Christmas

I know, I know, it has been way too long. Well, here are a bunch of pictures from the last month or so that should make you like us again.

Sophie did her first Christmas music program. She is not very fond of these sorts of "public displays" and she generally chooses to protest her attendance by doing the opposite everyone else around her. Dance recital this year should be awesome to watch!

This is my favorite picture from the day. She is looking at her friend next to her like, "What in the world do you think you are doing?"

Our kids are blessed with lots of cousins on both sides of the family. Here are all of the cousins from Erin's side.

The Girls

The Boys

Christmas was extra special this year. Addis was old enough to get into it, Sophie had the time of her life, and Catherine and Easton are old enough now to actually remember some of these moments later on in life.

Everyone participated in making Santa's cookies. Addis spent most of his time eating spoonfuls of icing, but he did manage to get a few cookies done.

It is a Kennedy family tradition to wake up WAY too early on Christmas morning. My brother and I used to be up and ready to open by 4:30 am. In order to keep the tradition going, we wake our kids up at the crack of dawn. We let them sleep till 6:30, but as you can see, they were still VERY asleep when we went to get them up.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Our Blog Absence...

If you want to know why we haven't posted in a while, I haven't been around much. As the media pastor at a church, this time of the year gets really busy. Sunday was our big Christmas performance at church, and I wanted to pass along a little bit of the work we did for it. Here is one of the videos from the concert.



I promise, the next post will be pictures of the kids. That is what you all want to see anyway!

The Whole Cast

When your family completes the main characters of the Wizard of Oz, you might have more in the quiver than the average American family. Just an observation.

If you ask our kids, they were characters from the Veggie Tales knock off, the Wizard of Haas. They have never seen the real version before.

Here is our tin-man. He was so excited that he got to put on face paint. He only asked 10,000 times when he was going to get to put it on.

Addis made for a pretty cute lion.

The girls outfits were very fitting for their personalities. Catherine was the sweet and innocent Dorothy. Sophia was the scary scarecrow. The best thing about Halloween costumes is, at this age at least, they have a much longer life than just one night. The kids continue to dress up, including Addis, and roam around the house pretending to be The Wizard of Haas.

Adoption Video

I was asked to highlight some of the families in our church that have adopted for our Pastor's message on Sunday. We are so thankful that our church was so supportive of our adoption of Addis and that he is able to grow up in a place that celebrates adoption.

Some of the referral pictures are blurred out because the families are still in the process of adopting.

Me Too...

I wrote something for our Pastor's blog today about our experience in Africa. Go check it out when you get the chance. Here is an excerpt:

Life in America is tough. Life in Africa is tougher. I don’t know if that is proper English, but truth rarely fits into neat grammar.

For the last two months, my family of six lived and worked in the African nation of Malawi. With a life expectancy of 37 years and an AIDS pandemic that is unrelenting, Malawi is tougher. However, it took me a while to admit it out loud. At first, everything was an adventure.

Read the rest here.

School

If you want to go to school in Malawi, you have to have a school uniform. A lot of kids can't afford a uniform, so they are not supposed to be able to attend. Thankfully, they have relaxed that rule lately to allow the poorest children to still attend. We had uniforms made for our children so they could experience Malawian primary school. The uniforms cost about $3 a piece, and they are custom made by the local tailor. Our church takes care of 50 orphans in a non-residential program that pays for their school fees including uniforms.

The primary school in Madzanje has around 1300 kids in grades 1-8. Problem is, they only have 4 classrooms. The other rooms are grass huts that they put up just for shade. When the rainy season comes, most kids choose not to go to school. Recently, they decided to allow the kids to use the court buildings for classrooms, so the kids that used to meet under the tree outside can now have a roof over their heads.

Since our kids are "azungu" or "white," the headmaster wouldn't let them go to school in the grass hut building. Instead, they went to the courthouse with about 50 other kids. See if you can pick them out in the picture below.

The longer school went on, the more the Malawian kids crowded towards Catherine and Easton. By the end of school, they were squished up against the wall to the point that they couldn't even see the board. It might seem crazy, but white children have never been to this village before.


