Coming Together

This has been an exciting year in our family. We added the cutest little boy, Ashton, to our family in February. He has been such a blessing to us and we love watching him change and grow. Ryan has graduated with his Masters of Arts degree in Intercultural Service from Anderson University School of Theology and is so excited to be finished. With all of our life changing events this year we have not been able to fully focus on raising our funds for us to go to Kenya. We are ready to go, but we cannot with out your help. We need people and churches to be our senders. We currently have19% of our funds raised and we MUST be at 50% by August. As you can see our need is urgent! Our goal is ever approaching quickly. However, we will not be able to leave until we have completely raised all 100% of our goal. God has called us to go and we are anxious to do so. For us to reach our 50% goal we need $18,705.74. Our God is big and He can help get us there. The great thing about this goal is it includes pledges. That means you can pledge to support us, but do not have to send money until we leave for the field. However, there is another benefit to this. If you choose and pledge to support us and have the money to do so immediately, it will go into our start up budget as double support: both as a pledge for our living link and start up funds. Please consider joining us in reaching our financial goals! 

Spring Celebration

Hey All,

We just wanted to let you all know that Ryan and I are going to be attending the Spring Celebration in Eugene next weekend, May 17th-18th. We would love to see as many of you as possible if you are going to be there. We will have a table and will be available to answer any questions you may have.

See you next weekend!

Rebecca

We're going back!

Hello All,

As many of you have heard by now, Ryan and I are heading back to Kenya! We are blessed beyond measure that we are able to share this information. God is so good! We are hopefully going to be there by fall of 2014 and our current assignment is to teach. In the mean time we are working hard at getting everything ready for us to go. Ryan is still working on his Master's degree and working while I am working as a substitute teacher. In the near future we are going to start fundraising, so be looking for more information about how you can be apart of sending us to Kenya!

If you are new to our blog feel free to take a read through our previous posts from when we were on our internships. You will get a small taste of Ryan's humor and storytelling about life and culture in Kenya that we both miss very much.

Blessings and love to all of you,

Rebecca

Final thoughts from Kenya

Dear faithful followers,

I apologize that it has been quite a while since my last post. However, with the hustle and bustle of the end of the school term Becca and I have been extremely busy. I equally apologize for the fact that this will be my final post since we will be returning back to the states on April 1^st. For any future correspondence about Kenya, our ministry and life in general please email one or call one of us upon our return. In addition to this, we have been asked to share about KIST and our internship at both Oregon State Camp meeting and North American Convention (Indiana Camp Meeting) and would be more than glad to fill you in on much more of our Kenya trip at each of those two events as well. As always thank you all for your support and prayers. You all have been a true blessing in our lives not only here in Kenya but throughout our lives as a whole.

So, I am happy to say that the school term is finally over. It ended last Friday with the last final and with Becca and I finishing the curriculum for the new course that will be offered next term (thank goodness for finishing the curriculum, for all you non-teachers creating a curriculum from scratch is a lot of work). It is always wonderful to see how your students started and grew throughout the course that you taught. It was awesome to see how my students writing abilities improved dramatically over the course of my writing course. I am relieved and happy for the end of the term, however, equally sad knowing that it means that this amazing time that Becca and I have had in Kenya getting to know the missionaries, students, staff, puppies, teach students and faculty, minister/serve and just come closer to God is winding to an end. I must take this opportunity to thank God for the experience and people that we have had here these past three months, knowing that our time here and the relationships that we formed will go on to be a continued is a blessing to the both of us. Thank you all who have touch our lives in here in Kenya, we will miss you very much and pray that we will have the opportunity to fellowship with you once again in the future. To some of you we already said our goodbyes (very sad moments), and to the others we will say good by this coming Saturday (very sad approaching moments). Although Becca and I are leaving KIST we will always be thinking and praying for KIST and each and everyone one of you.

