Beautiful Baraton : Our African home

Our Helderberg home

My wife's dahlia garden

Rainbow over our house
If you look at the pictures of the saints or angels, there must be signs of circle on their heads known as halo.
In human relation we also learned about "halo-horn effect", a common developed perception where good looking people will always be associated with good character - saints with halo on their heads, while the ugly faces must be the bad ones - evils with horn on their heads.
Looking at the rainbow curved over our house make us feel like having God's favor of sainthood over our heads- not just a small halo but a huge rainbow.
What an incredible assurance for those are far away from home in a strange land.

"God, we have disappointed many...
broken our own promises...
betrayed our loved ones.
Yet You do not hesitate to reveal Your presence
by drawing a rainbow over our shelter.

Strangled by our shameful characters
We humbly accept You mercy.

God, Your presence is the ultimate consolation
A shelter in time of storm
An awesome wonder

How great Thou art
How great Thou art"

At home with Jonan in Bara
This is just a very short visrit from Jonan 2 weeks vacation. In fact, I must leave home for a teaching assignment in Kigali, Rwanda 4 days after he arrived.
Sunday Oct. 2 evening we decided to have a simple gathering to celebrate Jonan's birthday (Sept 24), Judith Omonte's birthday (Sept. 20) and the birth of the Omonte twins (Sept.25) with our missionary friends.
It was nice to enjoy delicious home foods, while the room felt so warm with the fire place on.
Thanks God for the beautiful home and the love we share with our family here in Africa... but we miss Tasha very much.

Our home after a big hail storm

After a big hail storm our campus was covered with thick layer of ice.
I took time to record the beauty of our white yard after the storm.
Our African home is still very beautiful indeed.

Home for us to share

It was such a wonderful evening when all the lights were on and the warm Christian love filled our hearts. My wife prepared hot lemon tea and pop-corn for our MBA students who came far from Rwanda and Tanzania. The night before the MBA students presented their thesis, they came to our house to review and practice for the presentation with power-point slides.
Therese, Mugara, Justin, Eugene, Deo and Abiud accompanied by Dr. Johnson Egwakhe filled our house with joy and laughter. That night our house was home for us to share Christian love. We're no daktari nor professor but brothers and sisters.
At about 10:00 we prayed together after they've completed their thesis defend rehearsal, and the following day they all passed with good grades. God is good all the time. Home is where you share God's love.

Our Bara house

Three weeks after we arrived in Baraton, the university took us to furniture shops in Eldoret to look for tables, cabinets and shelves for our house. We visited several places, but then we decided not to buy any from those shops because we thought the prices were too expensive for them to spend more for us. Actually they had provided us with basic furniture such as dining table and chairs, and also sofa for our living room. I told them that we could buy some woods and I will do those tables, shelves, and cabinets by myself. Together with our gardener we made those tables, shelves, cabinets and also some pictures frames. My wife then arranged our house with those simple furniture I made and decorated our wall with home-made pictures and frames. Our missionary friends who finished their missionary contract, the Tabaranza- dentist & music teacher from the Philippine and the Clausen - biology professors from the US, sold many of their belongings on adjusted price affordable to us. By then our house is all complete with beautiful lamp shades, vases, and even carvings.

This is just our temporary home, a simple one but Linda always keeps it clean and neat, and most of all it always looks so beautiful.

God is so good and now, we may proudly declare that we have our home here in Africa.