Celebrating Ashlyn's Life! 17 years old!

Ashlyn Blake Downs entered the world on May 19, 1992 at 5:14 pm. Never could I have imagined on that day how blessed I would be 17 years later. I am in awe of the Lord in our daughter. I see Christ shining through her daily. Ashlyn has a heart to serve and care for and bless others. God has graced her with the gift of encouragement through her smile, note writing, and rubbing my feet (just to name a few). :) She has a way of including people so they don't feel left out. I have never known anyone who has so many "collaged" shoeboxes containing letters and cards from others and pictures galore--sentimental she is and I love it!

Junior Prom--Ashlyn (she is beautiful!) and her friend, Calen

I have learned much from Ash. She has taught me what selflessness looks like and exemplifies considering others as more important than herself regularly. Brian and I are so undeserving of of this precious one...what a gift of God's grace to us!...Overflowing with gratefulness!

Kenya Trip Video

This is a short video we used for our church's mission dessert.

Kenya Thoughts To Come...

We have been home in Fresno for six days! My heart and mind are filled with so many things that I haven't yet been able to put them in a concise form for you to read.

I keep hearing that you all loved Brian's humorous accounts of our adventures. He does keep us laughing.

The Lord worked in mighty ways and I can't wait to boast in Him! He has grown my love and faith in Him.

Thank you again for all of your support. We are humbled that you would sacrifice time to lift us up to the One who is magnificent and intercede on our behalf. We love you.

At the End...Literally

As we finish up our time in Kenya it seems Kenya wanted to leave us with some lasting memories.  My peaceful morning was initially broken by my daughter narrating her emotions... "I'm not freaking out, I'm not freaking out"  Seems an African spider had joined her in bed during the night...

Additionally, while preparing for the morning I felt a needle being shoved into my neck... seems an African wasp had decided to pick a fight with me...He lost but not after leaving his mark.

We headed back to the House of Hope for a half day of work.  Half of our team again headed down a different route to the orphanage and came across another African specimen

This was the most "tame" photo I had.  We had our fill of dead animals for the day.

Once we were all back the orphanage, we completed as much work as we could before saying good-bye at lunch.  I'm not sure but maybe they'll need to finish up the bathroom project after we leave.  Wasn't the most private as of yet.

Of course before leaving I had to get another little nap in... Hey, lead by example.

We got to also leave a bit of home with the kids.  Hope they don't use the slogan "Eat Mor Chikin" for their English lessons.

We headed back to Kijabe for a day of rest before our trip home.  The girls decided to take the day and paint one of the rooms in the hospital for the kids.

We will head off to one more mission stop on our way to Nairobi at a special school for disabled kids called Joy Town tomorrow then to the airport for our trek back to the states.  We'll leave Kenya tomorrow night at 11pm and should arrive back in LA around 1pm on Saturday.  I have to give back our access to the internet tonight so this is our last official post in Africa.  If something exciting happens on the way home, I'll add that once we get home.

What an adventure...

Toilets and Honey

We awoke in the morning to a pancake breakfast.  The Heart of the Bride has partnered with some people who built homes and allow people visiting to use them.  Our group was the first one to occupy this new home – or as I called it, Lodge.

We headed back to the orphanage for our work day.  The kids who were shy the day before warmed up more quickly to our group.  This boy was named Brian...

The guys continued on the work of their new bathroom.  It was quite interesting to see how they built the foundation and prepared to pour a concrete pad over it.  All of the concrete had to be hand mixed so we again moved rocks and sand from piles and formed new piles which we than added some concrete powder and the moved that pile to another pile and back again to mix it.  Yep, it was that exciting.

Of course, like all the other days…it rained.  Just as we started to mix the concrete.  We had to wait inside one of their classrooms for about 45 minutes before we could continue.

During one of the breaks the kids in school had, we broke out our skits and performed it to the little ones.  They really liked Daniel and the Lion’s Den – especially when the lions got to jump all over the bad guys.

Late in the day our team started to feel the effects of being on a missions trip for several weeks… They take it after their dad.

On the way home, some of our team rode in a more rugged vehicle and took a much more scenic route back home.  Along the way they saw some antelope and zebra.  I, being with the rest of the group, saw more dirt roads…

For dinner we had the pleasure of enjoying hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato salad.  Then our hosts led us out into the bush where we came across a group of men - one of which specialized in collecting honeycomb from a local beehive.  Up the hillside we walked following this guy and a smoking stick.  He used the smoke to “calm” the bees and stuck his hand inside the 4ft long hive.  It was getting dark so all we could hear was the buzzing of bees around us.  He pulled out two honeycombs and shared them with us.  That is when we realized he had brought some friends with him.  Mind you these are AFRICAN KILLER BEES…

 But the honey did taste good...