It’s always Autumn in England

Thursday, Evan and I fixed up a warm bed for the cats in the barn and put a bowl of food and water out for the cats. We noticed one of the kittens was not around and neither was the momma cat. We assumed momma was out hunting and baby maybe hiding. Well, for the last 24 hours, we have only seen two kittens around. 1 boy, 1 girl. They are both super friendly and now I am very glad we are putting out a little bit of food and water for them. We know momma was hunting, because Thursday morning there were new bird feathers in the barn, so they had eaten. I wondered if momma was hunting and had to take shelter somewhere else because of the snow, but wherever they are, the two kittens still that are still around don’t seem to be going anywhere.

boy cat

girl cat

We also have snow drifts that are massive all around our yard. It was windy enough, that the snow was getting inside the barn, which is a first that we have noticed. If you want to see more of the snow around our house, you can see pictures here.

The last few weeks, Evan has noticed a grey striped cat in our barn that would run away whenever Evan went in there. We didn’t think  much of it, because we had been in Kenya, and then it was so cold, we figured she was taking shelter.

This afternoon, as I was packing up at work to come home, Evan called and asked how I felt about having a permanent barn cat. I asked why, and he said that the cat that has been there has 3 babies! I asked how old they were and he thought maybe a few weeks old.

So, I rushed home to take a look at our new family

The mom is a pretty small cat, and I would guess pretty young herself. Then, as I am sitting in the barn, out come kittens. They have made their home in one of the ’stalls’. The one that has the most junk/trash in it that still needs to be cleaned out. I am sure it was the warmest spot they could find. Well, the 3 kittens came out, and I was still sitting there coaxing the momma to come over to me, when I look back under the pile of junk and see another little head peaking out. Turns out there are 4 kittens! I got a better look at them then Evan did and they are at least 7-8 weeks old by their size (and maybe even a little older than that). Plus, I watched a couple of them go outside to pee, so they are "litter trained" and after feeling up momma, I would say she is barely nursing any more, because her nipple-odians are pretty small and mostly dry.

So, we have 5 barn cats, that have been living there since birth - by our best guess. I think maybe these guys will stick around, but now I am back to the same old debate - how much do I ‘take care’ of them. They won’t ever come in my house, but do I take momma and get her neutered? If so, I really can’t afford to neuter 5 cats. I think I will take an carboard box and old towel outside for a bed, and encourage them not to live under my trash. We plan to clean that out this spring anyway.

edit: since ang already left a comment, is there somewhere i can get them spayed/neutered for free? if so, where?

Well, just for fun, here are a few pictures I snapped!!

One of the first thing everyone asks about our trip to Kenya is if we went on a safari.

Well, let me teach you I learned in Kenya. Safari is a Swahili word for journey or trip. so, any time we arrived at a new destination after a long drive, we were asked, "how was your safari?" Therefore, if you want to know if we saw lots of animals in Kenya, the answer is, we sure did!! These times are called game drives. Our driver would take us out into the parks for the express purpose of seeing the animals.

We went on several game drives while we were in Kenya. We went to both Nakuru National Park and the Maasai Mara. Both of these are animal preserves and on the Maasai Mara, there is no human activity. No buildings, no people and you have to get a pass from the Kenya Wildlife folks to get into either of the parks. On the Maasai Mara, you have to be out by dusk. In Nakuru, our hotel was actually within the borders of the National Park and that was kinda fun.

We saw: lions, giraffe, zebra, gazelle, tipo, warthog, lots of birds, ostrich, hyena, vulture, hippo, crocodile, water buck, water buffalo, cheetah, white & black rino, and many other animals I am not thinking of right now. My favorite? Plus, it’s one of my best pictures!!

(you can click on this for a bigger image)

Here is a link to many more pictures - and keep checking back, because i keep adding more to the album
Maasai Mara pictures

One thing I don’t want to do in life is just go through life gliding along without any purpose or plan for my actions and choices. This post my feel a bit random, so bear with me as I get my thoughts in order and process them as I type. Hopefully, this post will not be the end of these thoughts, it might just be the first of many times I express this line of thought in my life.

Sometime this summer, Evan and I came across Matthew West’s music and bought his album on iTunes. I looked him up, read his story and realised we were probably 2-3 years behind in discovering him…but I guess maybe that’s because we had been in England and the Christian music scene is pretty limited.

