Blessed in So Many Ways

This is awkward time to be sharing "Hey look what we got!" posts, but I truly feel like God provided this for us and I want to share some of what He is doing. The same God we served in January and February is the same God we served in March and will continue to serve in April. He knew all of this was coming, He allowed it to happen and it is time we lean fully into Him and trust Him. I promise you that I know that is easier to say and harder to live out. We have a HUGE amount of responsibility here (115+ mouths to feed 3 meals a day just for starters) and not knowing what will come next can be unnerving to say the least. We really have no idea what to expect next in Kenya, it seems like daily they are making new rules that we must follow. However, God knows and He has us here for a purpose and we are clinging to and following Him.

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When David was here in February I asked him about adding a tiny "closet bathroom" to mine and Jeff's room. In our original house plans our room had its own bathroom, and we had a guest bathroom in the plans, but those were cut to save money during the building process. Looking back now we should have kept the bathroom in our room, but we were hoping to cut out "extras" and do more building. When asking David I was pretty sure it would be possible to add one in now, but wasn't sure how feasible it would be cost wise. David walked around the outside of our home and bedroom and decided it would be easy to add a small bathroom right off of our room. 😮 He made it sound super simple and I got excited. While we have indoor bathrooms with flushing toilets in our home (and that is a huge blessing!) they are at the back of our home. The toilets and showers on the boys requires you to go through 2 locked doors and let's be honest you never know what condition the bathrooms and showers will be in when you get back there (kids are messy sometimes). It would be so nice to be able to have a bathroom just a couple of steps away.

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So we had planned to set up a fundraiser for our own personal bathroom in March, but we took in extra kids and needed to add several new beds and out of frustration I scrapped the bathroom fundraiser. We have so many needs besides our daily needs that it can be very overwhelming for me to prioritize and then ask again and again. Then trying to define the word "need" can be tricky because we have food, clothing and shelter so then do we really have other needs? Of course we do, but sometimes we feel guilty because technically adding gutters to our property isn't a need, but yet the rain is actually washing away our property every time it rains so it is kind of a need. Same thing with us having our own personal bathroom...in some ways it feels like a bit much, but getting through 2 locked doors in the middle of the night just to go to the bathroom is a bit much.

Just a bit of chaos, but now every bed and mattress is labeled!

Just a bit of chaos, but now every bed and mattress is labeled!

Rearranging the boys room.

Rearranging the boys room.

All of that to say, after his trip here, David was talking with a family that supports us and they were wanting to help fund a project here. David mentioned the "master" bathroom and after praying about it they decided they wanted to upgrade our water line and build us a bathroom. The upgrade of the water line happened a couple of weeks ago and it has been SO nice having water in the bathrooms all the time now. The boys shower time is in the evening and they no longer have to carry water to the showers...water is in the tank all day now! This is such a huge blessing to us! We can do all the hand washing, showering, teeth brushing and toilet flushing we want!

Shadrack digging the trench across the road for our new waterline.

Shadrack digging the trench across the road for our new waterline.

Meshack and Joseph pulling the new waterline to our water pump.

Meshack and Joseph pulling the new waterline to our water pump.

So much trenching.

So much trenching.

Last Saturday they "broke ground" on our new bathroom and on Tuesday we went shopping for tile and all things bathroom! I'm getting super excited and feeling a bit guilty, but I wanted to share that in the midst of chaos or potential chaos He is still here blessing us more than we deserve! Thank you for sticking with us or joining us in the crazy blessed life we live. We've made plenty of mistakes along the way, but we continue to seek Him and His will for His ministry here. Please continue to keep Kenya in your prayers as there is a large amount of fear right now due to the Coronavirus.

Just a small addition to the side of our house.

Just a small addition to the side of our house.

Gray floor tile

Gray floor tile

The shower tile will look something like this. Don't worry this is just laid on our bed to see how we want it.

The shower tile will look something like this. Don't worry this is just laid on our bed to see how we want it.

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