Jerry Noel Peart

My Life- in a Nutshell - A Bridged ver. By: Jerry Peart - 2007 With Helen Kellogg- Editor My Youth I was born on December 25, 1945 in a little town of Cushing, Oklahoma. I have been told that when I was very young we left Oklahoma and moved to Wenatchee, Washington. Most of the people my parents associated with at that time worked either at Alcoa or in the fruit orchards. My father "followed the crowd" and in time worked in each of them. My earliest memories are during the time we lived in the Wenatchee suburb of Sunnyslope on Lower Sunnyslope Road. I used to play baseball with a neighbor guy named Harris. We would go down to a pasture near the Wenatchee River and play among the cowpies. I especially remember going fishing in the river. I would walk with my grandfather from our house down along the concrete canal to where it dumped into the river. Seems like all we ever caught were suckers which we brought back up the garden behind his house and buried beside the fruit trees. I loved those times with my Granddad. He taught me a lot about the river and how to fish. We had first cousins who lived about a mile up-river from us. They had come out from Oklahoma about the same time as we did. I spent lots of time with the cousin who was the same age as I. We used to walk back and forth along the river between their house and mine and it was there that I began to learn about nature, animals and people. It was truly a learning time in my life. I remember listening intently to stories told by a man named Harry S. Shotwell. He was a close neighbor of ours and his stories fascinated me. At that time (1949-1950) he was 92 or 93 years old and in his old age had become blind. He told of living in a log cabin with square holes cut in the logs so a person could look outside if they wanted to. He also told of shooting his rifle out through these holes at the Indians he had to fight. Later in life I learned that it was the Wenatchi Tribe (meaning "fast running water") that Mr. Shotwell had exchanged his bullets with. The city of Wenatchee was named after that Tribe. Mr. Shotwell also told me about Chief Joseph and his people who lived north of Wenatchee. The American Army would chase them clear up to Canada and then after the soldiers were gone they would come back down to their home. That went on time and time again until finally Chief Joseph realize that it was useless to continue fighting, and He said " I will fight no more forever" It was during my early life on Lower Sunnyslope that I was given my first BB gun. I became very, very accurate as a shooter. Which later in life gave me the skills and knowledge to go on to bigger and more powerful weapons. My knowledge and skills with guns proved to be an extremely valuable asset in later life. I attended first grade at Sunnyslope Elementary School along with some boys who later became rather well known ( i.e. John Bridges, who became a Judge, and Bruce Schneller, who became an electrical inspector for the state of Washington.) Sometime during the next summer my parents moved into the city of Wenatchee and I had the rest of my primary schooling at Lewis and Clark Elementary School. From there I went on to H.B. Ellison Junior School (played saxophone in the school band), and finished up at Wenatchee High School. When I was a senior I played in two special concerts with Doc Severenson (band leader on the famous Johnny Carson show) who was visiting in Wenatchee and he played the cornet with us. We thought it was a great honor for him to perform with us. I graduated in 1964. One of my first jobs was delivering the Wenatchee Daily World. My newspaper route included the corner of Maple and Princeton Streets where a family named Kelloggs lived. Years later, my wife and I became acquainted with a member of that same family and she played a very important part in helping us get back to Africa. (In fact she is editing this booklet for me.) After I graduated from high school I applied at the Arctic Circle on Wenatchee Ave. as a fry cook. That was when hamburgers were .19 cents apiece. For .50 cents you could get a combination hamburger, French fries and a coke and then get some change back. After a while I decided I wanted to increase my income so I applied for a job at the Alcoa plant south of Wenatchee and was hired. For several months I worked day shift at Alcoa and then drove like crazy into town so I could work at the Arctic Circle from 5 PM until closing time, which was 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. As a fry cook I learned how to move with very little wasted motion. Obviously, there was no time for me to get into trouble and I never had a dull moment. I endured this "rat race" for a year while the problems in Vietnam were becoming headline news. North and South Vietnam were at war with each other and South Vietnam had asked several countries, including the United States, for help. America, wanting to keep