Last night, Dad and I went to an awesome restaurant called Carnivore.  When you sit down, they tell you that there is no menu, the meal starts with soup and bread, then they hand you a metal plate that is burning hot, and then they start bringing the meats!!!  The waiters keep coming to you...

My Wife Is Awesome … … for lots of reasons, including this excerpt from today’s World School...

A familiar flower blooming in the yard. S wrangling boys at World School table. A car drives by house, blaring music and message of a candidate for Kenya’s election. Said goodbye to young men yesterday. They are new friends who are taking strong steps in hard places. Sting of goodbye...

On the homefront, we have been digging in hard to school these two weeks, trying to make extra progress in math and also putting many of our experiences here into the context of geopolitical East African life.  We are so thankful to Sam and Lynn for loaning us their home while they are away,...

The woman in this photo was once on the verge of closing a profitable real estate deal in Nairobi’s Kangemi slum neighborhood. Her mind was changed, however … and the deal never happened. Instead, the property became the home for — and she became the Founder of — Akiba...

Alex, Chi Chi, Christine, Pascaline, Fabian, Kizito, Queen, Mohiedin, George, Festo, Wadhaika, Jackson, Rebecca, Ezekiel, Purity, Dave, and I have been talking about STORYTELLING. Each of these mostly twenty-somethings are drawn in powerful ways to telling stories with words, in sound, or in...

The US Embassy has gathered US citizens this morning at the Ambassador’s residence in Nairobi to talk through possible violence in Kenya’s upcoming election. It’s an information session to answer questions and talk through rumors, expectations, and plans. We’ve had...

E started learning about TESSELLATION today in World School. I’m not sure how that fits in to 3rd grade mathematics … but, for you English majors like me, tessellation is the process of repeating geometric shapes seamlessly across a page. S dreamed up a family project this evening...

Some new friends competed in a raucous 9-on-9 soccer tournament over the weekend — playing for pride against friends and neighbors in a Kenyan election spectacle organized to promote a candidate running for a seat in parliament. Four of the men in this team photo are involved with...

“Ninety percent of life is about Showing Up.”  It is not the first time I’ve considered this quote, but today it hit home for me in a new way. At 7:30 this morning some folks from “REALL cycle” (Recycle Education Awareness Leverage Life) gathered for community...

I know it’s been many weeks since we were on safari … but we want to share this giant audio journey of our time with lions, elephants, hippos, vultures, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, wildebeest, zebras, and the rest of Creation. It’s a quick-moving yet ponderous 15-minute epic...

    Elimu ni Akiba = Education is a...

This morning at AFEW Giraffe Centre,...

Looking and listening during Lent 2013. Laundry day for boarding students at Sonrise School in Musanze,...

Geoffrey says: “Today is a hard day.” I’m thinking he could mean any of a dozen things — hard because he lives in a Nairobi slum, hard because he supports himself, hard because it’s hot today, hard because we’re raking brush and debris and cut grass from a...

We had an incredible week in the “Land of a Thousand Hills” — beautiful land and beautiful people who have touched us deeply. Some highlights to narrate our (quite large) photo gallery: A day visiting World Relief staff and projects around Kigali — staff devotion, Dr....

This was my view of E’s brief walk with a young man named Geoffrey this afternoon. Scenes like this have led to some great writing the boys have been producing in World School. I’ve given them some fairly broad topics to tackle about our recent experiences in Rwanda and Kenya...

  Our first meal in Nairobi, Kenya was in a living room inside a prison. Our host for the evening, J.M.A.N., works for Kenya’s corrections system … and lives with his family — along with most other families of prison staff — in a house inside prison...

Earlier this week, we said goodbye to dear, long-time friends Alex and Sherilynn and their three kids as we left Tanzania.  In our last few minutes together, we had a frantic 10 minute dance party, took some crazy PhotoBooth pics, and sniffled our way through hugs and goodbyes.  Good times,...

Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight. These were the words I happened to read this morning from Isaiah, as we woke up to brilliant sunshine today in Musanze, Rwanda. Adding to the morning glory, the daughter of our current hosts was reciting this poem to the...

My first soccer practice was at E. Rivers Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia in 1977. I jumped out of my mom’s car and then ran pell mell down a steep, tree-lined hillside to the soccer field below. It’s a vivid memory still. The number on my jersey that year was number 8...

We’re told that the Rwandan genocide essentially touched EVERY Rwandan in some way. S and I struggle with how it’s to touch us. Above, is a photograph taken from The Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. Those long cement rectangles are mass graves for the remains of hundreds and...

I tried to explain the Rwandan genocide to our boys in a few minutes this morning. They really tracked with the information — from colonial rule, to the creation of Tutsi and Hutu labels, to civil war, to mass murder … but they stopped me when I started talking about...

  A shot from this morning’s Super Bowl viewing party in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Wake up call was 2:15AM … and the boys haven’t yet gone to sleep …. We watched the game in a State Department home, thanks to American Forces Network … which meant no...