Final Training!

It has been a week or so since we left MTI (Mission Training International).  Our brains have had some time to process all that we have learned and we are more excited than ever to get to Kenya and put some of it into practice.  My last post explained some of the language training we had the first two weeks at MTI. Our second two weeks we learned about life in a new culture.   They trained us heavily on reasons why missionaries leave the field early and how we can best thrive in our new host culture.

The whole crew! Blessed to spend four weeks with these people!

We spent a whole day talking about CONFLICT. First, we learned what our own conflict management style was then grouped up with those like ourselves and as a group went around to talk with another group about what we like about their conflict management style and what discourages us.  I (Kenzi) am not one to throw my emotions out for everyone to see so this was hard for me to be open and honest.  My style of conflict management is called 'Teddy Bear'.  In my style we seek harmony and want to make sure the other person is happy, content, and leaves feeling good.  We don’t share much of how we are feeling and just really want things to be peaceful (for the other person) as quick as possible, then we handle our own emotions later.  Spending a whole morning confronting people about how they handle conflict was mentally and emotionally exhausting for me because it is not something I am used to doing.  That afternoon we learned about conflict between spouses, with kids, and in team settings. By the end of the day we were ready for a nap! Even though it was hard for me to open up at first, I am glad I was able to embrace this training and I really learned a lot about myself and how to understand others better in conflicting situations.

My Growth Group (small group). I love these women! We never had conflict….just chocolate!

A few days were spent on how we are under STRESS and how we manage it.  It was a stress-filled day (hehe J).  We had a few different simulations to help us recognize how we are under stress.  After each one we would come together and debrief about what we were feeling (again with pulling the emotions out!). We were asked questions like if we talked with others during the simulation, if we talked with ourselves, and if we talked with God.  We learned whether we are more task focused or relational in stressful situations.  I learned I am much more relational than my husband in stressful situations, but this helped us be able to talk about it and recognize how we need to help support each other when we are in stressful situations.  I was so thankful for this! Mark and I kept joking that because of this training we feel like we jumped ahead 5 years of marriage because of how much we learned about each other. After learning about healthy ways to manage stress we feel as though we have a better game plan and know how to help each other out when these situations arise.

Our little family at Garden of the Gods.  Emma was dealing with a little stress and didn’t want to be held.

She should have been in our training…J

One of my favorite trainings was actually a pretty short one and it was about Third Culture Kids (TCKs).  These are kids who have grown up for some of their developmental years in another culture that is not their parents.  During this short training I learned so much about my husband (Mark grew up in Kenya until he was 7 years old). We heard from a TCK who is now on staff at MTI and his story.  He explained why sometimes kids who grow up overseas or in another country do not feel like they fully belong to their passport culture or their host culture.  They are stuck between two worlds.  He helped us understand that when traveling back to America sometimes even the phrase “Welcome Home!” can be a complicated one for TCKs to hear because their home isn’t the U.S. Some have never even lived in the U.S., it is just what their passport says. If you ask a TCK where they are from it’s often hard for them to answer with just one sentence.  Most have lived in multiple places.  I noticed this a lot with my husband.  He will give a quick answer if he can tell the individual doesn’t want a long story, but if someone is really interested and wants to know he loves sharing about growing up in Kenya and Kentucky and all the trips in between. 

Emma with her teacher, Miss Anna.  Anna is also a TCK!

 Emma loved her and so did we!!

Overall, this training was amazing!  I am SO thankful we were able to attend! We learned a lot more, but hopefully this helped to give you a little glimpse. Thank you to everyone who has partnered with us on this journey.  You all are a blessings and we pray God blesses each of you! I still cannot believe we are finished with all our training!!!! Woohoo!!

Language Training

We are now in our second week of language training here in Colorado!! It has been such a blast meeting other cross-cultural workers who are going all around the world to share the love of Jesus.  It has also been encouraging to be around people who are in the same phase of life as us.  That in part being, selling everything and moving to another country.

Our days have been spent learning so many new things including phonetics, where we sit in a group and practice saying "aka, aka, apa, apa, obo obo, nga nga." It's real fun.  We have made our mouths become slaves to us and have forced them to make sounds and do things they are not use to.  By the end of the day our jaw, mouth, throat, and tongue are at times exhausted and a little sore.  I (Kenzi) tried to talk Mark into making a video of us practicing all the sounds so you all can see how cool we look, but he didn't jump on board with that one :)

We will be learning Swahili once we get to Kenya.  Before coming to this training I will be honest and say that I was nervous about learning Swahili.  It intimidated me and since Mark already knows a little, I felt like he would always correct me which would make me not want to speak it.  But through this training I have learned that I can learn the language and I will.  God has given me the ability to learn it, I just have to retrain my brain and force my mouth and tongue to do sounds they are not used to....yet.