communism at bay, sent some of our Army to help them, and so also did Korea and a few other countries. I was young and vigorous and looking for excitement, so in 1965 I decided to join the Marine Corps., expecting I would probably be sent to Vietnam. Loss of Innocence I suppose my "war Story" should start on Oct. 1 1965 when I arrived at Boot Camp in San Diego, California for my first day in the Marine Corps.. After we got off the bus we were ordered to make a formation by standing on the yellow footprints on the tarmac. As soon as all the recruits were in place, the announcement was made that we were required to go immediately to a barbering room where we all got hair cuts. It cost us each .50 cents for a high and tight cut. (Very short crew cut) As I waited for my turn I was looking around and talking to the guy beside me when a Marine Drill instructor, who had to be at least seven foot tall and weighed at least 300 pounds, walked up and hit me with his fist just below my sternum in the center of my chest. As I was laying on the ground on my back trying to understand what had just happened, and at the same time trying to breathe, this huge man put his number 14 size boot on my throat and said, "Boy, your ass belongs to me! You don't even breathe unless you ask my permission!" After he let me get back on my feet I sputtered something like, "Sir, Yes, Sir" I realized right then and there that this was not going to be like Boy Scout Camp. The second day at MCRD (Marine Corps. Recruit Depot) I was made a "house mouse," which turned out to be a very good job. Of course, everyone is responsible for his own personal hygiene and his equipment along with his regular house keeping chores, but as house mouse I also had to care for all the linens of our platoon, plus keep the three drill instructors huts and linen clean. Having access to their huts gave me insight to their personal lives. I learned that they all had their own jobs to do even as we did. They had all spent at least one tour in Vietnam before so I got to overhear some of their stories and learn a bit of what I could expect in the future. All in all, my 13 weeks of boot camp went quite well. When I was finished I received my PFC (Private First Class) stripe. Only five out of 90 rookies received that promotion. Two days before boot camp was over we were told what our individual responsibilities were going to be. Mine turned out to be "Field Radio Operator." My first thought was this was a pretty good assignment- being next to the officer and all. Perhaps even a fairly safe place to be. I soon found out that the life expectancy of a field radio operator in combat was 6 seconds. The radio operator would be the first to go, then the officer, and then every one else. Oh well, a little late to worry about that now. After ITR (Infantry Regiment School) was finished (8 weeks, I got to attend the Marine Corps Field Radio Operator School located at Camp Delmar, California- one of the finest radio schools in the world. There, I got two months of hands on training. After a short vacation back home, my next stop was 29 Palms, California out in the middle of the Mohave Desert. I doubt anyone would want to spend much time there except someone in the Marine Corps. During the day it was hot and dry, but sometimes it would get very cold at night. About the only good thing about the place was it was near to DisneyLand and Palm Springs, which I visited several times while we were there. Strange things happen in the desert-like one day there would be a rock as big as a house and a few days later it was simply gone. One time during that period, the Marine Corps Commandant told us that there were only three kinds of Marines: (1) those who were in Vietnam, (2) those who were coming back from Vietnam and (3) last but not least, and those who were going to Vietnam. This left little doubt in my mind that I would soon be standing on the soil of South East Asia. After two months, we were suddenly confined to the base and were told to make sure all of our issued gear was in order and serviceable. After a final inventory of all our personal gear and our radio equipment, we loaded everything on 2 ½ ton trucks, formed a convoy and headed to Long Beach Harbor in California where we boarded an old troop transport named USS Okanogan APA 220. With an entire battalion of Marines and Navy personnel on board, there was not a whole lot of space left for active recreation. About the most exciting thing a person could do was to go on deck and watch the flying fish. The plan was to steam to Hawaii, have three days of extensive fun on shore, then steam on to Vietnam. As we sailed into Pearl Harbor I saw the battle ships, aircraft carriers, tankers and other kinds of ships that are still resting on the bottom of the bay, a very sobering sight. Soon after we had set sail I managed to migrate to the top bunk, which was a good thing, because when a person becomes sea