A few pics

Truth be told, we haven't been so busy I haven't been able to post pics.... really, we've been horrible at rationing our internet the last few months, so we always run out mid-month. So catching up a bit...

I requested a pumpkin on a supply order in August and got two beautiful ones that looked like this.... so they were spared being turned into puree while they served as "fall" decorations. :) 

Ezra got to his "Learning to Bake" lesson in his math book. A proud day when he made his "Apple Jack Cookies" all by himself. 

Really fun night in November - we did mini 'smores over candles with small marshmallows and egg drop cookies (like mini Vanilla wafers) and chocolate chips.

The boys' Christmas present from Brant's uncle. Yes, I gave permission for my six year old to receive a knife that's almost as long as he is. Yes, they really are sharp. Yes, we did not make it 24 hours after unwrapping them before busting out the band-aids.

Merry Christmas from our corner of the world!

Welcome to 2016

This past August we marked one year of living in the tribe. We celebrated with a steak dinner and measuring the boys' growth on the post in our kitchen. I took lots of pictures with grand plans to blog about God's faithfulness this past year, but you have yet to see those pictures.

The second half of 2015 has been a tad busy.

In the last six months we had lots of visitors - a short term college team, 2 pastors from the States, Brant's parents, 2 language consultants, 3 church planting consultants and 2 missionaries from other organizations. That is a whole lot of spaghetti and curry dinners and washing extra sheets and towels.

Our partners had to go back to the States for an emergency, were med-evaced out of the tribe twice for serious medical emergencies and then went back on their regular furlough.

I sat up half of one night with a tribal woman who didn't deliver her placenta; spent an afternoon sitting with women wailing and mourning their dead daughter, and saw a woman whose face was smashed in by her angry husband.

I have taught little boys contractions, cursive, long division, and multiplying fractions. We have studied levers and pulleys and the Civil War. I have nursed my babies through asthma attacks and malaria. I have listened to language recordings and studied verbs and aspect and mode and tense until my head spins.

I have had malaria four times since August. As I type, there is a horrible metallic taste in my mouth from a "new" medicine that is supposed to hopefully kick it "this time." I haven't decided which is worse - the medicine or the malaria, but right now I'm thinking I should have stuck with the malaria.

So today, this last day of 2015, I am tired. Brant is in bed with a fever. The boys are on hour number 2 of iPad playing. We'll tear them off the iPad soon and make them watch movies the rest of the day. We missed the big feast in the village today.

We are limping into 2016, folks.

January marks three years since we were back in America, and we are feeling it. Normally, we'd be taking a furlough about now, but we've had to push it back a bit because of our visa situation. Six months' delay doesn't sound like much, but today, it feels like these next six months might kill us.

And yet.... there's always an "and yet" - this was God's plan to end our year. We rest in that. We begin 2016 with an acute awareness that we will get through each day of this next six months only by God's grace and strength. Every verb that we figure out, every day that we stay healthy, every moment with our boys, every language hour that we log.... only by God's strength. We feel it and we know it.

That's not a bad way to start a new year.

Not much has changed

Six years ago last month....

This morning....

Not much has changed... except now they are all potty-trained and we have a way nicer couch. :) 

The one about how I hate death

We woke up this morning to blissful rain. As we cuddled in our sweatshirts and enjoyed hot coffee in the below 80 degree weather, we thanked the Lord that we are not yet in the grasp of the dreaded El Nino and its promised droughts. 

Brant worked with his new language helper for two hours this morning and made great strides in identifying different levels of tone. He was so encouraged he literally was jumping up and down. His excitement was contagious and the boys flew through their schoolwork with great attitudes as I unpacked boxes and cleaned fruits and vegetables sent in on our recent supply flight. 

It was a beautiful, cool, peaceful morning…. one you dream about when you envision missionary life in the tribe. 

And then…. you knew there had to be an “and then” in this story…. we got word that a woman from a village up river had died in childbirth. Her husband had attempted to take her down to the clinic, but she had lost too much blood and died last night. The plan was to bring her to our village to bury her; we’re still not sure why. We bribed the boys with candy and the iPad and locked them in the house, and Brant and I headed to the village to find out what was going on. We met our co-workers on the path and they went with Brant down to the port to wait for the boat that was supposed to bring her body to our village. 

