Back in the US (again)

    I honestly have no idea how it has been almost 2 months since I last posted! Seriously, I feel like I just got off the plane and stepped back onto US soil yesterday, when it actually was a month ago.  However, time always seems to do that to me. I am now back in the US for the summer until I move to Jos, Nigeria in September.  I think knowing that I am going back to Nigeria is helping me enjoy being home now.
    The rest of my stay in Kenya was just fantastic.  My mom and sister came to visit me on the farm!  This was so special to me that they got to meet my Kenyan family and really experience true rural Kenyan life in Kabula.  About a day and a half before they arrived I decided that class 4 should put on a play for them (you know me always doing things last minute!).  So, class 4 and I rehearsed the play a total of 2 times through.  To be honest, I had my doubts about whether or not this crazy idea of ours was going to be a success or a flop.  During the rehearsals we had quite a few difficulties with them acting (which is something that I think is pretty foreign to them). Also, they can be super shy when it comes to speaking up in front of adults, especially new adults.  So, you can see where my apprehension came in.  However, never has a teacher been prouder or her students than I was after the kids had performed for my mother and sister!  They did a great job!  They were goofy when they needed to be goofy and were organized.  It was just great!

   The play was called "The Dancing Competition" so after the play my students showed off some of their moves, which proved just as hilarious as the first time I saw them dancing during the first week I was in Kenya.  Their facial expressions are simply priceless.  After they showed us a few of their dances, Katie and I proceeded to teach them the Macarena and the Cupid Shuffle.  It was a class period full of laughter, creativity, learning, and smiles (four of my favorite things about teaching).
We did a lot of other things while my mom and sister were there.  We took a trip over to the coast to meet the child that I sponsor through Compassion International.  This was an absolutely beautiful experience for everyone involved.  Perhaps I will write another blog on it...  After that we met back up with my dad in Nairobi and went on a safari, which was another beautiful experience, just in a different way.

    The whole time we were traveling around Kenya I would call Mama Betty everyday to get a report on how the baby chicks were doing.  Even since being home I get regular emails and picture/video updates on the coop.  My heart just aches to be there and see the chicks for myself, but I know they are in good hands and the Lubangas are so committed to taking care of them.  I can't wait for the day that I get a phone call telling me they started laying eggs!
   So, that is a very short recap of the rest of my time in Kenya.  Now that I am back in Michigan I am enjoying the time that God is blessing me with to spend with my family and friends.  I have really been convicted this last week about not wasting my time.  It is a little bit ironic that whenever my schedule is so busy I am always saying that I wish I had more time to do all of these things I want to do and spend time being still before the Lord, but now that I have all of this free time I am complaining too and I have not been dedicated to spending time listening to God and studying His word.  So, I have decided this week to hold myself more accountable to how I spend my days.  Feel free to hold me accountable as well!

Da coop da coop da coop is on fire

The chicken coop project has taken off and is in it's final stages! Wow wow, every time I pass it I just start smiling and feel almost giddy with happiness! We are hoping to have the baby chicks by the end of this week, just in time for my mom and sister to be a part of it! Thanks to all of you we have raised enough money to buy 200 chicks, but we are still praying that God will provide us with enough money to cover all of the vaccines and food until they become layers and are generating an income to support themselves. So, if you are still interested in being a part of the work I am doing here and helping to support the school I am teaching at, please send me a message via Facebook or an email at annawellemeyer@mac.com. Thank you thank you a million times from me, Mama Betty, and all the students here at Epico Jahns Academy!
Below is a picture of Mama Betty and myself with her cousin Rebecca who has been advising us with the coop. Rebecca works with the ministry of agriculture and has a true passion for farming and teaching others about farming. She has been a gift from God to us!

5 million words

They say a picture is worth a million words so here are 5 millions words about what I have been up to lately.

Anyone want to buy a chicken?

I am now an official poultry farmer. The past few weeks I have learned more than I ever thought I would know about raising and caring for chickens. Let me explain...
The school I am teaching at is a private school. Some of the students at the school come from a local orphanage. Mama Betty is the director of the school and has a heart of gold. She can never turn away a student, even if they don't have money for school fees. They also feed the kids everyday a meal of beans and maize. Too often they are running out of money to cover all the expenses, including teacher's salaries sometimes. I have decided to continue the project of a teacher that was here in December and help them start a chicken coup where they can keep chickens that will lay eggs to both provide food for the students and will generate money they can use to cover some of their fees. We have been researching poultry projects and even visited the farm of a woman that works for the ministry of agriculture! We have the coop all paid for through a scholarship that I received, but now we are trying to raise money to buy the chicks. Each chick costs about $1.40 and we are hoping to buy between 100 and 200 chicks within the next two weeks.

This is where you come in. I am wondering if any of you would be interested in purchasing a chick (or multiple chicks) for the school. I am so excited about this project because it is one that can really last and will be a way that the school can become more self-reliant. In the past, the school has been primarily supported by volunteers coming from different countries. Mama Betty has sat by and supported past volunteers as they have begun similar projects with other people in the community and has never once asked someone to help her start a project for the school. She is one of the most selfless people that I have ever met. She always tells me that she is just a vessel. Whatever God blesses her with isn't meant for her, but is meant to be passed through her to someone else. Even this coop won't benefit her or her family personally, but will be used to provide for the students and people in the community. I am excited that through this project Mama Betty won't have to rely so much on donations from volunteers to support the school, but she will be able to have her own source of income to support it. I think this is true community development because it is empowering her and the school to be a sustainable organization.

