Coffee with Christine

We were at the Middle School award ceremony and so proud when Kathryn won the Excellence in Mathematics award....go girl!!! So, we are getting our suitcases out and getting ready to pack. Max was pretty confused with all the activities...many students and friends coming in and out of the house and all these suitcases lying around. He eventually jumped into one of them. I think he wants to visit Malaysia!! We will miss him so much! Tomorrow we will be taking him to the family who gave him to us. He will be reunited with his doggie family as well. The same family has Max's dad, mom and brother. So, I guess you can say, we will have our family reunion in Malaysia and Max has his here in Nairobi!! There is still a great deal of activity in our days....sometimes a little overwhelming but in the midst of it, we are so grateful to the Lord for ALL His provision. We have housing and will even have a car the first 10 days we are home!!! As we gave thanks for this first car in our family...

99.99 (or about USD1.60 per liter) was what we saw on the price label for unleaded petrol at a gas station today. The only reason that petrol prices has not gone up to triple digit yet is because the digital thingy that shows the price does not have triple digit....at least not yet....Well, all I can say is that I can't wait to go back to Malaysia to enjoy a couple months of lower petrol prices since petrol is subsidised in the wonderful country of Malaysia!!! We leave next Friday, so we have a few more days to finish up here and to pack. I have started by doing some shopping. We love Royco!!! I remember when Vickie was younger (4 or5 years old) she refused to eat in Malaysia...she needed her cabbage with Royco...so here we are with a BIG tub of it. It's a tomato-ey seasoning for meat/vegetable and is absolutely delish! Coffee - of course!!! for me and family and friends! Kenya has the BESTEST coffee in the world! More coffee!!!! This is a small pile of gifts that we ar...

For those who know my husband, especially ROG members, you know he is a die hard ManU fan/fanatic ( and that is putting it mildly!). Last night there was a big game between ManU and some blue team (I am pretty much clueless...). He allowed the girls to stay up for the game - their normal bedtime is between 8.30 to 9.00 pm and the game started at 10pm and went all the way to 1 am! Vickie managed to watch the first goal by ManU and then went to bed at 11, I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn't. Tony was too nervous to watch the game, so he was in his "prayer room" pretending to read and would take a peek once in a while, Kathryn was also giving him updates every 10 minutes or so, besides, there was a crowd cheering near our house and I could hear them from my bedroom. I gave up and joined Kathryn at about 12.30am and managed to see the penalty shootout. I was really glad Man U won simply because I am now living with three very HAPPY people :-) but I must say that my ...

One of the item of my "to-do" list before I return to Malaysia is to make sure that we send at least one missionary to the pgymies. Well, mission is accomplished! River of God (ROG) church has agreed to FULLY sponsor one missionary to live with the pgymies for 6 months!!!! We couldn't be more excited or more proud! We feel like proud parents when they annouced that at church last Sunday. ROG has continued their emphasis on missions....I remember when we first started the church and did not have any money at all, we still gave to missions and now they have continued this missions emphasis. In addition to this missionary, they also sent one short term missionary to Hola, near Coast to a special group of people who have limited access to the gospel. The gentleman in the black jacket is the missionary whom we are sending to be a Christian witness to the precious pygmy people of DRC.

Yup, I am not bragging or anything but don't you think they look so VERY cute!!! They took these pictures when I was in DRC. I happened to see the pics when I was going through and sorting my pictures....I couldn't resist posting them - especially since it's been two years that our family in Malaysia hasn't seen them! They probably kill me if they know I posted their pictures but they don't ever read my blog, so I think I am very safe!!

Today we went to the orphanage. Praise the Lord for this new building. A supporter of the orphanage has raised some funds to build new dormitories for our orphans, especially the older ones. It would be more like a family home. Our beautiful and wonderful children. I tried posting a video of them singing but it is not being loaded succesfully... Our lab "strong room" made of thin pieces of plywood! We had to keep our chemical supplies for our chemistry and biology classes under lock and key not only to prevent thefts but also we recently had an incident where one of the orphans tried to commit suicide - he would have been successful if he had access to those chemicals....The good news is that this young man received help and is now stable....nonetheless, we are keeping everything under lock and key! Our brand new chicken coop! This is our newer and more spacious chicken coup that Eva, a friend of ours has helped sponsored. We are trusting the Lord that this project will ge...