sick he just rolls over and lets it fly. I found out real soon the best place to avoid being puked on is the top bunk. Somewhere off the Philippines coast we came in contact with a typhoon. For six days, we managed to stay in the middle of the storm- some of the longest and most uncomfortable days of my life. All the years I was in the Marines, the only time that I did not have to wait in line at the chow hall was when I was on board the Okanogan. Eventually the Captain changed course and we out-ran the storm. After 33 days at sea, we finally arrived off the coast of Chu Lai, Vietnam. After dark the engines were stopped and the anchor was dropped. We all stood on deck and peered out into the darkness. About two miles away we could dimly see the outline of land with a very small island just off shore. All night long motors, tracers, bombs, rockets and continual explosions filled the air between those two little bits of land. A huge feeling of dread filled us all and we truly wondered how many of us would be alive after the next day or two. With total confusion and everything completely disorganized, it seemed like nobody knew any more than I did, and since I had just set foot on Vietnam soil I knew almost nothing. We all learned very fast that if you want to survive you had best keep your eyes and ears open and learn all you can right now! I realized that even though I was with a large group of Marines, my survival depended entirely on my own skills and how I applied them People in the States were very negative and angry and I felt unwelcome where-ever I went. I was actually spit on by people who had no clue what we went through and will never know. My life and the way I saw the world was vastly influenced by my experiences in Vietnam. I left many friends there of several nationalities who were all helping to win that unpopular war. I was never very good at blending; I prefer to go my own way in life. I have never been a sheep and will never be led by someone who has his own personal agenda. I wondered many, many times why I never got wounded or got hit by bullets, bombs, mortars or any of the other various ways that people have come up to hurt and destroy others, I began to believe that someone is watching over me- something like a guardian angel. My Career In 1969 I decided to settle down and get on with my life, so I applied in Wenatchee for an electrical apprenticeship and was accepted. It was almost a year before I was permitted to start working with the tools. My first boss happened to be a former Marine, Matt Schmidt. In 1970, in the bloom of my career and manhood, I met and married a young lady whom I thought I could not live without. Unfortunately that marriage lasted less than a year. The union produced a son, Jeremy, but he passed away in 1995 at the age of 25. The work of an electrician takes a person many places and, at best is always temporary until the job is done in that particular place. My first work experience as an electrical apprentice began in 1971 when I was hired by a man named Matt Schmidt at Schmidt Electric in Cashmere, Washington. The work was primarily wiring houses, supermarkets, the Wenatchee Mall, some work at Alcoa, and for controlled atmosphere in fruit warehouses. In three and one half years time I went from making minimum wage to over $1000.00 a week take home at Grand Coulee Dam. In March of 1975 I went to work for Westinghouse Electric at the third power house at Grand Coulee Dam. Because I learned every job there was to learn about installing large hydro-generators I was classified as a Winder which was considered quite prestigious. I went from Apprentice to shop steward to foreman and less than one week. The rotors in the third power house are 1800 tons each and have a diameter of 54 feet-absolutely humongous! They were so large that no prototype could be built as a sample before building the actual generators. The first one to be assembled and installed happened to be number 19 in the third power house where I worked. In actuality, it was the first of six that were eventually installed in that powerhouse. Grand Coulee now has a total of 24 generators. It is a fact that it takes more water than the river supplies just to run the six turbines in the third power house, but since it was a federal project, money was never a consideration and they built it anyway, exactly according to plans! Somebody sure goofed on that one. While I was a Grand Coulee Dam I also worked for D.W. Close. The job was helping to pull in the 6 ½ inch in diameter oil-filled cable from one side of the dam to the other- a total of 1 ½ miles. The cable itself weighed approximately 12 pounds per foot. Very educational. I learned how to use pulley's and one inch steel cables and -how not to get between the cable and the inside wall when the pull was on! The cable came pre-measured and cut from Japan. It was in three quarters of a mile in length. Every cable had to be