We are so "crate"ful!!!!!

The past two weeks have been rough and wonderful all at the same time!! Macy has been sick and was eventually diagnosed with her first case of strep throat! (Thank the Lord for wonderful medical care located about 2 hrs from us that is run by the Christian Mission Alliance (CMA) and the great medical doctors there!) The same day we drove there and back to our house we got the news that our crate would be making it to our house that night from the capital city, which is a good 3 hr drive. I did not let myself get too excited because so many things happen here that can delay arrivals but I was hopeful that it would arrive within a couple of days! To my surprise it arrived at 1:00 am on Saturday the 28th!!!!!

I want to make our life here "real" to all my friends and family in the states! I immediately was so grateful to EVERYONE that contributes to the LOTTIE MOON offering every year. Without your giving, days like I just talked about would not be possible. The medical care that Macy received, the gas money that we used to drive 2 hrs, the money we used to pay for her antibiotics, the crate that we received, the money that it cost to get that crate across the ocean,...all that we are able to do here is ONLY made possible because people that love the Lord give to support us and the work that is done on the "field". The day we got our crate I could not help but be overcome with joy for the amount of support our organization receives and also simply for the fact that now my house feels like home again. I know we are to not find our joy in worldly possessions...but, oh, how wonderful it is to sit on my comfortable couches and sleep on my wonderful bed. I praise Jesus for the blessings in my life (and my family) and vow to be a good steward of everything I have been given to HIs glory!!!

To help make it real, I wanted to show you a picture time line of sorts of how the crating process went for us. (It is not exactly the same for everyone in our company and some do not even get to crate because of various reasons.) First off, we have not seen our house goods since early July 2011. The packing company came to our house and packed up all of our belongings in 2 days , put them on a truck, and drove out of the parking lot. Brad and I were just praying that we would see it all again one day!! Here are a few pictures of the packing done in the apartment we lived in at Mid America for a few months and the truck that took most of our earthly possessions.







After we watched that truck pull away we moved back to Cleveland, TN to be with our families for a couple of weeks before we went to training in Virginia. While we were at training though, our belongings were packed into a crate and sat in some shipping yard until we "landed" on the field. The week we came to Africa we learned that our crate had left the shores of the US and was headed across the Atlantic ocean to make its way here! We got to Africa on October 5th and our crate got here January 28th. "Why does it take so long?" is the question people ask. I am not sure of all the reasons but I do know that things get pretty sticky in customs. It sat in our country's capital for almost a month. The man that ran the shipping yard where our crate was sitting kept "making up reasons" why our crate could not be released. One day they needed the original documents (????), one day their supposed x-ray machine saw something suspicious, and then (after they had signed off on our stuff to be released) they said we had to pay to get the actual metal box that held all of our wooden boxes off of his yard. Crazy I know. Our company does not pay bribes, for any reason, so the wonderful men who God granted with much wisdom that day said, "Keep the metal crate!!!", and they went and got an 18 wheeler to load all the wooden boxes on to get them to our house!!! (Shout out to Matthew!!!!)

When the crate got here, it was on this huge truck and it had to get into our drive way somehow!! A few tree branches had to be cut down and about 8 men had to help direct the truck driver through our gate!! It was quite a site to see!!!



Brad had to break the seal on the boxes!!





Time to unpack!!! We have still unpacking left to do and have to think of ways (or things to have built) to be able to store our belongings in our house! Our house does not have a lot of storage area, as do most houses where we live!! The wood that our crates were made of will become shelves, cabinets, etc. Yay!!!! Here are a few pictures of our house, which now feels like a home!!!

Mine and Brad's bedroom...please excuse the mess! :)



The girls were thrilled to see all of their toys!



Oh, you cannot imagine what it was like for me to get my new fridge and stove. Absolute bliss.



Brad and Mara enjoying some Big Screen TV! :)



Now, who wants to come and visit?

PeePee Castles and Tampon Whistles

Ok...I am warning you again...do not read if you have no sense of humor and are grossed out easily. As you can imagine, Africa is not the cleanest place in the world. Actually, I cannot think of a dirtier place; however, there must be one that exists I imagine. Since we have been here several gross things have happened which are slightly humorous and some that have compromised the health of my family which are not so humorous. Let us begin with the funny ones...

