Thanksgiving Weekend

Wednesday afternoon Paul's parents came in town and we all had dinner at Gram's house. My family just adores Mom and Dad Hicks and it is so nice when we can all be together. Thursday we headed to Boone to spend a couple of nights with Paul's grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins. I truly love his family and couldn't be more blessed by all of my in-laws. Just between two of Paul's cousins there are 11 kids under the age of 5! They are kind of like the Duggars, if you know what I mean. But let me tell you, they are the most well behaved and non spoiled children I have ever been around. Paul and I take notes on their parenting skills every time we visit.

On our way home Saturday we went to a Christmas tree farm right by Paul's aunt and uncle's house and picked out our own tree.


It was my first time and I sure hope we'll make it a yearly tradition from now on. It was so much fun! I never had much room for a tree in my townhouse but since we are living in Paul's now, we have a little bit more space for a good size tree.

Behold, the first annual hand picked Hicks family Christmas tree.



We definitely felt like the Griswolds trying to get this big guy in the house.
Little full, lot of sap.




Paul had to do quite a bit of trimming and it still touches the ceiling. No tree is too big in my opinion though. And there are few smells as good to me as a fresh Christmas tree. I am so excited to be able to enjoy it for the next month. The majority of our Christmas decorations are packed too far away in storage at my mom's to bother getting out. It's times like these that I remember we aren't living in our permanent home and I can't wait to have a house with all of our things in one place. It will feel like we just got married again by the time we unpack all of the things we left behind when we moved into Paul's house almost a year ago. We did manage to dig a few Christmas things out. Sophie's Christmas sweater included of course.




My mom knitted this tree skirt a couple of years ago and it is such a treasure to me. It took her over 6 months.



My wonderful family is always very understanding of having to "share" us for the holidays so we waited until Sunday and had our second round of turkey day at Gram's house. Paul cooked the turkey.



It was his first time and he was sooo excited about it! It was a huge success and we've enjoyed three days of leftovers for lunch.

In less than 3 weeks we'll be out of school for Christmas break!

Where do I begin?

It's been so long I honestly don't even know where to start in catching up. My lack of blogging is due to me continuing to be extremely busy and exhausted from work. I'm sure all seven of the people that ready my blog have been on pins and needles waiting for the next post. I'll try to remember a few highlights of what's been going on with the Hicksters.

Soccer season got over about two weeks ago. It was the worst season Paul has ever had as a coach so we were both glad to see it end. We are also glad to have a somewhat normal life again...like walking in the door for the first time before 9:30, eating dinner together, walking the dog, watching a little tv.

Sweet Thomas in Kenya had his throat surgery last week. It was successful and the American doctor confirmed that he does not have cancer. It was some of the best news I've ever heard. He spent a few days in the hospital but is home now recovering and studying for his final exams, which is what you have to take before secondary school (high school to us). How he does on the exams will determine where he will be able to go for secondary school, none of which will be free.

We decided on a realtor after meeting with four different ones. She is going to wait until January to put our house back on the market. We have quite a few projects to tackle before then. One is having the inside of our house painted, which will start tomorrow. We found a super cheap painter, which we are so thankful for because it would have been a struggle to find the time to paint our entire house within the next few weeks. I will not miss these boring, white walls.

Work continues to be extremely difficult. I feel like I am limited on the amount of details I can share, but let's just say each and every day feels like the worst day at work that I've ever had. I am more than convinced at this point that teaching, at least in public schools, is what I will be doing for the next 20 plus years. The Bible tells us to count our trials and hardships as joy, so although I fail more days that not at doing that, I am trying. Thankfully He promises to see me through and not to give me more than I can handle, which hopefully means it can't get much worse than it already is. Paul continues to amaze me with what a wonderful husband he is. He has been so supportive and helpful to me during this hard time at work. Since soccer season has gotten over, he has been cooking dinner and doing a lot around the house to help me feel less stressed. I couldn't imagine doing life without him!

The new Twilight movie comes out this coming Friday. Paul and I used to make fun of Twilight fanatics until we gave in and rented all of them one weekend about a year ago. We've been hooked ever since and have been anxiously waiting for the new one to come out. We already have our tickets for this Friday and can't wait to go with our friends and fellow Twilight addicts, Abbie and Chris.

We are looking so forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. We haven't seen Paul's parents since this summer and miss them so much. With Paul and his dad both being coaches, neither us or them have been able to travel on the weekends. We can't wait to see them in a week and a half!

Hoping it won't be another month before the next post.

