Prayer and Praise

Prayer~

Nathan and I are still fighting this sinus thing we've had for about a week now. Please pray for complete healing.

Please remember the Williams and Toews families this week. Dawn's brother (who was here visiting and helping pack) left last night with Caleb and Levi (the oldest Williams boys) to fly back to the US. Dawn, Seth, and Chloe are here until they can get the rest of Chloe's paperwork finished. They are hoping to finish it up on Wednesday and be able to leave next Sunday. Tiffany and her kids leave tonight for the US. Please pray for safe travels for all of them.

Praise~

The kids are doing much much better! They are hardly coughing at all.

Sundays are much better days for us now. Dinah and John are going in the Sunday School class for 3-7 years and Ruth walks right in to nursery. What a blessing to be able to sit in the worship service together!

Culture

I'm doing a terrible job at posting about Kenyan culture, but I've been thinking about several things I could post lately. So, here you go.

~Ours kids love to play in the side road our house is on in the afternoons. I usually sit out there with them and it's fun to watch all the houseladies appear from out of the gates around 4:30 or 5 or 5:30 to go out to the front to buy food to cook dinner. Just outside the main gate of our estate are several little "shops" where you can buy produce, milk, flour, juice, soda, chips, bread, eggs, margarine, almost anything you could need. It's interesting to watch this happen every day. The whole mindset is different than ours. We go to the store and buy enough food to last a week or more, and here they just buy enough for the meal.

~Kenyans have no concept of who has the ride of way when driving. If traffic is going on the main road and there is the smallest space open, they are going to take advantage of it and pull out. Even if there is traffic in the lane they are trying to get to they will pull out and block traffic. And yes, we have had to adopt this way of driving or else we wouldn't get anywhere.

~Whenever we have empty plastic bottles or cartons, Salome and Zipporah love to take them home. It's quite interesting. I have no idea what they use all of them for, but they love our trash! :)

Alright, I know I thought of more things, but I guess this is going to have to do because I can't remember then right now. I'll save them for next week when I think of them.

Happy Memorial Day to those in the US! Happy Madaraka Day to those in Kenya!

Adoption News

We applied for 3 grants several months ago and have been waiting to hear back from them. Seems like waiting is a big part of adoption. Anyway...we got an email from one of the grant agencies on Monday and said that they would be reviewing applications in June! Whoohoo! We wondered if our application had gotten lost in the process of getting back to the US. We had to do a short update to our application and then we wait! For those of you who don't know, an adoption grant is pretty much free money towards our adoption. Grants make adoption possible for a lot of people who just can't afford it.

The referral time clock is still on August '09.

I've really been burdened to pray for the birth mother of our son. She is most likely carrying our son right now. I've been praying for her health, for her to have plenty to eat, for her shelter, for her mental state, and for her soul.

We are approaching the 3 month mark! It's going by quick!

And I guess that's about it...we just keep waiting!

"Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones;
Praise is becoming to the upright.
Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
For the word of the Lord is upright,
And all HIs work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host.
He gathers the water so the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deeps in storehousese.
Let all the earth fear the lord;
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
He commanded, and it stood fast.
The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations;
He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart from generation to generation.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
The Lord looks from heaven;
He sees all the sons of men;
From His dwelling place He looks out
On all the inhabitants of the earth,
He who fashions the hearts of them all,
He who understands all their works.
The king is not saved by a mighty army;
A warrior is not delivered by great strength.
A horse is a false hope for victory;
Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope for His lovingkindness,
To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.
For our heart rejoices in Him,
Because we trust in His holy name.
Let your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us,
According as we have hoped in You."

~Psalm 33

Life with Dinah

Wow, I don't know where to start with this one. I can hardly believe our first baby is 4 already! 

Life with Dinah these days includes:

*lots of coloring. She loves to color in her coloring books with markers. She got a new coloring book for her birthday and is coloring through the book from front to back. She's really enjoying it. 

*recognizing where we are when we are driving around Nairobi. It's amazing the places she remembers and can recognize when we are out in town.

