Lots of Little Fun

The fun and noise grew when our team-mates returned from Christmas in Kenya. Us adults had to move to the living room to find someplace to eat.

The drive to the beach was quite a wild ride, especially with Lilee crammed in too.

Then came Sunday School dancing

and a long-awaited Princess Party complete with pink sheet table cloth, red fruit punch, candles on the table (thanks for the AMAZING package friends!) cupcakes,

and Miss Sandy brought pink glitter crowned topped bags of Boom Boom corn...another successful (aka yummy) day on our little Island!

We'll be sad to see these new friends go in a few days, but good news: they're just going to spend some time at the A's house to see another facet of life here!

January News

Hello everyone! Sorry for the silence, as usual. I should just quit apologizing, huh? This month/year has started off to a phenomenal bang with some really cool visitors. This family even has us tied with 3 girls of their own.

Our neighbors had a big party and invited us ladies. It turned out that my precious 7 year old Abduli (from my English skuli) was being shipped off to boarding school and they were having a farewell party for him and his older brother, returning to school.

It was pretty cool. Lots of music, dancing, and sparkle.

This is little Mariam our neighbor baby, grand-daughter of Mariam there behind her, wife of our night guard Ali.

This old Mama is the aunt of the father of Abduli and I thought it was so sweet how her daughter was helping her re-wrap up.

We headed home for mac and cheese before they pulled out the goat, but they were kind enough to bring some over after the party ended. We really enjoyed our time getting closer to and celebrating with our friends as these relationships grow deeper. Please pray that our lights shine brightly in this place!

The Amazing Life of Justin Brown

Whether it is diving with dolphins and whales, wrestling with octopi, or catching fish more than twice the size of himself....Justin lives a life full of adventure. I sometimes wonder if we even live on the same planet let alone the same island.
His latest adventure includes somehow obtaining a shotgun here on the island and fulfilling a life long dream of hunting in Africa. Granted that his first hunt included Hunter dressed as Pocahontas, Avery in her chupies (underwear) and them stalking a crow in the backyard...nonetheless the smile on his face let me know he was still throughly happy with the results.
These are two of his partners in crime. Reid is in the middle and lives here with us. They always have some scheme they are working on such as building pneumatic potato cannons or buying old Russian era aircrafts. What they want to do with either of those things is beyond me, but they always have a good time together. Hans is on the left and lives on the neighboring island. Justin spends as much time over there with him and his family than he does here with us. He always comes back with some grand tale of the adventures they had on the sea or in the shop. I think Justin sometimes goes over there just to hang out with Hans and calls it "work".

Regardless of time of day, conditions, or anything really...Justin somehow finds "fun"....or maybe it is just the other way around?

Maji Safi

That means Clean Water...something thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people here do not have. In the case of many small fishing villages and outlying islands, the only water they have is what they can collect from the rain. They often travel by canoe-sized sailboats hours away from their island and bring water back in whatever jugs they can find...every day.

This is something that Justin has been interested in before we ever moved here. The NGO that he is working with also was interested in this had some contacts that also wanted to bring clean water to our islands. Through several different contacts and companies partnering together this is being accomplished. Using awesome new membrane-filtration technology along with solar and wind power we can now provide communities anywhere with clean drinking water. The machine runs completely off of wind and solar power and uses ocean water which are all near limitless resource for us here.

He's spent several weeks of these last couple of months traveling back and forth trying to help get the machine built, in place, working, and then came the Grand Opening.

I was hoping for some pictures of him shaking hands with the President or some minister at the Grand Opening of the first machine, but alas, poor Justin was sick as a dog from eating the village food for the days leading up to the big day while working on the machine.

But, praise the Lord, one community now has drinking water, the project worked, and we have the go-ahead for the next machine to come here to a small fishing village on our little island! I'm happy for this not only because these are "our" people, but also because he can come home at night for the months it takes to complete this next project!

Whoo-hoo!

Cereal for breakfast, store bought sandwich bread for lunch, restaurants for dinner, oh it's a beautiful thing! Cooking and dishes comprise HOURS of my day back home, so this little vacation has been wonderful.

And not just for me! In spite of the fact that the girls got to sleep at nearly 10 pm our first night here, I found them already hard at play at 7:30 the next morning.

The house we've been blessed to borrow is a Princess Wonderland!

And nearby: a real, clean pool with toddler height section AND a play ground! It's like...America!

Thank you, Lord for time to rest and play and get out of the daily grind. I've even been wearing sleeveless shirts and capris in the yard here, whew!

Justin has also gotten a lot of work done, with more to do today...keep you posted!

Christmas at the ends of the Earth

I know, I know. There are a LOT of places in the world that are worse off than we are! But still, we live on the far end of an island off the coast of the far end of the continent over the big ocean away from you. It feels like the end of the Earth sometimes.

And yet, we have sprinkles. One long, late afternoon found me and Hunter hand-cutting out Christmas-ish shapes, icing them with melty home-made icing and using our treasured red sprinkles. They sure tasted good!

I love how the big girls set up the Nativity scene with every character crowding as close as possible to Jesus (where, shouldn't we all be?). Of course, the little Monster (Braelyn) soon took care of that reverence!

