Where oh where has Stephanie been? The short and sweet answer is on the mountain tops and in the valleys of this amazing life the Lord has blessed me with. Of course the full story is much more complicated than that, but God is so good! The mountain tops have brought more joy than I ever realized was possible and the valleys have grown and stretched me in ways that God knew I needed to be stretched and grown. Those very same valleys have also led me to some pretty great mountain tops. He is so good to allow the hard things in life to draw us closer to Him and to depend more on Him.

Vacation fun, YES I made them all match, it was their (MY) favorite!! I love this picture so much!

Back in October, life was pretty bumpy…in many ways my heart felt right, felt at peace, but I couldn’t seem to get life right. I was doing what I felt like the Lord wanted me to do, but it was not always being understood by those around me. Jeff and I were at odds a lot more than usual (missionaries are not perfect y’all) and I felt like a failure. One day I very impulsively deleted social media off of my phone. It was a huge distraction for me and I was using it to cope with the difficulty of my life. I had intended on accessing social media from a tablet or laptop, but honestly I am just a phone girl and never use a laptop or tablet so I ended up unintentionally dropping social media.

Joy painting some table frames to add to our dinning hall.

November came around and things started to level out. I felt like things that were off track in the previous months were now on the right track. Life was a little less chaotic, our school was closed for a long break, and our kids were home all day (which is actually my favorite) and were helping get projects done. As a family we had been growing closer together and seeing lots of growth in our older boys which has been such an encouragement to us. Just about the time that things felt okay, we found out that I was pregnant, but soon after that I miscarried. Suddenly everything felt wrong and chaotic again. I literally worked right through my miscarriage because life here just keeps coming and coming. Getting proper testing (to find out if I was miscarrying or not) in my area was difficult, but I knew what was happening. November was super difficult and I still do not understand God’s plan there, but I trust Him. He knew that that sweet baby was loved and adored no matter how small he or she was. It is hard being a Mama to a baby that you never got to meet. 💔 We also had our annual Bible conference at the end of November. We had over 900 people attend and it was on God’s sovereignty in suffering. The Gospel was preached throughout the two days and it was probably our best conference yet as far as how smoothly things went planning, preparing, and executing.

Alice (one of our caretakers) reading to some of our kids.

December was wild because we celebrated B’s 20th birthday and surprised him with a visit from his girlfriend, had a week-long course in permaculture for our older boys and our farming staff, had a vacation to Mombasa, and celebrated Christmas! While December was wild it was absolutely amazing. Several of us had never been to Mombasa and it was beautiful, plus we went with 2 other missionary families we know so it was a great time with friends. Surprising B was one of my favorite things ever, he was completely surprised and a little bit confused at first.

3 missionary families serving the Lord in Kenya! We had a great time with them in Mombasa.

January has been all about getting our farm in order and getting the school opened for the new year. When our permaculture teacher was here in December he helped up map out a new pathway which leads to the high school through the garden and it is absolutely beautiful now. There has been lots and lots of work done and more and more work coming. We have a good group working on the farm team now and you can see that they are working as a team and better understanding permaculture as a whole. We have fixed up our chicken coop and it is ready for new chicks and we are going to start working on our cow barn tomorrow so that we can go get our girls (2 Jersey milk cows!) and bring them home!

We have added so many “official” pathways to the campus and it looks so good! Ema is doing an amazing job managing the farm and getting things in order!

So far February has been about preparing for cows, creating better drainage so we can funnel rainwater to the gardens, and celebrating Aspen’s 12th birthday! We joined a Jersey cow society, visited the farm where our 2 girls currently are, and we are planning out our barn and should start construction in the next few days! We’ve had a drainage system for a while now but it just was not working the way we had hoped. We’ve learned a lot from doing it wrong 😂 so now we are hoping this is the right thing for our property and gardens. So far it looks better and seems like it will do what we need it to do.

If you are still here, thank you for that! I know I have dropped the ball on updates and sharing what God is doing here. I am sorry for that. In many ways life was swallowing me up…either in JOY or sorrow. These have been some of my most favorite months in Kenya and I promise to get back into sharing more and on a more consistent basis! Thank you for continuing to pray for us, prayers are vital to the work here. Thank you for trusting that the Lord is in this mission and continuing to financially support His work here. This mission means so much to so many. No matter how you support this ministry you are such a blessing…praying, sharing, volunteering your time, visiting us, giving…all of it is so, so important to the work here.

Where Oh Where has Stephanie Been?

LOCATIONS

HOURS