So, if you are interested in supporting this project, please send me an email at annawellemeyer@mac.com or a message on Facebook. You can let me know if you want more information or if you have decided to partner with us, how many chicks you would like to buy. Also, we are hoping to raise all the money this week because I leave in just two weeks (where did the time go right??!)!!!!
Jehovah Jireh
Below are pictures of Mama Betty and the coup in the process of being built! It is now almost done!

I'm a real farmer now!

The planting.
The cool earth makes its way between my toes as I tread down the long rows. I loosen my grasp to allow the beans to gently and steadily begin their journey from my hand to the land. I swing my arm back and forth, back and forth. I travel down one long row and up the next, down and up, down and up. Get more seeds, then down and up again. Repeat.
Break for chai.
Let the plowing begin.
The teacher needs a teacher! I have found one; Jessica, who is well into her 60s, maybe even 70! I watch as she lifts the jimbe and swings it down. It cuts through the now soft soil. In one swooping motion the land is sliced and laid as a protector over the seeds.
My turn.
Over and over again I raise my jimbe and swing it down, bringing with it the soil. I tuck in the seeds so they will be comfortable until they spring into life. I praise the Lord for the overcast sky that is providing me with some relief from the heat. "Wow! Anna is strong. Wow! Very special teacher! Anna, my friend, she is good worker" I hear my friend James say. I dig and dig. I can feel a blister forming on my palm. I keep digging to the beat of Jessica singing. I dig and dig and dig. We have now reached the final row! Dig and dig and dig...
Now, I am a real Kenyan farmer (the teachers would say I can now marry a Kenyan because I know how to farm, but I think I will leave that be!)


I really love farming! My body felt good working hard knowing that what I was doing was going to produce food that will nourish my body. Kabula is a big farming community. Everybody has a shamba (farm in Kiswahili). This past weekend we had Friday and Monday off of school. When we returned today every teacher I talked to had been working in their shamba over the weekend. Below are some pictures of us farming!

Here comes the rain do do do do....

Wow, I really can't believe that I have been living here in Kabula, Kenya for a week already! Once again, time likes to play tricks on me and it feels like I have been here forever and for no time at all. But regardless of how much time I have been here, I fell in love with it the moment Joyce greeted me in Bungoma and brought me back to Kabula. She was so friendly and made me feel right at home. Then I met my family and they are beyond wonderful!!!!!
The family I stay with, the Lubangas, run a ministry called ICODEI. They have volunteers come in from all around the world to help in the areas of education, medical, and micro finance. Usually when student teachers come here there are other volunteers staying on the farm as well, but lucky lucky me I am the only volunteer on the farm right now (which I really couldn't be happier about!). Another volunteer is signed up to come in April, but they haven't confirmed for sure yet. For now I am treasuring the time I get the Lubangas all to myself :)
I am going to try and make this kind of short because I know people hate it when blogs get too long and then nobody ends up actually reading them, but rather just skimming them. So we are desperately in need of rain! They usually start planting in February but they still haven't begun because there has been no rain! We pray every night for God to open up the floodgates on Kenya and yesterday we saw Him be faithful. Even now as I am typing this I hear thunder roaring in the distance and it make me very excited and in the mood of praising God. If it continues to rain through the rest of the week, Mama Betty said we will begin planting this weekend. I am excited to learn how to farm as a Kenyan (although it is not my intent, I was informed the if I want a Kenyan husband I will need to learn how to farm.)
The school, the school, I have forgotten to write about the school. It is so different than my school I was teaching at in Bloomington, but it is really great! They are both great in different ways. The students love being at school. The structure is very different. There isn't one teacher for one class, but all the teachers teach the different classes and different subjects in the different grades. Like me, I am teaching English in class 1. (similar to 1st grade), math and creative arts in class 3, and English in class 4. It is kind of hard for the students in class 1 to understand me because they are still just learning English, but I think it is good for me as a teacher to figure out how to communicate and teach in a way that will help them grow. All the kids are wonderful and have captured my heart (despite the fact that they are still warming up to me). Relationships between students and teachers are a bit more formal than I am used to (especially being a kindergarten teacher in the states). I am adjusting and learning though and that is always a good thing.
The last thing I will talk about is the teachers- they are fantastic and hysterical. They love cracking jokes and have been so friendly to me. I always have a good laugh every day so that is definitely a positive thing. The school environment is good and they make it a very happy place for me to be. They are also very willing to teach me about Kenyan culture and ask me questions about America. These discussions are full of laughter, surprise, and learning. I feel very blessed to be able to have them.
So really I have only scratched the very surface of my time here so far. So much has happened and I have learned so much that I feel like I have been here for a life time. God is doing good things in my heart and mind as well. I am witnessing His faithfulness and goodness daily as well as continually be refined more and more into His image for the sake of His kingdom. The Lubangas have been such an encouragement to me and I could sit and talk with them for hours about God. Really it is a gift from God to have such wonderful fellowship while I am so far from where I come from. The kingdom is here and now and is all around us and I am learning that more and more each day.

Grace, Peace, and Love,
Anna

Leaving for Kenya

Off to Kenya today!  It really doesn't seem like a reality!  I have been talking about this since my junior year of high school and now it's actually here.

I'm excited to share my experience with all of you who end up reading this.  Some of you asked for my mailing address while I was there, so here it is:

Anna Wellemeyer
c/o Reuben Lubanga
ICODEI
P.O. Box 459
Bungoma , Kenya
50200
East Africa

Letters take about 2 weeks to get there.  I love mail :) but no packages because the mail system is so unreliable.

Ok love you all.  Sorry this is so short but I have some last minute cleaning and packing to do!