I've missed you!!

Sophie, suffering with curlers in her hair for that perfect school picture hair do!!! She was not happy to haver her picture taken.

Just sewed a new witch's costume for my goose! She came with me from Ohio down to Tennessee and now Indiana.

Oh my goodness! I've totally ignored you for a loooong time; too long! I hate to say it, but we are functioning on not much margin these days. We're juggling football games, homework (Lots of it), swimming and for me sewing. That's right. My craft room which is fabulous is up and running and I'm sewing curtains. For some reason, our previous owner took all of her curtains. No big deal because I was going to replace them anyway, but now I feel more pressure to get them done sooner because I'm feeling a little exposed! Our living room has 4 long windows and I was so excited because I had always wanted to make a ruffled tier window treatment with various fabrics and now I was able to. They were just really time consuming!!! I'm really happy with how the curtains turned out. And, the kitchen curtains were something I could do in a day. They are just triangles sewn and then I hot glued magnets to each one to attach to the curtain rod- easy! Of course, in between sewing and everything else we planned a party for Jay's coworkers at work. I think there was 20 or so people in our house which we planned to have inside/outside with our fire pit, but the rain forced us inside. A good time was had by all - the men were in the basement at the pool table and the women were gathered in the kitchen. The kids were all over the place!

Christian and I completed a bike race. We had planned on biking the short course which was 15 miles, but we got a little confused by the markers and ended up doing the whole course .. 26 miles! yippee!! We had a great time and now we need to work on our time; we were too slow, but then we were riding bikes from Target. Christian's bike wouldn't get out of 2nd gear so it took 10 rotations to get 10 feet. He wore his legs out within the first 10 miles!

Oh, and this is for my Tennessee friends--> it's freezing up here!!! It's 45 degrees today; I had to turn my heat on. The living room was registering 67 degrees and I couldn't take it anymore so I had to put the heat on at 70. It's raining, too which makes it even worse. I don't think I'll leave my house all winter. Tonight's Christian's last football game and then next year he'll be playing high school football!!!

why am i doing this?

I have a great friend who is a blogger! She's been doing it for months and her blog ALWAYS make me laugh (she has 4 kids; need I say more?) Well, she convinced me that I needed to set up a blog about Malawi and all my "life." I can't write like her--> I don't think like her and I don't take the time to blog. But, I've tried to keep up with it as best as possible and now I think I finally have something to share.

We've moved and although things could've been worse; we've had some bad days. Christian was in tears the first day of school. He had to eat lunch with 7th graders because of some scheduling problem. Tears over the weekend when his acquaintances weren't available to "hang" and he's missing his Franklin friends. I know, friendships all take time and there's going to be an adjustment period, but I don't want him to hate it here. My biggest fear is that he's NEVER going to make as good of friends here as he had in Franklin and I know they will never be like his Franklin friends I just want him to have good friends that will keep him accountable and true to himself. I don't know the kids that are "potential" friends; I don't know their parents; I don't know if these are good kids. I am not in control....... I am not in control.....

I've been praying about the church we've visited the last 3 Sundays. It's good, but not like home. The minister hasn't spoken (he's on a month sabatical), but I've liked the ministers he's chosen to fill in. The music is a little slow--> nothing can compare to all the talent at People's Church, I will forever be spoiled & ruined! Sophie loves her Sunday School and Christian thinks that this middle school is probably the best around, but not as good as People's Church. So, I'm thinking that we're just settling. I've been praying that God would make it obvious that this is the right church or that we should move on to visit other churches.

I'm guessing about a year and a half ago I started reading passages throughout the bible trying to figure out why there is so much pain & suffering in the world. Our God is huge and He can do anything; so, why doesn't he? Why won't he save the children from starvation? Why doesn't he protect the young mother dying from cancer? And, I never really came up with a real concrete answer and I guess I was ok with that because I know we are supposed to have childlike faith and we'll never have all the answers; my job is to believe. And, I'm not in control...

So, this Sunday at church we're doing a series called the "One thing I want you to know...". And, Kyle Idleman, wanted us to know the one thing is that God is in control and he does care.

He went to scripture and looked in the book of Job. Job has lost everything; his animals, food & his children. His body is in sores and his wife tells him to turn his back on God. God doesn't care. Job, cries out to the Lord. And, finally God answers, but with questions; not really answers. God asks where was Job when he created the world? Where was Job when he told the waters where to stop? What is the way to the creation of light? God is in control; not I, and although there is suffering I have to know that God is in control. In Psalm 8, David is contemplating all that God has created and then that he has created man a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory & honor. God, does love us and he does care.