The longer we live here, the more I feel like there are two main areas that could and should be addressed. Healthcare and Education. For $1000 a school building could be built where these kids could go to school year round. The foundation has already been laid. They just need sheet metal and bricks to put it up. And a clinic in Madzanje is in the works as well. Maybe someday soon these issues will be taken care of.

My parents came in yesterday. It is really great to be able to share this experience with them. Their coming means that things are winding down here. Just a week left and there still seems to be so much to do. We are trying to finish up the last remaining projects. We are working on beds for the orphanage right now. For those of you who donated, much of the money is going towards mattresses and bunk beds for the kids. For children who have spent their lives sleeping on grass mats, a bed and mattress is a rare luxury.

Patrick's Story

Patrick is 14 years old. He lives with his grandmother along with his 2 younger brothers. He is very shy but his smile comes out every now and then. His mother is 31 and has advanced HIV/Aids. She lies on a mat outside their hut, her body frail because of the disease.

We first met Patrick when we took him to the doctor for large sores on his legs. He had lived with them for quite a while, but didn't know where they had come from. The doctor mentioned that sometimes HIV causes sores, so we should have him tested. Knowing the state of his mother, we knew he was probably HIV positive as well.

We loaded up Patrick along with his brothers and took them to the local clinic that does free HIV testing. The doctors took him to the back room and we waited, hoping for good news. When he came through the doorway, his smile said it all. The life-wrecking disease was not passed on to him or his brothers.

Yesterday, we got a call that his mother was bad enough to go the hospital. They admitted her and it doesn't look good. The hospital here is rough. They don't supply any food, so a family member has to stay and cook all the meals. This means that Patrick's sole care giver, his grandmother, will be at the hospital. We asked him who would watch after him while his mother and grandmother were away. Apparently a half-sister lives nearby, and she will come stay with him. She is 14. Same age as Patrick.

Here is Patrick, showing off that great smile, sitting with his mother in front of their home.

The Meaning of Money

You hear the "dollar a day" stat all the time. In Malawi, most people earn a salary around that amount, if you are one of the 60% with a job. Being here brings a whole new perspective to the statistic. Numbers turn to faces. Faces become friends.

The truth is, money isn't really the main way of survival here. Most people live off of the land. They grow their own produce, raise their own chickens, and build their own homes. Sometimes, I feel like money just complicates life and brings on responsibility that most people aren't ever ready to handle. It is no wonder that Proverbs teaches that the love of money is the root of all evil.

I used to think that when Jesus said, "To whom much is given, much is required" he was talking about people like Bill Gates. The top 1% of the richest people in the world. He certainly couldn't be talking about my family.

Then, you move to Malawi. Suddenly it is hauntingly clear. We have been given MUCH. And MUCH is required of us.

Safari

This week my mom and aunt Mo came to visit. It was so wonderful to have them here. I loved the help with the kids and I was really excited for them to share in the experiences that we are having here. It is so hard to express what it is like here. Zach came 2 years ago and brought home a million pictures and video but I was never able to truly understand until I stepped off the plane 4 weeks ago here in Malawi.

So since I am posting tonight and not Zach prepare yourself for pictures!!! Zach almost killed me when I asked him to upload all of these for me. I know...I should learn how to do it myself.

The first picture is just us waiting for Grammy and Aunt Mo to get off the plane. The kids were so excited to watch the plane land. And I don't know if you can tell from the picture but right at their feet there is an opening in the glass that is just large enough for a small child to slip out of... a small child named Addis. Yes, he almost crawled under the glass and fell off of the balcony of the airport. Thankfully some man grabbed me and pointed out my son on his suicide mission.

Days are long and hard around here, so it was time for an escape. It is crazy that there are places like Mvuu Camp in Malawi, but I guess there are tourists everywhere. The lodge and restaurant are situated in the middle of a huge national wildlife reserve. You drive "safari style" for about 10 miles before you reach the river. You then get into a boat for an hour tour. At the edge of the river there is a restaurant with excellent food. Which we proceeded to eat until we were all miserable. After four weeks of tuna and ramen noodles we couldn't help ourselves.

This is the children hanging out of the sunroof of the van as we drove through the safari.

The crazy thing is that we really are as close as the picture looks. It was amazing to see all of these animals this close in the wild. It made me a little nervous too because Addis kept trying to jump out of the boat.

