We are here!!!!

I woke up this morning feeling the urge to write a post to everyone letting you know we are still here!!!  I know it has been forever since we have updated anyone in any way and I wish I had a really really good excuse.  We have started over a dozen of new updates and never got around to finishing and posting them and then it seems too late.  The past 3 months have been the busiest months of our lives.  The craziness is still going on but seems to have dulled a bit.  I guess it has slowed down long enough to make sure this is posted!:)  These past 3 months we just wanted to update you briefly about everything that has happened. 

-First of all we have been adjusting to life with 3 kids (especially getting used to a toddler again).  We have loved it but there have been a lot of times of struggle.

-Someone in our family has been sick almost every day for the past 2 months.  It started when the lice came at the beginning of July and the sickness hasn’t let up since.  In August we didn’t have one day where one of us wasn’t dealing with some sort of stomach bug.

-Lice… All I can say is I am praying every day it doesn’t come back.  With no running water, no dryer to help with the girls stuffed animals, no lice shampoo I went out of my mind. I never knew bugs could do so much harm and could affect someone mentally like they did our family.

- The literacy and English courses out in Maasailand ended well and they seemed to have learned quite a bit in the past 6 months of classes.

-preparations for  Taa ya Mbali (Maasai discipleship school) took a lot of work but it was well worth it.  The maasai that came were excited to learn and left with a lot of great knowledge. We had a teacher come and teach about circumcision among the girls and the harm that it is causing.  The greatest part was that he is a maasai himself and had a lot of good understanding of culture and ideas to help them continue their rites of passage without causing harm. 

- Nick has been getting ready to lead the DTS here in Arusha.  The leadership team asked nick to please consider leading the DTS this one time to help the base out.  Nick and I prayed about it and agreed to give this next 3 months of the lecture phase to the Arusha DTS.  Meanwhile the literacy and English schools in engikaret will continue through another staff that has committed to take over.

-Building this house has been such an amazing miracle and blessing but has come with a lot of work.  Honestly the beginning was not much work at all. Nick just loved being down at the house, helping but it was necessary for him to be there all the time because we had a good contractor.  But, that all changed at the end. The problems starting showing up when they were putting the finishing touches on.  A lot had happened with the plumbers and they had forgotten a lot of little things that seemed small but meant that a lot of things didn’t work.  We moved in September 1^st with water spilling out everywhere on our floors and our kitchen being unfinished.  The upstairs, which nick was in charge of building, is unfinished because the wood is still wet and was actually growing mold.  But, we moved in!  We had to because my parents where coming in 4 days and we wanted to be settled before they got here.  The kitchen was finished 3 hours before they showed up and we were putting things away until the moment we left for the airport to pick them up.

-2 volunteers from Wenatchee Valley Praise Center came here to volunteer for a month. We are so grateful for their hearts to come and serve. I am in charge of their schedule and their transportation so needless to say, I have been busy with some sort of ministry every day with them.  With 3 kids, it has been a little overwhelming and crazy busy but I just have to take some breathes and continue on!

-Hannah started school!!! Which is a huge improvement from last year. Last year she had a very hard time going but this year she LOVES it and is already starting to read quite a bit. She loves to learn and we are so thankful she has such amazing teachers at her school! 

-As I wrote above my parents came!!!! They came to meet their grandson and see the family as well as do ministry with faces for hope.  I was quite nervous that they wouldn’t get to know Nolan because he is so shy around strangers.  Well, not just shy but screams if they look at him!! But he attached to my parents right away. It was such a blessing. The girls are loving having their grandparents here as well as Nick and I.  We realized we hadn’t played games late at night for a long time!

 

So, that is what has been happening over the past 3 months.  We are so grateful for your support and your prayers over this time. Thank you for loving us and encouraging us.  We will update you with pictures soon but just wanted to get something out there to say “WE ARE HERE!!!”  That is how we have been living every day in this crazy chaos we are in right now.  I wake up and say to Jesus, “I am here” and that is about all I have to give right now but I know that is enough. 

It would take a Miracle....

