Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Hey everyone! We hope you all had a really great holiday, and good times spent with friends and family during this Christmas season.
Our Christmas was warm and sunny, and really didn’t feel a whole lot like Christmas! But the new experiences were good though, and we did enjoy them.

Christmas Eve was spent with some friends who live on our compound…we were invited to a campfire for the evening with them. Everyone brought appetizers, and we spent the evening outside, visiting, laughing, and eating lots of food!! The evening air was perfect…not blizzardy, not snowy, not cold and windy…just perfect!! :)

Trevor and I exchanged gifts with each other on Christmas morning…if we kept the blinds closed and couldn’t see the green grass outside, we could trick ourselves into thinking it felt normal!! We spent a nice morning together, then went to New Life Home to spend the afternoon with the kids and babies who live there. That was special…we really enjoyed it! The day before we had baked some cookies to bring to the ladies who work there, so they really appreciated that as well. It was nice to spread a little Christmas cheer to them, and to play with the wonderful kids who we have gotten to know and love there. All the kids each got a new teddy bear for Christmas, so that was neat, and made the holiday special for them too. Constantly we heard sounds of people singing “Happy Birthday Jesus” coming from the different rooms! We know that God knows and loves each of these precious children who live at New Life Home, and pray that He will indeed bless their little lives, and bring families who will love them as their own. They are all very, very special children, created by God for a purpose. Now that is an encouraging thought!!

That evening we were able to video skype with our families, which we were really happy about!! We missed them a lot, and so it was nice to be able to talk to them and see them, and share in their Christmas a little.

We also took a little holiday, and spent a few days at the Kenyan coast! We left early on Saturday, December 27th, and drove to the airport. The traffic at 5am is not enough to even speak of, and it was so refreshing to not have to deal with traffic jams! When we got to the ticket counter, we were very surprised to not have to show any ID…nothing!! They just took our e-tickets that we had printed off the computer, and took our luggage and gave us our boarding passes…good thing we really were Trevor and Andrea Wolfe!! And then they told me to just take my bag on the plane as a carryon…the one that I had packed to be checked in…so I had not been careful with what I had packed…so all in all it was a different airport experience! We were so tired, and slept most of the 1 hour flight to Mombasa. We walked off the plane, and immediately noticed the humid air that is so different from Nairobi. We collected our luggage, found the driver that was holding a paper with our names on it, and drove through the city of Mombasa to get to our hotel. Mombasa is much different from Nairobi, in that it is much slower paced, and the driving is not nearly as insane! People actually stop at the stoplights!! We were not used to that anymore!!
The resort was so beautiful…how can you go wrong when you have the Indian Ocean, pure white sand, lined with palm trees as your backdrop!??! We were amazed at the beauty of God’s creation yet again. We spent the next few days relaxing in the sun, taking walks along the beach, playing in the ocean, swimming in the pools, and eating delicious food! It was wonderful, despite the fact that I burned more than I have ever burned before!! Trevor didn’t really, because he was smarter than I and smothered his skin in sunscreen…something I should definitely have been more careful to do!! And I also got stung by some strange sea creature…not sure what it was, but my hand hurt for a few hours after that!! Oh well, it was all worth it!
We also spent time getting to know some of the people who worked at the hotel, and spent quite a bit of time with one security guard in particular. It was so nice to actually get to know the people, and learn a little more about the culture and get past just enjoying the beautiful resort. This man, Justin, told us that this wasn’t normal…typical tourists never really want to get to know the workers there, they don’t get past the “Jambo” greetings. (“Jambo” is the greeting in Kiswahili). He said he was so blessed and encouraged at the conversations we had together, and they way we got to know one another, and we were blessed in return.
One thing about Africa that is so different from Canada, is that no matter where you go, people on the street, or in this case, on the beach, always want to sell you stuff, or ask for stuff. Since it was a public beach, anyone was allowed on it, so it was difficult to walk along the beach without being surrounded by men who have been given the name “beach boys”, trying to sell us trips, boat rides, safaris, souvenirs, fruit, and any other number of things…it got a little frustrating and overwhelming after awhile! But it didn‘t take too long, and most of them figured out that we were not going to be buying anything, so they left us alone.
But all in all, we had a wonderful time, and discovered a new love for the Indian Ocean!! We decided that we are meant to live by the ocean, and think it would be a great idea to build a hut on the beach and live on fruit and fish forever!! No, just joking…but wouldn’t that be the life..?!?! :)

Today was spent at Nairobi Game Park…we had so much fun! We just borrowed a vehicle (the car we have here wouldn’t work too well, as it is so low and the roads are quite bumpy!!), and Trevor drove us around! We saw a lot of animals…giraffes, zebras, cape buffalo, ostriches, quite a few different kinds of deer, baboons, a hippo, turtles…it was so nice and relaxing just being out of the city and enjoying God’s creation in the warm sunshine. We brought a lunch, which we ate outside under the shelter of a tree. We kept looking for elephants and lions…and looked, and looked, and looked!! Four different times I thought I saw an elephant…once it was a deer, once an ostrich, once a rock and once a sign!! Sigh…! We know that they’re there, but we had no luck spotting them today. But we really enjoyed it anyway…what a great way to spend an afternoon!
After we were done driving around, we went to the animal orphanage, which is close to the entrance of the game park. They take in baby animals who have been left with no mothers, and feed and raise them. We finally got to see our lions there!! And they also have many other kinds of animals that they take care of. The coolest part was that one of the workers there offered to take us around…so he let us into the cages, and we were able to pet a lion, leopard and a cheetah!! It was so much fun!! As we were petting the cheetah, it started to purr, just like a regular house cat!! I want one now… :) (of course they wanted a little extra donation for that favour, but we didn’t mind. It was a lot of fun and worth it.)

Oh, and we also now share our house with two new creatures…lizards named Lizzie and Herbie. Lizzie is small and Herbie is tiny. At first, we didn’t know what to do with them when we saw them, and were kind of grossed out at the thought of having lizards in our house! But now, we’ve gotten to like them just a little, given them names, and think they are kind of cute!! They are also great because they eat the bugs and mosquitoes, which helps us out!!

Anyway, that’s a recap of our life these last few weeks…the holiday time has been great, and we have been able to see and experience new things. It has been nice to get out and do these different things, especially since we have been missing home this Christmas season, and missing our families a lot, so it helps to take our minds off of it! Trevor goes back to work at the TAM shop on January 5, so life will get back to normal then!! Till next time…
~A