Kenya Hunger Relief Update

As I mentioned in one of the Kenya recap posts, we learned through the Kenya Red Cross this summer of their efforts to feed the thousands of people who are starving to death due to the severe droughts. Our team got involved with the Red Cross while we were there this summer and we've kept up with it since. Paul and I feel blessed and humbled to have been able to donate money. But with all of the many, many people starving to death, it's easy to feel like we could barely make a dent in the horrible situation with what little we are able to give. We got a break down of the impact that American money has on feeding these people. I thought if I shared it here, some of you would feel led to give, especially knowing just how far a few of our dollars can go.

$2.50 feeds one person for an entire week
$25.00 will feed a Kenyan family of 10 for one week
$10.00 is enough to feed a child for 4 weeks!!

Some of the pastors we work with in Kenya, which have become some of the most special people to me, have been working closely with the Red Cross to travel to the villages most affected and deliver food to these pitiful, starving people. Check out this recent Kenya article to read more about the efforts being made to distribute food to the hungry and how the pastors have been able to be involved.

If you'd like to make a donation towards the hunger relief in Kenya, you can make checks payable and send to:

Outreach Evangelism
Attn: Arnold Tanner
PO Box 98240
Lubbock, TX 79499

Checks made to Outreach Evangelism are not tax deductable, but 100% of donations made go to the intended purpose.

Thank you for your willingness to read this and consider donating!

It's fall, y'all

Saturday we went to Boone for the day to enjoy the beautifulness of early fall.






God amazes me everyday with His beautiful creation. Loving this time of year! :)

It's been a while

Hello blog! I'd say I've missed you but life is so busy right now I really haven't thought about you much lately. I'll pick back up with this past weekend.

Friday night Paul cooked dinner since I worked until almost 7:00. What a sweet, generous husband I have! I think I was asleep by 9:30 so that's about all there is to say about that.

Saturday Paul and I had the privilege of baby-sitting two very special twin boys. My good friend Abbie and her husband became foster parents to these boys back in August. I won't give details to respect their privacy, but they will have the boys for at least several more months and have been given permission to use their discretion with baby-sitters. They were so good and such a joy to be around. Although the boys may not know it now, I know that Abbie and Chris have been such a blessing to them already. I admire Chris and Abbie so much for being willing to answer God's call to become foster parents.

After that it was off to the ball field to watch Matthew's game. This is his first season on the biggest field and it is so weird seeing him out there. I can remember watching my brother on that same field just like it was yesterday. I still can't believe my nephew is a teenager!

Saturday night we went to my dear friend Renna's house for our first fall bonfire. They had a huge barbeque and enough food to feed an army. And by army I mean over 100people-for real! If you know me well you know people give me energy so you can imagine my excitement with lots of people AND lots of food. I used to teach with Renna at Clemmons Elementary but she got smart a long time ago and left education. She and her husband have owned Ketchie Creek Bakery for a couple of years now. I don't get to see her nearly as much as I wish I did.


Sweet Renna Margaret. She gets cuter and cuter by the day!



A lot of my other teacher friends from Clemmons were there too and it was just so, so good to see and catch up with everyone.


My sweet rafiki Daphne was there too. She and Renna are good friends from high school. I love it when my friends are connected like that :)



Sunday we took a meal to the Ealys. Baby Evelyn is already 5 weeks old! She is one sweet, beautiful baby girl!


Then it was off to dinner with the fam at my brother's house. To me there aren't many things better than spending time with family. I wish Paul's parents lived closer so we could all be together for family dinner on Sundays. We are blessed to have at least one side of the family close by though.

It was definitely not a restful or productive around the house weekend at all. But sometimes those kinds of weekends just have to be ok. The laundry and cleaning can wait when you're blessed enough to spend time with family and friends.

On another note, we have met with four realtors in the past two weeks. I think we have decided on who we want to go with for round three. We heard some good advice about why they think our house hasn't sold yet so we have a lot to do before putting it back on the market. It's going to take some money and time but we just need to bite the bullet and do it if we ever want it to sell. As I've said before, we are content here and do not need more space right now, but we would love to be settled in a house we are going to live in forever. With all we have to do to the house and the holidays right around the corner, we are going to wait until the first of January to re-list with the new realtor. We are praying that the 3rd realtor in the 3rd year on the market will do the trick!