A couple of weeks before  Nolan came home I attended a womens retreat here in Arusha.  A woman flew in to speak to us; Kim from Mosaic church in LA and she was an amazing speaker. She encouraged us and empowered us to be the women God made us to be.   There were so many amazing things that she taught us there but one thing that stuck with me, and I know with a lot of the other women, was something she had us do the last day at the retreat.  We took a notecard and wrote “It would take a miracle……” and filled it in with whatever that miracle was.  It stunned me that something as simple as that was such a HUGE statement for me. I hadn’t really thought about a miracle in my life.  I instantly felt the Lord press upon me my heart’s desire; to bring home a baby. I wrote, to stay anonymous of courseJ, “It would take a miracle to increase my family”.  It seemed completely hopeless at that point.  As I wrote it, I cried out that God would do a miracle for His glory alone. About 2 weeks later, Nolan came home.  We had been waiting and fasting and praying and I felt the Lord give us our miracle and all we could do was give glory to God who had his hand in it.  After Nolan came home I felt like the Lord said “don’t stop there, continue to believe that I do miracles!”.   I then wrote down something that honestly, once again, did not believe it would happen.  “It would take a miracle for us to build a home here at the YWAM base”. 

Since September of 2012 the base has not had running water in the homes and it has been slowly trickling out of a spicket. The dust has consumed our lungs in our home and Hannah and Nick’s asthma has slowly gotten worse.  It would be one thing to breathe it outside but the way it sticks and coats everything in your house and then you sleep breathing it in is almost unbearable.  Nolan’s room is also our storage area and something covers every inch of the walls.  About a year ago Nick and I had talked about maybe moving off the base to a place with running water and better windows and a little bit more space.  Our house is used often by the western students to come stay at when they are sick and it is getting hard sharing the toilet with sick students, especially when there is no running water.   My kids are often knocking on the door, needing to use the toilet when a student is already occupying the bathroom.  We started looking and realized that we would be paying about the same to stay in a much nicer home with running water (HOT SHOWERS!!!) and a yard.  We prayed about it but really felt that we needed to plant ourselves on the base to be a part of the work going on here.  If we moved off base I would stay home all day, nick would go to work and come straight home. There would be no interaction with our fellow YWAMers and we really love that interaction.  Though it was tempting we came to be part of a community.  We had a lot of Western missionaries express that a time will come that this will feel like too much for us. That we will outgrow our home and will want running water, the dust will start to make us sicker and we needed to plan ahead for a home.     We then started getting different ideas.  We started asking around the base if there was any land for sale.  There was a small piece attached to the property but the man heard it was us wazungu (white people) looking and he put the price up very HIGH.  So, in September, we asked the leadership if they would consider giving us the last bit of the land at the end of the row of houses to build a house.  They prayed about it, talked in their meeting and said,  “yes.”  We went to several people around the base and asked their opinion. They were all very excited and told us that they knew at some point we would grow out of the house that we have and have to move off base. This was so much better though that we would stay on base with them.  They thanked us for wanting to still live here at YWAM and for not already moving off the base.  

As we looked at the budget we realized that building a home would be less cost than paying rent here for 9 more years, which for now is how long we feel we will be here.  That seemed like a good investment to us and we started making a house plan that would work for our family. We headed home in October and spent three months in the states raising every day ministry/personal support as well as raising funds separately for a house.  While we were home we talked about different options of borrowing money from people or the bank but really felt we needed to wait on the Lord. We didn’t want to move forward without confirmation.  As we returned to Tanzania I was sure that we had come to an end of this idea of building a home. We had been able to raise half of our budget while in the states but still needed a lot more.  Every time Nick would talk about what to do from here I would sit and think that it just wasn’t possible.   After Nolan came home I started to really believe it was possible. I wasn’t sure how but I had “it would take a miracle” in my mind and I really felt I gave it over to God and waited on His timing. Both Nick and I along with many people we talked to here and in the states, felt that building a house was what we should do we just didn’t know how we would get there and see the miracle happen.  A couple of weeks after Nolan was home we got an email from a friend asking what was going on with the house and what we still needed.  She said that when it was shared in her church (one of our supporting churches) that we finally brought Nolan home.   It reminded someone that we were wanting to build a house and he wanted more information.  He thought maybe they could get a team together and come here to help build the house.  She sent us some questions and we responded immediately, excited for what would come of this.  Two days later we received an email from someone else from the church that didn’t know about the other person asking about the home.  He had a couple of questions for us including how much more we had to raise.  He told us that he was in the midst of building a house and God had really brought our family to his family’s heart. He wanted to pray about helping us financially. We answered his questions and waited for his reply.  After only two days he wanted to let us know that he had deposited the remainder of the budget we needed to build our house and to go ahead and start building!  We were in a little grocery store when I got the email on my phone.   Nick started dancing around and I just broke down crying.  I couldn’t believe it.  I sat in disbelief in the store and re-read the email until it finally sunk in.  We had only met this family once during our time in the states.  We had little connection with them but God used them to be a HUGE blessing to our family.   God is amazing and He is so worthy to be praised. 

