Our Journey

Hey!  I have many posts I would like to get on here, like Casey’s birthday, and Danny’s class field trip (which was really cool btw!!).

But first, I want to share with you all, a way YOU can help with a ministry here in Ethiopia!

Each class at Bingham (the international school Danny goes to) is involved in serving the community somehow!  In KG, the kids are supporting the work of Strong Hearts.

 Here is the website for more information, www.strongheartsethiopia.org.

Strong Hearts Ethiopia is an organization dedicated to providing a safe environment for the spiritual and  academic development of Addis Ababa’s underprivileged community.

This is also an organization that CMF is a huge part of.  The school is just down the road from us, and we see these kids everyday!

The KG class is trying to bless Strong Hearts with some much needed school supplies for these kids!

Now as many of you know, my brother-in-law and a friend are coming the end of May to help with the building of our house.  Their arrival is in time for the cut off for these supplies to be in.  We would LOVE to be able to help and give a big box of supplies for these kids!  This is also a very easy way for you all back at home to get involved!

Here is a list that was provided for us of things that would be a blessing to them:

• story / picture books
• writing pencils
• coloring pencilss
• crayons
• markers
• pads of paper
• loose paper of different colors 
• glue sticks
• small scissors
• stickers
• other craft materials
• playdough
• dough cutters and or rolling pins
• jigsaw puzzles
• simple card games
• cars / trucks
• animals
• dolls or other small soft toys

Strong Hearts

Happy Easter!

“Our God is not dead, He’s alive, HE’S ALIVE!”

We had a wonderful Easter yesterday!  It actually felt like a normal Easter!

(besides missing family!)

The night before we’d dyed some eggs, and the boys were SO excited to eat them for breakfast. (though they all took one bite and decided they were disgusting! )

We also had Risen rolls, and thanks to a wonderful family who sent us an easter package, we even had marshmallows for the center.  The boys thought the empty rolls were great, and we read the easter story.

It was really fun last week (Palm Sunday), on our way into church I noticed they had these HUGE palm tree branches bordering the door, and I’d wished I’d had my camera so I could share it with you.  Well this week I remembered, just in case they had left them there for Easter.  Sure enough I was not disappointed!

I thought it looked beautiful, and it was a great visual for me of the palm branches that were laid on the ground for Jesus!

We enjoyed a wonderful church service and lunch afterward.

Then headed home for a little rest till our friends arrived and the candy hunt began!

Our friends Jonathan and Jessica Bridges have a little boy (Dawit), and after waiting for “forever!” they all had an Easter egg hunt.  Here they are with their bags in all forms of excitement!

The boys had a fabulous time, and got a HUGE sugar fix!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter as well, I can’t wait to see pictures of you all in your Easter best!!

Happy Easter!

WOW, I know you are all amazed that you are getting another blog post from me so soon, but I just happened to be able to get out today and get the rest of my photos I wanted for your tour, so I thought I’d do part 2 tonight!

I mentioned yesterday that we buy our fresh produce at the supermarkets…

These are just two of the supermarkets we go to regularly.

Fantu is nice cause every week or so they get a shipment in of American food.  It’s SUPER pricy, so most of the time I’m not allowed to buy any , but every now and then I’ll slip in a kit kat or something, and it is a nice treat!

This is IEC (International Evangelical Church), the church we attend on Sunday mornings.

Mr Basket is next, and this is where we buy our….baskets!  Amazing huh!?

I absolutely LOVE this shop, I’ve been known to buy way too much here!!

But the owner is such a nice old man, and the fun thing is, he remembers Marshal’s grandparents who lived here 12 years ago.

Next is the little souk that Marshal has made MANY trips to to get parts and such for the car.

It’s the yellow one, so bright and cheery!

The owner is actually a lady, and she is so gracious and sweet.  Marshal needed a part, and after stopping by twice and her still not having it, she brought it to our house later that day.  Our house is on the opposite side of the city, and I know it took her a while to get there by taxi.  Talk about service!  She also insisted that Marshal introduce her to me and the boys!

Lastly, is a picture of “The sombosa man” as we’ve dumbed him!