Before I start shedding a tear, I must change subjects and will revisit the sadness of goodbyes and thank yous in concluding this final blog. So on to the new topic...where to start? I guess acknowledging God's glorious wonders would be the most appropriate. Two weekends ago Becca and I spent the weekend with the Baltes' at the Kakamega Rainforest at a missionary retreat called Rondo. First off, I will not go on and on how wonderfully relaxing a short retreat is out on the mission field except to say that, “oh my goodness, it's wonderful.” I will focus on how amazing God is to create something so wondrous as the rainforest and all of the amazing and beautiful creatures that he created in it. Upon our return to the states we will be posting Facebook pictures of our weekend trip to Rondo, but in the mean time I will try to do justice to it and paint a picture of its beauty and our experience there. I say I will try to do justice, however, truly the pictures cannot portray the true wonder of it and God. With that said I will try my best. Try to imagine every color of the crayon box splashed all over, intermingled to make some of the most beautiful flowers and plants that I have ever laid eyes on: plants that hold every color of the rainbow within each tiny petal. I cannot begin to fathom or describe the shear marvel God used in imagining and creating the rainforest. What is more marvelous is that these are only the plants of the Rondo.

There are many hiking trails all around Rondo for the visitors to explore and enjoy God's creative hand. Imagine walking through lush trees, bushes and plants while Red Tail, Blue and Colobus monkeys jump from tree to tree overhead. We have many pictures of these monkeys to share, however, the pictures do not capture them making impossible leaps of faith across trees, grooming one another’s' babies, and dropping nuts and fruit on us. Imagine 50 or so different kinds of butterflies in all manors of color and pattern fluttering about in every direction and you will begin to imagine part of one of the trails that we walked along through the rainforest. I can go on and on and not even scratch the surface of how awesome the trip to Rondo was. Relaxing at the edge of the serene rainforest and walking through the beauty of the many living creatures was simply breath taking and marvelous.

At the end of the term the school has what is called a Wisdom Circle. This is a gathering of all the students and faculty, to roast a goat (yes roast a goat, well more like dry out a goat into goat leather and eat it) and use gained wisdom to discuss one of many theological topics. As always I did not miss this opportunity to experience Kenyan culture (Becca was sick with a fever and slept). It was very interesting to witness 30 or 40 students and faculty (many students had left for the weekend so the number was small) debate and argue back and forth the topic of the Family of Christ. This was an experience that you truly needed to witness to fully understand what took place.

Since this is my last blog I feel it is necessary to discuss the final chapters of the insect war. After countless and I mean countless explosions of DOOOOOOOOOOOM upon the ants living in the walls and roaming subsequently everywhere else in the house I have come to realize that I am fighting a losing cause. The ants will always be here as long as this house exists. I have only curbed the magnitude to which their invading forces have overrun our home. Although the sheer extreme manifestation of black dots roaming across the walls has been limited to one a few ants here and there it has been futile to attempt complete genocide upon the pesky little things. Not a day has gone by without a size 13 flip flop (affectionately know in these parts as the Black Hammer) crushing a dozen or so ants in various places throughout the house. It is safe to say that some amount of equilibrium has been reached with the bugs for our remaining days here. Besides I know the moment we leave the population will explode once again and the ants will once again reign complete control over the house. This house will remain a smorgasbord for Baby Lizard and Norman for years to come.

I am glad to say that since the early war against the Cockroaches in which in used extreme chemical warfare to claim dominance we (I mean I) have had only one battle with the evils menaces. Raochzilla, the queen mother of all Kenyan roaches found her way into our bathroom one night. I was unpleasantly surprised by her appearance from the shouts that woke me up from my sleep by Becca. I locked my self in mortal combat (literally Becca shut the door on me and I was not aloud to leave until I killed her) with roachzilla for five minutes that night. Half asleep I chase the nasty thing all over the bathroom. Why did it take so long to kill one bug you ask? This monster flew, I mean since when do roaches have wings and the fly/leaping abilities of an Olympic high jumper. Furthermore, she had an exoskeleton body armor that was nearly impossible to smash through. I will applaud her on her endurance, I have never seen a bug take such a beating and last so long. She must have taken at least a dozen Black Hammer smashes before she was immobile, and three or four toothpick spearing before she died. Yes, toothpick spearing in Kenya one form of entertainment is creating new and unique ways to kill bugs. Like breaking the legs of big bugs so the ants come and eat them. Terrible and evil I know, but so much fun too. Needless to say roachzilla was killed and the people of the International House (Becca and I) were free from her terror once again.