The first couple of weeks we were here the neighborhood children were outside our gate constantly. Young children to secondary school children were here. When I say young children I mean babies that have just learned to walk that are allowed to roam the roads here under the supervision of their older "responsible" brothers or sisters. One day when Brad was outside playing with Macy and Mara and the neighborhood kids he watched as a young boy (maybe 3 or 4) went peepee in the sand. After he used the bathroom in front of our gate he proceeded to sit down and make a sand castle type building out of the peepee sand. Nice. Note to self: don't let my girls destroy any sand castles they see randomly around our neighborhood. The funny gross stuff only seems to happen when I am not around. I am positive there is more to come however. This story is the grossest, but funny, but may make you gag. ;) Please guys..don't read if feminine stuff grosses you out.

There is a little group of boys that come around the neighborhood and go through everyones trash. EVERYTHING here is recycled and used for the craziest things.

So...Brad walks out to see who is going through our trash one day to make sure they are not making a mess. He notices one poor kid had gotten a hold of a HOT, HOT, HOT pepper that we bought at the market one day and did not use because of its "hotness"!!! Poor kid looked like he was dying, Brad said. Then he noticed the other kid was blowing through this white plastic thing like you would a whistle. When Brad looked closer he saw what he feared...the kid had one of my tampon applicators in his mouth blowing on it. EWWWWWWW!!! (I am sorry if this is personal and gross...I just had to share..plus I have already warned you.) At that moment (I was in the kitchen being Betty Crocker when this was happening) I heard Brad yelling for me to bring some candy out to some kids and to hurry. They replaced the yucky objects they had in their mouths with some yummy Smarties sent to us from the States.

We just recently had an outhouse building built for our guard to use. One side of it has a latrine and the other side has a small room that he may sit in during rainy season.
Before this building was built however, he would use the restroom in a hole in the concrete and cover the hole up with a small square concrete slab. It always smelled bad when we rounded the corner of our house where this small (for lack of better words) "poopoo hole" was located. We instructed the girls to never play around the hole and in the sand/mud area that surrounded it for fear that it was contaminated with feces and urine. If your children are like mine, though, there are just a few days out of the year that they disobey. :) Well, on one of these days that they decided to be defiant Macy and Mara decide to make mud pies out of the dirt around the poop hole. Brad then hears Macy instruct Mara to eat her mud pie. AHHHH! Maybe this is why we have all taken one round of worm medicine and why Macy is on two different meds now for funky stuff going on inside of her. Here is a picture of the newly made outhouse!!!

Besides all of the gross stuff we encounter (sometimes on a day to day basis) we are truly loving it here and, even though we have only been here for 2 months, are starting to form friendships with nationals!! So even though we are living in a "PeePee Castle and Tampon Whistle" world instead of a "champagne wishes and caviar dreams" world , we are truly blessed and are thankful the Lord moved us to this place!! I promise the next blog will not be so disturbing! ;)

New Outfits and Randomness

As I sit here drinking the wonderful nectar that Starbucks created, Via instant coffee, I am inspired to write another blog update! (A special thanks to the wonderful Barbara Scott for sending this delicious coffee packets to me in the first place!!!)

The girls and I had our first tailor made outfits made here in Africa this week! The girls outfits turned out adorable and mine is not too shabby either!!! Now let me describe the process of getting these made! First off my language teacher mentioned that she had some outfits made in our town one day (see..she travels to our town each weekend on a bus to teach us for the week and then goes home on the weekends). Since I am pretty new to the area (the understatement of the year) I asked her if she could go with meand the family to buy material and go to this tailor to help translate. We first had to go to the "nicest" material store in our town (according to our language teacher). It happens to be across the street from our home and you have to walk through the fish market to get to the material store. Poor Macy can hardly stand the smell of the fish market and pinched her nostrils together for most ofour time there!!! Of course while we are in the shop we draw a huge crowd of kids that are not used to seeing white people in their local market! We did have fun trying to communicate which material we liked, since our language teacher lets us try to communicate to them before she has to jump in and save us!! The store was probably the size of a small store in a mall, like a Claire's boutique, with cloth folded up neatly according to its quality. I was also surprised to find out that the owner of the material store is actually a close neighbor of ours and I have actually been in their courtyard to visit and practice language!

