Almost time for our first visit to Africa!

We are exactly 11 days away from boarding a plane for our first ever trip to Africa! No, we are not going to pick up our little Angel, but that would be amazing if we were!

Mike and I are leaving on a trip with 4 of our friends from our church, Discovery Christian Church, to the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. We will be staying in the home of our friends Fred and Alice Afwai. I am thrilled to see Africa for the first time and to see the amazing work that Fred and Alice do at the school, church and safehouse that they run. I am especially inspired by Alice who runs a school for approximately 300 primary students, as well as running and caring for the children in the safehouse. This is quite a task when she needs to personally meet even their most basic needs suchas purchasing water from the water rationing truck.

This safehouse was started by Fred and Alice so they could provide a place for children to stay who had no other place to go, many of them have pleaded with Fred and Alice to provide a space in the safehouse so they can be near Candlelight school for the opportunity for an education. In a culture where many women do not serve in leadership roles Alice is a full partner to Fred in the work they do to minister to their community. What an amazing woman!

I have been told many times what a different world it is in Matopeni than it is here in suburban Broomfield and I am trying my best to accept that it will be very different and to celebrate the joy of opening my life up to a new expirience. This trip has been 18 months in planning and I can hardly contain my apprehension and my excitement!

While we are there we will be working hard in any way that we can for Fred and Alice and their community. We will be teaching in the school, playing with the children and even teaching a class on computers. Our group is bringing 6 donated laptops with us as a gift to the new computer lab they are building (thanks to a great fund raising effort by Denver non-pofit The 10/10 Project). I'm sure we will come home exhausted and changed people - who have been well cared for by our Kenyan brothers and sisters!

So some of you who are reading this blog may be wondering, what exactly does this trip have to do with a blog on adoption? Well the exciting news is that I have been waiting patiently for the last 8 weeks (since we decided to adopt) for this trip because Mike has asked me to wait to start our "official" adoption paperwork until we get back from Kenya. So no - not as exciting as the trip to Africa we will take to go get our little Angel - but very exciting to me!