One final note about the Bug Wars (as they will go down in the history books as being called) I completely devastated the Beezillas. I am not sure if any of you have ever seen a wood burrowing bee but they are giant; I'm talking Texas huge. I mentioned these terrorists in my previous blog I believe and how I fought them. Little did I know that these things would be back and in force. Two nights ago I had enough and my person vendetta against them came to an end when I used probably half a can of DOOM on their tunnels. It’s such a satisfying sound listening to them buzz to death as the DOOM poisons them to death. However this battle was much greater. I dropped so much DOOM on them (its safe to say that I dropped it like it was hot...thank you late nineties music) that they fell from the sky landing on head...which I will have to say was kind of nasty but wonderful to know I killed each and everyone of them. I'm sure they will return some day, but leaving Kenya knowing that I killed them all currently make me a happy man.

All right this is freakishly too long and there is far too much more for me to write about so I am going to end this final blog. If you want to know more about our time in Kenya please ask, email and or call. My one request is although I enjoy telling stories (if you didn't figure this out by my blogs), please do not bombard Becca and I with a thousand questions all at once. Three months of life and God's ministry is quite a large amount of info to share and we will do so over time. I must end by once again saying that we are going to greatly miss living here. We are going to greatly miss the students and staff here. We will greatly miss the missionaries here. Becca and I have been so blessed to meet and fellowship with everyone. We love you all and look forward to getting to know you throughout our lives even if at time oceans separate us. We will always be praying for KIST and everyone here. Becca and I pray that once again we will get to see many of you again. To our friends and family back in the states, we will see you soon.

My final goodbye (sadness),

Ryan and Becca too

P.S. We are also gonna miss Rondo puppy and Nalla (not sure of the spelling but the same spelling like Nalla in the Lion King) older puppy too. I am going to here how we need a dog for months thanks to you amazing dogs.

We are still in Africa...Happiness

Friends, family, country men (and woman so we are not gender specific),

Firstly I would like to say that Becca and I have been blessed time and time again here in Kenya. This experience has not only provided wonderful hands on training/experience in our calling to the mission field, we have been blessed with wonderful relationships and amazing ministry opportunities. There are not words to describe the awesome work that God had done in our lives in the past eight weeks. I can only say that God is good, He is great, He is amazing and He is so caring.

It is hard to believe that we only have five short weeks left before we return back to the US. In the past eight our classes have gone on great. Our student have responded well with msungu (after three blog posts I finally got the spelling correct) teachers, learning what I pray is lots. I cannot always tell because Kenyans pretty much will always tell you that you are doing a good job. However, I do see improvements in writing in my students, so something I’m telling them is sticking. No matter what, both Becca and I are experiencing a lot in teaching cross-culturally. Learning not only from our teaching experiences, but also from our students and various interactions with other Kenyans.

Sunday marked our last CMIA (Christian Ministry in Action) in which we accompanied two students at KIST to one of the local churches they serve at. We had been contributing at the church in a number of ways. We taught Sunday school (with translation help), Becca preached (with translation help), and we did many prayers for various parts of different services. Upon our first arrival at Musitinyi Church of God we were ushered into the responsibility of lay pastors. I have to say it was different sitting in front of the entire congregation for the duration of the service being watched like a goldfish in a fishbowl. The experiences were great, the ministry was great and the relationships that we formed at the church will go with us forever. Side note, Ugali a corn flour tasteless mashed potato like concoction; the stable of the Kenyan diet is in small part quite low on the yummy factor. However, through Samuel’s (a student of mine and one of the students that we accompanied to the church) pestering and encouragement has grown on Becca and I. I can proudly say that we are now eating a respectable amount by Kenyan standards. It was a little hairy at the start, (oh how Kenyans enjoy laughing at msungus) but we have survived and the Ugali now goes down without any hitches. Oh and anyone related to me back in the US (meaning Shrout’s and Hodges’) you will get to partake in the white Kenyan sensation soon enough upon our first visit to Oregon.

