly and affordable beach resort. We hung out with lots of missionary families at the beach for five days. It was nice to get out of the city and back to the beach which I miss. The girls had fun swimming, feeding the eels in the reefs, and taking a boat out on the ocean.

We feel like our time refreshed us enough to finish the school year but we still feel a bit burnt out. Our plans are to come back this summer and visit family, friends, and supporters. We need to raise about $1,000 a month again in order to return in August and then we will come back to Kenya for our high school's senior year. We are excited that we will see 15 students graduate in May 2010. It's our plan after graduation to possibly come back for an extended furlough to really recuperate. I can't believe that this year marks four years for us in Kenya. God has provided abundantly through you and we are getting excited to reconnect with you all.

Jumping into Fall

2008-10-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone

The past few months have been an extremely busy time with ministry. Our other computer has been unusable and Eric has been working crazy hard on accreditation documents and so I haven't been able to write sooner. Eric and the school have finished the majority of the report needed for the team to come and evaluate our school, he just needs to finish writing reports on three classes for the 12th grade year. This past weekend we went out with some friends to celebrate finishing our part in the process. It has been a lot of work and long nights spent on the reports needed for this process but Eric is happy to be finished. The next step will be to invite the team to come in November and do the site visit. Eric also has a large teaching load this semester and is struggling to stay on top of it all. This year seems to be a transition year as we are trying to teach all the science classes without hiring another science teacher but next year it will become a necessity as Eric won't be able to teach them all. It's a year we just have to work hard through to the finish.

We are excited to tell you that for the past 6 weeks we have been in a new phase with Kayla. We thank you for your prayers for her growth as we have really felt them. We feel like we have had our laughter restored to us after a great time of sadness and drought with our family. We feel like she has turned another corner in her journey and we see a lot of growth this past month. We have truly enjoyed our family for such a long period of time for the first time. Its been exciting to watch this transformation in Kayla as we go about having fun and playing with friends. She has begun singing and dancing again for the first time since she was two. The other day she was jumping on our bed saying "I'm happy I'm happy". We can't ever remember her doing that. We pray this time of growth for her will continue . Last month we had several tests run to rule out any other possible problems. We ran blood, thyroid, and food allergy tests which all came back normal. This next week we will finish the final test for heavy metals in her organs. According to autism spectrum disorder research many of these kids store toxins in their bodies and can't process them like normal people. These heavy metals reek havoc on the body and affect many of the brain's normal functions. This will be the last test we run for Kayla and then we will be at a place where we have done everything we can for her.

Emma is doing great. I think she has finally moved out of the toddler stage and into becoming a little girl. Last night we played the game Candyland for the first time as a family. She is smart and catches on quickly to concepts and most of all she has such a sweet spirit about helping Kayla catch on too. The Lord knew just what kind of child we needed in Emma and also what type of sister Kayla needs as well. She just celebrated her 3rd Birthday and had so much fun helping with her Dora party. We found out how to make a pinata and so for a week the girls helped me paste on newspaper to balloons and at the end of the week our pinata looked a little ghetto but it did its purpose at the party. The funny thing was at the party being the girls that they are they didn't want to hit the pinata that looked like Dora. So we had our friend Jonah break the pinata for the girls at the party, however the pinata was built so strong that only by a Jedi star wars move was he able to pierce the pinata and free the candy.

At the end of September we were able with much joy to help one of our Kenyan families move from the slums to their own home. As you can see from the picture Priscilla my friend was very excited to be living in her own place. She thanks God for the supporters of ours who helped to make this move for her family possible. The chicken in the picture came with us in the car as well when we drove from her old home to her new one. It was such a pleasure to help her and her family move into their own house. As a result they will be able to save their money on rent and Patrick the father will be able to return to Bible school and finish his degree. This fall has been busy with ministry stuff for me as well. Last year I was able to be a part of a mentoring program for the young teachers at our school. The last young teacher I mentored has since left Kenya and gotten married. So this month I have taken on a new young lady, Kate. She is a new grad and teaches high school English. We meet twice a month and talk about life and growing in God. Also on Tuesdays we have started a new Bible study and the ladies are meeting at our house. This Friday we will be hosting the 11th graders for a party, we have 17 students now. We are introducing them to the Luau. Most of them have never even heard of this type of party so it will be fun. We are going to be cooking shishkabobs, eating pineapple , and mixing up some fruity drinks in real coconuts. I think we are even going to try and make them do the Limbo too.... hee hee hee.