Our one last coloring book has lost its luster, and mama's art has taken on a new sheen. This tree-almost-topper started as just the sleigh, but then Hunter wanted a reindeer. I had a choice: make him freakishly short bodied or nose-less. You see the winner.

The girls were absolutely over the moon to pull this little tree out of its storage trunk. Anything new is worth lots of squeals here. Our ziplock of ornaments was soon empty, but we made a teeny green and hot pink (close enough to red) paper chain to swirl back and forth over the front of the tree. THEN, Justin returned from the big island with real, live Christmas lights! They even blink and dance!

Keeping the lights on the tree has proved more successful than keeping the ornaments on, but hey, she's 2.

Speaking of these girls, what's new? Hunter is 3/4 through with her first grade math and phonics, which is exciting. It does seem that we go slower and slower though as it moves from coloring to handwriting. But she's been reading stories all by herself and I'm praying for the day to come when she slinks off to her room for a couple hours with a good book!

Avery is now able to say K and G sounds and is sometimes putting them in her words which is good, cause she's 4, but also kind of the death of her sweet toddlerhood. Her chin looks great, just a thin, pink half inch line. You seriously can't grow up in Africa without earning a few scars, right? She continues to draw awe-inspiring joy from tormenting her sisters by sitting on them or hugging their necks till they turn red or whatever she can think up, her little cheeks nearly splitting with how big her smile is as she giggles this strange little giggle, then prances away, high knees, tippy toes, arms straight down, off to her next adventure.

Braelyn is talking up a storm. Sometimes, I can't imagine a word she's saying. Other times, she speaks complete, intelligible sentences to me and I gape in wonder. She likes to click her tongue and say, "Soooo..." I wonder which of us she got that from. For real...I don't know. She also often looks for stuff (me, Bear-Bear, her shoes) by yelling, "Shooo-eees, aaaah-oooooo?" (Did you catch that: are you?)

I am good. Relationships continue to grow, neighbor kids continue to come for school and play, learning Swahili continues to be slow going. But then again, B's been working on English for 2 years and is hardly understandable. At least we're beating her! Homeschool is fine for now...I am having trouble imagining what I'll do when I have to make Avery do more than 10 minutes worth. Or 5 if I'm more honest.

We've had a crew of guys working outside, paving some of the rugged terrain, building some sort of outdoor kitchen (don't ask me...it's a mystery). Anyways, more chances to shine God's light (and battle off more marriage proposals...for my daughters. "No, you may NOT call me your mother in law!") I'm 30 for pete's sake. Granted, just learned a friend's (mother of 3 also) mother is pregnant for the 15th or 16th time. She's maybe 40. Meaning she had my friend at the age of 15 or 16. Ay, yai, yai. I'm rambling now.

Thank you for your love and prayers. This Christmas Season will be lonely without you, and hot as a Jacksonville August. But we rejoice knowing we are living, learning and loving smack dab in the middle of where God wants us to be!

Long Time No Write

I know, it's been too long. So many excuses, so little time. That's a strange one.

You'd think with a calendar like this, I'd have all the time in the world. But with Justin gone for the better part of 9 days, I found 3 little ones underfoot sapping all the energy I could muster.

I looked back at what our last month in the States looked like...how did we do it all? I guess with tag-teaming the kids and lots of grandparent time! (and two cars and Chick-fil-A and playgrounds and innumerable friends to visit and climate control and...)

Anyways, here I am. Refreshed after a returned husband and an afternoon with just "the ladies". It's almost funny how my weeks here seem to truly go up and down (and by weeks I do mean my moods) and yet I'm always surprised and frustrated when I reach the end of myself. I was so blessed by the prayer that a visiting friend prayed for me at our Ladies Hour (literally, it could not have been much more than that, but WOW).

She prayed for me that I would be the boat of my family. Being German, she laughed as she struggled to remember the right word and couldn't, finding only to say, "this main part of the boat". I think she meant the hull as she prayed that even though I certainly feel the waves and the wind and the chop of the water buffeting (should I instead use: slapping or smacking or pounding?) me from every side, that my family would feel safe and secure within me.

That goes right along with the Bible study book I am doing, "Becoming a Woman of Excellence" by Cynthia Heald. It is wonderful, though I think geared more towards the late teen/early adult crowd. Somehow as I seek to hide my "I had 3 babies in 4 years" body, in a Mus. society nonetheless, modesty lessons are a bit lost on me. However, it talks a lot about self-control in many areas and I have found myself super convicted of how my motherly frustration boils over into yelling. But a good boat protects and harbors its passengers from the sting of the waves.

So I turned to yelling in a whisper. It can be done. Yet I'm pretty sure that's not the equivalent of self-control. So I press on. Encouraged by my dear friend's prayer (and her imported Lindt chocolate) to press on towards the goal: Christ-like-ness. The One who yelled only one recorded time, and never at a child. Oh, Lord, make me more like YOU! Give me peace and patience and kindness and JOY in overflowing abundance. Let me love my children because you have first loved me SO WELL! Let me love them like you love me so well.