We are so excited for the house that is being built.  Here are a couple of pictures.  We started the building about a month ago and the roof is going on next week! We cannot believe how fast building can go if you have the money in hand (and without so many permits).  The builder has told us that we will be moving in by September!  We are hoping that is true.  Right away I didn’t believe it but after seeing how fast this is going, I wouldn’t be surprised. 

The piece of land at the end of the property that leadership gave us to build on

The girls playground for the first 2 weeks of building until they had to use it to fill in the foundation.  The girls loved it and used it as their slide!  It did entertain them for hours on end.

Setting the foundation

This is after only 3 weeks of building!

This is just for your enjoyment!:) This outfit is the outfit Nick was brought home in from the hospital.  It was so small on Nolan but Nick had to try!

The walls are up!!

 

Thank you for praying for this house and for being a part of the many things God is doing here in Arusha, Tanzania.  Thank you for those of you who gave towards the building of the house. We hope someday that you will come visit us and stay in this blessing that God has given us.  I have been praying about what to put on my next index card “It would take a miracle……” and waiting to hear from the Lord.

Our kids

Just a normal picture of the kids.. Hannah trying to look as sweet as ever, Nolan wondering what he is looking at, and Hailey distracted by something!

I know we have been mostly posting about the Maasai ministries on this blog but this morning as my girls are off at school and Nolan is sleeping there are so many things I could be doing but I feel the need to write a bit about my kids.  So, for those of you that read about kids and are tired of hearing stories of other peoples kids, I’m sorry!! You may not want to continue., but for those of you who want to hear more about who my kids are, here you go.....

Hannah started school in April.  She was so excited to go to school and we were so excited for her to go.  The first week was great. She went from 9-3.  At first we thought  that was too much to start with but after picking her up at 3 she didn’t seem upset with the amount of time we had her in her class.  But after the first couple days Hannah started showing signs of stress.  She would get very, very nervous before we got to school and then came the screaming.  We had her teachers take her inside and she would be screaming for us not to leave her.  I decided then that we would pick her up early. Maybe the amount of time she was gone was too hard for her to start so quickly with.  When I would pick her up in the afternoon she would cry that she wanted to stay at school and why was I picking her up before all the other kids.  She was so mad at me for picking her up early.  So, we tried a couple more days of her screaming in the morning, hiding in her room and then again, at the end of the day  screaming that she didn’t want to leave school.  We would wait outside the school gate in the mornings and listen for about 2 minutes and the screaming would stop.  Every day when she came home she was so proud of everything she did at school. She couldn’t stop talking about how much she loved school but in the morning her fear would come again.  She started biting her nails and just shaking.  We decided to give her a break. We pulled her out for a week to reassess what to do.  The teachers encouraged us to bring her again but maybe for only 3 days.  Then we brought Nolan home so getting her to think about leaving her brother to go to school was hard.  We thought of another solution.  Hailey kept asking when she was going to get to go to school. We kept telling her it wasn’t time yet and not til she was five.  So, the teachers suggested hailey going to school a couple days a week. They had a program for 3 year olds.  We asked Hannah if she would go if hailey went.  That perked her up and got her excited to show Hailey everything and have her there with her.  So, these past 3 weeks Hailey has been a champ and now Hannah can't wait to go to school, whether it is with Hailey or by herself.  She was so excited to go.  The teachers says she gets a bit tired by the end of the day but she is very happy to be at school.  It is so funny listening to what their teachers say about them.  Here is a bit of what I have heard about my two girls from school:

  Hailey answers every question (whether she knows the answer or not).  She has a lot of energy and likes to just play, even if it is by herself.  She excuses herself from learning time and goes and sits in the corner and plays with a toy J She pretends to be animals all of the time, walking on all fours.  When asked if she wanted to do show and  tell she said “yes, right now”.  They told her that she needed to wait a couple of days and it would be her turn.  All day she kept asking when she could share.  She wanted to share about her headband.  She wanted to show everyone the different ways she could wear it.  When I came to pick her up she ran out to me yelling “mom please go home. I haven’t shared about my headband. They keep telling me Thursday but I want to share right now!”.  The teachers at Sunday school have asked me if she always has this many stories at home and if I really think they are all true.:)  My social little butterfly.  She plays with every kid there, including the older ones and is not afraid to sing and dance.  When Hailey colors she uses every color she can find and colors as fast as she can to make it look as colorful and beautiful as she can!  When she plays with Nolan it is with so much intensity that sometimes she knocks him over because she is hugging him so hard!

