Skylar Bliss

Hello World my name is Skylar Bliss Sawyer I came into the world at 10:30am Kenya time. I weighed in at 7lbs 6oz and I was 19 inches long. I cant wait to meet all of you one day.

Locked out!!

Today started as an awesome day. I had yearly vehicle inspection that can and has taken up to 4-5 hours, but today I had an ace in my hand, a pregnant wife who will have a baby in less than 2 days, a sleeping baby in the back seat and 2 other small girls. So I pulled out everything I had and it worked. In under 30 minutes we were finished! It was record time. So we were feeling really good about ourselves and went to the store to get some food and as the door swung shut I reached to my pocket to feel for my keys and yep they were in the truck. Laura looked at me in panic saying we have to figure something out quick. It would have only been worse if her water had broken at about that time. I said go on in get some food I got this. First of all you should know that metal clothes hangers are rare here, in fact I have never seen one to purchase So I had to buy a whole roll of fencing wire, and then had to strand 3 pieces together to get it stiff. 2 hours later I was still there. The lock button for some reason had decided not to work. Finally one of the 6 guys who thouht they were helping got lucky and caught the lock lever and pulled it open. Needless to say we were very relieved and happy to be in our truck again. Some of you might say "don't you have spare keys?" Well of course I do, I keep them in the glove box:)

Happy Birthday Travis!!

That's right, Travis turned 29 today!! He is getting old. We had a lovely day and took him to the movies to watch Ice age 3. Sarah and Summer drew pictures for their dad and Sarah made the banner hanging behind him.


Happy Birthday Daddy.

Skyscraper!

From the looks of our fuel/guard house / guest room you would think we were building a skyscraper. The roof will be another 7 to 8 feet higher at the peak. It has an awesome view of the Maasai Mara that is for sure. We will going back to the school to finish up some projects then we will be able to resume on this building and get it finished up. We head to Nairobi to await the arrival of our new little one Skylar _____ Sawyer on the 9th!!! Pray everything goes well.

Life Lessons

Today the kids helped Travis get the supplies together for a bunny house for Bugz. They were so cute as they watched with excitement for the finished product. As Travis was putting on the final touches I went to get Bugz to give him some water. It was then that I realized that something was wrong with him. He wasn't moving right and he seemed to be getting weak. Unfortunately Bugz died a few hours later. Needless to say it has been a teary eyed day for some little girls around here. We did realize that Bunnies are a

very fun pet to have around. I think that the little guy was just to young to be without his mom.

What's up Doc?

Meet our new family pet. This is Bugz our new baby rabbit. He was found today in our yard and looks to be only a few weeks old. So we have taken him in and the girls are now the mommy of Bugz bunny. As you can see they are VERY excited about their new job. We hope he enjoys his new home and mommies!

I DON"T THINK SO!!!!

Savannah was more than willing to get on the back of this camel. Yeah right Savannah, not with mama right there!

Our trip to Mombassa

We had such a nice time in Mombassa this past week at our Annual TMM conference. It was a great time for family, fun and fellowship. The girls enjoyed their time in the pool with their friends. Travis and I enjoyed sitting back and relaxing while watching the girls in the pool or on the beach. Travis also enjoyed volleyball each day, and I enjoyed walking down to the beach and talking with a Mama there who sells shukas (wraps) to us ladies. Evening time was a lot of fun visiting with our friends and breathing in the night air.

I enjoyed watching the girls on the beach.

Sarah had so much fun on the slide and is swimming quite well these days.

Summer really had fun collecting shells on the beach. Although most of them still had life in them so she was unable to bring them home.

Savannah loved playing in the sand on the beach, but she did not like the ocean. She would much rather be riding on the camel that keeps passing by.

Our time in Mombassa was a blessing to us. It was a great time of rest and relaxation. On the way home we did hit a donkey with our truck. It did a lot of damage to the side of our truck. Thankfully Travis has been able to repair most of it on his own. God is good!

Progress on the fuel store

Travis and the guys put up the web trusses yesterday.

Travis and Bernard very happy that this part is all over. Now onto the next step.

They will hopefully pour the roof ,which is also the second story guest/guard room, on Monday.

Update.

The pictures are of the much needed fuel/cement/stuff/guard house. After the robbery and all the things were stolen we figured it was time to get the guard in his own place as well as some of our tools and things that are just hanging outside because of lack of space. This is Bernard's first project of this size He is doing an awesome job. We have had a couple mistakes here and there but that is what learning is all about. This will be a double decker so the guard and any guests that want privacy can have a place to stay.