We want to thank you for your continued prayers for our family and for your gifts that make our ministry possible. I know many of you have been affected by the recession. The Lord continues to stretch and grow us in this area of finances as it is easy to fret and worry about how the Lord is going to provide. He is faithful and I know this area is my weakness. In our Bible study of the Psalms I read repeated promises of God's faithfulness to his children. I think the hardest part for me is waiting on Him and his provision.

May God's blessings be upon you this week

Kara for the Gibsons

Summer in Kenya

2008-08-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

This summer seemed busy for us. We usually try to lay low but it wasn't meant to be. We started June off with Kara's parents visiting for two weeks and we enjoyed hanging out and a trip to the beach . The last few weeks of June Eric and the girls built a playhouse in the backyard. They really enjoyed "helping daddy" of course getting in the way and making dad loose his tools was all part of the fun as well. We finally completed it after several weeks and the girls helped us paint it blue. It was quite fun going along after them and cleaning up the gobs of paint they tried to smear on the house. Good fun though!

The second half of our summer it seemed like the Lord had given us many people to help. With the generous gift from a supporter we were able to help one of the Kenyan families we are working with to complete their house. Patrick and Priscilla work in a literacy program helping to translate the Bible into short readable stories for the many illiterate people in Kenya. They had started building a house and came to a standstill after running out of money. They live in one of the slums in a tiny one room house. We found out that they were trying to finish their house so they could move out of their old place and stop paying rent. With the money they would save on rent Patrick was going to go back to school to finish his Bible degree he had started. This is a great and loving family who always shower us with love and we were excited that we were able to help them. We hope to move them by the end of this month. Praise God! This is huge for this family.

The other family we have been working with is our gardener Peter Mwangi. Peter works for us once a week and has been taking care of our yard before we moved into our house. He only makes about $30 a month. We have been praying for some time about how we could help Peter and decided to help him start his own barber shop. It was completely finished and he was open for business for about a week. This past Sunday we received a call that the landlord who supposedly owned the property lied to about 14 businesses and as a result the government came through and bulldozed all the business to make way for enlarging the local market. The government actually owned the land where Peter built his business and now there is nothing left. The government of Kenya doesn't really take care of its people well and doesn't warn "squatters" as they call them, when they are coming to knock down their businesses.

Peter has had a difficult six months. Peter is a member of one of the tribes that were persecuted during the post-election troubles Kenya experienced in January and he hid in his house during a two week period scared for his life. He sent his wife and children to live outside of Nairobi until it became peaceful again. In February several members of his family from up north came to live with him because their houses were burnt down. Peter gave them shelter and fed them for about 3 months. Through several of our donors we were able to give money to Peter to go up country and rebuild the houses for his family . This is really the first time I have been intensely involved with trying to help someone provide for their family through a business venture. Many Kenyans get into a helpless mode where they just keep asking for money and we didn't want to have that relationship with Peter. I was angered when I got the news that his business had been destroyed and really asked the Lord why. Why when someone who had tried so hard to make more money for his family would this happen. We still don't have answers and maybe the Lord has something better for his family. We have prayed about the possibility of Peter finding a job as a gardener/bus driver for our school. Will you pray for God's will for Peter and his family that the Lord will help heal these past 6 months because Peter seems defeated.