It was a sad day when we left the church for the last time. I was told everyone was pleading for us to come back, although I speak little Swahili and even less of the local tribal language so I cannot confirm this. We said our goodbyes, left and are already missing the church staff, our students and the congregation. I am just glad we did not have to say goodbye to Samuel and Harriet (the other student we accompany) that day too. We will be savoring our last few weeks with our students, the staff and especially our missionary friends knowing that we will soon be leaving them.

With this writer about to shed a tear I am moving on and will attempt to describe the major happening of day to day life for the past couple weeks here at KIST. As I posted in the previous blog, February is the dry season and as a result our house ran out of water. Thank you for all of your prayers because I can report that we have been getting the occasional small rainstorm. However, it was not until a few days ago that we were able to enjoy the comforts of indoor plumbing within our own home. As part of the water tank drying up, our water pump dried up and worked its self to death and well it died. Due to this issue our home was without water for two and a half weeks. No showers, no toilets, no nothing. However, such an inconvenience did not stop the Hodges family from going on with life. No, we did not go that long without a shower or using a working toilet, in case you were wondering. I definitely got a little hairy in the face region from lack of shaving, but all the other water needs were taken care of. Buckets of water were brought into our home to flush the toilets with and to do the dishes. We walked over to the empty mission house and showered, all and all it was really not a big deal. Although inconvenient, lacking indoor plumbing in the house did not really faze Becca or I. We take these things for granted back in the US, but truthfully one does not have to have such things. Thank you Jeff and Jeremiah for all of the headaches surrounding our water, Becca and I really appreciate everything that you did and have done for us. It was truly wonderful to take a shower in our own home for the first time in a while yesterday. In the coming weeks we will be leaving the dry season for a wetter season in which rain should be much more prevalent, so the water issue should be behind us.

While on the topic of broken household appliances, our refrigerator has been another inconvenience that we have faced off and on for about a month (3^rd week of January-2^nd week of February). This issue was fixed about a few days after my last post, but is note worthy. Long story short, our fridge died, we moved our food to another house and it worked again so we moved everything back. It died a second time, and this time it found its self in the refrigerator graveyard and we moved our food a second time. Another fridge was moved to our place and we have had our food in our home ever since then. Once again minor inconvenience, but I wanted to mention this because once again we saw gracious help from Jeremiah and the missionaries here at KIST. They are all wonderful people, and have made our time here great.

It has been a few posts since I last updated you all on the war against the terrorist organization known as APP (Annoying Pest Population). What I once labeled as an invasion force has since employed gorilla tactics, hence their down grade to a terrorist cell. Although there forces have been reduced because of timely release of chemical weapons, like many terrorist organizations they have cells that pop up all over the place. Similar to Alkida in the Afghanistan Mountains one such cell as created a tunnel network in our front door covering. I say in, because they are wood burrowing bees (the size of Voltzwagens) and at one point burrowed an extensive tunnel network through the rafters and trusses. There are pictures of the tunnel openings and one of the bees on Becca’s Facebook. To fight back the bees I was forced to use the majority of an entire can of Doom. The sheer size of the little pests, and their ability to hide and maneuver around in their tunnels made it quite a tricky task to kill them. Upon multiple sprays into the holes most of them flew out of the tunnels. All in all I think I only killed two of the seven that I have seen at any one time. It was quite interesting however to hear them buzz at one another during the process. I am completely convinced that buzz means, “Hey there is a crazy giant coming to kill us, fly away!!!!!!!!!” I almost felt bad for the two who died because I could here them stuck inside the wood buzzing in agony as the poison slowly did its job. Since the “spraying of the bees,” a have only seen one or two of them, however, I have no idea how many are left. Until I sprayed I did not actually see that many at any one given time.

Well I have so much more to share, but must get on with working on the faculty development that Becca and I will be leading this Friday. As always thank you for your prayers for KIST and us. You have truly blessed us here. I look forward to sharing many more stories with everyone soon.