These are our faithful "slaves" which (who?? ) had served us well....Mr Compaq (2006-2008 Jan) and Mr Gateway (2004-2008 May 13 i.e today). Mr Compaq gave up its ghost early in the year. It started overheating and eventually just died. We tried to fix it here but was told that it cannot be helped. Apparently I need a new motherboard. We are bringing it home to Malaysia with us to see if it (or he) can be resurrected. We have quite a few pictures inside that we would like to salvage. Mr. Gateway is severely injured - I found out this morning :-( I tried to take a macro pic but I don't think it turned out very well. Our powerjack is kinda warped and we've tried to be careful with it. This morning I found out that whoever used it last yesterday must have unknowingly broke it. Half of the power jack is inside the computer. This computer has minimal battery power, something like 15 minutes or less. I must find someway to unplug the broken part from the computer. Qu...

Today I preached at the Mother's Day service at River of God Church, the church we founded. When we were pastors, we started this tradition in giving every mother a gift on Mother's Day and one for the fathers on Father's Day. I am glad that they kept the tradition! This year they gave every mother a beautiful necklace. We can even take our time to choose the one we like. This is the one I picked. Isn't it pretty? Kathryn made me an origami box (she loves doing origami and would watch YOUTUBE videos for hours learning how to create stuff - she sure didn't get that from me). She also wrote me a most touching note and gave me a rose bud that she had dried. Tony gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers , so Kathryn wrote in a little note that although Daddy's flowers are prettier, hers will last longer :-) Our family is not competitive at all, at all, really.....tee-hee! Vickie made me this beautiful card. Every letter has hearts all over. Can you see ho...

Before I forget, I wanted the friends who have left comments on this blog to know that I read your comments as they are automatically sent to my email address. I tried replying to the address in the emails but it doens't get to you - it just redirects me to this blog again. Anyways, I want you to know that I appreciate the comments- tells me someone is reading what I am writing - I wonder sometimes!! Ok, two evenings ago I had another invite to join an evangelist to Goma, also in DRC. They are doing a crusade there- I cannot tell you how much I want to join them but I can't - not this time anyways. We are in the midst of preparing to return to Malaysia for two months to reconnect with churches and friends who supports our work here and also to give our report. We are also trusting God to connect with more people and churches who are interested in our work here. We need to raise so much more to empower and release more laborers to a ripen harvest in AFrica. I am so overwhelm wit...

It's my last day in Butembo. This is the airport and the runway is a dirt road.... I took aerial pictures of the city. The big dirt road you see is the "Highway" - it's difficult to imagine that I was driven on those roads over the last one week. I don't think I will miss it though. Once again, our plane needed refueling in Beni. I was glad that I had at least one last look at the city where I had the opportunity to minister to the pastors and their wives and visited the pygmies. This is where "my" pgymy baby lives! I was flying "first class" - right behind the cockpit :-) Cool, eh... This emergency exit sign on the plane really tickled me....at least, I was spared from the safety demonstration we all had to endure whenever we get on a plane. On this special plane, we just have to push the window out - self explanatory - how great is that??? I wanted to end my Congo posts with these two pictures of me in this tiny pygmy house sharing the sorrow...

Tony occasionally reads my blog and suggested that I post my comments under the photos rather than above it, so being the super submissive wife that I am, I decided that from now on, I will post my comments under the pictures :-) Hahaha! I was preaching in a 7 month old English speaking church. By the way, French and Kiswahili are the languages use in DRC. This was the only service where I did not have an interpreter. It was liberating!! Here I am ministering to a group of orphans. This is one of the three groups that met that Saturday. They were divided according to their ages. I had the teen group. Here I am ministering to a group of widows. Due to ongoing wars in different parts of the country, there are many orphans and widows. Life is challenging and difficult for them. It was a tremendous privilege for me to minister God's love, comfort and hope to each one of them. During ministry time, my tears are mingled with theirs. I felt the love of God for these precious people. God l...