Every Sunday evening for game night we go out and buy some Sambosa’s.  The boys love them, and it’s kinda like our version of fast food!

There are other places we go, but these are the ones I have pictures of, and thought maybe you’d like to see and get an idea what and where we go in some of our daly living!

I have one more post I want to write with just some random pictures from all over Addis, but they’ll have to wait for another day as I want to get this published before something happens, and I can’t!!

So…I realized I’ve been a little remiss in giving information and posting pictures of our life here in Addis outside our little compound, so I’m going to give it a go!

And you can all be thankful this is a little peek in to Addis, and not a little smell into Addis….seriously!!

Addis like any big American city is divided into different areas.  We live in an area called Mekanisa.

This is to the right of our gate.  We were in the car when I took this, I was NOT standing in the middle of the road while a bus came charging at me!

Directly in front of us is a little wot bait (restaurant) that Marshal eats at a lot.  Or sometimes will just buy the injera (type of crepe bread they eat with everything) if we make the sauce at home.

I haven’t been brave enough to eat there yet, and to be honest probably never will!

But the people are really nice, and they love our kids!

This is to the left of our gate.  And you even get the bonus of seeing our “hairy donkey friend named Fred”,  he is a regular outside our gate!

And just yesterday I realized after some lady came and dumped her slop in front of our fence that we are the area dump!  Marshal says..”you didn’t know?”  I could have gone without that bit of information for two more months till we move!!

Anyway…At the corner of the compound where you see the two blue taxi busses, is where we get our veggies.

Here is a picture from the front.  The owner’s name is Gudefee, and he is really nice and puts up with my Amharic with lots of patience and without laughing too much

Marshal’s the white person.  :)

A little further down the road we get our eggs, popcorn (non microwavable), milk (sometimes) and oil.

A little past this and on the other side of the street is where we buy bread.

Now I will say, we don’t buy ALL our groceries at these little souks (what they are called here), we get our fresh stuff like meat, cheese, fruits, and american foods like cereal, and such at the supermarket.  But it has been fun to get to know these store owners, and know you are helping them in their lively hood.

If you keep going down this road, you’ll see this…

and this….

directly to the right is the road we use to take Danny to school, and to the left you see rows and rows of condos.

If you continue on, you’ll get to the main road.

This is actually going towards our road.  The one we were just on meets up with this road right at the bottom of the hill where the big building is on the right.

If you were to keep going past that road just a little further, you’d get to our language school on the left.  I’m not awake enough in the morning to remember to bring my camera, so sorry for the lack of picture!

So, that’s our little Mekanisa area…well the part we frequent anyway!

I hope to continue this in a part two here soon, but I would like to get a few more pictures.  Hope you enjoyed the tour.  Marshal and I have really enjoyed this area of town.  It’s been perfect for us as a family, and adjusting to our new life!

Well this past month we were spoiled with a visit from Grandma and Papa Giles.

(Marshal’s parents Jerry and Jeannie Giles)

I didn’t think 5 weeks could go by that fast, it seems like just yesterday we were anxiously waiting till it was time to go to the airport to pick them up!

But we had a wonderful time while they were here and did some fun things!

First we celebrated Jeannie’s birthday.  At Danny’s request we had a princess party for her.  She had three of the handsomest dressed men ever to “cheer” in her birthday.

And even got the best smile ever from one who is not to quick to share his smile for the camera.

There were lots of fun times with Papa…

And lots of sweet moments with Grandma…

LOVE this!!!

Jeannie even got to visit her old school and found the same see-saws that were there when she was in Kindergarten!

And what is a trip to Ethiopia without a little shopping!!  Actually it was a LOT of shopping!!

Grandma and Papa, you are missed already, but we are so thankful for the fun time we had with you!  Thank you!

Visit rating…

two thumbs up!

Well, I thought about waiting till July before posting my Christmas post, but then figured the beginning of Feb. wasn’t THAT late to post a christmas note….right?

As most of you all know already from our Christmas letter/picture, we took a two day trip south to Omo to be with family for Christmas!

We had a WONDERFUL time!!