installed in the proper sequence and in the proper location as they were all just a bit different in length by a few feet. Everything was done with large machines, as the weight was beyond imagination. I got to work with a crew of Japanese from Japan who came along to supervise and help with the installation. My partner from Japan was a young man named Shika. I learned a lot about Japan from him as he spoke perfect English. In between very large projects, I worked for a few small contractors who built for small businesses, like banks and jails. I worked on the Tree Fruit Research Center on Western Street as well as Cap. Terry Substation on Sunset Highway. In 1977 I worked for North West Electric that was remodeling and enlarging the building that later became Central Washington Hospital. I worked on every part of the site, from operating room to emergency back- up generator. In 1979 I went to work for Maxwell's Electric on a street lighting job from Grant Road to Rock Island, also the "Sign Bridge" at the bottom of Grant Road where it directs traffic to Wenatchee, Waterville and East Wenatchee. The plans called for the "sign bridge" to be about 20 feet south of where it is now but they ran into a granite boulder as big as a house. I personally installed the lights that shine onto the sign at night. In August of 1980, I went to work for Fischback and Moore at the nuclear power plant at Elma, Washington. I advanced from Electrician to Foreman and then to General Foreman in a matter of months. Next I went to Wright-Schuchart and Harbor at the Port of Tacoma where we put together modules known as "The Skids" that were sent to Prudoe Bay on the Alaskan Slope. They were used in pumping out and transporting oil- very good job and a goodly bit of education. In May 1986 I went to work at Grant County P.U.D. I worked on the generators at Priest Rapids, Wanapum and the low-head hydro near Quincy. Eventually I became Station Operator for all of Grant County. I would travel around the county to all 45 stations taking readings and doing all the switching for outages, for work on lines or inside the stations. Very good pay but lots of long days. Most days I averaged between 200 250 miles in my truck, going from station to station. The actual work involved voltages between 115,000 and 230,000 volts AC, and battery banks of 120 and 230 Volts DC. Occasionally I would work with the power line coming from Grand Coulee Dam which was 5000,000 volts AC. In that job, you don't make any mistakes and still be able to walk away. In April 2005 I left the P.U.D. The day I left, I felt like I was finally free. My last short job was working for Power City, the company that contracted for the Microsoft site in Quincy. All in all I had quite an illustrious career (except for my last job at Microsoft.) Working on these jobs today is not like the jobs in the past. I remember, at Grand Coulee I was glad to go to work every day because I really liked the old guys I worked with. They were some of the best guys in my life, I had fun there. Times have changed. In the last 38 years I have learned a tremendous amount about people, money, power, sex and corruption. They all go hand in hand. I am not sure what happened or when, but this country has changed from being what it was when I was a kid to what it is now. It's a shame we can't go back to more pleasant times. I have been through a lot of extremely negative experiences in my life and they have all had a profound influence on me and what I am, but things have changed for me in the last few years. I have learned that the happiest people are those who are more concerned for others than for themselves. I have found a place where life is still good and people appreciate others for what they are. ( completely opposite this country) My first trip to Africa showed me the difference and in the near future I plan on being back there with my dear friends and my new family. Enooduat Enooduat is a Maasai word meaning "Vision". My personal vision began slowly developing four years back, in January 2003, when I decided to take a vacation from my job and go on a safari to Kenya. The tour took me through most of Kenya and a small part of Tanzania. My drivers name was Joseph Kenyanjue Maina. As we traveled from place to place in the land cruiser, I sat in the front seat and spoke with him about anything and everything. Very soon I realized that Joseph was a very interesting man. He was well schooled for his job and was good at what he did. He was a very caring man. As we traveled around I realized that he much the same interests as I do-a good life for his wife and kids and making enough money to get buy, plus a few do-dads along the way. The trip was everything I expected and more. There were lots of wild animals and some enormously beautiful country, but I also saw things that depressed me. I saw things that I did not think possible- like how people can survive on so little? I saw