The last three weeks of July we spent helping our new High school Principal adjust and showing him the ropes. It will take several months until his presence will help lighten Eric's work load. Les and Karen are a great older couple and we are excited they have come to work with us. We welcomed 8 more teachers the last week of July and lead the orientation for them as well as finding housing and doing shopping. Wow as I write all this down I now realize why we are tired :) As a result we feel like we are entering this school year not completely rested. We are already talking of plans for after our first class graduates (2010) from our high school of taking a sabbatical year. We feel like in order to continue to stay in Kenya after five years of intense work, we will need to recoup. We will have to see what God has in store for us. Thank you for your continued support for our ministry we can't do it without you. I have seen your gifts helping us to make a difference in two family's lives this summer. It has been a privilege to be able to help them.

Prayer requests:

1. Eric-that the Lord would give him strength and patience to make it till Christmas (new principal to train, new teachers to help, accreditation, teaching 5 different classes)

2. Kara-continued patience with Emma as we are dealing with the terrible two's as well with Kayla as we continue looking into her disorder and running more tests to see if we missed anything

3. Emma- that the Lord would bring back my sweet girl and her little emotions would even out

4. Kayla-she would continue to mature as a sweet little girl and the Lord would soften her emotional outbursts

5. Support for our ministry- we sent out a newsletter on paper coming in September letting people know that for the first time our account is in the red. Will you pray with us that we will remember the Lord provides and if he wants us to continue here he will bring us gifts. We continue to need to rely on Him.

Blessings on your weekend

Kara

School is out! Yeah

2008-06-18T00:40:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone

Wow where did the time go since our last update. The last month of school is always so hectic. I can't tell you how many graduation and goodbye parties we went to. This end of the year was tough for us as we said goodbye to many good teachers we have grown to love. We finished this year in a whirlwind with Eric trying to get a front office program going for the entire school before the year ended. This program will help with schedules, grades, and general info. This year the kids in the Jr. High and High school dedicated the yearbook to Eric. He was surprised and honored, I still think he's the best teacher they have but I am a little prejudiced. This summer we are just sticking clost to home and trying to recuperate. Eric will work some this summer trying to plan for his new AP Biology class and a new Bible class called Chrisitians in the media. This summer we are welcoming The Ommen family to our school and he will be the principal for the high school. We are hoping this will relieve Eric of the many Administration responsibilities he has had for the last 3 years.

The past two weeks my parents have been here visiting. We had a great time doing daily life with them here. The first week of June we celebrated Kayla's birthday and then we went to the coast for four days. The weather was a little cold but we had fun playing on the beach. My dad was able to snorkel on the reef at the coast and my mom loved connecting with the many missionaries who were vacationing at the coast. The girls loved making sand castles and taking walks on the beach to find treasures.

It is always fun having family here as they can share our life for a little while, offer encouragement and really give us the love we miss from family.

This month we plan on continuing to recuperate and

to get in shape. Eric is planning on hiking Mt. Kenya in early July with the guys on our team. They plan on driving about 5 hours to the base of the mountain and then its about a two day hike up and back. It sounds hard but fun. They will pitch tents on the way up and have a guide to show them the trail. In the middle of July we have our new High school Principal coming and then end of July we will be coordinating the new staff orientation. The girls will still be in preschool so hopefully mom and dad can have some time to hang out together. We hope you are doing well.

Will you pray with us for our monthly support. We have been consistently undersupported since we returned last year due to loss of supporters and the recession. Our fiscal year is coming to a close and we are in the red for the first time. We will be sending out more information in our next paper newsletter but will you pray with us for the Lord's leading in this financial situation.