Hannah is reserved.  She sits and waits until she is called on and even then sometimes refuses to give an answer.  Most of the time I am sure that she knows the answer she is just so nervous to say it.  She has a very good friend at school that she loves and says how thankful she is that she has such a good friend.  Hannah is very respectful and always remembers to say please and thank you.  She adores her teacher and loves the times that they get to learn.  She sits anxiously waiting to learn more but then when it is time to play she chooses very carefully who she and her “best friend Amanda” are going to play with.   When asked if she would do show and tell she asked if she could try and if she was too scared if she could stop.  Yesterday, she brought a toy that her Auntie Sarah and her cousin Emma gave her (yes, Uncle John and Johnny did as well but she said she was pretty sure the boys didn’t pick out this out cause it was a princess thing and boys would have picked her out a ball or something).  They said that she was very nervous but she got up there and shared her toy.  On the way home I noticed she had bitten her nails all the way down to bleeding, but she was so proud of herself for doing it. She said “Mom they absolutely loved it! They were all smiling at me and their questions made me so happy.  They really were so happy I shared!”  Hannah’s heart is in everything she does.  She is so sensitive and I have seen the good that can come out of that.  At home the other day she was sick with a fever and a stomach bug.  She was lying in my bed watching a movie with Hailey (who pretends she is sick when Hannah is so she can watch the movie) and she said that when the movie was over she saw a shadow in the room.  It wasn’t a normal shadow though, it was a white shadow.  She was so confused because she hasn’t ever seen a white shadow, only gray shadows.  Then she realized that it was Jesus watching over her.  She told me that she told Hailey and just sat and hugged Hailey as they looked at the shadow. She told me she felt so loved by Jesus that He was sitting in that room with her!  Another day she was drawing a picture of Jesus and made him half dark brown and half yellow. When we talked to her about it she said that Jesus told her that He was not just for Americans but he was God for the Maasai so Jesus must look like he is all different colors.  He couldn’t be all brown or all yellow, he had to have a little of each person in him.   I am constantly in awe of the things Hannah hears from Jesus. She teaches me more about Jesus every day.

 

Nolan is a funny little boy.  He mimics everything that we do.  After we sneeze, he tries to make that sound.  When we laugh he pretends he is laughing hysterically.  He always tries to dance, even when walking by someones house with music on.  He loves to be held and I believe he would be fine never being put down on the floor but when you put him down he crawls so incredibly fast!  His adventurous side is slowing coming out.  He is very social as long as someone he knows is holding onto him.  Anybody that walks by our house he waves at and screams.  He wants people to look at him.  He has started to squint his eyes thinking he is making a funny face and then starts laughing.  He has learned so much in the past month.. Yes, June 8^th it will be a full month that he has been home with us! He has learned to wave hi and goodbye, when we say Hello he puts whatever he is playing with up to his ear and mimics the sound of hello like he is talking on a phone, he signs “more” and “all done” when he is eating.  He knows High five and how to clap. He tickles the girls.  He has learned what “hapana” means and stops when he hears it.  “Hapana” means no in Swahili. We realized after naming Nolan that “no” sounds a lot like his name.  Nick sings a song that just says “no no no no no no “ and Nolan loves it and starts to dance every time. So one day he tried to turn on the stove and I said “no no” and he started smiling and dancing… so we are using “hapana and tabala (Maasai)”.    Nolan has been a trooper out in Maasai land and has gone to visit a couple of bomas.  He isn’t too scared of the Maasai and even gives them high fives.  The one thing he is fearful of is animals!  He sees anything and starts to cry.  We aren’t sure what made him so scared of animals but even chickens frighten him.  He is terrified so we have tried to keep all animals away from him.  He is adjusting so well now and has stopped crying when his food is all gone and when his bottle is empty.  When he came home he had 2 bottom teeth and now one top tooth just came through yesterday  The other is sooo close! I am hoping after those come through his naps during the day will start getting longer than 20 minutes!!

So, those are my kids.   They are all soo different and so amazing!  I feel soo blessed to be able to raise them.  Lately I have been feeling so overwhelmed and really wondering what I am doing!  I have forgotten what it was like to be a mom to a baby.  Nolan needs everything! He needs his diaper to be changed (every hour due to changes of food and his stomach trying to adjust), a bottle, spoon fed all of his food (he is still trying to grasp food but won’t put it near his mouth), played with him all of the time, etc.  All the things I forgot about when you have a 3 and 5 year old.  The hard part is its all started right away. There was no newborn time.  No time to adjust.  Just BAM a 9 month old that needs me 24 hrs a day.  I had been waiting and waiting for this moment but I forgot what this would mean.  My day is full of poop, bottles, making my own food, playing with blocks, and cleaning up again.  Its different than in the states where I have friends around to help or to just vent to when the days are hard.  It feels so different to not be in a familiar place with a new baby.  Everything feels harder.  Getting food, making food and hoping the electricity will stay on long enough to be able to blend the food I am making, finding diapers that don’t leak every time that he goes to the bathroom,  etc.  I have been so homesick and really missing family and friends.