So..we purchase our material and walk back through the crowded market to get back into the truck and drive to the tailor. We drive about 5 minutes down the road to get there. We go inside and enter into a room about the size of a small bathroom. There are 2 couches lining two of the walls and a large dresser across from the door with lots of plastic bags just thrown in it with finished outfits in it. We greet the lady that is sitting in there and I just assume it is another customer waiting from someone to appear in the doorway that leads to the back of the shop. My language teacher thrusts magazines into my lap telling me to find a design I like so I can show the tailor what I want my outfit to look like. Now...I am guessing that these magazines I am looking at at this point are the equivalent of high fashion magazines in Africa because I have not seen anyone wearing this kind of intricate outfits while I have been here. It takes a while for me to find one that I like and then my language teacher tells me that if I can't find anything I like I can just draw something or describe what I want and they can make it! After thinking for a few minutes, she asks me what is taking me so long to figure out what I want. (Remember, I am thinkingthe whole time that we are waiting for someone to appear and ask us to leave the "sitting room".) By this time I am sweating, the girls are sweating, and Brad is sweating and I am about ready to leave. However, the lady sitting across from me the whole time is the owner of the store and has been waiting on us the whole time to show/tell her what we wanted. We describe through our translator and a funny game of charades what we want our outfits to look like. She calls a man from the back to come out and measure us in the little bitty room and they take our measurements down and write them on the masking tape that they have stuck on the material. After a few minutes of this, they tell us that our outfits will be ready to pick up the next Wednesday!! (I am not sure how long we were actually there but it was long enough for Brad to leave with the girls for a while to go help our friends jump start their car and come back!)

Brad goes andpicks our outfits up the next Wednesday and they all fit great except for one of mine. I have to take it back and they want me to try it on so they can see what adjustments need to be done. I go into the "back" for the first time and see about 5 or 6 old timey sewing machines! I step behind this green curtain that has huge gaps on each side of it by the wall and put on my outfit, all the while trying not to touch the walls because there were thousands of ants and spiders crawling around me! ugh. I also was trying to keep my white legs from being seen by anyone through the gaps in the curtains since legs are considered to be the equivalent of breasts here in Africa (and there were about 5 men outside that could have easily seen me!). I really haven't minded wearing long skirts that much since being here! Anyways, I get my outfit on and they record the adjustments that need to be made. I still have not gotten that outfit yet because it still needed alterations the second time I went back. Hopefully it will look ok!! Here are the pictures of some of our outfits so far:

Mara wakes up every morning now and wants to put on her "African clothes"!! So sweet!!


Macy announced so sweetly after she got her outfit on that now all she needed was black hair and dark skin! :)



Mine did not turn out exactly as I wanted it too but I thought it was cute enough! We are currently having a few more outfits made and I will post pictures of those when they are done too!

Now, onto other random things other than outfits. Funny story time. Brad decided to guy buy some sand to place in our courtyard around some of the plants we have planted and to make a sand box for the girls to play in. It is course sand, not like the pretty white beach sand. He drove around our town and found a place that looked like it sold sand and it did! After "talking" to the men, one of them motioned for Brad to get in his truck and drive him down the road a few miles. Brad drives along with the other man to the other part of the "sand" business, I guess. Brad motions or tries to communicate that he wants his truck bed filled with sand. After a few minutes, the man motions to Brad to get back in his truck and to go home. Brad is slightly confused and then they motion that they will bring the sand to our house in their own truck. As Brad is driving home, it occurs to him that the only trucks he saw there were massive dump trucks and informs me when he gets home that he has no idea how much sand he just bought for the $30 he just paid!!! No joking...in about 15 minutes a dump truck pulls up in front of our gate and dumps a whole dump truck load of sand in the road in front of our house!!!!!! Ummmm...what!?! It takes Brad and 2 other guys ~ 2 hrs to move all the sand into our yard!!! Needless to say, our yard looks neater and the girls are loving their sand box, which is practically our whole yard right now!!!! :)