*talking about her Mimi and Papa, Nana and Poppy, Auntie Beth, Uncle Wes, and Uncle NayNay. She remembers so much about what we did while we were in America and where we went and what we did with who. 

*blowing my mind with how much she remembers. She was telling me about her third birthday the other day. I had to think about what she was saying, and she was right!

*counting. She is finally interested in numbers and letters so we are working on them. She's counting her food, markers, anything she sees really. She is also doing simple addition and subtraction. 

*talking about baby brother.

*reading bedtime Bible stories. We've started reading a Bible story each night after prayers. It has questions at the end and she answers almost all of them every night! 

*learning that Mommy and Daddy love her but are going to discipline her when she disobeys. She's slowly catching on. :) 

*some funny sayings..."my nose is blocked up," "they shouldn't put traffic lights in Africa, they don't work well here," and "Daddy should take it to work and fix it" (she says this about anything that breaks).

*showers, not baths.

*painted fingernails and toenails.

Happy Birthday, John!

I got up early and made pancakes for John's birthday breakfast. He was headed to work with Daddy so we had to get started early.

Dinah and Ruth enjoyed his pancakes, too.

He got to open one present before they left since Daddy thought he might need it to go to work. 

         A new back pack! He was excited! What kid doesn't like to put stuff in a bag and carry it around?!

And they're off!

Nathan had already thought about what he was going to have John do while he was with him at work. John loves to unscrew things so Nathan gave his a screwdriver and tin and let him go at it. 

He was taking screws out of the floor of t his airplane.

The new tractor.

Working with Jeremy.

And Daddy.

        

Working on the screws again.

I asked him what he was holding and he said a drill. :) Doesn't he look happy??

Then Daddy took him to lunch with the guys. Apparently John didn't eat too much; he must have been too excited. :) He had a blast with Nathan at work. He did tell me that the helicopters scared him and Daddy wasn't there to hold him. :) 

Nathan brought him home around 2 and boy was he wound up. I think they had chai earlier and he's not used to caffeine. Anyway, he wouldn't take a nap so I didn't have a chance to ice his birthday cake. Thankfully, Salome was here, and she decorates cakes so I just handed the job over to her.

She did a great job on his tractor cake!

When Daddy got home from work John got his big birthday present. A BIKE!! He loves to ride Dinah's and his tricycle was getting really small. 

He wasn't quite sure what to think of it at first. He just stood there looking at it. :) We finally told him it was for him. Crazy kid.

Getting his helmet on.

Awww...what a cutie!

We headed down the road to where there is a smoother portion of road away from traffic for him to try it 

out.

       

The tricycle was handed on down to Ruth so now she's enjoying ownership of it. :) She already calls it, "mine".

Slowly catching on.

Love that precious smile!

Daddy lighting the candles.

A decent family picture. At least better than we did at Dinah's birthday.

We won't tell how many times we had to light the candles to get a good picture. ;)

Micah and Angie came over for pizza and birthday cake. Miss Angie found "3" birthday paper!

Some new sand toys for our Mombasa trip...although they are getting worn in with the dirt around the house. 

A cool cookbook from Nana and Poppy.

Checking it out with Daddy.

Some more train track, a few trailers with animals for Thomas, and a new coloring book. 

Whew, what a big day for John! Mama did forget a few things since I'm still not feeling my best. We forgot the birthday cards he had gotten, Auntie Beth's present, and another present we had. We took care of the cards this morning, will get Auntie Beth's present out this weekend and probably save the other present for another time. He's really enjoying his sand toys and bicycle. He had a great day and never knew we forgot anything! Thank you for all the birthday wishes! The Lord has blessed us with an awesome little boy! We love you, John Culver!!

Tuesday Treats

Nathan has had a busy couple of weeks at work. I'm so proud of the way he manages his time at work and is able to make it home at a decent hour. Even though he's been really busy, he's been home between 5:30 and 6 every night. Way to go, Honey!