 With Nolan home the girls have been a little more needy.  Just last night Hannah told me that she really misses me being her mom!  This broke my heart and I started to cry. I asked her what she meant and she said before when she would ask me to play with her sometimes I would say I have work to do but other times I would play with her.  Now every time I say I have work to do.  She asked me if I could please have Daddy make dinner tomorrow so that I could have some time to sit and play or draw or something with her.  She told me that she doesn’t know why she is so sad but she just feels like I choose everything over being with her.  Oh man, that shot right to the heart.  I had been feeling like maybe I should take on something else at the base or do more ministry out in Engikaret with the maasai women and trying to figure out how to do that.  I had been feeling like being a mom wasn’t enough right now.  After she said that I felt so excited about what my work is and I felt inspired to be able to be a mom to my kids.  Today when I woke up it felt like a new day and that the Holy Spirit really poured out on me an overwhelming love for my children.  I am going to walk in that!   

The story of our little boy

Nolan with his Aunties at the home.  We are so thankful for their love for him. 

 

Every day I waited for an update.  I set up our baby’s room numerous times to just go in and tear it down. I sat in his room almost every night and prayed for wisdom and strength to be able to continue in this journey.  I know that 3 ½ months isn’t that long to wait for a child but when you are told almost every day to expect a phone call that you will be going to get your child it feels like forever.  Then, one day you are told you need to stop the process all together because you will never be able to bring a baby home and then the next day given hope that it will work out and very soon.  AAAHHHHH!!  I tried to focus on something else but every day I came home feeling something was not right in my home. I cannot tell you how many times I sat down and started a blog post about how I was feeling, how the process of bringing the baby home was going and then I just would break down in the middle and cry. I didn’t want to post a blog because I didn’t know what the next day would hold. But today is different.  Today Nolan is home.  Now I feel the freedom to share what has been happening in our lives.

Our family of FIVE

 
 
 

On Wednesday, May 8^th we were given the documents to take to the orphanage to go pick up our son; a 10 month old who had been abandoned on the side of the road when he was 3 months old.  These documents do not give us full custody but approve us to be foster parents for Nolan.  The whole morning we were running back and forth from the social welfare office to stationary shops and internet cafes trying to make sure all our documents were in order.  Finally at 2 p.m. everything was ready.  I sat in the car with the girls, still not having told them what we were doing there at the social welfare office in case something fell through…again. Then Nick came out holding a packet of papers.  He jumped into the car and rushed to our lawyers to make sure the documents were accurate and sufficient.  They gave us the go ahead of we went. Finally we told the girls.  We were in the car and they had been so good all day long.  They were tired and they both had asked to please go home.  They were tired of being in the car and waiting and waiting.  So, when we told them that it was time to get baby brother they just sat there and stared.  Hannah said “no way! no way!” then just started screaming!  Hailey started dancing and singing about going to get baby brother.  As we drove out to the orphanage my stomach was in knots. All day it had been in knots but this was even worse.  Forget butterflies, try komodo dragons!  I was finally able to think that our baby was coming home.  We realized all of a sudden we better start thinking about names. We knew his name that was given to him by the staff of the orphanage was William but we didn’t feel that was the name we wanted to give him.  The whole way out we talked about his name with the girls.  We couldn’t agree on any name.  When we arrived at the orphanage we sat outside with the girls and talked with them about what we were going to do. They broke away from us and ran towards the home where they knew he would be.  When I got there they were already inside holding his hands and talking with him.   His sweet Dada’s (aunties) had him all dressed and ready for us to take him home. They were so proud of him and just kept asking to hold him one last time.  He was a little terrified of us and kept reaching back for them.  There was one specifically that we could tell had grown attached to him.  She kissed him goodbye and told us she was so thankful he was coming to a new home where he would be forever and for us to know that she really loved him.  We are planning on a day that we can go back and visit her to show her how happy and healthy her boy is.  As we got in the car to drive away they gave us a bottle to calm him down. He had never been in a car so he was scared to death.  Of course he was, we were all white faced English-speaking strangers.  We stopped on the way home at a friends house to get his car seat and all of his clothes.   He fell asleep so overwhelmed as I sat and rocked him.  At that moment I realized there weren’t just four of us anymore, there were five!  My girls were running around with their friends as I sat holding my son.  I was in shock.  As we packed back up to head home the girls were so excited about bringing their baby brother home.  I was at that point terrified.  Nick held him in the back seat as we drove back home.   As we got home he continued to cry and be overwhelmed but the girls were so anxious to show him everything! I didn’t know what to feed him and started looking for food. He devoured everything in sight.  We played a bit with him and read him some stories.  The first real responsiveness we saw was with Hannah.  He would dance with Hannah when she would sing a song.  We put him to bed that night and he fell fast asleep.  All night I kept wondering if I would be able to hear him when he woke up.  In our little house his room is right next door.  It’s not like the walls are thick at all but I was terrified that I wouldn’t recognize his cry.  I laid awake almost all night waiting to hear him cry out.  In the morning there still hadn’t been a peep. The girls were up at 630 (normal wake up time is 730) but they were just waiting for baby brother to wake up.  As they sat outside his room we waited and waited.  Eight thirty came around and he still wasn’t up.  We finally went in at 9 and there he was lying silently.  It was baby brothers first day at home and honestly, I was terrified. We had talked about how bringing any Tanzanian guests over would be hard because he would probably recognize them and want to go to them.  About an hour after he woke up, a friend stopped by and I just held my breath. They came and tried to take him from my arms and he screamed and put his head on my shoulder.   We could not believe he had already bonded himself to us.  It was such a relief.  From then on he has been a mommy and daddy’s boy (more so daddy’s).  He has attached himself at our hip and never wants to be by himself.  The next couple of days Nolan was known as “baby brother”.  We kept trying to figure out a name that fit him. We had a long list and couldn’t match him with any of the names.  We wanted to share the news with everyone but we needed to have a name before we could share him with the world.  All night long Nick and I would look up names on the internet. We started writing down lists and calling him by different names!  Finally on Friday we settled on Nolan.  All of us were in agreement that it fit him.  The Maasai had already told us that no matter what name we gave him they had already named him.  His name was Laanyuni which means “the one we were waiting for”.  This name fits him perfectly! We had been waiting and the wait was over. He was home. 