I decided to take advantage of the lull and sit with a few ladies in one of the houses and practice some new vocabulary I have been studying. Not that anyone was very chatty. It was pretty solemn in the hut I went into, but the ladies welcomed me and gave me a spot to sit down. We sat for a few minutes and more people came into the hut. A growing sense of dread started to well up inside me as people in the hut began to weep openly…. a man sitting nearby motioned towards me and said “That is where they are going to put the body” ….at least I thought that’s what he said. But my funeral and dead body vocab isn’t really polished, so I did what every good language learner does when she doesn’t understand something…. I ignored what he said. 

I shouldn’t have. Within minutes, the funeral procession was coming inside the door. The wailing and crush of bodies was overwhelming. There must have been 80 or 90 people crammed into that tiny 20 by 20 foot hut - all screaming and wailing and weeping. They carried the body in and placed it right next to me. I tried not to throw up as tears started streaming down my face. They carried in the husband - too overcome with grief to walk. The mother came in and start grabbing at her daughter - yelling at her to wake up and shaking her. She collapsed on the floor - not 5 feet from where I sat. Yes, it was overwhelming. Yes, I am crying as I type this. 

They actually did prepare us for such traumatic situations while we were in our missions training. Focus on the physical details. Count the people. Notice the color of their shirts. Distract your mind. Dozens of women crowded around the body, screaming and wailing. The teenage girl I studied language with last week. The woman whose 4 year old son cut his finger with a machete on Sunday that I had helped bandage. A lady who had just given birth to a healthy baby boy. All their faces contorted and stricken with raw, violent, unrestrained grief. 

It was hopeless. Dark. Fearful. There was no Hope in that house and as I cried with the women, my heart broke. This woman, too, died too early to hear the Gospel. Her friends and relatives know little of the concept of Heaven and Hell, but they did know that the End was bleak and dark and scary. The Enemy comes to steal and kill and destroy and he had deceived these people yet again. No witch doctor or careful adherence to keeping the taboos had saved her. Hell was in that room. 

God was there too. I prayed through my tears and a gentle, cool breeze blew into the room and with it the reminder to my soul that God is already in the process of bringing Hope to these people. We are here. We shine the Light in this darkness. Brant and I and our teammates are not the Hope they need, but we carry the Message of that Hope. God is faithful. He has begun the work here and though it seems agonizingly slow at times - too slow to give this woman a chance to hear - He will complete the work of sending His Word out amongst these people. 

Tonight my clothes smell like smoke and my eyes are puffy from too many tears shed. My heart is heavy, yet at peace. There will be more funerals. There will be more death, but we work and we study verbs with as much strength as God gives so that someday soon those deaths will be marked with Hope. 

Glimpse into the last week

Lots going on here lately, but in the little boys' world...

I considered myself a parenting success after the following conversation....

Caleb (while reading a book): Mom, what's B-O-R-E-D mean?

Elijah: That's board - like what's on our walls. 

Me: No, that's a different kind of bored; not wood; it means you don't have anything to do. 

Caleb: When does that happen?

....And a failure after this one....

Me (during a history lesson on the Civil War): After day 3 of the Battle of Gettysburg, the South retreated back to Virginia and the Union claimed a decisive victory.

Elijah: YES! We are winning this war! 

Me: No, WE did not win the war.  

This little man lost his first top tooth. Two days later, he lost the second. 

The little boys are training to be spies.....

And Elijah, with the latest critter we said NO to as a pet. The people bring some new exotic animal by almost weekly.... 

God's love and sick little boys

Lots of tears around here lately. Today the happy kind. 

Last night Caleb, our 8 year old, had an asthma attack. It’s been building for weeks - the cold that he never shook, the cough that kept getting tighter and harder, the sleepless nights hacking and restless. Last night was the worst. We were up almost all night giving drugs and draping towels over steaming bowls of water and essential oils. Medicine on the chest, a nebulizer borrowed from our teammate. Nothing helped. It was a long, dark night. 

This morning, before we even had electricity enough to do so, we sent out an email to the missionary medical staff in town. Within an hour, emails from two nurses and the doctor poured in, encouraging us with prayers and Scripture and medicine dosaging information and the promise of a hospital grade nebulizer and some strong medicine on a flight tomorrow. They dropped everything this morning to coordinate with the pilot and our supply buyer to take care of our little Caleb and to encourage his very frazzled and exhausted Mom and Dad. I felt so loved and cared for. I wept as I read all the emails and effort being expended for our son, for us. 

So this afternoon as I was reading my Bible and praying, I thanked the Lord for people that love us. People who pray for us in the States and support us financially so we can be here sweating in this jungle. People in town who work tirelessly to take care of our physical needs and literally keep us alive so we can one day present the Gospel to these people. 

