Empty Nest...... by Judi

Our last night with Zachary at home we decided to bless him by having our "candle tradition" with a twist. We placed a candle in the middle of a bowl (which represented Jesus) and placed 3 little tea lights (Zac, David and I) around the large candle... we then asked God what the upcoming blessings and treasures might be for this next phase of his life. He mentioned things like friends, courage, wisdom, fun. With each blessing we placed a glass bead into the water alongside the candle. At the end of this time David and I shared scriptures with him that we felt God gave us to strengthen him during this time. He wrote them all down and then "preached" them the next day to the engedi workers before they prayed for him.

LATER......
Well, we are finally home from our journey to drop off Zachary at Rift Valley Academy in Kenya.

The orientation weekend was hard for us emotionally but also helped the process of leaving Zac and also helped for Zac to have us around for 2 days while he met new friends and his house parents before having to face all of this on his own.

The Parenting from afar sessions where ex-students and teachers and parents gave hints on how to lesson the stress and grief and how to say good bye was very helpful.

For those of you who pray for Zac. He will be staying in Twiga dorm and his houseparents are Robin and Ken Sossamon. They come from North Carolina and have 2 children = a girl in grade 8 and a boy in grade 10. They also have 2 dogs at the moment. One that they are minding for friends on furlough and one little dachshound dog called Lily who is an answer to prayer for a dog for Zac. He was so blessed that God provided this for him. He turned to me and said "mum, do you remember we prayed for 2 dogs?" Please pray for his dorm parents as they are new to this job too. 17 boys in one dorm are a lot of work if you want them to feel loved and keep to a schedule.

Zac's dorm parents and Lily their dog


He is able to email and has certain hours that he can go to the computer lab and send off an email.... let us know if you would like his email address. He has already sent us 2 emails. He also has a cell phone but very restricted usage and there is always the time difference.

A good website, by the way, for figuring out time differences is: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html

When we left RVA via bus on Monday after seeing him settled into his room we felt just a little tearful. Even though he had been playing happily with friends beforehand when it was time for the final goodbye and prayer he looked very vulnerable. Mum shed a tear and he hugged me.





Later, I texted him to see if he was o.k. and he texted back that he had eaten half the chocolate cake a dear friend had made for him. Later again he phoned and asked casually "So how was your day?" bless him. I am sure he was just checking in on us to see if we were o.k. Again our friend who had made the cakes for Zac and was a former RVAer had decided that she and her husband (also a former RVA student) would take us for dinner that night after picking us up from the bus so that we didn't sniffle into our drinks....

What a blessing! Even though my head ached from crying or perhaps the altitude and I worried that he wouldn't remember to put his laundry into the right bag.... we managed to have a wonderful evening where God loved us thru two wonderful people who both knew what it was like to be left by parents at RVA.

This is not a normal experience and not God's best intention for families but in our circumstances we feel sure that God has led us this way and that our son will become the best person possible through this experience. He needs your prayers and/or encouragement. He just faced his first Math test today....gulp!

The details for RVA are :
website: http://www.rva.org/

The address for RVA :
P.O. Box 80
Kijabe 00220
KENYA

Pray for the empty nesters too! Judi starts teaching "Thinking Skills" to the pastors today and has a women's weekend with the African leaders this Saturday and Sunday.

Judi's sister and her husband arrive soon for 2 weeks! Yippee!

David has upcoming management meetings, Vineyard responsibilities and prep for teaching 3 books of the Bible which he is really looking forward to.

Maybe there is some time for romance as well???