He learned to clap after a couple of days watching the girls. 

Thumb and blanket:)

So that you can get to know Nolan a bit I will describe his personality.  He is a pretty happy baby all together but has some lungs on him!! He can scream and it is not just when he is crying.. That boy can scream any time of the day.  When Nolan is awake, everyone is awake. He screams when he is happy, he screams when he wants more food, he screams when he can’t see you, he screams when he wants his bottle, he screams when he is done with his bottle, he screams when he is playing with his toys, he screams when he wakes up (not cause he is mad, just cause).  Nolan screams!   We are trying to teach him to tone it down a bit.  One thing we didn’t think about was that naming him Nolan is a nickname.  Somehow saying “No” has lost some of its gusto as we find ourselves often calling him “no”.  It is so close to his name that we have resorted to saying “no” in new languages.  If you walk by our house, you might hear Hailey yelling, “tabala” (maasai) or or Hannah prefers “Hapana” (Swahili).  This is sadly often while we are transitioning and trying to get the noise level down a bit.   Nolan loves his sisters.  When they are home he sits and plays with them and is so content.  He loves Hannah giving him his bottle and sometimes will only eat when she is feeding him. If I try and come to take over he refuses to eat and she runs back and finishes feeding him. Hannah walks him around holding his hands and he is constantly smiling when she does that.  He loves Hailey giving him a bath and follows her all around the house.  He LOVES music and will dance and sing every time he hears music.  He is terrified of big lifelike dolls (like the girls big-girl dolls).  He hates zhu zhu pets.  He starts screaming if he sees them moving around.   At first it was funny but now I know he is genuinely afraid.  He eats ANYTHING you put in front of him as long as it is blended well. He does not like solid food but we have started to try chunkier things.  He loves to sleep and sleeps through the night at least 12 hours.  He sleeps about 3 hours in the day for naps.  When he sleeps he is a thumb sucker but also needs to grab onto some sort of clothing or blanket with the same hand he sucks his thumb with.  He loves his daddy and smiles every time Nick comes into the room.  He loves to snuggle and will let you hug him as long as you want.  Overall Nolan is a happy kid that loves to eat and sleep! 

It has been 2 ½ weeks since he has come home and our family is still adjusting to having an extra little person! People have said that going from 2 to 3 children is a huge jump.  I wasn’t sure and thought it couldn’t be that big of a difference but oh my goodness they were right!  Getting out of the house becomes an insane mess!  Nowadays, going out is a rare occasion.  Even here in Arusha we are a family that likes to get out and do something.  Now, the thought frightens me!  This post is coming so late because to try and get anything done with 3 kids around is INSANE!! And I am too tired at night to sit and think.  So, we are sorry our update of our little guy is a little delayed. 