And as I thanked the Lord for all those people who love us, clear as day He said, “That’s ME loving you. That’s how much I love you.” And I wept again as it hit me - all the love and care that so many people showed us today is God showing HIS love and care for us. He is always ready to help us, any hour, day or night. He provides exactly what we need, right when we need it. He is always there to encourage us that we are not alone - that He is here with us, cheering us on to finish the work that He has assigned us. 

On verbs and death in the jungle

In just a few weeks, we will celebrate one year of living in the tribe. This time last year I could not even say “hello” in this language. Last night I lay awake in bed working through verbs and figuring out aspect and telic with clitics and tone and all these really scary linguistic terms. I had a huge break through. I almost started crying with excitement as it all became clear.... tone 3 denotes total punctuality on verbs. So ha! We ARE going to conquer this language!

This morning I cried again. We got word that one of the women in the village died. Young mom... had 3 little kids. She was excellent at helping me with language and always very kind to our whole team. She got a cough a few weeks back - when it was going around the village and all my boys got it. I showed her how to cut lemons to boil and add sugar cane to sweeten the “tea,” but she just got thinner and weaker. And last night she entered eternity without Christ.

My verb “ah-ha” moment came too late for her. Too little, too late. Too little, too late.... echoes again and again in my head this morning as I sweep dust off the floors and wipe dead bugs off the counter tops.

I just finished reading Acts. God makes me mad in the book of Acts. Paul’s life, while exciting at times, was also, in my mind, a classic example of poor use of time. He became a believer and then spent how many years in the desert? He could have been out preaching during those years. When he was imprisoned in Jerusalem and tried before Festus, he appealed to Caesar.... later Festus says Paul could have been released had he not appealed to Caesar. Why did God allow Paul to say those words and be jailed for years because he was now bound to stand trial in Rome? I don’t understand and I don’t like it.

The woman who died last night will spend eternity in hell due to poor timing... we didn’t get here soon enough, learn the language fast enough, couldn’t explain the Gospel in time...

That’s a lie, of course. Just like Paul and King David and countless others in Scripture show us, God’s timing does not always make sense in our minds. Delays and roadblocks and detours.... in my mind, usually all a huge waste of time.... but all planned by God. All controlled by God. All part of God’s plan to bring Himself glory. 

I don’t understand and I don’t like it. But today, through the tears, I am clinging to that truth. God knows. He sees and He is here, working out His plan for my life and these people. One verb at a time. 

This & That

We finally broke down and got a 3rd computer... because 2 computers for 2 adults is not enough. :) Really, we needed a non-Mac computer to run our language learning software and some of the boys' school programs. I get the cheapo netbook for most of the day (Brant's nice newish Mac will run Parallels but my old Mac won't.)

So the other day I walked in and Brant was using ALL THREE computers... pure selfishness, that man. ;)

Our sky has looked like this for weeks.... (don't be fooled, those aren't clouds in the picture - they are just cotton balls glued to the computer screen)

So our river looks like this.... Actually this was taken last week.... the dry land to water ratio has greatly increased.

This week's cooking project... homemade soft pretzels.... pure yum.

Summer in the tribe

We have been on summer break for three weeks now.... getting creative with how to fill the hours...

Cooking lessons... Elijah is learning to make mac and cheese, and Caleb is learning to turn on the stove... 

Our annual Summer Reading Contest....

The boys have to write out their books and add up the pages (like how we get some math in!?)

Bugs have been popping up all over the house... thankfully the plastic types. :) But I have been scared more than once....

 The boys even laced them into the screens... notice our new railing on our back porch!

Monday is "Cooking Day" and we do a project... last week was Salt Water Taffy. Quite fun & tasty, but we decided that all future candy making will be on hold until we return to a less humid climate. :):) I told Brant that making Salt Water Taffy was a twice in a lifetime experience... once as a kid and once with your kids. :) 

I love the cool evenings and walking the airstrip before dinner. The sunsets are beautiful.

Shots, Parties and Trashy Cucumbers: Pics of our week

Saturday morning coffee cake: the only time we allow toys at the table... so they all show up.... 

A nurse flew in this week to give measles vaccines to the villagers... 

This is our trash heap where we burn our trash... Jason came over to help Brant investigate a vine growing out of the side...

Turns out we have cucumbers growing! Two huge ripe ones and about 50 baby cucumbers that are just dying to be turned into pickles... our most successful gardening venture to date! (And we didn't do a single thing to the stupid plant... maybe we should stop trying so hard with the bell peppers and watermelon!)