Also, I have had a few more successes in my on going struggle with cooking! I made the most delicious spaghetti I have ever ate in my entire life last week! It was awesome! I was so proud of myself! I also have made banana bread 3 times and even taught our language teacher how to make it one evening. I gave her some during one of our sessions and she loved it. She asked me if I would teach her how to make it since she would be purchasing her own oven soon to put in her house. When she came over, she said she thought the bread was so good the first time that she wanted to ask for more but was embarrassed to do so! She asked if this is what all our cakes taste like in the states. Brad chimed in and said that the banana bread was not even close to being sweet as birthday cake and that we, white people, are larger in the states because we eat so much sugar. (true statement, I believe!) I wonder what cooking adventures await me in my African kitchen this week! :)

Oh, I cannot forget what opened in our town this week!!! As Brad was driving down the road he happened to glance over at one of the little "grocery stores" we frequent and saw a gift sent from heaven....a soft serve yogurt machine!!! What?!? In the middle of our little town....YAY!!! He was so excited he stopped and talked to the owners of the shop and to get some, however it was not cold enough yet to produce solid frozen yogurt and they told him to come back later. Of course he goes back later....twice in one day! That day they had chocolate and pineapple flavored yogurt and it was delicious (well, it may not compare to Yogurt Mountain in Memphis) but it is close to heaven here! Yesterday they had strawberry and pineapple! They serve it in small cups without a spoon and it cost ~ $1. Brad decided to take one of our tupperware containers instead and they agreed to fill it up for us for about $4!! Brad said he got the oddest looks when he did this but assured the owners that these white people (meaning us) would probably visit them everyday now! The girls were so excited when he got home with it! So..we enjoyed yummy delicious frozen yogurt in the middle of Africa while we watched Robin Hood on our small computer screen in our living room! What a blessed Friday evening!!

One month

It is hard to believe that we have only been here in Africa for one month. It truly feels like a lot longer to me. We have had challenging days and I am sure more are to come but we also have those good days too! The Lord has blessed us in many ways and I should be so much more grateful than I am! One of the major things we have been blessed with is some financial gifts that enabled us to buy 2 AC units, one for mine and Brad's bedroom and the other for the girls' bedroom. This makes it much more comfortable to sleep at night! Then last week when we were in the capital, we put out an email to an organization here that let's mostly American citizens communicate with each other and asked if anyone had any Swamp (or evaporative) Coolers for sale, new or used. We got an email back within a couple of hours from a lady that wanted to give us hers for FREE!!! We now are able to sit in our living room/dining room/computer room without sweating to death!

I posted last time that I was intimidated by cooking everything from scratch. Well, that feeling still remains. I have had more failures than successes but at least I am trying (and crying)! The things that I have made that I would actually offer someone other than my immediate family is the peanut brittle, chips from pita bread, yeast rolls, and maple syrup. I tried making lemon bars and scorched them to a crisp (and they were only in the stupid oven that you have to stick your whole arm in to light for 5 minutes!!!) I tried to make cheesy potato soup and it was bland and horrible, Macy and Mara ate it, well,....some of it. Brad has done most of the cooking, mostly because he really enjoys it and could probably make anything he wanted without a recipe. He makes excellent food but I know he won't always be at home to make it too. I really enjoy making sweets but hate making meals and always seem to mess it up somehow. The only good things i have made,meal wise, is if Brad is helping me. If anyone has any simple meals made from simple recipes that do not called for premixed stuff (like bisquick) please
send them to me! I have some excellent cookbooks in the crate but that won't be here for months! Don't get me wrong... We are not going hungry. We have plenty of food, it just mostly has to be prepared. Not like some of the easy stuff back in the states! I have also gotten a lot of good recipes from others but more would be helpful!

Other crazy stuff has happened here also! A lot of it has to do with Brad and the truck. He left the lights on twice overnight and had to get it jumped started. He has also been in one accident, which was not his fault. A guy on a motorcycle ran into our truck and was fine. The police would not let Brad leave until our supervisor got there and could translate for Brad! So Brad got to sit in a crazy police station for a while! Hopefully that will not happen again!