Blessings

Kara for the Gibsons

2008-04-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

2008-04-17T00:43:00.000-07:00

March/April Update

2008-04-17T00:34:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone

It has been awhile since we last updated I think it has been due to our month of illness with the girls and trying to emotionally recover from all the political mayhem. Things have quieted down mostly, the government has decided on a sharing of power and are now in the midst of a battle to choose a cabinet. This last week was yet again another stalemate regarding who is on the cabinet and if the existing government is actually doing things legally. We have a tribal gang called the Mungiki and they are now causing problems. Just this morning they shut down public transport going into town and several riots were thankfully resolved along our kids bus routes in the early morning. So needless to say we are still living in some unrest. Many thousands of people are still living at camps set up by the red cross. We don’t know how long they will stay there as there hasn’t been mention of any aid coming in to help these people rebuild their homes. Last week we were able to send money with our friend Peter to help rebuild another house upcountry for his family. It has been a long journey for him as he only makes about 40$ a month and has been supporting at least 10 people for food and shelter. Family is a major priority here even when you have nothing. There is value placed on taking care of each other.
A month ago the girls started with a cold and then recovered just in time for school to let out for the month of April and then Kayla came down with a bladder infection. We had three really great months with her and we felt like we could take a breath and then this infection came. It has completely upset her little world. We weren’t aware she had it as she didn’t say anything was bothering her but we noticed a rapid decline in how well she had been doing. We are hoping that after the infection and antibiotics are over that she will return to doing so well. We are meeting a new speech therapist this week as our previous one didn’t jell well with Kayla. She will be traveling to our home and then hopefully will be able to see Kayla at school. We unfortunately found out from insurance that none of OT will be covered as they say therapy for Autism and Kayla’s disorder is currently experimental. Obviously whoever stated this doesn’t live with kids like Kayla. We have seen so much growth this year and are pleased with it however she does continue to dominate many aspects of our family. Eric and I continue to work through the stages of grief as we process how she affects our family dynamics and how she will affect our future.
Emma continues to grow so quickly. She is now successfully living without diapers and as of this weekend sleeps in a big girl bed. We were taking down her crib this weekend, as we sold it to another missionary family, and she just kept watching us saying “ hey guys watcha doin with my stuff , where you taking my bed”. She has slept fine so far so it doesn’t seem to have traumatized her too much. Most of the time she is skipping around singing or dancing and holding her babies in a blanket. The Lord knew we needed a sweet girl like her in our family. It’s rainy season here and so this morning the girls were out front in our driveway running around with rain jackets and boots dancing in the puddles. They are continuing to grow as friends. We are praying the Lord gives Emma a special understanding for Kayla’s needs. She seems to be sensitive so far.
Last month we were able to take the 10th grade bowling and then back to our house for a movie marathon all night long. Unfortunately we hadn’t gotten any water into our tanks the previous several days and so our house was dry of water with 14 teenagers. You know what is funny though these kids just adapt they didn’t complain at all and just poured the buckets of water into the toilet to flush it without a single word. You would have laughed if you saw us pulling small buckets of water from our underground tank, it felt like we lived on a farm. We were just thankful we had enough water in the tank to get buckets to flush the toilets. This month we have a donut making party as we have our annual bizarre at school. The 10th grade will come over and make several hundred donuts to sell at school to make money for their senior trip. Many times this year we have been thanked over and over for our willingness to stay at the school for more than two years. The trend in missions now especially at our school is short term. We want to thank you for helping us to stay here long term. We have most of our new teacher spots filled thankfully as how can you really advertise for people to come teach here in the midst of civil unrest.
We know the recession has hit many hard in the states and we know even more now it is a continued sacrifice for you. Thank you for your continued part in what God has called us to. The recession affects us as well as the dollar continues to drop against the shilling and because of the recent political problems inflation is happening here. We are currently paying about 6$ a gallon for gas. So no complaining those of you who live in California J The Lord continues to provide for us and living here it is always easy to be thankful for what we have as there are so many in need near us every day.
We have family coming in June so that should be a fun time of reconnecting. We will be showing them around town and hopefully going to the coast for a few days. We hope you are all doing well and thriving we would love to hear from you.

Blessings on your week
Kara for the Gibsons

2008-01-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone
We had a busy December. Kayla was on holiday from preschool for almost two months and I didn’t know how she was going to do with the change in routine but we have seen so much growth in her this past month. Thank you for all of your prayers we see them reaching into her little spirit. She has become more peaceful, playing with Emma more, and the biggest change has been in bonding more with Eric. That was one of our major prayers was that she wouldn’t be so attached to mom but that she would go to Eric more often. She has played so well with him this past month and really loved swimming with Dad in the pools at the beach. She is back to school tomorrow with a new teacher and we are hoping the adjustment goes well. She is continuing to get therapy once a week from a great European lady who is an Occupational therapist and will start speech therapy this month. Our big prayer request now is that the insurance will cover both services.