We have learned that we are the owners of our language learning 'business' and if we are going to learn it, we will have to make the plans, implement them, then do them.  We have been encouraged to come into language learning as a child and to spend more time listening at first, then speaking and learning grammar. If you think about it, children spend the first six or so months of their life just listening to their parents.  The language is being input into their brain and they are trying to figure it out.  After a while they begin to comprehend and then babble.  This is my favorite stage as it comes with much grace from your language helper, spouse, and local friends.  The biggest thing after the babble stage is to learn proper pronunciation.  Grammar follows towards the end when enough information has been inputted into your brain.

 My mind is just blown away by the way God made us and our brains to be able to learn a language and our mouths be able to make these sounds. It's just incredible! God is so creative! I mean, WOW GOD! I could go on and on about all the tools we have acquired to help us learn Swahili. This training has been a HUGE blessing to us and I know it will help us especially when we are on the field learning the language and building relationships. We are so thankful to all of our supporters for helping us get here and for being apart of the journey with us.  The Family of God is at work all over the world.  It is incredibly beautiful when you really think about it. God is so cool!

Tiny Pant's Academy

We have been having so much fun spending time with Emma these past couple months.  She is at such a fun age (she will be 15 months old on the 17th!) and loves exploring and trying new things.  We have started a little tot school with her that we have appropriately named Tiny Pant's Academy. We have been soaking in every minute with her.  She is growing so fast!

Tot School lasts about 30 mins in the mornings with reading, singing songs, learning fun rhymes, and lots of dancing. 

The afternoons are our activity times.  We will paint, color, play with rice, water, bubbles, play at the park, play kickball or soccer, etc

She had lots of fun playing with the rice! I think we were out here for a couple hours. And lets be honest, Mark and I enjoyed it too.  For some reason, it's super relaxing.

To say Emma loves painting is an understatement. She could sit there for hours and paint on her paper, belly, hair, and face. 

 It was a blast having Emma help us with pizza night.  She made her own pizza and helped Mark roll out the dough for the other pizzas.  

"Hi, mom!"

We decided to live life on the edge and let her spread the sauce on her pizza!  

{Note: It was a little messy and we all took showers that night, but it was totally worth it even if we got a little sauce on the clothes, in the hair, on the floor....oops!}

Since pizza night she has helped make pumpkin pancakes and banana bread.  Who knows, maybe we have a little chef on our hands!  Bon appetit!

Ahhh....Colorado

We have about a week and a half until we leave for Colorado for our final training!! I cannot believe it's almost here.  I (Kenzi) have never been to Colorado before, so it makes this trip extra special.

Ahhh....Colorado.  I can already feel the cool breeze, hear the wind blowing in the trees, and see more than my eyes can take in.  I can't think of a better place for our last training. I mean, I have never been there, but just thinking about all we will be learning and then getting to hike and play on the mountains in God's awesome creation to have a little adult recess.  Our own giant playground.  It's going to be fun!

I thought it would be fun to share some fun info I found about Colorado.

1. Colorado means "colored red" and is known as the 'Centennial State.'

2. In Fruita, the town folk celebrate "Mike the Headless Chicken Day." Seems that a farmer names L.A. Olsen cut off Mike's head on Sept. 10, 1945 in anticipation of a chicken dinner.  Mike lived for another 4 years without a head. {Whether this is true or not, who knows, but its funny!}

3.  Colorado host the worlds largest elk heard in the wild.

4.  Katherine Lee Bates wrote the song "America the Beautiful" after being inspired by the views from Pikes Peak.

5.  Colorado is the only U.S. state that's ever turned down a chance to host the Olympics.  Denver originally won the bid for the 1976 Winter Olympics but the state's voters later rejected it due to infrastructure costs and environmental concerns.  Innsbruck, Austria, ended up hosting the Winter Olympics in 1976.

6. The world's largest flat-top mountain is the 'Grand Mesa' in Western Colorado.

7.  Denver, lays claim to the invention of the cheeseburger. Denver resident Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In names his sandwich the cheeseburger. The trademark for the name Cheeseburger was awarded to Ballast in 1935.

