Things you may not think about...

When living with 17 people it obviously requires a great deal of time, energy, and thought. When trying to relate, there are lots of things that you may think about such as our meal preparations or the amount of laundry we have...

But have you tried to put yourself in our SHOES, literally? We have at least 34 shoes lying around at any given moment. In fact, Emma our 1 year old, loves shoes so much that she is constantly wearing some one's shoes. This is a problem because she carries shoes all over the house! If you need a specific shoe, you may only find ONE of them!

Another issue we have is school supplies. We go through erasers and pencils like sweets! Since I home school Andrew, Makena, and Butterfly, we are ever without the supplies we need because the orphans are constantly taking our pencils to school with them. I have a special 'teacher' drawer that I think they are invading daily. Fortunately, we have a sponsor who has ordered personalized pencils for us! Hopefully that will help solve the problem.

Taps. Water taps. Our water system is different than most of yours. Instead of trying to explain it now, let me just say this:  Our kids never close the taps! (Usually it is because when they opened it no water came out so they just walk away without reversing the action they took upon the faucet.) However, when we pump the water from our storage tanks into the house, if we don't check all 24 taps, water will be pouring down the drain. Since we have to buy our water from a water company because no water comes to our house, it is a very costly waste!

On the lighter side of things, having 17 people around means that there is always someone to play with or talk to. Our kids play outside games because there's always enough for team play. It is great fun. Our kids get along pretty well. I'm so grateful for that!

~Kate Brooks

Missionary to Nakuru, Kenya

Co-founder of A Future and a Hope, home for orphaned girls.