Love from your friends in Kenya,

Ryan (The Bug Assassin) Hodges and Rebecca who is teaching right now

More Hodges Life in Kenya

Hello blog followers,

Thank you for your continued prayers and support for Becca and I. I want to start out by asking additional prayer for many of the students, staff and faculty here at KIST. Malaria seems to be hitting quite a few of them and I would just ask for prayer for healing and for their families who worry for them. Secondly the dry season is wreaking havoc on KIST. Yesterday our home ran out of water and we were told that the city probably wouldn’t send KIST water for several more days. The Deputy Principle had water pumped from his tank to our tank so we now have water but it is becoming a scary situation all over the campus. SO Please, please, please pray for rain here. Normally the dry season ends by March, but pray we get good rain sooner for the crops that we cannot water as well as water for the houses, dorms and kitchen. Finally, prayer for the school in general would be wonderful as well.

This past Sunday Becca and I started attending Christian Ministry In Action (CMIA) with two students here at KIST. The students on Sundays are required to go out and help in some ministry capacity at the local churches around the area and Becca and I are going with two students to one of the local churches and help in any way as well. It is about a kilometer walk from KIST. We had a great time this past Sunday. Becca helped the female student with teaching Sunday school for elementary students, while I helped the male student with Sunday school for junior highers. It went great but I was not prepared to be put on the spot to teach a Bible lesson. Thank goodness the topic was youth leadership so I could quickly read 1 Timothy 4:12 and discuss how it tells youth not to let anyone to look down upon them for their age but to be leaders. Side not of humor…As customary after the service the church leaders fed us some food and Chi. This was great because it was about five hours since breakfast. However, hospitality is huge in Kenya so despite my several attempts at telling the hostess that I was full, the hostess filled and refilled my mug until Chi was coming out of my ears (ok not literally). Thank you Dr. Hawkins and Lisa for showing me a cultural way of saying I am satisfied so that I don’t walk home Chi and groundnut logged again. These are the two big updates on what is taking places in our ministry/internship portion of our time here at KIST, Becca and I pray and look forward to see how the remainder of God’s plan for us unfolds for the last month and a half for us here.

General Happening and Life:

Not much to report about this portion of our experience here in Kenya. I did discover that if you do not keep up with causing DOOM to the ant colony that live in our walls they will try to stage a cue and invade with what I consider to be the largest invasion force in bug history. Norman, one of our house lizards was keeping the tiny little sweethearts at bay until last week when I discovered the living room just caked (I mean lines of ants all over the walls). For better understanding of the ants find the pictures Becca posted on facebook and you will see how I spent an afternoon last week raining (or should I say spraying) destruction…DOOOOOOOOOM down upon our wall ants, mwahahaha (dastardly evil laugh). The bugs are truly harmless, but the boy in side of me comes out when causing ant genocide and it is a great form of cheap entertainment. Maybe that is a little creepy but has become a part of life.

I began a journal last week which I have titled “Reasons to laugh at a Musungu.” (Translated to reasons to laugh at the weird white man). I am saving this journal for story telling when Becca and I return home, however, I can give you a flavor of what it includes. It has Topics such as: Sneezing in front of the church when the pastor starts praying, Bugzilla landing on your head freak out dance, chalk handprints on your butt (and no not Becca’s hand prints my own thank you very much...gosh perverts), the white man can’t tell the difference between a Kenyan avocado and passion fruit. These titles do not sound very entertaining but come with hilarious stories, believe me. These are only a taste of the humor a tall musungu brings to Kenya.

Alas I must start helping Becca cook dinner (although I keep telling her its culturally weird for a man to cook and thus shouldn’t). We are having a much-needed stay at home date night tonight. I somehow allowed her to con me into this three days before valentines day in which we will be having another one (ok, so yeah she fluttered her eye and used her girly voice and I caved. What can I say but married me can be weak sometimes). I pray that all of you are doing well back home and Becca and I look forward to talking to you when we return.

Adios (Until the next installment of Ryan and Rebecca in Kenya) Love from,

Ryan (and Rebecca who is baking me a make up birthday cake…she insisted because on my birthday she used a Kenya cake mix to bake one and it was disgusting. This one is hand made from scratch…I truly am the luckiest man ever to have such an amazing wife)

Life, Ministry, and Bugs...the African Way

Thank you all for your continued prayers and financial support.

Well faithful blog readers, I just want to apologize for taking nearly two weeks to post this blog but life in Kenya has become much more busy with classes in full stride, Becca and I creating and teaching professional developments, creating curriculum for a future course offered here at KIST, internship homework, homework for our TESOL in Ministry course and discipleship groups. My goal is to in the future post weekly, but I may fall short a few weeks.