Thank you so much for all of your support and love! We have such a long road ahead but we are really trying to be thankful for every day we have him.  We are fostering for the next 6 months and then we start the grueling process of application and court for adoption as a Tanzanian.  After that, we start to seek immigration to the states.  We are trying to be realistic in saying we won’t be heading back to the states for another 2-3 years.  This is so hard for us to imagine and honestly it is making me extremely homesick. Things could go a lot quicker but we are preparing for a long journey.  Please be praying for us and this transition as well as for the paperwork and the government here in Tanzania.  Even if it takes forever, we feel like we are ready.  Maybe if you ask us in 12 months things will be different, but as for today, we are just so grateful to Jesus’ faithfulness to give us the desires of our hearts. 

 

“I cannot read, but the Word of God has come into my life and filled my heart.”

This week we began our discipleship school in Engikaret called Taa Ya Mbali, A Distant Light, and almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.  Both of our cars broke down this month so we used a motorcycle to get out to the neighboring villages to meet with students and their pastors.  A couple of students showed up without their school fees.  Two young women arrived and stayed for a day only to inform us after the first day they were in the wrong place.  They thought they were coming to computer school and would be leaving that afternoon.  Two women arrived after walking over 8 hours on foot with their luggage.  However, in the distance we noticed more than just their luggage, but also their children in tow.  Quite a bit of the week was spent maneuvering our sleeping quarters to accommodate small children.  Some of the women were forbidden by their husbands to come to class, so we had meetings over tea with the men requesting opportunities for their wives to come.  Lots of things were difficulties that needed to be overcome, but none of them were so terrible as to overshadow the incredible fruit that is growing in the hearts of the people in class.  I just wanted to quote a few things that the students shared this week from what they learned.  We had a teacher from Tanzania named Immanuel this week teaching about Sin, Repentance, and Forgiveness and this is what they learned.

“I now know what Repentance is.”  Can you imagine the value of knowing repentance?  Can you imagine the difference in life between knowing and not knowing the freedom that comes from repentance?

“Other teachers will come and go, but now have laid for us a foundation for others to build on.” 

“We thank God for the words He has brought us.  We are few here in class, but we are grateful that you teach us anyway because even though we are few, we will go out and change the rest of our people.”

“We’ve learned so much this week already.  By the end, we see that we will have been built up enough to be different.”

“The reason we are here is because of God.  We have learned things we did not know.  I am amazed God has given us as women a chance to come and learn when we would never have been able to have left.  I am full of the fear of God.”

“It is not my teacher that taught me, but my God has taught me.”

And my personal favorite from this week that has been worth any number of problems.

“I cannot read, but the Word of God has come into my life and filled my heart.”

My heart is broken

Hannah’s birthday was this past Thursday and it came with such excitement and joy until we got to Engikaret.  We arrived there in the morning to get the class set up for nick and for the girls and I to get settled to be able to help with an American team that was coming out to see Engikaret and help with a clinic.  Once we got out there a young lady came up with her mother-in-law and it seemed there was something in her hands underneath her shuka (the cloth they wear).  My mom was there as well and asked what is going on.  They got there very early for the clinic and we were wondering why.  Slowly the young girl, who is maybe 13 or 14, pulled her shuka back and I gasped.  I had never seen anything like I had seen that day.  A day that had started out being so full of life for my family as Hannah was turning 5 became a day of complete sadness in my heart. I stared at a little baby that looked as if he had already gone to be with Jesus.  I have never seen a baby so small and helpless in my entire life.

 

  My heart sank and the overwhelming emotion was showing on my face so I left to compose myself to once again go out and talk with the women.  As I joined them again my mom felt the babys chest to see if he was dead but she said she felt a pulse.  An urgency arose in us and a desire to do something but once again looking at the baby I had to leave the room, take deep breathes and come back. I knew if I showed what I felt it would scare this young mom.  I continued to try and get the story from them and they claimed the baby was born 2 weeks ago and had been unable to suck.  The mom then didn’t produce a lot of milk so in the 2 weeks since he had been born, he had been unable to eat anything.   He had literally been starving to death.  I was so surprised he was even still alive.  At that moment some more staff came around and started asking questions.  I retreated back to the place where my girls were playing and just looked at them.  The most overpowering feeling of love and thankfulness for my children surrounded me and I wept.  My heart broke for the young mama that sat helplessly with her baby in her arms, so unsure of what the future would hold for her baby.    As I ventured out again to see what the progress was I saw Nick talking with her and getting his keys out of his pocket.  It is so hard living here and trying to figure out when to help someone get to the hospital, when to push the husband harder to pay for the trip and the stay at the hospital… but this time there was no question.  Nick was ready to go and put the young mama with her sweet baby and her mother-in-law in the car and drove off in a hurry.  The first hospital with an incubator did not have electricity so Nick got back into the car and drove another 30 minutes to another hospital with an incubator.  They brought in the baby and Nick sat in the car to wait.  We have learned that no matter how badly we want to accompany someone to the hospital, for their sake it is not a good idea. The fees for the hospitals service goes up when someone sees a white face. 