By the end of last week, I was ready for a break. I asked Nathan if we could go out on Saturday and he said to get a babysitter and we'd be on our way. Rebecca (our Ethiopian babysitter) came over and watched the kids Saturday afternoon so we could have a few hours alone. We had a great time shopping for John's birthday present, getting groceries, and eating dinner at a fancy restaurant!

Saturday Nathan and the kids woke up with a cough. Then Sunday I woke up and didn't feel well. Nathan was feeling a bit better, but we decided to stay home and get some extra rest. I went back to bed around 8:30am and slept until 11:30am while he played with the kids!

I love to watch my Hubby loving on our kids! It's awesome!

I love you, Nathan! You are an amazing father and husband!

Prayer and Praise

Prayer~

We have been sick this past weekend, but are on the mend. Please pray for all us to get over the cough and cold we've had.

Please pray for our housing situation to get worked out soon!

Praise~

Our little John turns 3 tomorrow! What a sweet, precious addition he is to our family! Happy Birthday, Son!

We've have sunshine for the past several days! What a nice change it is to rain all the time!

Life with Ruth

*She has to do whatever Dinah and John are doing. Literally.

*She can put her shoes on by herself. About 50% of the time she gets them on the correct foot.

*She will shake hands with Kenyans who want to be greeted. 

*There is a military guard for one of the houses in our estate and he loves to talk to us as we walk past. Ruth always runs up to him and he picks her up and swings her around. 

*She is talking like crazy. She says just about anything she wants and it's understandable. She says: Nana, Poppy, Mimi, Papa, Wes, Nay Nay, Auntie Beth (although it's hard to understand), Salome, Zipporah, open it, zip it, shoes on, shirt off, night night, Dinah, sorry, airplane, noodles, poop, mine, jump, no, Angie, shower, mine, patient, walk, oh, and so much more!

*Of course, there are still things that she says that we have no idea what she's saying! :)

*She has been cutting 4 teeth and they have finally just popped through. What a relief!

*She love, love, loves fruit! She will eat 2 apples and 2 bananas for breakfast. And more fruit throughout the day!

*She's starting to enjoy playing with PlayDoh. She mainly just mashes it and watches Dinah and John, but she has fun. 

*Her curls are just adorable! I love 'em!

*She is a ham! She has a great personality for such a little person.

*She can jump. I don't think there is anything much cuter than a baby learning to jump!

*I love how she wraps her little arm around the back of my arm when I'm carrying her. Feels like a little monkey holding on. :)

*She will gladly share her food if you ask, but if you just take, you better watch out!! :)

Mail Call

Yesterday Nathan brought home 3 letters, one for each of the kids from Mimi and Papa (mainly Papa, but he was kind and signed her name, too :)). We gave the letters to the kids after dinner and they had a great time opening them.

Yes, that's our son in a dress. Lets just say Dinah is very persuasive in getting him to play with her. :)

They each got a sheet of stickers, a blank piece of paper to color on, and a Bible story coloring sheet. 

Ruth's first stickers from Mimi and Papa. Papa was sending letters to Dinah and John on a weekly basis before we went on home assignment, but Ruth didn't get one then.

They were checking it all out.

Dinah and her stickers.

John was working on his birthday letter. I think he was trying to pull the stickers off. :) 

Thanks Mimi and Papa! They loved the mail!! And they love you, too!

Tuesday Treats

I love that my Hubby is a home-centered Hubby. I know he enjoys his job and I'm really thankful for that, too. But when it's the end of the day, he comes home, and loves being home with me and our children.

Nathan is so awesome to get up during the night when John has to go potty. He must have been out of it last night because he didn't wake up when John was sitting at our door calling for us. I took John twice in the night and gained a greater appreciation for what Nathan does every night! :)

He is an awesome advocate for us. I love how he takes care of all our business at the hangar. He get our mail, takes care of our finances, brings cash home, and talks to whoever we need to talk to about whatever is going on. He does an incredible job!!

I love you, Nathan! You are a wonderful Hubby!!