A retired teacher, Cindy knew she wanted to serve as a short-term missionary but the timing never worked out—until now. In this quarter's Compelled newsletter, Cindy shares some of her journey to Rift Valley Academy and what her life looks like there on the hill. Read Cindy's story below. Learn how you can pray for Rift Valley Academy: its staff and students.
Journal Entry: December 2024
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” That's a question generally reserved for those in generation alpha. I believe the better question for all of us is “what does God want me to do next?”
For this “boomer”, the answer is that God wants me to teach math again. This time, I plan to go to Africa to teach the children of missionaries at Rift Valley Academy (RVA). I’ll be teaching high school math and hanging out with kids for the 2025-2026 school year.
Rift Valley Academy is a boarding school in Kijabe, Kenya, for roughly 500 students whose parents are spreading the truth of Jesus Christ all over the continent of Africa. RVA has been in existence since 1906, so it’s even older than I am.
I’ve considered serving at RVA for many years. Bob (my husband) and I talked about both of us doing some short-term mission work after we retired but his health never allowed us to pursue that idea. Earlier this year, I began praying and researching the possibility of teaching for a year, filling in for someone who regularly teaches there but would be returning to their home country for a short period of time. After numerous documents, emails, zoom calls, and prayers, I’ve been approved and will be heading to the airport with my passport in early August 2025.
I am convinced that God has planned all of this and prepared me well. He has blessed me with good health and numerous opportunities to review my math skills while helping my homeschooled grandkids. My word of the year for 2024 has been “purpose” and God has revealed my purpose at this point in my life is to continue to build His kingdom. Beginning in about eight months, it means a year at RVA supporting kids as they grow into the people God wants them to be.
Journal Entry: May 2025
2025 is flying by! It’s already more than halfway through May and in less than three months, I’ll be in Kenya participating in new staff orientation for the new school year. I am looking forward to seeing the sign on the photo above in person. The school’s mascot is the caped buffalo, and they use red and black buffalo plaid often. Good thing I have a buffalo plaid shirt! It’s been a while since I sat in faculty meetings, but I believe I still remember how to do that.
A young couple who serve as dorm parents at RVA are heading to the States to continue education in preparation for becoming a counselor for students have offered to loan me their furniture and household goods. This is a real blessing to me and I’ve promised not to jump on the bed or the couch!
I will probably be teaching pre-calculus and geometry and have already found a pre-calc textbook to brush up on those skills. I am quite pleased that math is still math, so I don’t need to learn new stuff.
Journal Entry: August 9th, 2025
Pizza! Subway sandwiches! Apples and oranges! It hardly seems like I’ve left the USA if you consider what I’ve eaten the last couple of days, but the truth is that I am now in East Africa, 7200 feet above sea level overlooking the Great Rift Valley. I’m about sixty miles south of the equator, so sunlight is equally divided between day and night, unlike Eastern Washington, where I’d gotten used to the sun rising at 5:15 AM and not going down until 8 or 9 PM. Here, the sun rises at 6:36 AM and sets at 6:41 PM!!! Since I’m in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time in my life, I’m also experiencing the colder months in summer. The temperature topped out at a chilly sixty degrees Fahrenheit today primarily because of the altitude.
I’ve been welcomed by many staff members here at Rift Valley Academy and look forward to worshipping with them tomorrow at the Africa Inland Church that is just outside the gate of RVA. On Monday, I begin new staff orientation! In the meantime, I’ve managed to get my computer connected with the WiFi on campus and will send this to all of you through the magic of the internet. I can only imagine what missionaries endured one hundred years ago.
I have a cute duplex house on campus, furnished with couches and tables and chairs and so on, owned by a generous young couple who are spending the next two years in Illinois so that they can return here and serve again as dorm parents and as a licensed counselor. The hot water works and I have most of the conveniences of home — a microwave, fridge, gas stove, and washer and dryer. Most of the appliances run on 220 lines, but there are also 110 electric lines in the house so my night light, hair dryer, and curling iron work too! A true blessing!!