Kyle Idelman, gave this analogy that really opened my eyes. He said that he had just taken his son (he's 4) to the doctor to have shots. He could've explained why the shots were important and how it would prevent him from getting sick later down the road, but his son was so upset about the pain right now that he couldn't see the future down the road. Picture a father holding his son tight telling him to keep his eyes on him; don't look at the shots; eyes on me I'm in charge. My mind can't get around all the suffering in this world and I wish we could solve it, but I can understand the example explained to me at church and I think that was my answer I was looking for and maybe our new church home.

And, on a lighter note..

The pictures above are from the football game Christian played last night. They are the Frankfort hot dogs and I had to take a picture because my coffee clatch friends will need something to laugh over.

We're here!

We're in our house and the boxes are slowly, but surely leaving! I've found that once I got the boxes unpacked in the living room/kitchen and bedrooms that the rest of the house is unpacking more slowly. No pictures of been hung, so it looks a little blah! And, some of the rooms aren't quite arranged the way I would like. I finally found Sophie's comforter today in the Christmas decoration boxes! She has patiently waited for her comforter and every time I was sure I had the right box it was linens to another bedroom! We had to take out two door frames to get couches into rooms. Now, we're meeting with handymen that can fix it and maybe do some bookshelves in our office. It seems so crazy to me that the builder would put in a smaller than normal door frame going into the basement when he knew the basement was going to be used for a family/game room.

This is the front of our house on move in day. I never thought I would have enough stuff to fill a whole 53' semi.... I've realized that I can't part with any of the kids old toys from when they were toddlers.

This beautiful scene is in our backyard everyday. The horses from the riding stables come down to the back of our yard and we feed them apples and carrots. The brown horse is the bully and he tries to chase the other horses away so he can get all the carrots for himself.

Here is our half pipe getting loaded on Johnny's flatbed truck. Scott's friend volunteered to load the half-pipe and drive it to us; he's probably rethinking this whole deal! I had a hard time watching them load it and then unload it, but it made it in one piece. Christian is so happy to have it.

Our yard is 1/2 an acre and I had to take a picture of Jay using our neighbors riding lawnmower. Initially, he had Christian mow it with our 20" mower which took him about 2 hours to mow our yard (he had nothing else to do anyway -> kept him from getting bored!) But, it started to get too long and so Jay was going to mow it, but our mower kept bogging down because the grass was too long. Our neighbor took pity on him and let him borrow his John Deere. Jay came in the house saying, "we've got to get one of those!"

moving.....

Here's our new house. It's a great house for us.

Well, yesterday & today the movers are here packing up everything. We have much!!! They allowed 2 days to pack and 1 day to load. However, 2 people came yesterday and only finished the 1st floor. We still had the garage, under the deck, craft room (that's a day right there), and the attic! So, today they came with reinforcements. I think they'll get it done. I have to say that if anyone has to move; hiring movers to pack is a great way to go. Although, I probably would never want to pay for it! Thankfully, this one is on the company.

I've been getting a little nostalgic about leaving. I've been living in Tennessee for 15 years; this feels like home to me. We're so settled and Franklin is a great town with every amenity available at your fingertip. We've got great friends and so do our kids. I keep telling myself that it's not forever and that we'll be back and I know we will, but it'll still be different than doing life with my friends on a day to day basis. Let's face it, we've moved to 3 houses in our sub-division so we wouldn't have to leave our friends or our favorite school. Now, I'm not only moving out of the sub-division, but out of the state! I guess I would describe this move as bitter sweet.

I'm going to miss everything about our life in Franklin, but I'm excited about Jay not having to travel as much. I'm excited for Jay & his new job. He seems to be looking forward to the challenge of this promotion. Our new house is beautiful and the schools seem really good. I think Sophie & Christian will be getting a great education and athletics play a big part at the school which will keep Christian interested. The flip side is that I think they both may need tutoring, but that may be another post? Right now, I'm just going to be glad to not be living in boxes! And, my kitchen has double ovens!!!! Ooh, I guess that means I'm going to have to use them. ha! ha!

see you all in a couple days...

Adzuku! Adzuku! Adzuku!

Each morning, we would arrive in Kauma village and begin in the Adziwa office. From there, one group would go to construction and the other would go to either the school or prayer walk. I loved walking to the school and prayer walking. We would begin walking down the red dirt road and the street would be lined with kids shouting, "Adzuku!" "Adzuku!" which means "white person." They were so excited to see white people and it was so funny to me. The kids would point at us and many would follow us all the way to the school and some would try to go to school for the day. Many would hold our hand all the way to the school and some would even fight over who could hold our hands. I remember one time while we were prayer walking the kids just kept chanting "Adzuku!" over and over again; it became almost a song!