I hadn’t been outside Addis yet, so the trip itself was SO exciting and new!  Though once you see pics, you’ll wonder HOW in the world I could say it was fun, and i’m sure if I had to do it regularly it would get old…FAST, but it was all such an adventure!!

We spent our first night of the trip in a Catholic Mission hosted by an Irish priest named Father Paddy.  There was a group of about three or four Irish men that hung out there and we had dinner with.  Listening to them talk and joke sounded like something right out of a movie!!

The place itself was a complete dump, and I had to do some serious reevaluating of myself and just not thinking about other things before I could fall asleep that night!

Just to give you a little taste…Marshal found a scorpion in our shower…enough said!

The second day brought us farther away from the big cities and more into the bush, and I LOVED it!!  This is about the time they stopped asking us for money but instead asked for Hiland (water).  It was REALLY interesting to see, it was like there was a line on the ground and all on this side asked for money, and the other, water, it was very eye opening to the needs of the people there!

We arrived at Omo right around dinner time, and to get to our families’ (the Swart’s)  house you have to leave your car on one side of the river and cross in a boat.  The boys were SUPER excited to go for a boat ride!!!  :)

The rest of the trip you’ll get to see in pics here in a minute, but it was so relaxing, fun, and amazing to see a different part of the world!!

the two weeks in a nutshell…

swimming

motorcycles

building windmills

swimming

crafts

boat rides

Christmas

swimming

reading

mangos

bugs

crocidiles

swimming

baboons

family time

New Years

camp out

did I say swimming already?  ;)

Our favorite memories….

Marshal – overnight motorcycle trip with his cousin Caleb!

Rachel – *helping* Aunt Donna deliver a baby in the village!

Daniel – catching his catfish (picture below)!

Ryan – boat rides on the Omo river!

Casey – chickens and unlimited bananas!!

God showed Himself in amazing ways this Christmas as we got to experience Christmas in such a close setting  to what it may have been like for Him!

Merry Christmas!! 

Hello!

Once again our internet has been too slow to blog, but i’m going to make a go of it tonight…we’ll see!

I wanted to share a little of our trip to Kenya two weeks ago.

We went for a church planting forum/homeschool forum that CMF put together for us.  It was a great time of meeting other CMF missionaries and hearing about the work God is doing all over the world!

(This was not just an Africa CMF meeting, missionaries came from all over the world)

Each morning we would gather together, sing and have a devotional time then split up to either the church planting meetings or homeschool meetings.

They also did a VBS for the kids during the meetings and our two older boys LOVED it!

Here are the kids getting ready to sing some of the songs they learned.  Danny is hiding in the back with grey shorts and white t-shirt.  And yes that is Ryan standing in the front with his hands in his pants…nice!!!  :)

Like I said it was a wonderful time with other missionaries doing similar ministries, but also we loved that the boys got to spend time with other kids doing a VBS!  They don’t have a sunday school here, so this was perfect, and the adults who put it all together were AMAZING!!!

I haven’t mentioned yet that this forum was at Turtle Bay near Mombassa…GORGEOUS!!!  So of course we took a few extra days aside from the meetings to enjoy and relax….

The third night we were there was Marshal’s b-day and of course they went all out and made a cake and included a song and dance…

which of course horrified Marshal, but he was a good sport and even enjoyed it a little!!  Don’t you love the chair they made special for him!?  :)

And of course there was just a little swimming going on…

a little bit of pouting…

but still so stinkin’ cute!!

Marshal got to play some water polo…

Like father like son!!

Casey got his groove on with some water aerobics!  The picture doesn’t capture just how cute he was!

This is his cutie patootie dance partner Shea Moore!

I even had a couple afternoons to just relax and read a book!

The view from my resting place…BEAUTIFUL!!

All in all, it was a beautiful place,

spent with wonderful people, relaxing and regrouping!

And we were all sad to have to leave and head home!

We had an insane ride from Turtle Bay back into Mombassa, so bad Marshal was about to ask the guy to pull over and tell the guy that we’d find another ride…and we had four trunks and three kids!

Thankfully though we survived, the boys didn’t have a clue…

and even dozed off!  

We also had the privilege of landing in Tanzania at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  This was a first for both Marshal and me and it was amazing to see!