Firstly, teaching is going great for both Becca and I. The fourth week of classes just ended and our students are doing well. No major crises thus far and I look forward to seeing future progress in learning. To all of you teachers our there, you know how wonderful it is to see your students learn and succeed in your classrooms. Teaching has been slightly difficult due to the available resources, but that has not stopped learning at all. Please pray for continued guidance in teaching as well as students who are still ready to learn as the term continues on.

This past Wednesday Becca and I created and taught our first ever faculty professional development. I will be honest and say that both Becca and I were nervous as anyone usually is when they teach their colleagues in front of the entire administration. From what I have been told, it went well with lots of positive feed back about what we taught and how we did. I guess if you get compliments from the Principle and Academic Dean you did something right. We have three more that we are leading while we are here so pray for continued success.

The Principal and Academic Dean asked Becca and I to create an entire curriculum for an introduction course to college. This was a requirement passed down from Global University (the US university that KIST is associated with), which was passed on to us since we have the most experience in creating lessons and curriculum. This will be a large amount of work in addition to all of our other responsibilities here at KIST. We feel honored to have such responsibilities while here and know we can accomplish it all but we do ask for your prayers in accomplishing this and our other duties in our last two months here.

Now for some home life, general life and really anything else that does not fall into the category of work and or ministry…

Where to start? In addition to teaching and being here at KIST, Kenya is amazing; the people are so nice, the landscape is beautiful and the weather stays between 75 to 85 most of the time.

Well I better report that we had a successful campaign against all things that are cockroach. I have not laid eyes upon a living or preferred dead roach in about a week. The poison did its job admirably and upon any future invasions of my home by the pesky menaces I will quickly deploy the poison once again…mwahahaha (sinister laugh). However, we do have other creatures living in our home such as the colony of ants that live in our walls. Why don’t we kill them you ask? Well we cause DOOM upon them once or twice a week (DOOM is the insect killer that is common to Kenya), however, after a few days they return and we watch them scurry up and down our walls once again. I don’t know what your definition of doom is, but doom to me means death! Destruction! Eradication! Ant mass murder! Extreme happiness of humans, oh and did I mention death!!!!! Not, hey a few ants die; they are gone for a few days and then its back to same old, same old. Oh well, ants are ants and they are not that harmful, just pesky. Although on a side note about the ants, we do have two lizards living in the house as well affectionately know as Baby lizard (cuz yeah, he is a baby) and Norman. We find both in random places in the house, but it is always entertaining to see Norman launch out his tongue and eat one of the ants.

Anyways enough about bugs and lizards, well probably for now anyways (I have a few wood burrowing bee stories as well as spider stories). On a more serious note, if you are currently experiencing rain and would prefer sunshine please ask the Lord to switch weather with us. Kenya needs rain for cops and house water supply. It is the dry season here in Kenya and each day past without rain our water tanks cry just a little more about how empty they are (side note, for sake of smell, pray that we get rain soon so we don’t have to start skipping showers and reducing toilet flushing. We are not close to this point yet, but the dry season does not end until March and I fear it might be a smelly February).

About 30-45 minutes away from KIST there is a restaurant and resort called Kaboko Bay. We were taken to the restaurant for dinner twice and its pretty much super beautiful there. The restaurant sits on the bay of Lake Victoria (second largest lake in the world) and the landscape is just spectacular. Seating is outdoors, which gives you the picture of eating your dinner under perfect blue skies, palm trees and flowers everywhere and the lake off in the distance. There is only one tricky part to this restaurant. Kaboko in Swahili means hippo, so it is called Hippo Bay. This is on account to the hippos that roam around the bay and resort, or at least so I’m told. Hippo Bay has been hippoless which is sad because Becca and I really want to post pictures of the wildlife and the hippos have been a no-show.

At long last I must stop being distracted from my TESOL in Ministry homework and stop writing. It probably doesn’t come soon enough; I hope I didn’t put anyone to sleep at this point. Once again thank you all for all that you have done for us.

In poor attempts of making fun of Ryan Seacrest,

Hodges out