Emma continues to grow quickly using so many words and sentences. She is in the independent stage and loves to do most things on her own. She too will start preschool tomorrow for a few mornings a week. She loves to play with her babies and color. She also loves to follow Kayla around and do whatever she is doing. She continues to be a sweet natured little girl and loves to play with others. Although she is honing the skill on how to push big sister’s buttons. How do they learn that so quickly. In another couple of months we are going to try potty training.

Eric really enjoyed being off school this past month as he had about 4 weeks total off with all of the holidays and then political stuff. He has caught up on sleep and watching movies. He had planned to hike Mt. Kenya with the guys on our team but because of all the political stuff the trip was postponed. He has really enjoyed being able to teach Bible at school and this semester is going to teach New Testament/Basic Theology/Apologetics. He will be preparing to start the new 11th grade and helping continue to get the school ready for accredidation.
With both girls in preschool several days a week I am hoping to start/host a woman’s Bible study on Tuesdays and to also catch up on some fun activities that have been neglected (scrapbooking and time to myself J ) Please pray for me as we institute a home therapy program for Kayla this month which involves 30 min of specific play each day. This will be as much a new habit for me as for Kayla. We have been praying for quite some time to really meet a few couples and make some deep friendships and we have really been able to connect with two couples this month and look forward to deepening our relationships with them so that is an answer to a long prayed prayer. We hope you are well and would love to hear from you. Take 1 minute today and connect with us.

The Gibsons

2007-11-19T09:10:00.000-08:00

2007-11-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

2007-11-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

2007-11-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

2007-11-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

2007-11-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

Fun in October

2007-11-15T23:08:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone

We have been going through a bout of illnesses here for the past two weeks and haven’t been able to send out an update about our activities in October.

October proved to be a buys month for us. The first weekend we drove south a few hours to visit our good friends from language school and encountered a terrible drive down as they are tearing up the road and have what they call “diversions” or now you will drive on an even worse part of the road so that we can fix all the potholes. This road has been torn up for almost a year now. At least we don’t have to drive that every day to work. We had a fun getaway to the country and seeing our longtime friends.
The third weekend in October we had our costume party with the high school. Our theme was Welcome to Hollywood and everyone came dressed as their favorite movie character. We had kids dressed as classics like Zorro, Susan from Lion/Witch/ Wardrobe, Men in black, and the girls from High school musical. We played a classic dice game called Bunko for about an hour and a half and surprisingly they all went wild having fun playing. You never know with high schoolers what they will like. We gave out prizes for costumes and for winning the game. All in all it was a fun night. Kayla dressed up like a princess and Emma went as a baby jaguar. The girls love being a part of our “parties” and having big friends come to play with them. It is truly a joy to see them both being embraced by the high schoolers and included in our activities. The high schoolers go out of their way to try to include the girls.

The last weekend in October we had a donut making party and not just for the fun of it. The following day we sell our donuts at our bizarre (large garage sale) at our school. The money we are earning will go towards the kid’s big trip as seniors. We are hoping to save enough to travel down to the coast for an adventure trip. We didn’t quite make enough money selling just donuts as we had hoped so maybe next bizarre we will add coffee drinks. If anyone has any great fundraising ideas they want to share let us know.
Several of you have asked about the construction going on behind our house and it does continue. It is interesting to watch construction here and a bit scary at the same time. Everything is done by hand with very little machinery. So far they have taken down the house and all the trees by hand and have started mapping out where the apartments are going to be. It continues to look like they will enclose our whole backyard. We are hoping that they will be far enough away from our wall that people’s windows won’t be looking down into our yard. Although on a positive note this will probably not increase the value of our house so maybe our rent will stay the same next year when we renew our contract. Or we could pray the owner runs out of money J That happens a lot here and apartments just sit on lots left undone for years.

