It's Been a While...

So it's been a while since we've posted an update, and needless to say, a lot has been going on! We are still blessed to be living and serving in Malawi, but we want to give you a glimpse of the highlights of 2014.


The BIGGEST news of the year is that our family of three grew to a family of four! We welcomed home 8 month old Jaden Thokozani on April 5th. We met Jaden at Amao orphanage in July 2013 when he was three weeks old. He is a happy, excitable, playful little guy who has brought many smiles to our family. We are still in the foster-to-adopt stage of the process and hope to have a court case set for his adoption soon. Please pray with us that this will go smoothly and quickly!

This April Kellen's parents were able to come visit. It was a blessing to have them here to participate in ministry and life with us. It was an added surprise bonus for us all that they were here when we were finally able to bring Jaden home!

We were blessed to have my mom visit for a few weeks this year as well! It was great to have her here to "do life" with us, see a bit of Malawi, and of course meet Jaden and get to know Yami better.

This is a picture of the seniors of last year's ABC college soccer team. They are a great group of guys and it was a joy to honor them and celebrate with them.

One of the above mentioned seniors is Mphatso Sandram. He is a bright, thoughtful and caring young man. We have been blessed to get to know him better and consider him a part of the family. His extended family is from the area surrounding Bright Vision and he has been excited about helping out at BVOC regularly.

"Zikomo" means thank you, and this group of children and their families, along with many others, were very grateful to receive free mosquito nets. The funds for 1,000 nets for the Bright Vision community was raised by 5 remarkable boys from Evergreen Church in San Gabriel, California.

This young woman's parents have passed away and she is now responsible for raising her 2 sisters on her own. Last year, a men's Bible study group from Danville, California was able to support a project through BVOC to build her family a new house. She was also able to receive mosquito nets from Evergreen. We are grateful to see how God uses people from across the world to love and care for those who are in need in Malawi.

Something new happening at Bright Vision this year was our agriculture project. This included irrigation farming which will help subsidize the cost of the feeding programs.

It seems like a long time ago that we celebrated the end of these 5 students' high school careers. The 2014 graduating class from the academy was a special group and we are excited to see what God has in store for each of them.

Group shot of the annual academy upper school retreat to Nkhoma mountain. It is an awesome weekend filled with hiking, fellowship, and time with God. We are thankful for these students and staff.

Kellen has the opportunity to speak to the upper school students in chapel every few weeks. He is gifted in grabbing their attention through action and humor, while still clearly speaking the truth from God's Word. The students love this photo, for good reason, and my yearbook class has already made plans to get it into the yearbook at least twice. :)

Yami and I have been doing "school" together at home this year. He is 4 years old and, to my delight, loving every minute! I am thankful for the time together, as I am not quite ready to send him off to school yet. He is also very excited about joining the reception kids at the academy next year and walking to school with dad.

At the academy we take one day a year to have fun celebrating reading by dressing as a character from our favorite book. This year Yami and Jaden had fun participating as well! :)

These boys are full of energy and crazy, and we love them! It has been such a joy to watch them grow and change. Jaden just turned 1 1/2 and I think they are finally getting the hang of what it means to actually play together. Yes, often it gets physical and loud, but that's boys being boys!

Relationships with those around us continue to brighten our days and bring deeper meaning to our lives. We are thankful to get to love and be loved by so many friends who we consider our Malawian family!
Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog even despite our erratic posting. We hope our next one will come sooner!