Anyway, I heard his song, "Going Through the Motions" and it really strikes a cord with me, so, here are the lyrics:

This might hurt
It’s not safe
But I know that I’ve gotta make a change
I don’t care
If I break
At least I’ll be feeling something
‘Cause just ok
Is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

Take me all the way
Take me all the way
Take me all the way

I want people to look at my life and know without a doubt that I live passionately, on a daily basis for Jesus Christ. I want people to see that my thoughts, actions and words are all driven from my love for Him and my relationship with Him.

This morning in church, Dave spoke from the passage Ephesians 4:11 and the gifts that Paul writes about in that passage:
Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers, and Shepherds.  I’m not going to say which gift really spoke to me today, but it again brought an awareness to me about how I do certain things, and why I feel about some things the way I do.

This does all tie together, because I believe we must use the gifts God has given us in order to further His Kingdom. Dave did a great job describing how each of these gifts is alive in the church today, and how we must be willing to let people function within their gifting to be the best we can be as a body. If you stifle any of these gifts, you stifle what God can do within that body. But, I think we have to be very purposeful about this, because it is too easy to be fearful about allowing other to operate within their gifting when it is uncomfortable for us.

I want to live my life giving and using my gifts fully, so that no one can ask if I was giving my all. I want to live so that my passion for Christ is evident to all. Sometimes, all I want to do is go through the motions and get through the day, week, job, or situation, but I don’t want to one day wonder if I given my all if it would have made a difference. I want to know that I did my best, and gave my all, and that is all anyone could ever ask me to do. And, if I do all that for Christ, with Christ at the center, then I know I have done all He has put before me and the rest is up to Him.

A week ago, my sister told me I needed to update my blog from our time in Kenya. "I know" was my response. I don’t even know where to begin, and so, I just keep waiting. But, I want to share the stories I learned, and just a few of the 2000+ pictures that I took. If you want to see pictures, they are all on Facebook. I have several albums that will go along with some of the stories I tell…so I will add them throughout this post and likely other posts to come.

One thing I noticed about kenya that I have never experienced before, was how genuinely welcoming the people of Kenya were. Each place we went, we were greeted with kindness and were told to "feel free" - free to ask questions, look around and make ourselves comfortable. Even in the slums, where they had nothing, they wanted us to sit in their only chair, while they stood in the corner. Or the group of widows in Mbita (click here), who surprised us with a meal, giving us chicken, fish, chiapti (my favorite), rice, and ugali. I am sure it was more food than they usually eat in a week, but they wanted us to know how much they appreciated our visit and how much they valued our time in coming to visit them. I also noted a genuine love for their country. They were so glad that we came to Kenya, to see their country, but I didn’t notice the pride that I see in America. Americans tend to assume that people REALLY WANT to visit America, in Kenya there was a hint of surprise that we would visit (especially in the rural areas) but they were geninely glad we were there and wanted us to ask as many questions as we could. They loved to share their culture, history and lives with us - and they did it without pride or arrogance.

I was pleasently surprised that they usually did not know we were from America. I have spent enough time in Europe where Americans stand out very obviously. I could usually spot whether groups were from America or Europe in Kenya, but the locals often didn’t know where we were from. In and around Europe, I usually try to get by as British and avoid being sen as American, because occasionally (or quite often) you don’t get quite as nice of a reaction if you are American. That was not the case in Kenya. The welcome was sincere no matter where you were coming from. I really liked that.

Pictures I took at Sarah’s wedding today

I have wanted a Digital SLR camera for many years. So, earlier this year, I decided that I would save for one, and for the last 4 months, I have. All money from birthday and Christmas went into this camera. I ordered it on Cyber Monday and it arrived last Saturday. I’ve been having fun getting to know my new camera.

Here are a few fun pictures from the last few days.

*Edit* These are my sisters dogs. I babysat my neice and nephew the other night and snapped these while I was there. I tried to take a few of the kids, but amazingly, they were harder to photograph than the dogs. I’m not sure if that speaks more of my abilities and the fact I don’t have kids, and do have pets, or if kids are harder to photograph.

Daisy

Donald

I realise that I kinda disappeared from the blogging world. To some extent that has been purposeful. I’ve missed it. I’ve also had a lot going on, and several things in life have been frustrating and I haven’t wanted that to take over my blog. I’ve been journalling (yes, with a notebook and pen) again a lot more. This has helped me get some of my thoughts in order and I feel a little more like if I decided to blog about them, they would be less of a rant and more thoughtful for the sake of my readers.

Anyway, moving away from that subject, but don’t worry, I will come back to it at some point…