Settling in - Challenges

By Anthony:

I began teaching this week!  I really enjoy it and I can tell the students are already getting more used to my accent and learning a lot.  But since I've just started, I'll write more about teaching as time goes on.  We just wanted to have one last post about moving in.  But first here is a photo of Sara and me both starting our day of work:

Whenever you move into a new home and a new place, there are always challenges, but they are also possible to overcome, especially when you have faithful supporters back in North America and welcoming, helpful, and hospitable Kenyans here where we live on the campus.  We have been really well taken care of, and received help from people for all kinds of little house repairs.  Below are some of the people who have been taking care of us: the manager from Anglican Development Services, Justus, our World Renew leader in Nairobi, Jenninah, and the college's Principal, Catherine.

Challenges:
1. Classes. The biggest challenge has been finishing writing my lectures really fast!  But God has given me grace to do so.  August will be busy, but then first semester will calm down a little bit and I can enjoy teaching while also writing lectures for the second semester.  Here are pictures of one of the classrooms.  I appreciate using a whiteboard rather than a chalkboard.  Don't you just hate that rough writing/scratching on the chalkboard feeling?

2. The cold! It's usually about 60-61 degrees in our house, a cold temp when you are just sitting around.  Outside it is colder than that during the night and morning, but it can get quite warm outside during the afternoon. Thankfully we came prepared.  We brought our winter coats, sweaters, hats, and gloves, all of which we've already used.  We also bought a $20 space heater from a store in Nakuru, and it's very nice to have that next to my desk.  This is how Caleb handles the cold at night sometimes:

3. Internet.  We are in a dead zone for internet.  But we were finally able to get satellite internet which works quite well.  It's expensive but worth it to be able to keep in touch with all of you.

4. Phones.  We are in a near dead zone for our mobile phones as well.  When talking to people on the phone, we had to keep running outside the house for them to hear us.  But we got that fixed thanks to a little booster antenna that boosts the signal inside the house.

5. Electricity.  The power has gone off every day we have been here, except for one day.  It goes off for between 30 minutes and 7 hours.  But it seems we just came at a bad time, and that it won't always be this bad.  In fact it's already a bit better.  Plus, we bought a generator!  Now I can work on my computer with peace of mind even when the power goes off, instead of wondering if I need to save my battery.

When the electricity goes off, not only do we lose lights and power to the fridge, etc.  But we also lose internet, the cell phone booster goes off, and the water pump for college campus goes off.  If not for our storage tank of water in our ceiling, that would mean no water for us.  Oh, and the hot water heater goes off too.  The generator only lets us charge the computers and use the internet, so we've had to take some freezing cold showers in the 60 degree temp within our home!

6. Leaking roof.  The tank in our ceiling has some holes in it.  We have a part of our roof that is all wet and moldy now, but people have come to fix it twice.  Finally, the college decided to just buy us a new tank to replace the old one which is not in good enough shape.  We are very grateful for that.  Here is the house, coming together nicely, and Sara's garden is coming along.

She is still working on collecting mulch to cover the whole garden.

7. Jogging at High Altitude.  It's been tough!  Can't....get...enough.....oxy....gen..gasp gasp.

These are the types of things we've been dealing with.  None of them are big things, but it added up to a very interesting and busy few weeks.  Now we truly feel at home and settled in and we really like the house and the place that we live in.