So ..what does a normal day look like for us right now? Well....I set my alarm for 5:45 am and get up to drink a cold cup of coffee and do my quiet time before my girls get up. They have been waking up around 6:30 am since we have been here which I am not too thrilled about. The girls come stumbling into the living room and me or Brad start getting breakfast ready around 7 am. Most days we go and buy eggs from this little "butiki" (store) that is less than a block from our house. They of course are not refridgerated but we have only gotten one bad egg since being here! If Brad is fixing the breakfast I usually go and start the washing machine. It takes it about 10 minutes to fill up with water and so I wait to put the clothes in until it is at least 1/2 way full. I have done at most 3 loads of laundry in one day because everything has to line dry and I don't have that much line to dry my clothes on yet. This morning a new friend actually brought us some metal poles to attach more lines too and I can't wait to get them up! Somedays my laundry smells good but somedays it does not. There is a "trash yard" a few blocks from our house where they constantly burn trash so if the wind is blowing our direct our laundry kind of smells like it. Nice. Now maybe me and my house helper can get all the laundry done in one day! After breakfast I start language learning at 8 am and go for 2 hrs. During this time Brad is watching the girls and doing other projects around the house. Brad and I then switch and he goes until noon. While Brad is finishing up I start getting lunch ready. The girls normally eat french bread (buy it fresh about every day) with Nutella spread on it and Yoplait yogurt. The yogurt taste a little different and is sometimes so thin you have to drink it. The girls love it though and I put sprinkles that I brought with me from the states in it to make it fun! (thanks sis for the great idea!). The girls then take their much needed daily nap and Brad and I try to sit down and study or get other house stuff done or one of us goes and gets things needed (mostly Brad does that part). Brad usually has a couple of guys come by to greet him and sometimes they stay to make the tea they drink here, which is an art in itself and will keep you up all night! After the girls get up from their nap I try to play some with them. We go outside and go on "adventures" around our house and pretend our trees are a massive jungle and that our chickens and all the lizards running around are strange animals! They love it! Around 5 or 6 we start dinner preparations and then start getting ready for bed after dinner. We try and get the girls in bed by 8. I have been reading to them from the Bible and we have already gone thru Ester, Jonah, and are now on Ruth. My girls are really
interested in the girls in the Bible right now! We then sing songs. Mara's favorite song is "The Revelation Song" and Macy likes "Lord Prepare Me to be a Sanctuary" song right now. The girls finally go to bed and I am completely worn out! However, I usually make my way to the kitchen and fill up our water filter bucket for the next day since we have to drink filtered water here. I also fill up the small ice trays we have so we can have ice first thing in the morning, especially for my iced coffee!!!

There is more to write but I want to make sure this posts! Maybe I can get some pictures up soon!

AFRICA

It has taken a while for me to write this update because of the entire moving process overseas. I has been smooth for the most part with a few little and big bumps here or there!

We left the states on October 4th and had 3 different airplane connections we had to make. We started out at the Chattanooga airport (which is very small) and the Lord blessed us so much there!! I did get discouraged at one point because they said we needed a VISA just to fly through the Brussels airport and it took them about 1.5 hrs to figure the correct answer out. I thought we might not be able to leave that day because of that. However, after we found out we did not need a visa to get through Brussels the airport people that waited on us did not charge us one dollar for the extra baggage we had with us. We were expecting to pay at least $600 dollars in extra baggage and then we did not have to!!! Yay!!!!

On all the flights the girls did great!!!! It was Mara’s first time flying and she really enjoyed looking out the window and the clouds and ground! There was only one bad flight and it was only bad because it lasted 10 hours more than what we were originally told. It was supposed to be a 4-5 hour flight, a direct flight. However, the airline decided to make it a 3 stop airplane flight where we sat on the plane for hours while other people got off and new people got on in 3 African countries! If you ever decide to come and see us, please let me know and I will let you know the airplane company that did this because I don’t recommend them! Hopefully we will not have to use them again!

When we got off of the plane all of our luggage made it! All twelve pieces!!! We were super excited and were met by most of the people that work for our company in our country! It was such a warm welcome!!! God bless them!! We ate and fellowshipped for a couple of hours and then it was time for our first night in Africa as a family!

