Today at the office I’m working to the sounds of a cement mixer, concrete vibrator and plenty of other construction noises. The crew working on the new office building are starting on the third (or second… depending on your cultural background) and final floor. No pumper trucks here, it’s shovels, buckets and elbow grease! This will be the new office building for Kenya’s Bible Translation and Literacy organization. It’s also where many Wycliffe people like me serve. I wonder where my new office will be…

This building is a project of Wycliffe Associates and they are looking for volunteers. Visit www.wycliffeassociates.org for more details about this project.

We’re happy to announce our latest newsletter is ready to download. In it you’ll find out about our wild trip to one of the far corners of Kenya. You’ll also be able to read Val thoughts about an interesting game of musical chairs. Visit our newsletters page to download it.

Oh, and by the way… Happy Jamhuri Day!

After having a cat for only one week we knew that it wouldn’t be long before another one came along. Kara was determined to find one somewhere, and she did. A friendly lady down the road who owns a small duka (roadside shop) had a cat and offered to find a kitten for Kara. Two weeks later, Orea is now part of our family. She’s a cute, curious, cuddly and uncoordinated little kitten. This time, we’re keeping her in the house, which is a new thing for us. But she’s a lot of fun. She’s playing with my toes as I write this. One day Jesse said, “She’s sleeping on my lap, it’s like so… romantic!” We all love her, even Val! Now, if only we could keep her from clawing at the sofa…

Today we celebrated Emma’s 5th birthday. She actually had her real birthday pow wow yesterday afternoon with some friends and her siblings. Val took them to an indoor kids playground where they could burn off all the energy they got from the cake. They all came home absolutely exhausted. Emma held it together pretty good considering all the excitement, but Jesse got a bit cranky by the end. We’re always glad to have a reason to send the kids to bed early.

Today was the day she got to open most of her presents. She said to me, “I’m going to open each present and give a big hug to whever gave it to me.” Those of you who sent presents (you know who you are) consider this a big hug.

We usually don’t blog about topics that are deeply personal or serious but this is something that had to be shared with you. After searching the shops of Nairobi in vain for over 10 years Val had nearly giving up hope of ever finding it. She saw a few packs on the shelf once about 6 years ago but they were so overpriced it was ridiculous. We had resorted to smuggling them into the country ourselves for years and finding clever places around the house to hide them from those in the family with less self-control. But no more! Today, November 24, 2007 will go down in history as the day she found (and bought!) chocolate chips. Yes, we know, it’s amazing. They were priced pretty reasonable and taste good too.

Well, despite all of our best intentions, the cat didn’t come back last Saturday morning. After 7 days of love and affection and lots of good food, little Nipper took off last Saturday morning and hasn’t been seen since. We’re all a bit sad about this, especially Kara and Emma. We still have the cat’s bed made in case it decides to return. But for now, it’s a lot more lonely on our patio.

Kara and Emma have been pining for a pet ever since we left Canada. Well, now the inevitable has finally happened. On Sunday, our gatekeeper noticed a stray kitten wandering through our apartment compound and brought it to Kara who happened to be playing outside. After playing with it for a few minutes (and breaking down in tears after nearly losing it!) she brought it to us and pleaded for permission to take care of it. Needless to say, we now have a new member of our household: a cute, playful, and slightly malnourished little kitten named Nipper.

For now she (the cat) resides outside on our small patio. She came to us hungry as a lion and inhaled everything we could feed her. That combined with all the loving attention she got from our girls seemed to have convinced her to stay the night. The next morning, much to Kara’s delight, there she was, waiting for more love and affection… and food! On to de-worming and flea powder.

Having lived in Africa for so long and then coming home to Canada, I realized how far behind I was in geekiness. Being content with Windows 2000 I nearly skipped XP entirely. But when Vista came out, I decided to buck the trend and join the ‘early-adopters club’. Little did I know what I was getting into.

One of the quirky things is Vista’s folder views. Every once in awhile my preferences would get mucked up for no reason. I would set a folder to show details and come back later and it would show medium icons. I would set my mp3 folder to show music details and later it would be tiles. Program Files would switch to music details… etc. Very annoying! Yesterday I stumbled across a utility that claimed it could fix it, XdNTweaker. Reluctantly, I gave it a try and voila! So far so good.

Another annoyance has been Windows Mail, the replacement for Outlook Express. Every once in awhile a message would get stuck in a folder and I couldn’t delete it or anything. Microsoft finally released a patch for it: KB941090.

Now, if only they would fix the “calculating time remaining” problem…

At my office in Nairobi our current ‘high-speed’ internet connection starts at about 90kbps when I start work and gradually slows down to a snail’s pace by mid-morning. The afternoon is pretty much hopeless to do much on the web. By about 4:30pm the speed picks up again—just when we’re about to leave for the day. At home we have pay-by-the-minute dial-up which (for those of you who don’t remember those good ol’ days) is terribly slow. That’s why we don’t bother much with stuff like Skype, Facebook, YouTube, Googletalk… etc. It’s hard enough just to get our emails!

But now, after waiting more than a year year, we’ve finally acquired a VSAT (very small aperture terminal) satellite dish at our office and were hoping to have it operational last month. This is a huge answer to prayer as many people are depending more and more on connectivity. But, due to circumstances beyond our control, we’ll be waiting even longer. For now this dish will just collect dust and rain and whatever else the birds may drop on it until the remaining details are worked out. So close, but still further to go…

Yesterday we celebrated two festive events as a family: Canadian Thanksgiving and David’s 11th birthday. Being the kind, loving and gracious parents we are, we let David open his presents after school, after he did his homework, and after he practiced his trumpet and piano—which he accomplished in record time! We were pleasantly suprized because all of his siblings patiently waited for him to open them all without offering any assistance or needing to be physically restrained.

Last week Val and I realized that, for the first time, we didn’t know any Canadians in Nairobi we could celebrate Thanksgiving with. So I suggested we skip the turkey (and all the work!) and go out for Indian food. Val heartily agreed. Once David’s presents were unwrapped we jumped in our van and made for The Haandi to conclude our day. This is our favorite restaurant in Nairobi known for it’s fine Indian food. David loves it too and was happy to come along. Just before we left the waiters came and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to David and gave us complimentary ice cream. It was a great way to end the day!

This Wednesday is Moi Day here which is a national holiday. The kids will be off school that day so we asked David what he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday. His reply: 10 pin bowling with a friend.