Life continues on with Kayla and proves to be intense most of the time. This year will just be an intense one. We have found a nice therapist who is European and works well with Kayla, we see her once a week. She has also recommended speech therapy once a week as well for Kayla’s expressive problems. We still can’t ask Kayla hardly any questions or talk in a conversation. We continue to pray the Lord’s healing for her and this month will you specifically pray for her relationship with Eric. This disorder leaves kids very emotional and attached to one parent usually (mom). Many dads feel left out and frustrated throughout the difficult times as these kids prefer one parent over the other. The other night Eric tried to take Kayla downstairs to play so I could rest and she didn’t want to go. She then continued to cry and become inconsolable for at least an hour and a half. Finally after being sent to her room to calm down she fell asleep at dinner time. It is situations like this that leave us tired and frustrated. We continue to pray for wisdom especially in disciplining her as sometimes it’s hard to know where the disorder comes into play and when discipline needs to be applied. So please pray for Eric this month that the Lord would give him understanding, wisdom, and a special love for Kayla.

We continue to thank you for your gifts of support and prayers they are appreciated and continue to provide a means for us to do our work here. Thank you for thinking of us faithfully

Kara for the Gibsons

2007-10-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

2007-10-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

2007-10-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

Activities from September

2007-10-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone
It’s been a busy month as we have finished painting and hanging our stuff on the walls at our new place. We truly have enjoyed our new house and especially being able to have fires at night in our fireplace. The girls love roasting marshmellows. This past month we were excited to have our first parties in our new home. We had Kayla’s preschool class for breakfast and a fun time of games. I didn’t know all 18 kids and their families would show up but we had a fun time of eating and playing a few games with the kids. It was great to have a home large enough for everyone with plenty of room left over. Our second party was the 10th grade from school. We had an 80s themed party with all those fun outfits from the pastel era. We had lots of junk food and watched Back to the Future. Eric set up a big sheet on the patio and we were able to project the movie onto it from the movie projector. We opened the patio doors and had an outdoor big screen movie night. Will you pray for us and our new house the vacant lot behind our house was just bought and they have proceeded to cut down all the nice trees and are supposedly going to put in apartments. So the past few weeks our nice and quiet house has been surrounded with chainsaw sounds and the sounds of hammers breaking down the stone house. I am fearful that these new apartments are going to be looking down into our backyard and that we won’t have any privacy. One of the challenges of living here is that we are watched constantly. Wherever we go especially when out with the kids Kenyans just love to watch us and so having some privacy especially at home is essential. I’m not sure what plans God has for that house and how that will affect us but I can only hope that we didn’t go to all this work of moving just to have to move again in a year because of noise and privacy. So please pray for our attitudes and that we will trust God for this new place he has us in.

The next few weeks we are going to have a high school harvest party with games and everyone is going to come dressed as one of their favorite movie characters. The following week we are having the 10th grade over for our annual donut making party followed the next day by selling the donuts as a fundraiser for our senior trip at the semiannual garage sale. It should be a fun few weeks we are just excited to be able to provide a place for the fun to happen.

Emma had her second birthday and we celebrated with a Winnie the Pooh cake and just had a little family party. She is an independent spirit who loves to play outside she can play with even a basket of socks for 20 minutes. She easily amuses herself all the time. She is my little sweet heart and loves to go shopping with mommy and to help put the groceries in the basket.

We continue to see growth in Kayla in many areas and have been fortunate to have a therapist that has been coming to our house to do therapy with Kayla this past month. Each day as well I do about a half hour of purposeful play with her incorporating lots of activities that will help strengthen her physically and mentally. It is quite the challenge for me to incorporate the activities for her each day without letting her know it,s for therapy. This year will continue to be a challenge for us with Kayla as she continues to struggle with her responses to things she doesn’t like and when she gets overwhelmed. We deal with constant screaming outbursts and intense crying periods. It seems to be a combination of her age, personality, and the disorder. Please continue to pray specifically for these areas for Kayla as she continues to demand a lot of our family time. The Lord continues to teach me so much through this and we have been thankful to connect with several families who share similar family experiences with kids like Kayla. It is intense having kids with this disorder but I am thankful for her sweet spirit as well. Daily I pray for the Lord to continue His healing process in her.