The other great news is that I will be building a garden for the school starting in a week or so. So it seems I will be stretched thin. There is some donors that want to help the school with a vegetable garden and want me to build the stone boxes to put the veggies in. It will start with 8 stone boxes 8'x16'. There will be 20 people coming from the States to help plant the seeds and teach the staff and students about gardening. That will be on June 16th-17th. The fun thing is that we head to conference in 2 weeks and we will come back just one day before they arrive. So we have to get a roof on this fuel store which will be a concrete slab, and build 8 stone garden boxes in a month and 2 of those weeks I wont be here. Bernard knows what he is doing so pray for him in the next month if you would he will have a lot on him. Besides this ministry is really going well. The church is growing, the music is fun. Laura will be starting a series on child raising during the Tuesday womens bible study. In morning devotions we are going through the different men's lives of Heb.11. Sunday Shayne will start preaching through Creation in the book of Genesis so we look forward to that. The book of Genesis is the foundation for everything. Have you ever thought about how much we would not know without the book of Genesis?

The Battle belongs the LORD!

There are times in life where all seems well, you are walking in green pastures and you are resting by the gentle waters. You feel like you are on the mountain top with your God. Then there are times when you feel you are walking in the valley of the shadow of death. The flaming arrows of our enemy Satan are flung by and trying to hit you at every angle. What do we do as Christians at that point in life? Do we just fall to the ground in defeat? No! We put up our Shield of Faith and we take out our Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and we fight back. No weapons fashioned against us will stand, because the victory is the Lords! Who can stand against our God?

Life has been crazy for us here, with different flaming arrows soaring by us. But we will not let it tear us down. God has given us what we need to carry on and to proclaim His Word of truth.

People have been coming to church and hearing Gods Word proclaimed as Shayne Russell (fellow missionary) has been bringing out the truth of God’s salvation. We have had around 50 adults there weekly, plus children, and people participating in leading music and performing skits to help with the message. We had 4 kids say their Bible verse from VBS, all of Ephesians 6:10-17, in front of the Church. Two youth from the Church helped teach at VBS and did a great job bringing out God’s truth.

Travis has been faithfully teaching daily morning devotions to around 15 people. He has brought out question's for them to think about, like “What is the most important question in life?”, “Who is number one in your life?”, “What is your number one fear?”. He has brought these questions out and people have been answering them honestly and then Travis has been showing them in God’s word the answers. I had a women tell me the other day that what has been taught has been a real encouragement to her and this is what they need to hear.

Tari Russell started teaching this past Sunday in children’s Sunday school the doctrine of God. She challenged them to read the Bible daily and to memorize a portion of Scripture for each week. She has already had one boy come up to her house earlier this week and tell her the memory verse. He took the challenge and he did it.

I have been teaching the ladies Bible study and just finished up a series on the unborn child. I showed pictures of the baby in the womb and taught on the development of the baby over the 9 month period. I used this as a platform to teach how life is in God’s Hands, how He has breathed life into each of us and He alone knows the number of the days of your life, so what will you do with your life?

When flaming arrows are coming your way, don’t fall down in defeat, pick up your Shield of Faith and your Sword of the Spirit and fight back, because the Battle Belongs to the Lord!

Tornado in Sekenani?

By looking at it you would think that we had a tornado come through our road last night, turns out it was just some hungry elephants. This is the worst I have ever seen it, normally it is just a tree here or there or some branches.

Sometimes I think we forget we live in The Maasai Mara. Our hill does not just belong to us but every animal here.

Sometimes we need a little humor to lift the spirit!! I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Prayer Request

On Wednesday we went into Nairobi for an ultrasound to check on the health of the baby. My Doctor still had some concerns about what looked like extra fluid on the brain. We were told that I would need to go home if there was a problem with the baby. So we made flight arrangements just in case. Thankfully and to God's praise all looked well with the ultra sound. Our sweet little baby girl is just fine in her little home
While we were gone on our over night trip our guard and faithful worker for the past 2 years decide he would take the opportunity to rob us. So he and we are not sure who else stole most every thing of value in our house. Including, computers (3 laptops and 1 desktop; 1 laptop was the Johnson's and 1 was a gift I received), printer, camera, generator, tools, radio, pressure washer, the safe with a lot of cash in it, including money of the Johnson's for things here while they are on furlough. We have been very surprised and hurt with all this, but we are trusting in the Lord with every detail. We serve an Awesome God, worthy or praise!
Please pray for wisdom at this time as Travis pursues all this. Pray for protection as Travis is traveling right now with some others concerning this matter. Pray for the guy who did this that he will come to repentance and that we would be able to recover some of the stolen items.
We can't take "stuff" with us to heaven, so we don't hold on to it all closely, but we would like to see justice prevail.
May God be praised in all this!

Water tank update.

It looks like it would make a great prison. We have 3 of the exterior walls up and decided to tie all that steel before building the fourth wall. After the fourth wall goes up we will pour the inside walls. They are 6 inches of solid concrete , and as you can see they will have lots of steel in them. You would not think that it was 15,000 lbs of water would you? So better to put the steel in than be sorry later. The outside is some of our local stone here that the guys dig right out of the ground.