(you can barely see the tip of Mt. Kili. through the clouds)

We are now safely home no thanks to a horrible landing in Addis, so bad the old lady in front of me may have said a naughty word!!

Thanksgiving is over, and I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends and were reminded of how very blessed you are!

We are geared up for Christmas here and are looking forward to leaving in two weeks to spend the Christmas holiday with family on the Ethiopia/Kenya border.

I probably won’t be able blog before we leave, so I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!!

Well yesterday was Halloween, and we had a grand time celebrating Ethiopian style!!

Thanks to our small group back in Newton, KS we were able to have some halloween decor for the day!

And the boys enjoyed making some halloween signs they hung up on the wall as well as some yummy halloween candy!!  :)

Halloween is also my birthday, and thanks to some amazing family and friends I looked great!  :)

I felt so blessed from all the people who thought of me that day and sent little messages or packages to help me celebrate turning 30!!  Thank you!!

Halloween evening we got together with two other families on our team and had a little party complete with a candy hunt! (for the kids!)

All the kids in their costumes minus Ryan who wouldn’t come out from behind me.Not a happy batman!Enjoying some party food!!  (Even Ryan got in this one!!)gettin’ down to Monster Mash!

I didn’t have my camera for the hunt as I had to carry Casey and Ryan wouldn’t let go of my other hand, but they had a great time and we finished the evening off  by watching Charlie Brown and the pumpkin patch.

I hope you all had a fabulous halloween and I look forward to seeing pictures of all your little kiddos in their costumes, so post away!!  

Hello!

It’s been such a long time since my last post, and I’m sorry!  Our internet has been SUPER slow, to the point, all we can stand to do is down load our emails and then get off!

I had grand plans to write up a nice post for each *event*, and give them each their due space, (HA!  that makes me laugh just thinking about it!  How in the world did I ever think I was going to get all that done!! ) the reality of it is IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!!

SO!

I thought I’d give you a quick picture overview.

(which is probably what you wanted instead of listening to me blab on and on!! )

A few weeks ago (ok, so it was more than a few!) the national church that owns the compound we are staying on had a VBS of sorts and we had a TON of kids around for a few days.

Ryan and his new friend…

About that same time Danny decided he was too big for training wheels…

Three weeks ago, Marshal took his second trip down country to help our teammates whose car was broken down on the *side* of a *road*…

Right after he got home he got word that his motorcycle had arrived and was ready for pick up! (FYI, the bike he was riding in the previous pictures wasn’t his, but his cousins.)

(the glasses D made in school…nice I know!! They were talking about seeing things! )

(I’m not sure who was more excited!  Casey or Marshal!! )

yeah!!

and of course…the test drive…

Danny found a new fav. spot….

Why in the world he would like this little spot is beyond me, I won’t touch that nasty thing for anything!!!

On September 28th, the Ethiopians celebrated what they call Meskel (means cross). It is also a name of a flower here that they use to decorate their homes with during this holiday.

This is the second most celebrated holiday here besides their new year (which was a few weeks before).

For Meskel they build a dimirroh.  In America you’d pronounce it b-o-n-f-i-r-e!

They can be VERY elaborate, and HUGE, but all are build with a cross on top.

Ethiopians believe they have found the original cross that Jesus was crucified on, so they burn these dimirroh (s) and the smoke it puts off will lead them there.

(this was not one of the huge ones like above.  This was a smaller one that was right across the street from us.)

It was really fun to watch, and you could hear the celebrations going LONG into the night/morning!

More new friends…

Marshal practicing his Amarinya with the locals!

Casey checking in on the guards!  They are SO sweet to the boys!!!

The week before last we had no water up to the house for the whole week.  Most things you can get by without, but sponge baths for 3 boys who play in dirt and who knows what all day long can only go so far!

So it came to the point i couldn’t stand it any longer, so my dear hubby hauled water up the hill and I warmed some on the stove, and it became the best bath EVER!!

All this to say we are slowly adjusting to life here and what is/has become the new normal for us!

The LITTLE loves of my  life!!!

 What is fun for a 5, 3, 1 year old?

LOVE MY BOYS!!!