Thank you for your continued support of our ministry we are truly blessed by you all and continue to see God’s work being done here.

Kara for the Gibsons

2007-09-17T00:17:00.000-07:00

2007-09-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

Back in Kenya

2007-09-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

We have been back now for little over a month and boy what a month it has been. At the end of July we had raised $900 of our needed $1000 monthly support. We arrived back in Kenya safely and had great flights with both of the girls. From Amsterdam they slept almost 7 of the 8 hour trip, we were blessed. Three days after we returned we moved into our new house and the next day Eric started back to work. We have been in school for about 4 weeks now and things are settling into a good routine.

Eric is teaching 4 classes this year, 9 th/10th Grade Bible and 9th/10th Grade Science. He only has one new class this year that he hasn’t taught and so the work load is much less this year. We are hoping for a lot less stress in our ministry this year. We had 8 new teachers arrive this year. This group looks to be staying more than two years so that is exciting to see. We also had another family come to work at the school this year teaching in the 4th grade class. This year we have an accreditation coordinator who will be working at our school trying to get us accredited by the end of this year. This task would be huge for our work with the high school. If we can become an accredited school then we have a good chance of retaining most of our older students rather than losing them to another bigger International school across town. Retaining our students will hopefully help our high school to become larger and stronger. So this task of becoming accredited this year would be ideal.
Eric will be leaving this weekend for a two day men’s camping trip with the African Inland Missionaries. He is trying this year to start connecting with other guys in the Nairobi area. They are headed up to Lake Naivasha area 2 hours north of Nairobi.

We are excited to be in our new house. I can’t believe what a change it has been for our family. Our new house is more open on the inside and we have a little backyard for the girls to play. We have been busy unpacking, painting, organizing, and installing internet. We have a fireplace in our living room and it has been a really cold winter here so it has been fun to sit in front of the fire and read stories and roast marshmellows. Our deepest thanks to our new supporters who made this move possible for us. We now no longer feel trapped at home and feel like we have some privacy and can relax with our family.

Kayla has been doing so well lately. We want to thank you for all of your prayers for her. We have seen so much growth lately just in this short time we have been home. It has been good for her to have her own bedroom back, lots of outdoor space to play, and to get into a routine again. We have been trying new therapy activities with her as well as modifying her diet to try and sneak vitamins and what not into it without her being able to taste the difference. Some ways that she has grown is that instead of crying and breaking down during transitions she has become more confident in her abilities and has started saying okay mommy okay dad to lots of requests. She doesn’t cry anymore when I leave her at school and she is really enjoying the kids at school now instead of being threatened by them. She is bonding more with Emma and really loves to hug and kiss her. Please pray for us as we look for a therapist here who can work with her once a week and that it would be affordable for us. Every night we pray for continued healing in her mind will you pray that with us. We are excited as we see so much growth in her this past month, and we have enjoyed being with her so much more. Praise God as he takes me on this journey with Kayla.

We were so thrilled to meet with most of our supporters this summer and hopefully for those we missed we can connect when we are home again in the Summer of 2009. We were blessed by your outpouring of prayer for our ministry and also blessed by the new supporters God brought our way. We feel excited to be in this new house and to start a new phase of our ministry by using our home as a meeting place. This month we will host Kayla’s preschool class for a breakfast and have our first school fun time with the 10th grade and 80’s movie night. There are not many social outlets for the kids here so it will be neat to provide them with some fun activities this year. Our next gathering will be a harvest party for the high school in October.

Since coming back from the states after this first furlough we have felt more at peace here. Just in knowing within ourselves that this is where God wants us. We had a special time connecting with our families and we do miss being able to see them, this has been one of our biggest sacrifices not being able to have our kids know their grandparents. It was such a blessing for us to see how our parent’s relationship with God and serving Him has blessed us two fold. When we visited the states we were able to really see that our parents work in other people’s lives has really trickled down to our ministry. We have had many supporters who are part of our ministry because of their connection with our parents as well as individuals who have given us gifts of money because our parents have been a blessing in their lives. It was inspiring to me to see this played out and I can only hope that I can be this for our kids someday as well. Live for God completely and His blessings will be unique to see.