Catching up and whatnot

Nothing new or exciting to report from the Hicksters. I'm sure y'all are just as tired of hearing it as I am saying it, but dang I'm tired! Getting to work at 6:45 most mornings and staying until 6:00 or 7:00 most every night, then running to Paul's soccer games twice a week and not getting home until after 9:00 most nights is getting the best of me. My quality time with Paul is limited to the weekends only and even at that point, most of our time is spent grading papers. Paul is so sweet and understanding and has NEVER complained about it one bit. I got me a good man!

Anywho, Tuesday night we went to see the movie Courageous. It doesn't come out until next weekend but Paul won tickets on the radio for the preview. It was the typical cheesy, low-budget acting that most of the Christian movies have been, but other than that it was phenomenal! I would recommend it to anybody, but especially for husbands and dads.

My cousin Ashley and my sweet godson Cole were in Greensboro this week visiting family. Thursday was Brent's (my other cousin) birthday so I went to my aunts house for some family time. I only have two first cousins so they are very special to me. The last time I'd seen Cole was in July and he has already changed and grown so much. He is quite the active little guy so there wasn't a lot of picture taking going on, especially since I only had my phone.


Such a sweet, sweet little booger


We are in the market for a new realtor. This will be the third realtor and we are now going on close to three years since we put Paul's house on the market. We loved our last realtors and have nothing bad to say about them, but it has been well over a year and it's just time to move on. We are meeting with a realtor on Tuesday and hope to have the house back on the market in the next week or two. It's been a long and frustrating process, but we aren't in NEED of another house. Period. Thanks to another trip to Kenya for helping me realize what's important. Don't get me wrong, we still don't want to raise a family in a townhouse, but we don't have a family yet so we are content with what we have. God knows what He's doing. And in case you're wondering, we've yet to meet our new neighbor. You know, the one that was supposed to buy our house and backed out at the last minute to buy one almost right next to us. I go by her house every day when I walk Sophie, hoping she'll come out so I can introduce myself to her but it hasn't happened yet. Perhaps that is God giving me more grace since I'm still just a tad bit bitter about that whole situation.

Off to grade some more math tests. Happy weekend, y'all!

Kenya Recap...last 3 days

Monday was the first day of the youth conference. This was the first year I taught at the conference and I absolutely loved it! Daphne and I taught on abortion. It was not an easy topic at all. But abortion is a lot more common in Kenya than I ever knew it was, so it was a very necessary class.

We had 12 girls in our class, ranging from 11-22 years old.


Girls become sexually active in Kenya as early as 9 years old so unfortunately, this age group was exactly who we needed to reach. In the beginning of our class, we taught the girls about each stage of development of the baby while it is inside of the mother's womb. They have absolutely no idea about any of these things because they don't have access to the research and they don't get to have ultra sounds to see and hear their sweet babies. They were blown away at what they learned in this part, as I only imagined they would be because it is so incredibly fascinating to me too. We also taught them some of the abortion methods in America and some of the most common reasons why women have abortions. Then they taught us that the majority of abortions in Kenya are performed by boiling leaves from a nim tree and eating them. The leaves are toxic and they kill the baby when eaten. What the mother's don't know though, is that they are at great danger of killing themselves too and in more than half of the cases, they also die. The things these girls knew and told us were gut wrenching and heart breaking.

Monday evening Jimmy Safari brought the dresses to my mom and I that he had made for us. You'll be real surprised to know I cried my eyes out when I opened the dress. I will treasure this as long as I live!



We told him we'd wear the dresses on our last day in Kenya. I know you're holding your breath for those pictures ;)

We spent all of Tuesday teaching on what God says about abortion by reading and teaching on a ton of different Scripture. We had given each girl a Bible and they were always so excited to look up and highlight the Scripture. They are SO eager to learn and are genuinely grateful to be being taught.

Tuesday after the youth conference Francis took us to his house to meet his wife and children. One of my favorite things to do in our "off time" in Kenya is getting to visit the homes of the pastors. These people have become so close to me and it is so special to see where they live and meet their families. He has a very nice home and he even got electricity about a year ago. It is very rare to have electricity in Kenya. Francis is a very hard worker but he also has a good American friend who helps him and his family financially. That man's name is Jess and Francis named his first two children after him. His oldest child is Jessica and the second born is Jess. I think it is so sweet :) His youngest son is Joshua and his wife's name is Constance. They were all so precious.



His wife had made us a cake. Cakes in Kenya are not sweet at all but this one was very good.


