Birthday Cake and Smiles

12 July was Ramsey's birthday. We normally love birthdays and usually try to do at the minimum a movie or out for lunch or sometimes we invite a few friends over to celebrate the special day. However, this birthday came during a busy time. Unfortunately we really didn't plan anything because most of our planning energy has been expended on our upcoming trip to South Sudan. It's a good thing that I can at least make a good chocolate cake...smile. And we ALL love chocolate cake from stratch.

A friend of mine as been letting me borrow her kitchen aid....what a blessing!!!

The boys didn't want to wait for the cake to cool to put the icing on it. So I thought I would put it outside to try to cool it faster...but as you can see from the next photo....they decided they could just put the icing on the side and have warm cake.

mmmmmmm....yummy..........HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!

Africa Rains and Rainbows

Today was such a beautiful day! And then late in the afternoon it just started raining while it was sunny outside, so Ramsey, Elhanan and I ran outside to see if there would be a rainbow...we weren't disappointed  it was a beautiful FULL double rainbow. Thank You Jesus!

Psalms 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God;

    the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

We recently finished another women's Bible study group. What a blessing and a joy to minister with these ladies every week. Please keep a couple of our ladies in prayer for us. One of our ladies, her husband is winning the fight with cancer...thank You Jesus!!! Betina (in the black top below) is in North America working right now and missing her family back here in Kenya. Pray that she is able to finish up what she is doing and come back soon. Also, her husband has been sick, please keep Sammy in prayer. 

L - R / Adrienne, Hughena (visiting us), Elhanan hiding, Me, Martina, Ursel, Starlene, Betina, Ronda,  & Erica
Some of our Bible study ladies from our last group

Good memories of studying these with women from all over the world

We had no power that day, so we watched on the laptop...very blessed

My various Beth Moore Bible study books from over the years

AFRICA BUGS!!!!

We have been over-run with beetles for a little while now. 

NO JOKE!!! We have friends that have filled up BUCKETS with these critters every morning.

Actually it is not that bad, it only lasts for a less than a couple of weeks and then they are gone till next year's heavy rainy season, but as one of our friends put it...she hates hearing them "crunch" beneath your feet when you are walking...YUCK!! 

Smile!! Praying you are blessed today!

Close up shot of our African rain beetles

This is just a small section of the beetle population found outside the house (this photo was taken at our neighbors house) when you wake up in the morning. The worst is if you go outside at night when the light is on and they fly into your face and hair...smile!!!

How much?????!!!!!!!

Cooking Gas...

Has just made it onto my list of "oh my goodness!!!!!"

We just ran out of cooking gas this morning, so we called our guy who gets it for us. We usually go thru a 15kg gas canister about every 3 months or so and it has been 2600/-ksh for the last 2 or 3 times we have gotten it....today we were told the price is 4800/-ksh!!!! I nearly fainted!!! That is a 85% price increase in the last 3 months!!!

Please pray for Kenya and mostly for the local Kenyans. The price of basic items has just increased so much these past few months and our friends are really having a hard time.

Thank you for all of your love and prayers for us!

Blessings,
Ramsey, Vicky & Elhanan

Thanksgiving Praises

the almost over-cooked turkey, but it actually still turned out really good. thank You Jesus! 

Greetings All,

We just wanted to say THANK YOU for your Thanksgiving Day electricity prayers!!! They were answered! We had power ALL day! But I heard from other friends around Nairobi that they didn't have power, so I am so blessed that we did, but am so sad that others did not.

The Lord blessed us with 20 adults and 5 children under the age of 10! It was really fun. When we took the photo some people hadn't arrived yet, but the Turkey was ready and everyone was ready to eat, so we had to take the picture and start without them...smile. Jesus made sure there was still plenty for them when they arrived. He is a Good God!!!

However, Daddy/Ramsey was unable to make it home in time for Thanksgiving. He is in South Sudan taking care of the children and building a new dorm room for the additional 20+ children they received last month. We are so blessed to be a part of these children's lives for this season.

Please pray with us that Ramsey will be able to come home this coming week and that we would have a great family time together.

Also please pray for a development/sustainability project we are working on with the some of the more remote villages in Ramsey's area. We are in the process of having some equipment made for that project and we really could use prayers that the equipment is made properly and will last for years to come and will be a blessing to those in the project.

Thank you for your love and prayers for us!
Blessings,
the Vule family

friends who came early to get the turkey while it was hot! smile. we still had a few more people show up later, it was so much fun! 

thank you Dan for doing the honors of slicing the turkey for us! you did a GREAT job!

our little man turns 3! what a joy he is to us!!!

Vicky hurt herself...how????

So here is something doesn’t happen to a person everyday….

Let me go to the beginning of the story….

One of my neighbors called and said that she and our other neighbor were going for an early evening walk and would I like to join them. I would love to!

So at 5:30pm I left our house for a quick walk. I needed to make it quick because I left Elhanan with our helper and she would be going home at 6pm so I was only going for 30 minutes.

We all met up on our friends’ property, which is on the side of the Nairobi Game Park, they have even more animals on their property than we do on ours. We were walking along and suddenly right in front of us was a beautiful giraffe! I immediately said Thank You Jesus! I was so happy to see him/her because we haven’t had any giraffe on our side of the road for quite a few weeks, possible months. I got my phone out so that I could take a picture and we continued walking…

Until!!!! A HUGE buffalo came charging out of the underbrush at us with a very loud angry snort!!! I have never been soooooooo scared (well except for the time that I got shot at by thugs with an AK-47 – but thankfully that was a long time ago) anyway….he must have been asleep because he was laying down and when he heard us is when he got up very angry!!! Oh my I RAN!!!! However, one of my friends’ has pins in her back and she can’t run (walks great, just can’t run) and my other friend slipped and fell on the rocks. When I turned to see if the buffalo was chasing us (thank You Jesus, he wasn’t) I saw my one friend on the ground so I went back for her and our other friend made it up some steep rocks.

Needless to say…..our hearts were pounding out of our chests!!!! We had a good laugh and talked about the time the one friends husband was out on a walk and he and his dogs came within 10 feet of a lion!!!!

On my way home, walking up our driveway, as I was thanking God for His protection, I saw our resident buffalo laying down in our yard….he has decided for about the last week or so that he lives on our compound and hasn’t wanted to travel far from us.

Thank you Jesus!!! What a blessing it is to live here! I pray that I can shine Your light to our neighbors and that they would see You!

Thank you for praying for our protection and that God would use us to show His glory and salvation to those He puts in our lives.

Ouch….I gotta go put an ice pack on my feet…I totally twisted my right foot in my running from a angry buffalo that I woke up sleep….something I never thought I would hear myself say!!!

In His arms,

Vicky and family

here is our resident buffalo. usually he is fine and doesn't cause any problems, but lately he has been pushing down our fences! oh well, we still love him around...he makes a GREAT watchmen!