8.  Dove Creek is the 'Pinto Bean' capital of the world.

9.  Colorado has 222 state wildlife areas.

10.  At 14,110 feet above sea level over 400,000 ascend Pikes Peak each year.

****While we are about to leave for our final training, we are still in need of MONTHLY pledge partners.  We are hoping to leave for Kenya in Nov. which only leaves us with a couple months! We are asking 26 people to join us with a monthly pledge of $100 {or other amount if you feel led}.  If you would like to partner with us please click on our GIVE tab for all the information. THANK YOU!!!!!****

Ken'Ya Carry the Jug

We had a blast on Saturday with everyone who came out to Ken'Ya Carry the Jug! It was fun meeting everyone and sharing about what God is doing in Kenya, our journey, and how they can be apart of it.  We were blessed by so many family and friends who helped put this event together. It really felt like the Family of God working together to help build for the Kingdom.  Jesus was there and it was awesome!

We had a fun water walk where people got to carry a jug {or two} and walk along a trail for about a mile.  Along the path were signs that explained more about the water crisis in Kenya.  Many said after the walk that they enjoyed the experience of putting themselves in someone else's shoes for the day and learning what it would be like to walk miles each day and carry gallons of water.  Our friend Dave also played his drum during the walk to help pump everyone up.  It was a lot of fun!

THANK YOU to everyone who helped put this event together and THANK YOU to everyone who came!!

"But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14

Please enjoy some fun pics from the day!

//Excitement//

As it gets closer to us leaving {3 more months!!} we cannot help but be excited! God has been amazing through this whole process and we are pumped to move to Kenya!

A few things that I (Kenzi) am just over the moon excited about are::

I am excited for the day we will FINALLY be able to have our own home.  We have been living with my parents the past year and they have been troopers! It isn't always easy having a one year old run around the house, climb on things, open every cabinet in the kitchen and pull everything out.  My parents have been a HUGE blessing to us and I know Emma has loved spending time with them.  We cannot thank them enough for letting us crash with them during this transition time, but I am sure they are ready {just as we are} to have their own space.  I am looking forward to the day I can unpack all of my boxes, including the ones that have stayed packed this past year, and have a place for all of our belongings {the few we have left}. We are planning to have a two bedroom apartment in Kenya which means Emma will get her own room and will not be sleeping in our room anymore.  It will be bitter sweet but I have never gotten to decorate a room for her and my heart skips a beat at the thought of finally getting to put her little room together :)

I am also excited to dive into the Kenyan culture.  For some reason I cannot wait to go buy groceries at a local market.  It sounds so fun to me! I will get to practice the little bit of Swahili I have been learning and fingers crossed I say everything correctly.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am terrified to speak Swahili because I currently know nothing, but you have to start somewhere right?!  I am also pumped to meet all the kids at the Home of the Good Shepherd, meet the staff with GGFAN, and start building relationships with our neighbors, GGFAN, and the tribes we will get to work with. My heart gets all giddy thinking of Emma playing with all the little kids and building relationships of her own.

I feel like I have been learning a ton of information and just can't wait to put it all into practice.  Our brains have been stuffed with so much great information lately and I feel like the only way I can process it is to do it.  Its like you have all the ingredients you believe you need to make a delicious cake but you have to wait for the One in charge to give you the green light to start baking.  If that made any sense at all :)

Lastly, I am excited to see what we will learn from the locals and from Jesus. I feel like my faith and relationship with Jesus has grown so much since this process started and I know it will grow even more in different ways when we get there. Jesus is just awesome!

Now, of course there are some things that are unknowns and naturally come with some concern, but tonight I am focusing on all things exciting.

Jesus, exciting thoughts, and some lavender oil will aid for a great night sleep!

Storying

Storying. 

 It kept popping up to my attention the past several months. In our Perspectives course, through friends, and at our training in India. Now, when things repeat themselves, it is generally a good idea to pay attention.  So, I decided I would trust the Lord and learn more about it.  

Storying is way for people to experience the Gospel.  It is done through memorizing passages of scripture (stories), sharing the stories with a group (big or small), and letting the Holy Spirit lead the questions and conversation.  All the story teller does is tell the story, ask questions, and help create a time for people to listen to God.  There is no teaching involved just simply asking people to step into the story and see what they think.  It is totally led by the Holy Spirit.  Listening is something else the story teller does. Hearing how people respond gives the story teller a glimpse at their worldview and lets them know how they can pray for that person. It's beautiful. 

I have decided {since the Lord kept bringing it up} to learn the art of Storying and hopefully be able to put it into practice while we are in Kenya.  

The thing about stories is that they go with people.  Everyone remembers stories. It even provides an opportunity for those who cannot read or write to experience God's Word and be able to share it with their family and friends. My thought is if I can share these stories with the children we will be working with, these stories might go with them for the rest of their lives.  Who knows, it may even have a small impact on their families many generations from now.  

We never know what seed we might be able to plant and how the Lord may choose to grow it.  All we can do is simply trust the Lord and follow where He leads us.  

Kenzi