Journal Entry: August 30th, 2025
I’ve been in Kenya almost a month and it’s time for school to start! New Staff Orientation is finished, Inservice for all staff is in the books, and the kids are here! I’ve begun to master the online gradebook and learning system where I post homework, pdfs of the textbook and even videos of each lesson. Fortunately, I inherited those videos from a previous teacher who had to create them during COVID. If any of my students miss class, they’ll be able to catch up in the comfort of their dorm room.
Yesterday, we greeted new students and their parents. I met a family from Kentucky, one from Australia, and one from Georgia, who now live in Uganda. Another family lives in Burundi (I had to look that up) and one sibling was wearing a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt! Go Birds!!! I also met a student who lives with his parents just down the hill on Kijabe Station, so he won’t be in the dorm but will have an uphill hike to school everyday. It is humbling to realize that parents are entrusting their children to us— to teach and to mentor and to care for— while most of them return to the places they are serving the Lord in many different countries in Africa. Please pray for those adjustments and for the dorm parents as they stand in for parents on a daily basis. Pray, too, for the parents and for siblings who will be away from the RVA students for three months at a time! It reminds me a bit of sending my kids to college on the mainland while we lived in Hawaii, yet my kids were eighteen when they left for college, not twelve or fifteen! Pray for all of them!!
This is my “Steelers” colored bulletin board with an old favorite “we all use math everyday” poster. It’s Steelers colors because those were the colors of paper that were left in the classroom. I also have a mounted projector in the room that connects to my computer so I can show the notes and problems for each day’s lesson. I’ll have three sections of Precalculus and will also help as an academic coach two periods a day with students who need a little extra help, either with math or simply with organizing and completing assignments.
I am very grateful for this opportunity to serve God and the students. Despite the stresses of learning the new “stuff” at a new school, I have been very much at peace throughout these last weeks.
Journal Entry: Sept. 28th, 2025
What a month it has been! Zebras, giraffes, baby elephants, a rhinoceros and her baby, and fireworks!!!
Actually all of that was just this past Saturday.
Two colleagues and I went to the Nairobi National Park and saw all of the animals listed above and many more. It is amazing that there is a national park adjacent to the capitol city which has a population of roughly six million people! There is a fence between the city and the park but the opposite side of the park is not fenced allowing for the animals to migrate normally! When we got back to campus, our activities director had an all-school event planned with games that ended in a display of fireworks. (I supervised the launching of tennis balls at a stack of plastic buckets! ) He may have spent most of his annual budget acquiring the permit and fireworks but it was so much fun watching and hearing the kids laughing and cheering. Fireworks in Africa do not happen often!
My classes have been going well. I am teaching three precalculus classes and also traded a study hall for an Algebra I class of 9 eighth graders a few days after school started. Adding that class helped even out the numbers in sections of both Algebra and freshman social studies. We have almost four hundred students this year which is fewer than RVA would like to serve but the numbers had to be limited because there are fewer dorm parents than needed. Several dorms are empty this year. Please pray for God to raise up His people to come to teach and to serve as dorm parents. There is a constant need for staff as some rotate to other mission assignments or to home assignment.
Please pray, too, for ongoing visa issues in a variety of countries in Africa. I’ve learned of multiple missionaries who have had to leave the country where they were previously serving. This is difficult for their children who are here as well as for the parents who are displaced from the field where they developed language skills and had built relationships.
I went with a group of students to CURE Hospital last Sunday morning to sing, tell the story of Jonah and pray with the patients. The hospital is located just a few hundred yards from RVA and serves children with orthopedic needs from near and far. Almost every patient we saw had an arm or leg in a cast after surgery. It was so encouraging to see our students reaching out to these children and their parents.
Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. I am honored to be able to serve our wonderful God here in this place for this time. God Bless You!!!