After visiting with Francis' family, he and Samuel took Daphne and I to I LOVE PIZZA restaurant. Daph and Meredith went last year but this was the first time I'd been. It was delicious!! The food at the hotel is not great and it's almost the same thing every single night, so this pizza seemed like the best thing I'd ever eaten! I'd never been out past dark in Kenya because unless you are with a National, it can be unsafe. It was so much fun being out "late" and hanging out with two of my most favorite Kenyans on one of our last nights.




Wednesday was our last day teaching at the conference. We never asked any of the girls flat out if they'd had an abortion. We didn't think that was appropriate at all. But chances are at least one of them had. We weren't there to make them feel guilty or ashamed. So we spent the entire last day teaching on God's grace, mercy, redemption and restoration. Words could never describe how sweet our time was with those girls. We took pictures of them holding a card with their name on it so we could remember and pray for each one of them. One of the girls was not there the on the last day so another girl is holding her card. And you will see Rachel, our translator on the far right in the second picture. I have those pictures in my Bible along with the one of Thomas. I doubt I could ever go a day without thinking of them, but it sure is special to me to see their faces every day too.



Wednesday night was our kwaheri (goodbye) celebration at the hotel. All of the pastors come and it is just a sweet time of reflecting on our two weeks in Kenya and visiting with them one more time before leaving the next morning.

Mom and I in our dresses with Jimmy


I had asked Harrison if he could come and bring Thomas. As hard as I knew it would be so tell them bye, I just had to see them one more time. They came about 5:30 so we got to visit with them for a while before the kwaheri meeting started.



I gave Thomas a lion necklace that is exactly like my elephant necklace. I told him that lions were a sign of courage and that I knew he'd be brave for his upcoming surgery.


Earlier in our trip, we learned of all of the many people starving to death just 100 miles from where we were staying in Malindi. Some places haven't had rain in 2-5 YEARS! In Kenya people only eat what they can grow, so if there isn't any rain, there isn't food. The cows and goats were dying because there was no grass, and the corn and the rest of the crops have been dead for a long time. Babies are dying left and right and are being left on the side of the road. We heard stories about people walking miles (like they normally do) to get water but dying before they could get back to their family with the water because they didn't have enough strength. The stories go on and on and just get even more unbearable to hear. We were all broken over this and had been eager to help. Many of us donated money to the Red Cross for them to buy food and pay to distribute it to these people. Mom, Daphne and I gave what was left of the money we raised from the yard sale. During our kwaheri meeting, three men from the Kenya Red Cross came to the hotel to give us more information and thank us for how we'd been able to help financially. It was so cool to hear them speak and tell us more about how they would be reaching all of these starving people. Many of the pastors we'd been working with were planning on helping distribute the food over the next several weeks.

Everybody stayed for the celebration but had to leave before we ate dinner. When I had to say goodbye to Jimmy, Harrison and Thomas, it was the first time that I completely lost it while saying bye in Kenya. I did not want them to see me upset so I'd been preparing myself all day for this so I would keep it together. But I couldn't. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Not knowing for sure if I will ever go back is something that is too hard for me to even accept. These people are my family now. I love them. Thomas is my little brother and Jimmy is just one of the most precious people to me in this whole world. Big surprise that I'm crying my eyes out right now as I type this. The rest of Wednesday evening was bitter sweet for me. I was so excited thinking about being home and seeing Paul and the rest of my family, but other than that no part of me was ready to leave Kenya.

The hotel always has a nice way of saying goodbye. They make everything a big deal for us and it makes us all feel so special. They made a big cake and got all of their staff to come out with drums and sang songs for us.



This is James. He is the wait staff manager and has been working there since I went the first time in 2008 and long before that.


This is Joan, one of the receptionist. I think she is so beautiful!!


And this is our entire group, minus some people that were there a week before us and left a week before us. Hate we didn't get a whole group picture.


This time in Kenya touched me and changed me even more than the two times before. I hope and pray that God gives me another opportunity to go, but even if He doesn't, I will be forever grateful and changed because of my time in Kenya. I wish everybody could go and experience it. America would certainly be a different place. I have had the opportunity to talk to Samuel, Harrison and Francis since we've been back. One of them has called every Saturday so far. Right now it is very cheap for them to call and all of their phones are international. Talking to them and hearing their sweet voices makes it somewhat easier to not be there.

We've gotten many e-mails since being back updating us on the food distribution from the Red Cross. One trip was made to distribute food since we left but long story short, the government has a hold on the situation and it has slowed things way down. Politics can get in the way even in Kenya. Things seem to be looking up as of right now and hopefully more people will begin receiving food this week. If you are able and would like to donate to the Kenya Red Cross, I can tell you how to get the money there-just let me know.