I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst vertigo I have ever experienced! Brad had to help me out of bed, walk me down the hall, and help me lean over the toilet so I could throw up and not fall over. It was horrible. This continued for the next two days causing me to become dehydrated and weak. We finally got in touch with our medical consultants and they suggested I try some medicine that is available here for vertigo (comparable to Meclizine in the states). It helped some and I also began taking the Phenergan and Zofran I had brought with me from the states. I started eating and drinking again without becoming nauseated and started regaining strength. It was finally concluded that an ear infection I had been fighting in the stated was back causing the vertigo. I took some super-duper antibiotics and steroids and feel myself again!!! Having to throw up in HOT Africa is not very comfortable! Praise the Lord I am feeling better! Continue to pray that is does not come back.

While I was sick Brad was a trooper! He had to manage the girls, with the help of others, and buy the things we needed that are not available in the town we live in (like a lot of food products). We were finally able to drive to our town (about a 3 hour drive) and see our new home! It was not quite ready to sleep in the first night so we stayed with the family we are working with here that night. That first week in the house was a whirl wind! Workers were coming to install fans, make electrical repairs, treat cabinets in kitchens so termites won’t destroy them, and anything else you can think of! It took most of the first week and ½ to get all of our stuff unpacked and put up where we like it to be.

The girls were scared at first to sleep in their own bedroom. For the most part they were scared because the doors have to stay closed at night to keep the cool air from escaping into the hallway. The same goes for Brad’s and mine bedroom door. So we kept the girls in our bedroom where they slept on twin size mattresses on the floor for the first entire week. They are now somewhat happily sleeping in their new bedroom. It takes them longer to fall asleep and I have to stay in there with them for a while and sing songs with them to get them to calm down enough to sleep.

Macy and Mara have made “friends” in the neighborhood we live in already. Every morning there are a number of children ringing our doorbell or knocking on our gate yelling “Macy” in their little African accents!! Since Macy is our little social butterfly it did not surprise me that she would already have kids wanting to play with her. Mara lets the children pick her up and tote her around but usually does not say too much to them. Macy still gets frustrated because she tries to speak to them in English and of course they do not understand. She holds their hands and has introduced them to the Frisbee and plays with them outside our gate (never without our supervision though). We have observed a lot of rough play amongst the children, lots of hard slapping and hitting take place. I do not want my girls to be the victim of this playing so it will take a few years (probably) for me to ever let them out of my sight. Sometimes I think maybe never. ☺

The girls don’t know yet but we just purchased them a dog. It is 13 hours away and another family who works for our company is getting one of its siblings. They have to drive and get them in a few weeks! The girls will be so excited!!!! I believe it will be a long hair black lab that will be fully vaccinated!!! Yay! We also have 3 chickens now, 2 of which Macy has named Marian and Robin in honor of the movie Robin Hood.

Brad has also made the girls two swings. At first they were located outside our gate in the trees that line the wall in front of our house (they provide a lot of shade for our courtyard too!). However every morning when we wake up or when we go outside our gate there are at least 5 to 10 children playing on the swings. They are really loud in the mornings and tended to wake the girls up. Since then the swings have been moved inside our courtyard and one of them is hanging from our own Mango tree!!! We let the other kids come inside the courtyard to play with the girls so that they still have a chance to swing too! The girls have also enjoyed playing in a little hut that Brad constructed out or cinder blocks and tree branches! I purchased 2 small wooden chairs for the girls to drag inside and out that they sit in under the hut branches.

Brad and I spend most of the day trying to get just a couple of things done. Our main focus (besides the Word of God) is language learning. Our company required 40 hrs a week of language learning. Brad and I each sit with a language teacher for 2 hours each day, five days a week. Then we have to review and practice the language to make up the remaining hours needed to make 40. This can consist of listening to music in our new language, going to the market and listening/purchasing things/ greeting people, and talking to our house help and guard. Basically we do whatever we can to immerse ourselves in the language so we can learn fast.

My house help, whom you can refer to as Allie, helps out a lot so far. She washes my dishes (which is a lot since everything here is made from scratch), sweeps and washes the tile floors daily, straightens up the bedrooms and makes up the beds if I have not already done it (and even if I have she goes behind me and makes it look like sheets on a clean hotel bed!!!). She also does random stuff like helping Brad catch the chickens if they get loose! Our guard comes at dusk and keeps watch over our house until 6:30 am. They make things a lot easier for me and Brad!

