Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Happy Sunday.

This past week I was asked to house sit for the Chupp's, which includes watching their precious pup, Bailey. Throughout the week, in addition to my duties as the FOT intern, I was able to sit on a real couch, host some short-terms for a game night, and watch several movies from an impressive collection. If you know me at all you know that I absolutely adore watching movies. They bring you into a different world and show you how characters develop, or not, throughout the course of several hours. Plus they give you an unlimited amount of quotes to add to your vocabulary.

One evening, I was feeling sentimental and decided to watch something I hadn't in a while: Mary Poppins. The only thing I really remembered from the movie was the dance sequence with the penguins so re-watching it was actually great because I felt like I was watching something I hadn't seen before. Despite Mary Poppins' magical carpet bag, umbrella floating and being able to jump into chalk drawings, the movie includes some impressive themes such as positivity, familial struggle, creativity, and seasons of life. Seems pretty realistic for a fictional story, does it? My favorite character in the movie is Bert, a jack of all trades and Mary Poppins' closest normal friend. He's kind and charismatic while having the compassion to see a need and fill it. Right before the acclaimed "Step in Time" number where all the chimney sweepers dance on the roof tops, Bert and Michael (the little boy) look up into the chimney. While all Michael sees is a dark and dirty chimney, Bert sees something extraordinary. He sees, "A doorway to a place of enchantment."

Bert seems like the kind of person I would want to hang around. The kind of person that sees a desolate and empty opportunity and makes it into an adventure. The kind of person that sees something spectacular in people.

How amazing, and how.. Biblical. God created us, we sinned, He sent His Son, He died for us sinners. Why? Why did He do that when He knew we were dark and easily tempted by the world's distractions? Because He saw something beautiful in His creation, and still does. He has created a doorway to a place of enchantment for us in order enjoy His perfect love forever. Sounds like the place we ought to want to be.

Tom and Anne did such a beautiful job presenting the Gospel to these children!

I also had the chance to visit Kitoben Children's Home this week with a short-termer that has been here several times and has invested years in getting this home on its feet. The first day Anne took me and a visiting adoption counselor, Whitney, and we each got the chance to share a few words with the children. Anne spoke about the story of the gospel, Whitney preached about Christ's love for each and every one of those children, and I gave a short blurb about the gift of learning and our opportunity to search for Christ through school. Anne and Tom, her husband, have made a flip card bible verse key chain with 4 bible verses on it that these children, about 50, are memorizing. They have also begun to teach them the importance of discipleship groups and just yesterday implemented several groups lead by the older children in the home. They have incredible dreams for this community. I can't wait to see how they are used. You can learn more about it here: http://kitoben2013.blogspot.com/.
And this is just one of the families. Imagine being in a place where everyone wants to help, wants to improve their surrounds in some way, especially if they are willing to go before the Lord and advocate in prayer.

Visiting audiologist, Audrey, loving the tea factory tour.

In the midsts of the greenhouses where the roses were grown at Finlay's. 

Yesterday, a group of short-termers visited Finlay Tea Factory in Kericho, Kenya. This 5,000 hectare property that produces hundreds of thousands of pounds of tea daily. We got a tour of the tea factory which included a tea tasting session after the walking through the production and packaging rooms. We also were able to see a flower factory. This flower production plant grows roses primarily, but has several new flowers they are beginning to grow and export. Fun fact: this particular flower factory grew and exported 78,000,000 roses for Mother's Day this past year. Yes, 78 million. Unbelievable. And less than 1% of that goes to the US. Crazy.

Your prayers and thoughts have been powerfully working in my life and the lives of so many others, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your commitment to pray for me. Please pray that the short term visiting staff that comes and visits travels to and from their specific country or state safely, that their visit be blessed by each interaction they have and that the Lord's will be done despite our worldly plans.

If you guys have suggestions as to what you'd want to hear about please let me know! Remember, I'm new at this blogging thing and I'd love to keep you guys as informed and involved as possible because I wouldn't be here without you all.

One last thing. We played Apples to Apples again.. I didn't loose this time. Redemption!

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