the need for more schools and proper health care. I learned that most people in Kenya, in urban and bush areas alike, are unable to afford the necessary items for health care and sanitation that we take for granted. Clean water is a very precious commodity. Many of the streams are polluted and even water in the cities needs to be boiled before drinking it. Open sewers are common. Obviously, these polluted surroundings make unhealthy living conditions. I learned that it is the children who suffer the most. Many have lost both parents to HIV and many more live in slums. They have no-where to go and no one to ask for help. Seeing all this troubled me deeply and I wished that somehow there might be a way for me to help alleviate some of the suffering I saw all around me. The last pace I visited was Sarova Mara in the Masai Mara. There, I met a lady at the reception desk that I fell in love with almost as soon as I met her. Her name was Nancy Nchoko. Nancy was born in a little village called Ololulunga in the Masai area of Kenya. Her tribe's cultural belief was that women are not considered able to do anything but care for the home and children, so the education level for girls was very low. There were seven children in her family and only three of them went to school--Nancy being of them. Her mother was badly mistreated by the other women in the village when she bravely sent her two daughters to live two miles away in the homes of friends who were teachers. There, they could go to school and be safe from anyone who might forcibly try to bring them back home. Her mother visited them every day. Nancy did well in her studies and eventually graduated from high school. Since there was no money for her to go on to college she went to look for a job at Sarova Mara, a tented resort in the game reserve. The manager told her that they would train her in almost all the departments in the camp, but would not pay her while she was learning, except they would supply her room and board. After about a year she was permanently employed and began to receive a salary. She lived and worked at the camp for nearly seven years and then one day in January of 2003, while she was working at the reception desk, she unknowingly check in her future husband- -ME. I stayed at the resort for three days and enjoyed excursions out to see the animals' then each time after returning to camp I immediately walked over to the office to visit with "that attractive receptionist". It was one of our first conversations that she told me that she told me about her 8 year old son, Eddie. But knowing about him did not deter me from wanting to get acquainted with her more. She was now single and available. From Sarova Mara I went back to Nairobi and during the next three days I phoned Nancy several times. By then it was time to end my safari in Africa and I flew back home, only to continue my visits with her by trans-Atlantic telephone calls. After meeting Nancy I was completely in love with everything African. It was very difficult to get on a plane and return to the USA. After getting back here and returning to my hum-drum job, life did not seem the same. Those long -distance calls went on for three or four weeks and finally on Valentine's Day, I got up enough courage to ask Nancy to be my wife. Her brief answer was "I will." With another quick trip out and back for me and then more conservation on the phone, we made plans to be married the next June in Kenya. Soon after our marriage we flew back to America together and two months later, Nancy's son Eddie, arrived, having been brought over by his uncle Shortly after we arrived at my home in Quincy, we began discussing the needs the people in Africa have for education and healthy living conditions. We both wanted to go back to Kenya to live semi-permanent and we came up with a plan that would make it possible for us to help in a material way once we got back. First of all, we could register as a charitable organization so we could be able to issue tax-deductible receipts for donations given to help us in our ministry. We named to organization, Enooduat Women and Child Foundation, (later we changed it to Enooduat Women and Children's Ministries). We planned to recruit some friends to serve as officers who would issue receipts on our behalf for contributions toward our building projects. This part of our plan is now complete. Secondly, we decided that our first project after we arrive in Kenya would be to build a 28ft. by 30ft. school room and library in Ololulunga where we have five acres of land which was donated by the community for our ministry. Fortunately, I know how to build and am a Journeyman Electrician, so I would be able to do a great deal of the work myself. This would keep the building cost down considerably. We estimate that the cost of the first classroom would be $4,800.00 US Dollars. I hope to start building soon after we arrive. Initially, this would be for