Happy 78th Birthday Mama! Rose Hawalla Ombogo

It’s now been just over 11 years since Mama visited Kenya. When she last visited, we were expecting Miss T (now 11). Since then, we’ve had Miss T’s brothers, LT (9) and L’il T (7). These are my brother Rony & Carol’s babies, the Kenyan grands aka The Piggies. You see, until April this year, although she sees her American grand regularly, Mama had not met her Kenyan grands. This had been a prayer request for so long, that she would meet her grands. Obviously, our natural answer to this request was that Mama would travel back to Kenya but due to occassional ill health and age, that did not happen. At some point Mama finally told us she was not traveling back because the journey was too long and hectic for her. She was old and couldn’t hack it, she would tell us even as we rebutted her response and told her she still had several years under her belt to come. When we explained how hard it would be to transport all of us to her, Mama calmy told us that the Lord would provide.

A few years back realizing that Mama would probably not travel back, we started talking seriously about what it would take to travel to her, and started the process. It became an all-hands-on-deck scenario with getting the resources to make this happen. As life would happen, earlier this year as we were on the final stretch of planning for an April visit, Mama fell ill and it was “touch and go” for a while. We all rallied around her, siblings in the Americas, and those of us who were far and kept reminding her “Mama, we are coming in April”. And each time she’d ask, “All of you?”. “Yes, all of us”. Our prayer was that the Lord would keep her long enough to meet her Kenyan grands. And he did, praise the Lord!

So finally, by God’s grace and provision, we all arrived in Las Vegas. Joining Linda and Emma who were Vegas locals, we all arrived: the American and Kenyan chapters. For the first time in decades, Mama had all her children and grands in one location. She was excited! She was thankful. We were so grateful for the opportunity to hang out together and make memories.

As Mama celebrates another year, one we didn’t think she’d get, we give glory to God for this milestone.

Happy birthday Mama!