Yes, those are cucumbers.... right next to a tuna can lid and a plastic bag...

Last day of school... we invited our co-workers' kids over for a movie night to celebrate...

It's officially summer break in the tribe!

Routine & monotony

I get emails often asking when we will be “settled” into our life here. I am not sure how to take that question... either 1) the person thinks we have boxes still to unpack, not realizing that unlike normal Americans who move into new houses, we are actually building our house with our own bare hands and unpacking the boxes takes second place to building the shelves to house the stuff or 2) living in the tribe will feel “normal,” assuming that I can toss out 34 years of previous life experience and suddenly feel normal seeing malnourished kids on my front step and having neighbors with no electricity or clean drinking water. Yeah, not sure that’s ever going to feel “normal.” 

But if the inquirer wants to know if we are into a routine and surviving daily life, yes, we’ve got that one down. I love routine and order and am thankful that within just a few weeks of moving in here (had to get some bookshelves built first!) we had gotten into a good routine as a family and our days have a good rhythm to them. I actually love our life here. There are few interruptions; and the ones that we have fall into very defined categories: “death or craziness in the village” “somebody in our family sick” or “plane coming in today” ....that’s about it in our small world. 

So a glimpse at our day....

5 am - Brant is up and starting language study and Bible study.

6:30 am - The sun is up. Every single day of the year. Living on the equator is pretty boring on the seasonal patterns.

7 am - We have radio call in to town. The noise and the having to yell to be heard always wakes the boys and I up if we’re not already awake.

7-8:30 - Breakfast. Granola (homemade) or oatmeal (instant) every single morning. Some mornings we have eggs or leftover pancakes and every single Saturday we have coffee cake. Boys do their chores and we all get ready for the day. I wipe counters clean from the previous nights' dead bugs, clear the rafters of spider webs and sweep the entire house.... every. single. morning.

8:30 - In theory this is when we start school. But I’m really slow going in the mornings and so are the boys, so sometimes this gets pushed til 9 or 10. :) We do school all morning, with a short snack break. School is actually going really well. It’s SO easy to homeschool when no one can call you on the phone or drop by your house unexpectedly or when you don’t feel the pressure to run to the store. Our mornings are quiet and peaceful and usually decently cool. We’re studying American history together this year and it’s been really fun. We’ve also been working on science units together - last semester we spent all semester studying the human body and this semester we’re doing outer space. Brant studies language and deals with people who come to our porch and goes to the village to visit and get new words and phrases. Sometimes he works with a language helper on our front porch and I can steal outside for a few minutes and sit and listen and learn new words.

In the mornings, I also try to get all the laundry done and also house cleaning and all my food prep and baking. I can usually keep up with that while I’m working with the boys.

12:30 or 1 pm - We usually do lunch late because I’m trying so hard to cram in all the school stuff and get the boys finished up. Lunch is the hardest meal for me here. All bread has to be made by hand and lunch meat is outrageously expensive and has to be ordered from off island.... so sandwiches are out. We do PB and J once a week, but again, bread making is a pain. Cheese is very, very expensive, so mac and cheese is not a good option (though I’ve been ordering cheese powder from the States by the pound and doing mac and cheese once a week.) We can get dried kidney beans here, so I make a huge thing of refried beans once a month and freeze them and we do beans and tortillas once a week. We do leftovers from dinner a lot as well. Seriously, if you have any easy lunch ideas that don’t involve anything frozen you buy at Cosco, I would love to hear them. :) 

1:30 or 2 - The little boys and I are done with school and morning jobs and they play and I get my afternoon stuff going.... I do my Bible study time during the afternoon. It’s hot and I’m usually tired and ready to rest, so I love just laying on my bed and reading my Bible and resting for a few minutes. I also get my language study time in during the afternoon - on a good day I get about an hour of computer work done (listening to recordings and reviewing words/phrases I’ve already acquired) and then I can spend about an hour out with the people practicing talking and getting new words. Brant continues to study language; sometimes in the afternoons he takes a break to exercise or get in a short nap or work on a house project.... anything to keep his focus sharp.  

5:30 - The villagers love to come out in the evenings and play ball on the airstrip or sit and hang out. It’s cool and beautiful and the kids run everywhere and play. It’s hard to make ourselves come in and get the evening going - dinner, brush teeth, reading time, bed... The boys are in bed by 8 pm. 