first grade children only. Each year thereafter, we would add another room and another class until the primary school was complete and the first class had graduated. That class would move on to a boarding school somewhere else and finish their high school education. While we were making all these wonderful plans I was struggling with uncertainty, because I still had a full time job and my heart was pulled toward AFRICA. I had not yet retired and my job was getting in the way of where I really wanted to be. In August of that same year, events happened at my work place that caused me, in August of 2006, to resign from my job and retire. Now I was free and able to enthusiastically make definite plans toward returning to Africa. As to Nancy's ministries when we get back-She is planning to create a small variety of jobs for some of the village women so they can earn money to help pay for their children's schooling. Since tourism is very big in Kenya's economy, foremost in her thoughts is teaching the ladies to make feather flowers to sell to tourists. As you know, East Africa is the home of millions of flamingoes that feed in several alkaline lake strung out along the enormous Rift Valley. Naturally, the birds molt and the feathers are floating in the waters edge for the gathering. Nancy had never thought or heard about using flamingo feathers for anything at all but, in the plan of God, we heard about it from a retired missionary lady at the church where we worship. We met Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg one Sunday after the service when they came up to us and introduced themselves. Forty two years ago they were living near world famous Lake Nakuru, (now a national park) where hundreds of thousands of flamingoes feed. As a hobby, Mrs. Kellogg starting making flowers with the feathers they had gathered out of the water. When she showed them to her friends, people wanted to buy them and over time it developed into a home- industry employing physically handicapped people. Her husband sold many thousands of them in their mission owned Christian bookstore which he managed in the town of Nakuru. He mailed them around the world for his customers. A writer for a local magazine dubbed the flowers "The Pride of Nakuru", and Mrs. Kellogg decided to use that for the name of her small industry. After the Kellogg's left Nakuru in 1973, the industry was managed by other people connected to the mission and church, and then finally, in about 2002, it became necessary to close the business. As far as Helen can determine, the flowers are no longer being made. When Nancy saw some of the feather flowers in Kellogg's home she felt this would be a perfect way for her friends to earn money. Helen was thrilled with the prospect of her innovative home-industry being resurrected and offered to teach Nancy the techniques of feather flower making. She even happened to have some pheasant feathers which they could use in her lessons. Over the past few months Nancy has learned how to make all the different flower designs (about 20) that Helen and her staff gradually developed. She also gave Nancy a copy of the video that one of her friends took which shows the organizational side of the industry; so it should be quite easy for Nancy to put it all together again. After the industry and the school have both been going well for a while, our long range plan is to build a clinic or small hospital so that the health of the local population can be improved through immunizations, malaria treatment, and common-sense first aid. In addition, it will deal with normal cuts, broken bones, snake bites, car accidents, child birth and everything else that happens to children and grown-ups. We also want to help the villagers clean up the local environment by eliminating as many open sewers as possible and getting rid of places where mosquitoes breed. My Transformation My spiritual learning began in a little church on Sunnyslope Road called the Church of the Brethren. My Sunday school teacher was Ron Stallings, who eventually owned the sporting goods store in Wenatchee called "Stallings, Adams and Conway." I still talk to Ron occasionally. What a really wonderful man. When I came back from Vietnam as a young man, I still had all my body parts and was well and healthy. But during my 40 odd working years I lifted heavy machinery, and worked hard. This caused me to have a lot of back and joint problems. Along the way I had several major surgeries: two lamenectomies (ruptured discs), one foraminotomy ( enlargement of a hole in the spine where the nerve passes from the spinal cord out into the attached muscle, down the legs and to the feet), a complete rebuild of my left knee, and an arthroscopic bone grafting of the right knee. In early 2005 (after being in crippling pain for many years) I was diagnosed with Spinal Stenosis. I had been taking heavy-duty pain pills for several years but they made me feel like