The kids show off thier new Bibles at Thanksgiving!




Enid blows bubbles!



Anna in the snow!

First Snowfalls

The Friday after Thanksgiving, we moved from a church to a camp to spend the rest of the weekend. I was a little worried when we got to the camp, because we didn't know what we were going to do with the kids all of Saturday, and we were out in the middle of nowhere... so there we were thnking we would have to be very creative in how to enterain the kids for a full day. But on Friday night, it began to snow, and snowed all night, so there was a nice, beautiful white layer on the ground when we woke up Saturday morning! The kids were thrilled! It is quite an experience to see people who've never watched snow fall before, to see them experience it for the first time. They were squealing, and saying the funniest things! "Auntie, look, it's shiny! Ahhhhhh Auntie, it's COLD! Auntie, it's white!"





After breakfast, we played in the snow! We had two sleds, which wasn't very many for 26 kids, but they waited thier turn.Jacob kept throwing snowballs at me. And i spent a great deal of the morning chasing boys who threw snowballs at my head. Faulanta, Jackie, and Halima made thier first snowmen! They weren't exactly large snowmen, only being about a foot tall, but they were proud of thier snowmen! Anyways, this will be the first of many snow adventures with our kids! I'm very excited!

Thanksgiving thoughts

I spent Thanksgiving with all of my kids, and the chaperones. Because its a bit intrusive to stay in host families over the holidays, we stayed at a church... all of us together... It was fun, we made a wall of sheets that separated the girls room from the boys room, (although we were all sacked out on the floor).. made meals for the kids, and watched The Sound of Music and Cinderella on Thanksgiving day. Because this was much different from a holiday that I am used to, God showed me more of why I have sooo many reasons to be thankful for what He's given me. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at another church. When getting there,




I realized that we were just about the only people under the age of 75 there. My initial reaction was "yeesh, what are we even doing here? This is wierd, and we all feel so out of place." However, as I sat back, I realized the reason these people were all there was because they didn't have any family to spend Thanksgiving with. I think many of them were from a retirement home. As the dinner went along, I became more and more aware of how blessed I am just to have somewhere to go on Thanksgiving! This was the first time in my life I didn't have a family to spend it with. Through the course of the day, God changed my outlook from sadness, homesickness and wishing I could be with my family, to realizing that there are so many people in the world that never have people to spend the holidays with.




As I sat there and looked at my kids, God reminded me that many of my kids not only don't have family to spend the holidays with, but have never really celebrated as we would, because they don't have the means to do so. God really blessed our day. He helped me to have some more perspective, and helped us to be able to enjoy our day with our kids. Watching movies is a HUGE deal to our kids, because they never really get to do it. Also, we gave them thier Bibles, thank you Trinity Church! They LOVED them! I wish i would have gotten thier reaction on tape! They were screaming, cheering and whistling (Africans really know how to cheer, it's funny:)! Then, as I gave them to them, they immediatly started reading them, and they love reading them! Every night at the host family, my girls ask me if they can read. Oh how blessed we are, to have kids who are seeking after the Lord!
I am incredibly blessed!

Countdown for Tour Events as of November 7,2007:

Number of Homestays at so far: 29

Number of times I've left something at a host family: 3 (not too bad)

Number of pick up lines from creepy janitors at churches: 3

Number of times I've been asked what brought me to do this work, my major and where I'm from: Way too many to count

Number of times someones mistaked the girls for boys: 3

Number of hugs recieved from kids: 28-30 per day!

Number of host families who wanted me to let them break the rules: A lot!

Number of bad host family stays: 1

Number of times boys fought over who carries my things: at least once every day!

Number of ugly, torn or wayyy too big clothes tossed: dozens

Number of times God has blessed our Group in huge ways: 4

Number of times I've packed my bag, dragged it to the back of the bus, then loaded other kids' bags: 48

Number of lost teeth: 15

Number of kids that have grown over two inches since getting here: 3

The other night, we took the kids swimming and Jenny and I were in the hot tub. We decided to get in and swim with the kids. I swam with Anna for about a half an hour. After swimming was completely over, Beth mentioned that Anna had puked in the water about five minutes before Jenny and I got in the water..... mhmmmmmm, nasty, yay for parenting!

Back in Iowa

The other night, I had the opportunity to bless a family that I was staying with. They were a young couple, and had 14 pets, interestingly... Anyways, they had a rental house and as of 8:30 Tuesday night had not painted the kitchen or part of the living room. Anyways, they were both really stressed about it, because the dad had to work at 5 the next morning. Anyways, i decided to offer to paint for him, so he could go to bed and stay with the kids. So the host mom and i spent about 4 hours painting thier living room and kitchen, so that the person that needed to move in could. He was scheduled to move in the next day. Anyways, its funny how God sometimes just drops things in your hand that really bless someone else. I didn't realize until afterwards, but i think it really blessed them. So yay:)