Our Heart for Missions

You may or may not know that my husband, Joel, went to a boarding school, called RVA (Rift Valley Academy) in Kijabe, Kenya. It's about 1 hr. away from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. I always knew marrying Joel would mean that we would one day become missionaries, most likely in Kenya. For a while, we've been debating on either working at the Lighthouse for Christ eye center, where some of his family works at, which is in Mombasa, Kenya OR working at RVA as teachers and potentially dorm parents.

Just recently, we saw the latest promotional video for RVA and our desire to serve there was renewed. Honestly, I really feel RVA would be the best fit for the 2 of us. It's kind of like camp and school put together. Joel would love to mentor some younger guys & doing so in the states as a teacher is frowned upon these days; whereas, at RVA, that is one of the main goals. Plus, he's just really learned that loves teaching, which has been such an answer to prayer. Being that I'm a special ed. teacher and RVA doesn't have special ed. students, they would need someone to coordinate special services, i.e. tutorials for kids who have A.D.D. and are struggling to keep up in school. I could also be an elementary teacher, which would be great too!

We're planning on going in about 3 years. There are a few reasons behind that: 1) I want to have our first child here in America & that would be in about 2 years. 2) Joel will be done with his master's in about 2-3 years. 3) We have to apply to AIM and get accepted, raise support, and go through lots of training.

If you click on this link, you can see the video that renewed our passion to serve the Lord in Kenya. http://www.aimint.org/usa/videos/rva.html

Please be praying with us as we consider going on this amazing journey that the Lord has laid upon our hearts.

As always,
Eloise

Freedom's Day of Birth in the U.S. of A.

Joel & I watching the fireworks.

Let the fireworks begin!

Friends cooling off and having fun in the pool.

We had about 20+ friends from our sunday school come to our house for a pool party from 12-4 to celebrate the 4th of July. It was a really fun time & the pool felt GREAT in the 102 degree heat. Later, we went to Fatherheart for fireworks!! It was spectacular!! Check out the fun video I shot and enjoy our comedic commentary. =D

* So I've been trying to upload the video for 3 days now and it's just not happening. Perhaps it'll happen later, in another post.

As always, Eloise

The Heart of Servants

Amy having fun babysitting the girls.

Joel & Joe Baird working on taking down the chandelier.

Mari Carmen (aka Hammer) touching up my poor texturing job. And Katie sanding Hammer's head. =D

Carter & Brian tag-teaming putting up the fans in the guest bedrooms.

Joe tackling the hall lights.

For a little over a month, our community group/ care group/ small group (whatever you want to call it) have been taking turns at each other's homes doing whatever house projects need to be done this summer. It's great because all of us have homes that, as many of you homeowners know, always have a project or two or more needing to be done. With the help of friends, it makes the process so much faster and way more fun!!

Whoever's home we're at, they provide us with a meal and we all chip in to help do whatever task is at hand. I chose to make meatball calzones (one of Joel's new favorites), salad, and rocky road freeze dessert (sooooo good...a little too good if you ask me). After a quick dinner (because we were fighting against the sun setting & losing light to work on the fixtures), the boys helped put up all new fixtures: 3 ceiling fans, 1 chandelier, 1 kitchen light, and 2 hall lights. The girls helped me sand and re-texture my awful 1st attempt at our guest bathroom walls. We were originally going to spray texture from cans all over the walls, but it needed some desperate touch-ups first. Joel & I then finished the texturing & painting of the bathroom the following day. More pictures to come.

Everyone did such a fabulous job!! We seriously couldn't have done it without them. Well, we probably could of, but it would've taken a LOT longer to get it done. ;)

As always,
Eloise

Making Some Progress

Just yesterday, I finished assembling all of my squares...I think. There may be more that I need to add later, but for now I think I've made some great progress!! I've figured out how the rows are going to be & so I just pinned them up and will probably start sewing the quilt on Sunday or Monday!

As always,
Eloise