I was I a fog all the time. That was not the way I wanted to live the rest of my life so I quite all those pain pills cold turkey and I have never gone back to them. During that period of time, January and February of 2005, everything in my life was going bad-job, car, health, literally everything was going wrong. But the, on March 22, 2006, things brightened up considerably when the stork visited our home and we were blessed with a baby girl. We named her Tina. Soon afterwards, we invited a friend, named Mrs. Morgan, to come out to our home for dinner. She asked if she could bring her sister, Burdell, along. We said, "Of course." When they arrived we all began talking about several trivial things and then the focus got around to me and God. We were all seated and ready to begin the meal when Burdell asked me some very pointed questions about my relationship with God. As we talked, I told her that I had a lot of pain in my body. After a while she stood up and walked around behind me. She then lain her hands on my shoulders, prayed for me and asked me if I would now accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I said, "I will." Then she asked me where I had pain. "From my lower back to the tips of my toes," I said. Then, one by one, she laid her hands in every place that I told her that I hurt and asked God to heal me there. After praying for me she sat down and said a prayer over the cold meal. We had a wonderful time around the table. Burdell told me that\ "She had been sent to help me." She told me to start reading the Bible every day or IT will die. (I believe the "IT" is the spirit of God in me). From that day I have not missed a day reading the Bible. I have even sat many times in bathrooms in Kenya reading with a flashlight when there was no electricity. She stayed with us for two days praying for us and asking God to heal me and be with our family. After two days Burdell went back to the west side of the mountains near Mount Vernon. After that, we communicated on a regular basis. About 10 days after leaving Dr. Loeser's office, I was laying on my bed in Quincy in the middle of the day and I had the strangest feeling that I was not alone. I felt something that seemed like a comb moving down the inside of my spine, combing the nerves out straight. (From looking at x-rays those nerves looked like a can of worms.) From that moment on, 99% of the pain in my back, legs and feet has simply stopped. I am a total believer that God healed my back problems and caused the pain to disappear. Several weeks after Burdell had left the house, I thoughtlessly uttered something that went against the word of God. As soon as I said it, I ran into the edge of an open door-bent my glasses and ended up with a black eye! I was determined to never say that again! Since the day that this wonderful lady showed up at our door, everything in my life has turned around. For several weeks after she left our house, even though she was miles away, I sensed that she was praying for me. I could actually feel it. I have been through a lot of negative experiences and have learned a lot along the way, but everything that has come into my life has been for a purpose. I have done a lot of changing since Christ came into my life and now my wife and I both believe is going according to the way God ordained for me. I now have a lovely wife, a beautiful one year old daughter and a 13 year old step-son that I love as though he were my own. I want my family to be happy and I want to give them all the benefits in life that I possibly can. After meeting my future wife, I was completely in love with everything African. My heart was in Kenya and that was where I really wanted to be. My life has been very rich and full of opportunities for learning. Along the way I have acquired a great deal of knowledge about electricity, construction, auto mechanics, building and farming as well as many other skills. As I said previously in this small booklet, I want to say again-the happiest people are those who are more concerned for others that they are for themselves. I have come to believe that God's plan for me now is to be in Kenya helping as many people as I can. I want to teach the young men some of what it took me a lifetime to learn so they can feed and clothe their families and pull up the standards of living in their local communities. Maybe I'll even start a trade school of some sort. Who knows? I want to be sensitive to God's leading. Since I have completely accepted God in my life and Jesus as my savior, many things have become clear as to why I am what I am. I feel at peace inside and have an overwhelming sense of well-being. I feel as though I am never alone. God is with my every moment in everything I do. I believe that it is simply a matter of time before God's plan for me and my family comes to pass, and we will soon be living our dream in AFRICA.

Jerry Noel Peart

December 25, 1945 - December 15, 2012