I would love to say that leaves Brant and I a couple hours to ourselves, but we are toast by the end of the day. We immediately shower and crawl into bed. We talk some and try to watch a TV show (already downloaded) or read before lights out by 9:30. 5 am comes early and we have to start the whole thing over again...

For the birds

The boys' latest venture in the tribe is bird hunting with their friends... both our teammates' kids and the tribal boys. They use a combination of bows and arrows, air soft guns and this type of boomerang wooden stick thing... I think the current kill rate is tribal boys - 1 million; white boys - zero. :)

I cringe every time they came back with a dead bird. We live in a tropical rain forest, people. The birds are bright green and red and beautiful and would be in a zoo in America. The boys aren't killing annoying black ravens or pigeons. :( I saw a huge white cockatoo that a tribal boy caught a couple weeks back.... it was gorgeous. It also fed his entire family for dinner that night. 

Ethics aside, hunting has led to obsession with all things bird. We're researching bird houses, bird traps, mating seasons and nest building. Last week the tribal boys came by in the morning and we (uncharacteristically and very graciously!) allowed the boys to skip school to go hunting. They came back an hour later with two "kills" that all 10 boys plucked and gutted and roasted and ate... I think each boy got half a bite of meat. That afternoon, I kid you not, we opened our history lesson to the life of John James Audubon and the founding of the Audubon Society. (Yes, I get the irony.) 

So on our vacation last month, when we gave the boys the option of visiting the zoo or visiting a bird park, they, of course, chose the bird park. 

The bird park was SO cool. I was surprised. :) The birds were everywhere but in cages. Wandering on sidewalks, perched in trees. It was literally like a big bird resort where the birds just kinda did their thing and we wandered around and tried not to get stepped on or pooped on. 

 Ever the ham....

After a show on predator birds....

Feeding time.... and no, we didn't get any white splotches on clothes or hats. :)

We did have to shush the boys at times.... "Look, Mom, we've caught one of those before!" "Oh, look, I've eaten that kind - it tasted really good!" Not sure Audubon would have approved. :)

Vacation

Vacation. So, so much fun. It's kinda funny taking a vacation as a missionary; the first time we did, we got a nasty email from a supporter saying they hadn't had a vacation in 5 years and why should we get to take one? So I understand it can be a sensitive subject, but there are a LOT of things about life overseas that don't make sense to someone who's never lived outside America. 

We go to beautiful resort places because that's all that's offered..... regular local people don't stay at hotels, so there are no Best Westerns in this country. But because of the exchange rates, we pay less to stay at a beautiful 4 star resort than we would pay to stay at a Best Western in America. So some of our vacation pictures do kinda look dreamy, but that is one of the (few!) perks of living in a 3rd world country. :)

Back to vacation... this was our first one in several years. Somewhere between the last family trip we took and this one, our babies grew up and turned into real kids who could handle "real" vacation stuff like renting bikes and riding to Starbucks....

And going to a real water park and riding the "scary" rides....

And who had their "own" money that they could use to buy souvenirs. As the boys have ZERO opportunities to spend money in daily life, it was really fun for them to have some cash to actually exchange for toys and trinkets and souvenirs. We learned a LOT about their little money personalities (one a spender, one a saver, and one who carefully considered and then bought only really nice, expensive import toys.... that one had better grow up to be a doctor or lawyer!) 

Brant bought the little boys these hats.... love this picture.

We do not go on vacation for the beaches.... our beaches here are much more beautiful with zero tourists, but we still feel obligated to visit the beach at least once or twice.... especially when your fancy 4 star resort has its own private beach...

We go on vacation for the air conditioning, the shopping and the food.... which I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed....

This was a pirate themed restaurant where we ate up in a tree house, Swiss Family Robinson style...

This was an amazing new Texas BBQ joint that definitely exceeded the hype.... it just opened two months ago and is run by a kid from Austin, Texas, who looks like like he dropped out of UT and whose goal in life is to befriend every BBQ-starved ex-pat in the Eastern Hemisphere. :) 

And this was a fancy tea house we had reservations for our last day of the trip. And by "reservations" I mean, I booked the table, and Brant had serious reservations about taking 3 little boys to "high tea" with real china dishes. :) He gave the boys such a talking to before we entered the place and I was a bit scared when I saw the glass goblets and flowers and china.... BUT, it turned out to be such a fun meal! Each boy got his own "child's tea" complete with mini kid friendly sandwiches (PB&J and ham&cheese cut in fancy shapes) and trays of tiny desserts - towers of them! The boys literally squealed and clapped their hands when they saw all the food brought out. And "tea" for the boys turned out to be milkshakes for them and cappuccino for Brant (I was the only one who got real tea!) It was a fun last meal. 