Home is relative

Rafik asleep in my arms.

A lady cooking in the refugee camp

Malaylay--a 12 yr. old refugee in the camp without her parents. I'm not sure what happened

to them.

Home sweet home! Robin was my bunkmate.

Metita, is the lady in front leading the other women in song. They are celebrating the finished

school building. We had a ribbon cutting ceremony; the U.S. ambassador came.

I'm home now; safe & sound. For two weeks, my home was in Lilongwe, Malawi. I lived in a 2 person hut and showered with a bucket of heated water. Bathrooms were either a thatched outhouse or a cement hole. We had 3 meals a day which usually included sema (made from maize and similar to grits). We had beans, tomato gravy, cooked pumpkin leaves (not fond of it), rice. The food was great, but different. We woke when the sun came up and went to bed early when the sun went down. We had dinner every night outside, debriefed and shared the ups & downs of the day. We laughed and cried every day and became 24 people who grew into a family. For two weeks, this was home. There were so many highs & lows and if God didn't show up huge for me; you could see him huge in someone else's day. Things were so much clearer while we were there and it was easy to see God's handiwork; I think much because there were no distractions. No tv, no computer, no cell phones---nothing from the outside world. It was just us and the village of Kauma. We were totally focused on the vision that had been cast.

But, I think for most of us, no matter how much we tried to prepare ourselves for what we were going to experience; it really couldn't compare. The kids had nothing. I took a picture of one boy that had ingeniously built a car out of a couple wire hangers and then attached some bobbins for wheels so that it would roll and then inserted a stick so he could push it around with the stick. Paper & crayons are a luxury. But, when they sang they had the most beautiful sound that started in their toes and just bellowed out. All of them sang with such passion and happiness. Where does that come from?

I helped lead two bible studies with village women. There was probably 50-60 women and they clapped when I shared my divorce and the circumstances surrounding it. They were amazed that white people had the same problems they did. They thought that being white meant that we didn't have problems! We were able to talk about being married to an alcoholic. What one woman should do to get her boyfriend to propose to her. What can you do when you don't get along with your mother-in-law. We were able to share that the greatest hope you can have is in Jesus. Without him, there's not much.

And, now I'm home and I'm with my kids and my husband and I'm so glad to be here, but I can't help thinking about Rafik (3 year old that I fell in love with). I wonder how they are getting along and Dorothy the caregiver that has AIDS and has about a year left. She accepted Christ and we were able to get her a bible; I wonder how she's doing? I miss that home because I care for those people. And, I'm getting ready to move to another home. So, I'm coming to realize that home is where you make it and it's not so much the location, but who you're surrounded with.

Moni (hello!)

You know about 2 months ago Jay & I and two other couples finished up a six week bible study on margin in your life. We agreed that when our lives are so full and scheduled everyday that there's not much room for God or what God wants us to accomplish. The idea is to say no to the unnecessary things that just gets us crazy and let God do His thing in us and thru us. Spend more time with him in the bible and be still and let his opportunities come to us. When we're so busy there's not much time for him to work because we've got our days so crammed with "stuff!". We finished the study and I felt pretty good about our schedule. We had quit tae kwon do 3 nights a week and we had softball with Sophie and occasionally boy scouts, but our life seemed settled.

Anything would seem settled compared to the lightning speed we're running now. There is no room in our busy schedules for ANYTHING to go wrong. Jay has accepted a promotion so we're moving this summer. I'm going to Malawi with Hallie. Hallie is going to college. We bought a house in 5 days and are preparing to move out of our old one. THings are busy. I'm so busy that I don't think I've really thought about moving and leaving my friends; that's probably a good thing. I'll probably fall apart after we move and things slow down. I keep telling myself that this is not forever. We'll be back and we will stay in touch with friends.

Did I tell you I'm going to Malawi? I'm leaving this Friday morning and arriving in Malawi Sunday afternoon; that's a long travel time. I don't like to fly; it's definitely not my favorite thing to do. So, why am I going around the world? I've always been intrigued with Africa. I've been reading books on the plight of South Africa probably 20 years ago. You have to read Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane; it will leave you speechless thinking about how some people have to live. As a young boy, Mark dug for food at the dump. While looking for food, he found the corpse of a newborn baby in the garbage dump. It's heartbreaking. I just want to help in some small way. All of us were given talents and if each of us used our talent to help those less fortunate, then I believe there wouldn't be so much suffering. I don't believe we can all do the same thing or that we're called to do the same thing, but I do believe we are called to do something. So, although I'm nervous I'm also excited to be part of something great! I know God is going to do some miraculous things.