This happened last Thursday and we haven’t heard yet if the baby is still alive or not.  We have heard some rumors about what happened and what is happening in that Boma of Masaai out in Engikaret.  This young mama’s sister-wife is one of my good friends out there and we asked her why she didn’t help this young mom go somewhere.  There was just silence.  There is something going on, some knowledge they have that they are trying to keep secret from all of us.  Please pray for the truth to come out, for the base to know how to approach this boma and the problems happening in it.  There are some very influential people in that boma and we are praying for safety and wisdom among the leaders there.   Please pray for the young mama as we don’t know the outcome but no matter what this is a hard time in her life.   Please pray for our hearts to continue to break for God’s people and for wisdom to know how to help those around us. 

Thank you so much for praying

The last three months in America were so great for our family.  Honestly, I was a little afraid that after going back to America I would want to stay or the I would feel it was better for our family to live in America.  We had an amazing time but it also confirmed in our hearts how much Tanzania has become a home for our family.  We loved seeing everyone and sharing our lives and hearing from all of you.  When we got on that plane to return to Tanzania I was scared because I thought that maybe I was just remembering wrong about being in Tanzania, but after setting foot in our house in Arusha it felt soo good to be HOME!  Of course, being a mom, I am always nervous about how the girls will do but it was amazing how they responded to being back!   After 5 days of travel (which I would never recommend to anyone with two kids) we rode in a school bus back to our base and the joy in Hannah and Hailey’s faces made me so happy.  They were so excited to get home.  Hannah and Hailey ran into her house so thankful to be back.  All the little neighbor kids came and Hannah just hugged them all!  While we were in America it took us forever to put our kids to bed.  Nothing was ever normal because we were moving everywhere, sleeping in different rooms, different beds, with different family, etc.  There was never any consistency and bed time was a very hard part of our day.  Since we have been here bed time has been so great! The girls are loving every minute of having their room and  their home that they know so well.

The transition home has been such a good one for our family and we are so thankful.  Thank you to all of you that have been praying for our family and our time in America and our trip back home to Tanzania. 

Since being home it has been a slow start. We didn’t realize how busy we were in the states until we came back here and thought back over the past 3 months!  This past week has been spent getting back into this time zone, saying our hellos, getting our cars fixed and reregistered and ready for the bush again and getting our home set back up with some furniture improvements (thanks to Kyle Krueger and my amazing husband).  We also spent a day going out to Maasailand, walking to the bomas and visiting our friends that we have missed while being away! The girls were so excited to get back out to see the Maasai and Hannah couldn’t get enough of the tea they were serving her in their bomas!  She was also so excited to see all of her friends that she had been going to school with before she left and they were equally excited to see her though they don’t speak each other’s language. It was so fun to watch our kids reunite with the Maasai and see their love for the people we are here to serve. 
We are also starting the process of adoption.  As most of you know we have been planning to adopt for the past year now and have been anxiously waiting the day we returned to Tanzania so we could start the process. We have turned in our paperwork for foster care and are now waiting for the social worker and the commissioner's approval.  We have visited the orphanage and met some of the children available.  Last week we met with a lawyer and were told we need to name the child we would like to bring home to foster before we can proceed.  This has been an emotional process for us but we have set some guidelines that have made it easier for us to decide what child will be in our home.  There are so many different rules here in Tanzania and so many different opinions about the way to go about finding a child that is available for adoption.  We have tried to take all of the opinions and work through them to find what is best for our family.  The girls are getting anxious to know who their little brother will be (only boys are available at this moment) and so are we!   At the end of the week last week, we named a baby and are waiting for the social worker to approve him for adoption. We are so excited to be able to share our new child with you once he meets his sisters and he comes home with us!  Please be praying for the process as just like any other process here in Tanzania there is bound to be some ups and downs and misunderstandings and frustrations along the way.  We are trying to prepare for those but we know there is really no way to be ready for what is ahead.
We miss you all and would love to hear from you!  Thank you again for everything you have done in our lives and in the ministry here in Tanzania.  We feel so blessed to have such a loving family back in the States that are praying for us and encouraging us along the way.