So yes, we just ate the whole vacation, and I think we each gained 10 pounds. (Not an exaggeration, but already falling off with our regular chicken and rice tribal diet.) We also got some really fun things for our house - rugs for the boys' rooms, light fixtures to cover our bare bulbs and a good stock of ham, cheese, nuts and frozen berries (yes, we carried a huge cooler back on the plane!)

So thankful for our vacation!

Chalk another one up to "I never thought this would happen"

The big feast is today…. so last night the drums and dancing started in full force. Hundreds of people. Crazy, crazy loud. We slept with earplugs and Advil. This morning at 5 they were still going strong, so Brant went down to the village to watch and take pictures. I kinda crawled out of bed, watched from the porch a bit and decided to go down and get the experience. I threw on some clothes, not evening taking the time to wash my face or brush my hair, and went outside, where Brant was motioning for me to hurry up. All of the sudden I was surrounded by tribal people in headdresses and drums and painted faces…. singing and chanting and painting ME and putting a headdress on me! It was a TAD crazy, to say the least. 

They painted and dressed every member of our team and danced around our houses, and yes, we woke up the boys to get painted and dressed. They were troopers.  

Enjoying coffee now (all 5 of us!) and the lull before they start killing the pigs, which should be.... um, fun?

You know, really, this is the stuff nightmares are made of.... being woken up and taken outside to a group of loud, scary looking people who surround you and cover you with mud. :) It was a tad bit much for Caleb, who stayed in my arms the whole time, but didn't cry.  

I don't have any pictures of Ezra with his headdress on! Hoping our teammates got a few good pics and will add them later.

Turtle Bread

A rite of passage in our house is making Turtle Bread. I am not sure how we got started, but between Saxon's "following a recipe" lesson and the first grade reader's "Pam and Lee Bake Bread" story, we have little boys who look forward to the day when they get to learn how to bake Turtle Bread. 

Friday was Ezra's day. He was so proud.

Caleb.... back in 2013. 

And Elijah, when he was a little bitty guy in 2011, with the original Turtle Bread. Where has the time gone?

Water tank surprise

We are going on vacation in April. Long, long overdue vacation. As the pressures have mounted this past week, I have been starting to dream about vacation and good food and rest.... and limitless water....

Yesterday morning our water tanks were overflowing and it was raining.... more water than we could use. So I hopped in the shower for a very rare morning shower (we usually shower at night to wash off all the sweat and dirt before bed!) to wash my hair... and I let the water run and run. Normally showers are a very short affair of get wet, water off, get soapy, water back on, rinse and be done. So an early morning shower with lots of water was a treat. And then I started dreaming of our vacation and nice hotels where we can take long, hot showers any time we want. I started crying. My dreams have been reduced to thinking a shower where you can let the water run is a luxury. That’s what I am looking forward to more than the fancy hotel by the beach.... a real, long shower. 

Brant tried to calm me down and point out that our life here is not awful just because we have to conserve water so carefully. We have a comfortable house and good beds and fulfilling ministry. Water shortage isn’t the end of the world. And he’s right as usual. :) But still having so little water is very stressful and I was greatly looking forward to a few weeks’ break from counting every drop.

This morning a plane came in unexpectedly. Carrying 4 giant water tanks... for us. Our church family back in Austin conspired with our teammates to secretly book a flight and send in water tanks as a surprise. In less than an hour, our water storage capabilities were doubled. I cried and cried. So, so thankful. 

Thankful for their creativity and generosity, yes. But thankful that we have a God Who sees such small details and cares. Thankful that He knew this week how stressful our water shortage has been and for the encouragement that these barrels would be to us today. He knows every drop of water we use and sends every drop from the sky to fill our barrels.... thankful now that He sent us a few more barrels to fill.  

Bit of this and that

 Elijah and his new desk in his room. He loves it. Helps his concentration... a bit. :)

My new headboard. I LOVE IT.

Only took Brant a couple hours. Found the plans online and it was super simple. Totally one of those "not necessary" things, but makes our room look so much more finished. 

 Getting stitches out. 

 14 inches of rain this week and the river looks like this. The villagers said it has never overflowed its banks.... their houses are way closer to the river than ours are, but still we had a few "what do we do it if overflows?" team discussions this week. Let's just pray it doesn't.

Practicing reading with Dad and Dr. Seuss. I love my little red-headed man.