The most difficult thing for me so far is the cooking. I am by far no Betty Crocker and fear I will never be. Brad is a wonderful cook but is the kind of cook that does not go by recipes. I am very much a “J” on Meyers Briggs test and must have organization and a specific recipe to go by. Therefore, I have been writing down step by step how to make the things that Brad prepares and have also been getting recipes from other workers! It will take time I know but hopefully one day I will feel comfortable in the kitchen and not burn myself or cut myself on accident while in it!

The most difficult thing for Brad so far has been the heat. Bless his heart he sweats so much. Both of us have lost weight probably just from sweating! It has been cooler the past two days but still it is hot. With the AC on in our bedroom at night it may get down in the mid 80s if standing right below the AC unit. If you are across the bedroom by the other wall and take the temperature it is at least 95 degrees. It also reads 100 degrees in our hallway most of the time. Our house is literally a clay oven and it is cooler to sit outside than in. We have to get thatched mats placed on our roof which will help with the heat inside our house. This is a must in my mind because we have not even made it to hot season yet. The family we work with says that it gets so hot in hot season that you stand in the shower with your pajamas on and go to bed soaking wet, clothes in all!!! Can you imagine? I can’t yet but will soon enough find out come late March!!! Macy keeps asking me when the snow will come. Never, I say.

I am sure there is more I could say but I want to see if this will even download onto the internet!!! Love and blessing to all who read and have been faithfully praying for us!!!

Here we go again.....

Sorry to those who have pointed out that I have not blogged in while! I have had just a tad bit going on! :) Now that I have time and the internet access to type wherever I please, I will appease the curious minds of my loved friends and family!

We are again in another transition time en route to our final job/destination. The past 8 and 1/2 weeks we have been in training for the new job we had the awesome opportunity to accept this past Spring. Our lives have been in a whirl wind since! Our training took place in the beautiful state of Virginia! As we drove home to Cleveland, TN today, where Brad and I both were raised, I wondered at the spectacular rolling hills and greenery that will no longer be a part of my everyday life as we make our move to Africa. As we traveled through a small town on the side of the highway that was devastated by a tornado I wondered, "Are there even tornados where I will be going?" I know there will be something called the Harmatan. Look it up if you like sand. :)

We have came back to Cleveland, TN to visit and spend time with our family the last 12 days that we have in the states. I hope to get much accomplished but also to take time to spend time with my precious family and enjoy each second I have with them. I also want my girls to spend as much time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins as possible! I am not sure what is going on in Macy and Mara's little heads. All I know is that they are a little confused. They have both had some kind of stomach virus causing diarrhea and have been whiny which makes it a tad bit harder. Thank goodness Macy's cleared up before we drove home to Cleveland and that Mara's started right after we got home today. As I was changing Mara and gently hugging my little girl, she says, "Mommy, I want to go home." Of course I am torn because I genuinely don't know where she is talking about now. Is it our Memphis house, our Memphis apartment, Mimi or Papaw's house, or the training center in Virginia that she is talking about? I try to comfort her as best I can and assure her that we are going home to Mimi and Papaw's house for the time being. She then proceeds to get down and play happily with her sister and cousins.

Kids adjust well to transition. I am doing pretty well myself but sometimes the bags under my eyes beg to tell a differing story. I can only speak for myself and not for Brad, but these past couple of months have been emotional, with every emotion surfacing at some point or another. Plus, to not have your own bed to sleep in can reek havoc on one's body, especially if you have been sleeping on a sleep number bed for the past 4 years and now sleep on one that is not. :) My sleep number comrades I am assuming are nodding their heads in agreement right now in compassion for me. Just kidding! Don't fear, though, it is one of the things we crated!!! The day my sleep number bed arrives in Africa will be GREAT!!!! :)

So....you ask, "What have you learned and what have you done these past 8.5 weeks?" EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN. I have had training of all sorts and feel that my tool box for the field in spilling over. One of these AWESOME new skills I have learned and have hidden away in my tool box, for the meantime, is the art of killing a chicken. A REAL LIVE CHICKEN. It was not as bad as I thought it was and even my girls (yes they watched) were not in the least bit freaked out. They like to EAT chicken. So do I. So does Brad. End of Story. :) My friend Lindy in the picture with me I am not so sure about though. She may never eat chicken again after this experience! Poor little chicken. We did cook it and take it and all its yumminess to a cookout that next evening too!