My mom made friends with this little girl one of the days we were at the orphanage. Her name is Ana and she is one of the fifty orphans in the non residential program that we care for at Esther's house. They are fed vita-meal every morning and fed a big lunch on Friday and Saturday. Ana asked my mom if she would be her special friend.

This is a goofy picture but I had to post it. This is Addis holding baby Ana. He always wants to hold her because he sees his brother and sisters hold her all of the time. She is with us 2 nights and three days a week. I am also well aware that his hair is a little scary in the picture and poor Ana agrees. By the way this is what she does most of the time we have her unless I have her tied on my back in the chitchenzie.

I love these last two pictures. Every time we are out at Esther's house or in the villages the local children flock to our kids. They want to hold their hands, carry Addis, and pet the girls hair. My kids kind of like the attention. Well three of them do. Sophie just gets irritated and wants me to hold her all of the time. Imagine that! I just wish they could communicate with each other. I think they would all really enjoy each other if they could talk to one another.

Well that is all for today. We don't have any big plans for tomorrow except for catching up on school. Grammy and Aunt Mo might have set us back a little this week!!

Where is They Moms and Dads?

As we made the drive from the capitol city of Lilongwe to our little home in Ntcheu on the very first day, Sophia was the first to notice the cruelty of Africa. She looked out her window at all of the children wandering the streets and asked, "Where is all they moms and dads?" While not all of the children that she saw were orphans, many were. In a country where 1 million children are orphaned, you will encounter at least one every day.

And that is why we believe in adoption so strongly. Because, although an institution like Esther's House can show love, support, and family structure, it can never replace a Mom or a Dad.

At this point, Malawi is not very friendly to adoption. They require you live in country for 2 years or have written a few hit songs while wearing a cone-shaped bra. If you don't meet one of those two requirements, you are out of luck.

When you look at the massive numbers, adoption may not make that much sense. What can adopting 800 kids a year do to help a country that is struggling with a problem of millions? But when you look at the ONE, it makes all the difference.

For the ONE, he/she gets the chance to have a mom and dad again. And that is a chance that every child should have. It is time for Malawi to change the laws to give kids that chance, and there is rumor that the change may be coming.

Our Week in Pictures

It has been a while since we posted some good photos, so here is some of our recent events in photos.

I am not quite sure what has been wrong with Addis, but he has cried A LOT since we arrived in Africa. I think he is afraid we have brought him back to leave him here! Much of the day, he is making this face...

Everyone immediately knows that he is from Ethiopia. "He has the eyes," they always say. It is pretty obvious from this picture that he is not a Malawian.

Catherine is in Heaven on the days that we keep Anna. She begged to carry her around on her back like all of the other 5 year old girls do here, so we let her for a little while. She is really good with her, and doesn't shy away from her when she cries. That is a good thing, because she cries a lot.

Like we have mentioned in the past, it is very dirty here. Always. Every day.

This is our version of fall pictures this year. Sophia does not have a black eye, though those are bruises on her forehead. She is just really dirty. I think I have already mentioned the dirt though.

Grammy and Aunt Mo made it here yesterday. They are visiting for the week. DJ, the camera man, had a run in with the local Police at the airport. Apparently immigration officers don't want to be on TV, so he had to tape over all of his footage of the customs area.

This is our little Malawian drive in movie night. The black thing in front is a laptop. Josh and Kristen Copher are living with us for a few weeks, and it has been great to have their company.

This is Nylia, the care giver at the orphanage, along with her family. She was so excited to show them off to us. She had not seen her kids in two months while she had been working at the orphanage, so it was a grand home coming for her. She gets two days off a week now that we are here watching the baby. We are also working to find more qualified care givers, though that is proving a little more difficult than we once thought.

While we were in Lilongwe picking up Grammy and Aunt Mo, we stopped at a really cool greenhouse/nursery. They had a great playground and the kids would have played for days. It is funny how much you miss a good playground.

Funny picture of Sophia for the day... Wonder what she is thinking here?

Sophie got sick in Lilongwe on Sunday morning. She laid down in the floor after a throw-up false alarm, and she was asleep in a few seconds. We moved her to the bed, but not before a picture!

The sunsets here are amazing, so we leave you with a small taste of a Malawian evening.Good night from Malawi.