Shannon's week at a glance

Ups and downs, highs and lows, here's a few: Justin mentioned to a good neighbor friend that he was planning on starting a small chicken farm and was working on a chicken feed from local food. Well, the next day he brought over 3 hens for eggs! So far we think one is laying...occasionally. Justin is building a rockin' coop, with less than rockin' materials, but we make the best of what we've got.
We brought home some Kikkoman soy sauce from Mombasa and have been having amazing vegatable fried rice. Tonight will be number 3 this week. It won't last long at this rate!
Oh yeah, I turned 30. Haven't decided which list this falls into, but the cupcakes were yummy. Last and still freshly painful, I got arrested. No cuffs cause those have long since been sold on the black market I'm sure, but I AND MY THREE CHILDREN were dragged into the police station and yelled at for a while till I closed up and said I wanted a man to come to speak for me. Thank you Lord, we have a team leader who is fluent and familiar with the system as well as a local friend who is one who will be heard. The story is kind of long, but the short of it is that when we shipped a vehicle over from Zanzibar they switched one of two of our license plates and so they don't match. Anyways, I am home and fine and the adrenaline is starting to wear off. Our car is grounded till we fix the problem, but I walk a free woman. Angry but free. Oh well, welcome to corruption and I'm glad my first time is over with!

Justin leaves again for the big island tomorrow to meet with the higher ups in the government to try and push his water desalination project through. He is working on a machine that can pump ocean water through it and change it to clean drinking water for smaller islands and remote areas around our island. And it uses only solar and wind power to run. I will let him tell more about this later. Thanks for your prayers!

First Haircut

It's getting a little crowded at bath time...my girls are getting so big.
Braelyn even qualified for her first hair cut. It wasn't much, but always worth documenting.
These are the fallen wisps of mullet she is no longer sporting.
She's looking up in this picture so it's not really this long, but you have to have an after, right? Her words continue to trickle in. She's attempting Mimi (finally, hooray!) and ME! (for those moments when I say, "who wants candy?") and please which also comes out as NI! Not too much variety, but it's coming along!

Back on the Farm

Who would have thought? Yesterday my weekly pre-teen guests stopped in, but this time they stopped giggling and running away long enough to stay and play. We drew on the driveway with chalk. They played keep-away with a beach ball.
And they attemted a giant princess puzzle. Wow. Can you fathom never having seen a puzzle? Not understanding how to put a face piece ABOVE the chest? Trying desperately to force a skirt piece into the sky hole just cause it's blue? These are normal, bright girls, who just haven't seen more than the fields they run through each day. Maybe someday...Lord, how can I help them?Speaking of bright girls, somebody finished her Kindergarten Phonics curriculum!
I know, 2 months is insane. In the past 3 years of very poor home-schooling, apparently I did teach her something worthwhile. So today she started her first First Grade Book and loved it. She's so proud. It takes about twice as long now, and that's a bit much, so we are all re-working life to figure out how to make it work.
Avery weasled her way into school today too. She's been asking me when, oh when can she learn how to read too. So today she got to start the first Kindergarten book. She told Justin it was "easy-peasy, lemon-squeazy". Meanwhile, Braelyn grabbed whatever book she could get her hands on, and wiggled into my lap every time I thought she was occupied. Ah me. Good thing we have all day...every day...for the rest of our lives...

Civ-il-i-zation!

It's funny to us that the place it took months to feel like we could survive in has become such an outstanding vacation spot! We have thoroughly enjoyed our days in Mombasa and will be sad to see grocery stores and date nights recede into history once more.But in the meantime...

we will swing our hearts out,

swim till we can't swim no more,

bask in the glory of sunny smiles,

revel in the uniqueness of the coast,

and eat as much ice cream as is humanly possible! We head back home on Friday, leaving Ginger on the big island on our way. What a joy she has been to us! What a joy for the blessing of stepping back into modernity for a week! Our hearts are full of too many blessings to name. Please pray for safety as we head home and for peace and joy to accompany that homecoming!