We continue to search for a church here where we can connect and grow. It will be a challenge for us as we have little ones and there isn’t much of a kids program here in the churches. Last Sunday we went to an international church with missionaries, Kenyans, and Indians. The kids program consisted of Kayla and Emma playing on the floor with a Kenyan woman and some toys. Kayla lasted about 10 minutes and then came looking for me in the church. Needless to say I usually only can hear about 10 minutes of the sermon. It is an ongoing challenge here for missionaries as we seek to settle into the Kenyan community and adapt to church life here. This will be our main prayer request this year that the Lord will reveal to us what he wants for us regarding church.

Prayer requests:
Eric- that work will slow down at school and that he will truly enjoy being back and teaching, that the Lord will continue to reveal to him how to connect with our girls when we are in the “all about mommy stage” of life
Kayla-continued growth in her abilities to express herself and talking, that we are able to find a good and affordable therapist for her
Emma-that she will grow in her abilities to get along with Kayla (she is in the stage where she wants to be doing whatever Kayla is doing and that annoys Kayla)
Kara-that I can carve out time in my day to spend time with God, that I will have an open heart to seeing the needs of Kenyans and listen for God’s wisdom in how to meet those needs

Thank you for your continued prayers for us and our ministry , we continue to feel those daily. Check out the pictures of our new house.

Blessings on your day , we would love to hear how your summer went.

Eric and Kara

Our last update from America

2007-08-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, family and supporters

We can't believe that our time here has gone so quick but tomorrow we leave for Minnesota and then on to Amsterdam. We will arrive home Sat night and then move into our new house Sun and Monday. We were able to finish raising the last of our needed monthly support but ask for your continued prayers as we finish working out those details in August. By the end of August we should have picture of our new house and be able to show you all that you helped us to accomplish.

July was a whirlwind of activity we visited 10 life groups, had a lunch for supporters, 2 dessert nights, a Biola reunion , and a family reunion. It was fun to see everyone and we were truly blessed by your words of encouragement and feel like we will be going back to Kenya with our spirits rejuvinated. At the beginning of the summer we wondered if we would want to go back and we definitely say yes, we are ready to return and start a new chapter in our lives. We thank you for all of your extra gifts these past few months and for your increase in our monthly support. We were able to buy clothes, shoes, and Christmas gifts for our whole family.

Eric returns to work next Wednesday for meetings and school starts the following Monday. He is looking forward to teaching just high school next year. He will have four classes 9/10th Bible and Science. He is excited to start a new year and hopefully becuase he has already taught 3 out of 4 of his classes his workload will be less this year.

This summer we were also able get Kayla officially diagnosed as having Sensory Integration Disorder. Basically her brain just doesn't process correctly all of the input she receives from the five senses. Check out our September letter as I talk about her disorder and my year of growth with her. She has been receiving Occupational therapy while we were here and it is good to see her enjoying it. It has been hard seeing her be tested for areas of weakness and observing the glaring discrepencies. As parents isn't it always our first hope that nothing is wrong with our children. The Lord has been showing me so much about himself through my relationship with Kayla. Will you pray for me specifically that I wouldn't feel overwhelmed. When we return we will be reading several books we bought on SI, formulating a routine for Kayla at home, and also finding a therapist for outside therapy several times a week. It's going to be a big job. The prognosis looks good though, it looks like within a year of therapy we should see tons of improvement.

Thanks again for all of your continued prayers we have felt them in regards to safety especially

Prayer requests:

1/Safe flight back and that the kids would sleep tons on the airplane

2/quick adjustment back with jet lag as we move the next day and start work

3/ the moving truck and people helping us move would come together

4/ confidence for me as I embark on this adventure with kayla

5/ strength and excitement for Eric as he starts a new year

6/ a renewing of excitement for returning to Kenya that we would really come to understand and love Kenyans more this term

Blessings on the rest of your summer we will miss you all, until the next time

Eric and Kara Gibson