Worship at Whiskey Town Lake

 

Saw the sun go down behind these hills, it was one of the most memorable moments of my life

There were 2 worship parties going on at Brandy Creek a couple miles down, so we went and joined in. I love Bethel Church! Sitting around a bonfire worshiping with a bunch of people who know they were made for love

 In n Out Burgers at midnight, yes In n Out is worth all the fuss and praise, SO good...

Always wanted to see my name in lights...

Sacramento River Trail to Sundial Bridge

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday to my only nephew and favorite little man J.T!!!

What can I say? You are the cutest, funniest, sweetest, smartest person in the world and you've taught me so much in your little life.

You changed our world and made our extended family a little more interesting...

Know you are loved so much by your parents, your grandparents, your uncles and aunts (especially your favorite, me!)

 

Wish you a great year and a great life marked with God's blessings!

Auntie "Ambua" loves you!

If You Wanna Know Where My Heart Is...

It was stolen.

xx
Jo

The One About Passport Photos and the Unfairness of the Lens

I went in to renew my passport last week and I got it back this week, (kudos to the immigration department, when my mom applied for our 1st passports 7 years ago, they took months to get back mine took 9 days!) Anyway, I went in with my passport photos I had taken at a studio, because I don't want to live with a bad passport photo like I live with a bad ID photo, (seriously why do ID photos always come out bad?!) shock on me, they had to take new photos at their offices which ended up on the passport.

Now at the studio, I had done my makeup, it was early in the morning so I was fresh and clean, at immigration, I was...not. I got back my passport exactly when I got these new photos taken for my blog by my old faithful friend who I shall forever refer to as Mr. T for his anger issues with me forcing asking him to take photos.

I'll generously share one with you and save the 1 million photos of my face for myself,  :-) why can't my ID, drivers license, and passport look like this?

Our Kids

Judging from my nieces and nephews, my family has some pretty great genetics! J

My nephew (sis), my nieces (bro), my extended niece and nephew (my cousin Monica)

Can’t wait to have my own!!! I think being a mom will just be the hugest blessing to me!

xo

Jo

Natural Hair

I am 100% African. No British colonialist blood somewhere in my family line. As such, I have 100% African hair.

In High School, I had this Straight kit thing going on, you know where you straighten your hair then you have to use gel to style it. After High School, I still hadn’t figured out the whole hair thing, (blame 4 years of boarding school where you went to the salon once in 3 months) So, I had this experience one time back at Strath Uni, my friends and I were walking on campus heading to class and we saw another guy who used to be my friend back then. This guy was bi-racial and had great hair, so when we passed him, this so-called friend of mine that I was walking with said, “Joanne, even [can’t remember his name] has better hair than you”

Can you believe that?!

Of course I laughed it off, but I got home and cried like a baby! Then I angrily wiped the tears away and went to my mom’s room and searched her stash for a weave! Got my hair done THE NEXT DAY! Let’s just say, that girl hasn’t commented on my hair since!

Since then I alternate between weaves, braids, straighteners (not straight kit, never ever!) but, I don’t know, maybe it’s the whole growing into my own thing, but I’m liking keeping my hair natural. I wore the curly afro a while ago and felt great.

Who knows, maybe next year this will be a permanent thing?

xo

Jo

Mizizi Week 3

I wore the maxi skirt again a couple of weeks ago, and teamed it with this top I’ve had since I was like 14. My mom buys really great stuff, she has an eye for quality and I’m really appreciating that because a lot of the stuff she and I wore in the past are making their rounds back into acceptable fashion. The silver ring, I got for my 21^st birthday.

Mizizi this week was insane! I’ve talked before about how I wanted to maybe go into Pastoral Leadership as a career, so a couple of months ago I decided to get a head start and start serving in Church. So I joined Worship Tea, (yayy!) and I signed up to teach/understudy a beginners course at my Church called Mizizi.

Yesterday it hit me that it isn’t about going and working. Serving is a major Spiritual burst! What I mean is, it pulls so much out of you, you’re constantly expected to grow and change and move out of your comfort zone. Last night I just felt the weight of it. I was just drained. Putting myself out there, sharing my heart with a group of practical strangers, having them share their heart, just the weight of all that.

Then there’s the feeling of, “God, they are so close! Please let them encounter you, please let them encounter you, please don’t let them leave here discouraged and not knowing all that you have to offer”

Then with Worship Team, again a bunch of practical strangers, trying to fit in, having to go all the way across town for fellowship and again, investing relationally and pushing myself out of my shell. Then these thoughts come in, “Why are you doing this? This isn’t a requirement! You’re getting tired for nothing! How safe is it to walk around town at night when you could be at home?”

The fact that I feel like this is an encouragement to me. Christian life isn’t about having this cushy, comfortable, status-quo existence, its active and action packed. Otherwise, stagnate and die. About the stress, I was watching Francis Chan and he said something along the lines of, “Mizizi/Worship Team, this isn’t my party that I’m inviting God to, this is His party that He lets me be a part of. I’m not the one on whose shoulders lie the responsibility of encounter, God is.”

I have to let God come and do what He does, that is, love in His people.

My only job description is to seek God, and put myself in a place where He can fill me up, so that I can pour into others. I have to rely on Him more than ever now because in my passive-church-once-a-week life, I’ve never been in this space where I’m technically “leaking”.

