Kenya or Bust!

Hey everyone! :)
We are 11 hours from leaving this Ship off to an adventure to Kenya, East Africa! It has been a whirl-wind of an adventure to get to this point, but its amazing how God really and truly provides!! (and all I need now to be provided is..sleep! hehe!...so this is the reason for the short blog post)...

About 2 1/2 weeks ago, we were finally approved to go to Kenya for an ACSI International School's Teaching Convention in Nairobi, Kenya! However, we were also faced with the challenge of raising over $8,000 in 2 weeks! ...We held an auction to "sell ourselves" ...okay wait wrong wording... to auction off our services.... of a variety of things such as baking brownies, putting on a birthday party, having a driver for a day (a prized need on a weekend), a pedicure at the local hotel, even hotel accomadations in South Africa (when we get there in a few months)....oh wait...and the best one of all... Our male teachers shaving their legs, face (both have go-tees) AND their heads!! In one night the Lord allowed us to raise $4,500!!!!!!! WOW!! then an anonomous donor of $2,000 the next day... and then again, small donations fled into our school...raising above our need!!!! This is truly a miracle being witnessed before our eyes! So....
OFF TO KENYA WE GO!!!

Please pray for our safety to Kenya, our connections and relationships between international teachers at the conference, and that we learn a lot and are able to bring it back to our school!

Also, I have the amazing opportunity to visit Bishop Francis Kamau's church on Easter sunday, and as some of you know, this is a church and school that my family has supported and prayed for and my dad and grandpa have both been there (my dad several times!). It has always been a dream of mine to visit Kenya and the Church and School there, and its amazing how God really just allows so many things to be done in our lives when we just allow Him to lead. I cannot thank the Lord enough for this opportunity, nor can I thank Bishop Kamau to allow me to come and visit his chuch, school and most of all, family! Please keep us in prayer as well!

A few fun things to add really quick, would be our Academy Student's blogs that they create during Computer IT class! Check them out! They are pretty cool! and they update them regularly!
Grade 3's Blog : msagrade3.blogspot.com
High School Blog / Academy School Newspaper Blog: boxshipnews.blogspot.com


Also... Just an update from our ship... We are always and constantely needing prayer... please keep everone in prayer about events that happen during our services here in Togo, and all over Africa. An amazing amount of AMAZING happens... but with that comes the hard times too... Love you guys and miss you! Here are the blog links for the ship news of the latest happenings... (you may want a box of tissues...)
Baby Ani (1) : http://alirae.net/blog/archives/370-baby-ani.html
Baby Ani (2) : http://alirae.net/blog/archives/371-speak.html