Team Pete: July 2013

Wednesday 31 July 2013

Our House

Home
(hom) noun

1. a place of one's residence

2. a familiar or usual setting

3. Us, together, forever. Team Pete!!

Welcome to OUR home in Mbita, Kenya

We are beyond grateful for the provision of our house. Our town of Mbita is not a very developed town. Only last year was the road into Mbita paved! There are few Westerners living here and, thus, few Western-style (American standard) housing. We were amazed to find this house not only existed in Mbita, but it was available to rent. We have electricity and running water, and even a hot shower! We were quick to see this was God's gift to us!

Enjoy a tour of our home!

Agak Estate - the name of our plot

Living Room

Our Bedroom

Spare Bedroom

Every day we are thankful for our instant hot water heater (above the shower head) and flush toilet! EVERY DAY! :-)

Kitchen

Much of the furniture in our home was included in the rental; which is not common here. Including the refrigerator and oven! Again- a great blessing!

The view from our front veranda!

Every good home needs a pet. This is Brinkley!

Karibu- Welcome! Please come visit!

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house;
yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. Matthew 7:25

Monday 29 July 2013

Celestine: Dancing with Jesus

Children's smiles and innocent love for life often capture our hearts.
Equally, when a young child dies, it hits our hearts to the core.

Christ’s Gift Academy 2nd Grader Celestine Atieno passed away on the morning of July 23rd, 2013. She became very sick about three days prior with a high fever. Her symptoms worsened to include diarrhea, vomiting and blood in her urine. The clinic diagnosed her with a very strong case of malaria and immediately referred her to Homa Bay District hospital (about 45 minutes away) for a blood transfusion because she had lost so much blood. After the transfusion, she appeared to be getting better on Monday night, and even started singing and laughing. Unfortunately, her condition quickly changed, and all of a sudden the next morning she died.

Celestine was born on February 7th, 2005 as the last child of her parents. She became a total orphan when her parents passed away in 2009, within a month of each other. Her Aunt and Uncle took up the responsibility of raising Celestine and her older sister Faustine, who was in the same class as her. She was an outgoing child with leadership characteristics. Academically, she was among the top 5 students in her competitive class.

All of the CGA students and staff will be attending the funeral and burial on Tuesday, July 30th which will take place in her home near the Kombe marketplace; 1.5 miles from Mbita town.

Her personality really blossomed under the love of Jesus at CGA. She will be dearly missed by her entire CGA family.

PLEASE PRAY for the CGA students and staff, and Celestine’s family as they mourn the loss of their special little girl. Please especially pray for Faustine. Celestine was not just her younger sister, but also her best friend and confidant. They walked to school together every day, were in class together, played together, did their homework together and were pretty much inseparable.

We were blessed with the opportunity to assist Celestine's family by using our vehicle to drive the family to the mortuary in Homa Bay to bring her body back home to Mbita. Faustine traveled with us, along with 4 aunts and Lillian, our CGA Social Worker. We did our best to comfort Faustine and occasionally saw her smile as she enjoyed sitting in the front seat with us and experiencing power windows and air condition! She's a quiet girl with a sweet demeanor. As we left her house this afternoon, I (Daneen) reminded her that when she's feeling sad, she can just think about Celestine dancing with Jesus!

Friday 26 July 2013

Our Kenyan Wedding Celebration

Few people are lucky enough to have 2 weddings, to the same person, within 6 weeks of each other!

We loved our American wedding. It was truly one of the most enjoyable and blessed days of our lives. It was special to celebrate together with both of our families and so many close friends. We're grateful, most of all, that Christ was the center of the wedding ceremony and God received the glory. It was a fantastic weekend that we will always cherish.

Our Kenyan wedding couldn't have been more different from our American wedding, but we loved it just the same!

The first thing to understand about Kenyan (and most African) weddings is that you have a Wedding Committee. The wedding committee is a group of some of your closest friends who will be the ones to ultimately plan your wedding! While this sounds scary to anyone with control issues… it's a fantastic concept! We selected our Wedding Committee back in April. Joe chose some of his closest and most loyal friends; 15 in total. We met with the committee only twice to share our desires for the celebration. They listened to our ideas and then planned everything for us; EVERYTHING! It was fabulous! We highly recommend this concept be accepted by Western culture! We had an amazing wedding committee who represented over 5 different churches, 4 NGOs, 3 schools, and 2 sports teams from around the Mbita community.

Team Pete Wedding Committee

We contributed about 1/4 of the budget and the committee raised the remaining funds needed. To an American, this sounds inappropriate; your friends and the community shouldn't have to pay for your wedding. However, in a community-centered and interdependent culture, your friends and community are eager to join with you and express their love and support. After all, every wedding is a community event. The proof lies in the fact that we personally invited about 350 people to our wedding; yet around 600 were in attendance!!

We had no wedding rehearsal the day before. Joe and I never saw a program or schedule of events before the day started. We simply knew we were not only along for the ride, but we were the main attraction!

We couldn't have planned it more perfectly ourselves. It was an absolutely beautiful celebration. There was much praise and worship, plenty of Kenyan flavor, and a whole lot of dancing! Per the recommendation of our wedding committee, we needed three key elements for people to feel as if they've experienced a true Kenyan wedding:
1. cake
2. meat
3. flower girls

So… we had 7 cakes, we killed (and ate) an entire cow and we had 8 flower girls!

The special occasion was held at CGA on the basketball court (fitting since Joe left his career as a college basketball coach to move to Kenya). Three large canopies were set up to provide shade from the hot equatorial sun. The wedding was scheduled to start at 9:00 am, and thanks to some American influence, it only started one hour late; as opposed to most Kenyan weddings which start 3 or more hours late.

There was no bridal party, except our 8 adorable flower girls; all CGA students. The entrance of the flower girls, who escorted the bride, consisted of traditional Luo "marching" which is similar to a slow shuffle. The guests were overjoyed to see the bride in her original white wedding dress; just like the American wedding! After the bride's arrival, the Worship team led everyone in praising God with music and dancing, including a kanga line and a song that required playing an air guitar, air trumpet and air flute. (Strange? Nope- we were prepared for anything.) We stated our same wedding vows from our American wedding and the ceremony ended with a big kiss, and an even bigger cheer by all the guests!

Check out this short 30 sec video of the CGA dancers!

The Pastor gave a fitting sermon about love and marriage, and used us as an example to the young people to wait on God’s timing. An African wedding is never complete without entertainment. The CGA dancers presented three spirited routines to different songs. Another local primary school presented a traditional Luo dance with brightly-colored authentic Luo costumes. After more praise and worship, and more dancing, the official cake cutting took place followed by the presentation of gifts from the guests. There was a long arduous photo session, and finally, everyone enjoyed rice and meat with a cold soda.

We were very grateful that many special friends were able to attend. 12 of Joe's friends from Nairobi made the 8-hour journey to Mbita to celebrate with us and 3 of Daneen's close friends from Uganda even made it over. It was extra special having these people travel from far to be with us!

Friends from Nairobi

Friends from Uganda

It was an incredibly fun, blessed and colorful celebration. We loved every bit of it! Yet, the best part of all was the opportunity for our marriage to be a testimony to the students and community of God's abounding love and of how it's worth being patient to wait for His very best!