It’s also great because when I start dating and when I get a family, I’m gonna be “leaking” all over that too, so getting into the practice of getting filled up by God so I can pour onto others is a POSITIVE thing.

xo

Jo

Joyous – Makes Me Happy

I had a photo shoot last month, so I’ll be posting a bunch of pictures and all those “You’re so vain, how you post pictures of yourself, attention seeker” people are going to hate this! Or love this, either way, I’mma get ‘em talking!

Anyway, I like pictures, I feel like 40 years from now I’m gonna love looking back and saying, “Wow, there was actually a time I didn’t have wrinkles on my face” So, it’s not for attention seeking or anything, it’s for me.

Wait, why am I explaining myself? Let’s move on!

xo

Jo

Photo booth

Went for a glam look here, full make-up, including bright orange lipstick! I got this purple dress for my 20^th birthday at Jamia Mall in town. I love the gold thingies on the straps, I didn’t get a full length image this time, but I’m sure I’ll post it at some point. I got the gold drop earrings from a guy at Donholm Market.

xo

Jo

My Identity as a Child of God

I always say I'm lucky that God's put a lot of "spiritual fathers" in my life, if I can use that term. Growing up, there wasn't that much of, you know, the Christian Man with Godly advice on all aspects of life, my dad was awesome, but not a Church guy. Now though, I'm lucky to have people to look up to, whether at Church or mostly through the great internet. I'm talking about men like, Bill Johnson, Mark Driscoll, Danny Silk, Banning Liebscher and the guy I was listening to last night who inspired this post - Kris Vallotton.

Kris is an awesome, no-nonsense, I know who I am, deal with it, or get out kind of guy. He and his wife Kathy are senior leaders at what I call my heart's church, Bethel Church and he also instructs in Prophecy at the Bethel Schools.

Feel free to print out {try to ignore the slight grammatical error}

xx
Jo

Date Outfit

No, my friends, I’m still very much single! However, a girl can’t help but look at her closet and dream. When I’m back on the scene, I don’t want to be jeans every date like I used to be, especially after all the growing up I’ve done!

I’m feeling very feminine now…and the girl has turned into a woman…Haha!

Anyway, I figure this is a cute outfit for grabbing lunch or coffee…out of the city center and if I’m driving, those stories for girls being howled at (or even stripped) in “down” town or those sides for bus station, when they wear short skirts or short shorts, I don’t want none of that!!!

Grey vest - Bus Station

White belt – Gifted by mom

Grey skirt – Bought those huge 1990’s skirts on Thika Rd and I got it tailored

Zebra print flats – Muthurwa shopping trip with my mom (no way I can go to Muthurwa alone J)

xo

Jo

Fearless Summit 2012

I don’t remember if I ever did a recap for Fearless Summit at Church I went to in June. I was going through my computer and found these pictures and I got happy all over again:

1. Swag bag
2. First Day Outfit
3. Meeting my most favorite Kenyan singer Atemi Oyungu (Please come sing at my wedding!)
4. Me and Pastor Daniel from Mexico; this guy was awesome!
5. Swag bag
6. My friend Sally (from Worship Team) and I

We got to hear from some amazing speakers!

1. Kenton Beshore from Mariners Church
2. Esther Obasi-Ike (Eish, this woman was IT!)
3. Session hosts were Gowi Odera and Angie Gichuhi
4. Pastor Simon shares with us
5. Background pic, camera, equipment and crew
6. We had a game where we had to throw balloons at each other across the dome
7. Prashan Devisser spoke for like 10 minutes but he was unanimously the person guys remember the most, all the people I meet who went remind me about him.
8. Swag bag + my first Delegates badge = me feeling like the coolest person in the world

xo

Jo

Summer Days

[Taken from a previous post]

I had a photo shoot last month, so I’ll be posting a bunch of pictures and all those “You’re so vain, how you post pictures of yourself, attention seeker” people are going to hate this! Or love this, either way, I’mma get ‘em talking!

Anyway, I like pictures, I feel like 40 years from now I’m gonna love looking back and saying, “Wow, there was actually a time I didn’t have wrinkles on my face” So, it’s not for attention seeking or anything, it’s for me.

Wait, why am I explaining myself? Let’s move on!

Love these aviators for sunny days.

Xo

Jo

White Dress and Heels

I’m not really a dressy person, I’m more of a jeans girl. I wore skirts all the way through primary school. I was in boarding school in High School and wore skirts for another 4 years straight. I went to a private university with a strict  dress code, so again, it was mostly skirts and loose trousers, finally got a chance to wear jeans when I moved to my public university. So, I’m partial to jeans and flats; if I’m feeling more dressy, maybe skinny jeans and heels.

 

Going to church, personally, I can’t exactly be comfortable jumping up and down at worship time or walking around saying hi to people all across the campus in a dress and heels, but I did make an exception a couple of weeks ago:

 

My mom’s friend and her daughter run a home-shopping business/boutique and they brought over some clothes for us to try. So this is one of three dresses I bought. I like it, except for the fact that it creases easily, I like it.

The last time I wore this was to our New Years’ service, then the weather got hot after January and I retired it. Now that it’s cooling down, I thought it was time I brought it out of retirement.

 xx

Jo