Open House

Yesterday was a happy day at the Coulston's new house.  We own 4 acres of land about 400 yards from the girls' center at Kamulu.  From 2002 until last month we lived in our apartment at the girls' center, but now we are in our new place on one of our acres.  And we had open house, inviting all the team and students at MITS and everyone at church to come over.  After morning worship we started preparing food -- Charles popped 13 batches of popcorn and Darlene cooked 6 pounds of "bitings" -- small pieces of beef skewered on toothpicks.  We put out several pounds of cookies, made 6 gallons of punch, set out 124 sodas - and Darlene baked 5 cakes.  

More than 100 people came and spent the afternoon with us -- the students went up on the garage roof (our rooftop patio where we can watch sunsets and stars) where there were popcorn and sodas.  They went through all the popcorn in about 5 minutes.  The adults and little kids stayed in the living room (the kitchen, dining and living rooms are all one big room, built without trusses).  For the first time since we started working with street kids, we had food left over -- maybe a quarter pound of bitings and 2 gallons of juice.  

We feel good at having a home where we can have people come in to visit.  It's also good having two extra bedrooms so people can stay with us -- already we had Bill Smith and Bob Brannon stay and after them Fielden and Janet Allison.  

We have planted lots of stuff inside and outside the fence -- bananas, mango and avocado trees, mulberry, roses, cannas, hibiscus, passion fruit and other climbers.  Plus Kikuyu grass in the yard.  So we have good things to look forward to.  

We especially look forward to seeing some of you on our next visit to the USA -- we will be available January through March -- so please invite us to visit your congregation and talk more about street ministry and the future of MITS.  As always, we will need to raise funds -- we continue to have more kids on the streets and will be doing another intake this year. 

peace and joy, charles and darlene