While we were there we also were surrounded by so many people who are now dear and close friends to our family. I will always be thankful to HIM for allowing me to spend time with this wonderful group of brothers and sisters in Christ.
Since we were not with our family for Macy's birthday our new "family" so graciously came to the birthday party that we threw Macy on August the 21st. Her birthday is actually August 22nd but we went ahead and celebrated on that Sunday since we had classes all day on the 22nd. As you can see my beautiful girl was beaming with happiness and was thrilled to have had a great 4th birthday party (except when everyone sang happy birthday to her).

On our last full day at the training center everyone's friends and family came to a special ceremony. I was fortunate enough to have my family there! My mom and dad came up to see us and helped us carry all of our "stuff" back to Cleveland, TN today. What a blessing to have wonderful, loving parents that would do anything for me!


We were also surprised when we saw Jim and Becky Livingston sitting in the auditorium when we were being seated!! My eyes welled up with tears knowing that Kirby Woods had representatives at this service! We love our church family so very much and miss them! It was refreshing seeing part of the body of Christ that we have worshipped with for so many years!


Love and blessings to all! More posts and pictures to come soon!!!

Living out of a suitcase

I will HAVE to get used to living out of a suitcase. We crated all of our belongings on July the 8th and have been living out of suitcases since then. Fortunately, I have wonderful parents who are letting us crash at their house until we go to training on July 25th but still all of our "stuff" is still folded somewhat neatly in suitcases and duffle bags large enough to carry a person in! All of our other stuff is in a container somewhere and won't be seen by us until February 2012. Why does it take that long to get where we are going? I am not exactly sure except that it has to go across the ocean and get through customs and somehow make it to the "big" town we will be living in. :) I was speaking to another M the other day and she said that by the time we get all of our stuff we will realize how much of it we don't really need! I hope this is true!

This week has been good but yesterday I was somewhat stressed out! Why am I stressed..... Packing, organizing, Macy has some weird rash and had to go to the dr office (love you Jennifer!), my girls are super whiny and I want to pull my hair out, it is taking my girls forever to fall asleep at bedtime and they call for mommy and daddy to come to their room over and over, it is hot and extremely humid outside, and did I mention my girls are whiny? Ahhhhhhhhh! Today my mom took the girls to play at her church which allowed me and Brad to get some things done and spend some time together.

I will not lie and say this has been easy. "This" meaning the moving overseas process and leaving loved ones behind. I have said a lot of temporary goodbyes or "see ya later" to many loved friends and family lately. People still tell me they don't want us to go and people shed tears and so do I. (I have to be careful when I cry though and not allow my children to become upset or not feel secure. My girls are
precious to me and even though I want them to know what is going on I want this to not be a traumatic or overly emotional time for them. I
have cried but when by myself or where my girls could not see.) I will miss my family and my friends. I wish everyone could be encouraging and uplifting in their attitudes about our upcoming move but it is not that easy for some. I want each of my family members and friends to
know that I love them so much and will miss them but know that this time is only TEMPORARY. Now I don't say temporary and mean we
will be back in a year. It may be 3 or 4 years before we are back in the states after October. When I say temporary I mean earthly
temporary. I feel people get so stuck in thinking of the here and now and not what we will be doing for eternity. Like James 4:14 says, "Yet
you do not know what your life will be like to tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." I know
where I am spending eternity and look forward to that day when I meet my Father face to face. In the meantime, while I am passing through this earthly life, I understand my time here is not that long in the grand scheme of things. I want my life to glorify my Father and to store up my treasures where I will live forever! (Matthew 6:19)

One of my favorite verses right now is 1 John 2:15-17...." Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from
the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also it's lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever." I have held onto this verse and have recited it to myself many times in the past 6 months. If only we could grasp on to this verse and apply it every single second of every single day! Stay away from the lusts of the eyes and flesh. They lead to sin. Stay away from pride! I thought I had no problems with pride....well....start selling your nice things for not-so-nice things or no things at all and see pride rear its ugly head in your life ( or at least my life anyways). I am not perfect but want to live my life for the One who is!

Living out of suitcases for a while is worth it,definitely worth it.