a long day full of emotions!

Well . . .
Sundays have to be the hardest day of the week for me here. I think it is partly because we have such a phenomenal church at home and I desperately miss it. Amazing worship, challenging word, trustworthy nursery and kids ministry programs. We really don’t have that here, we are working towards some of these things, but the culture is so different, some of these things are not really of value to the people here.
We just got word that three of the youth boys at our church were in a major accident. When we got home we got word that they are all sons of a recently widowed lady in our church. It was just confirmed also that the eldest son was not responding and has died. Not sure if people will remember the boy that Doug talked about often while we were home, Sphiso (the one who came to our door late at night running away from home, and later was baptized by Doug) is one of these three boys. They did send the other boy to Mbabane, I guess he was unconscious at the scene and they knew he would not make it. He also has now been confirmed dead. Sue Drew (other missionaries here and the pastors wife of the International Church) called me to go with her to the store to get some food for the family. We prepared some platters for the family and friends and headed over to the house. Presca, the mother, had just been told of the confirmation of the other sons death. I can’t imagine. Loosing your husband about one month ago and now two of her three sons. The deaths here are way too many and very sad. I have never experienced anything like that, as we drove up to the house you could hear the crying and wailing from outside. I walked in with Sue and placed the food on the table. There had to be at least 12 ladies sitting in the living area all crying. There was crying of kids coming from the other parts of the house, I felt completely helpless. Pastor Stan sent me home to have Doug go and check on Sphiso in the hospital, he was there for at least four hours with him. He said he had to tell Sphiso that the other brother had died too (he only knew that one of them had died). What an amazingly long and emotional day.
I know this entry is a bit somber . . .
It was amazing to me how Kylea responded to this all. I have the kids rest every day, not only do they need it, but also I think I sometimes need it more! When resting they must read books, write, or just relax. Kylea got her little spiral notebook out and wrote about how she heard me talking on the phone about three boys being in a car accident. She wrote that she prayed four times for them and knew that Jesus would heal them and make them all better so they could go home. It was very sweet, but as I left with Sue, Doug had to have a conversation about how two of the boys actually died and one was still alive. She did ok, big topic for a 7 year old though.

So we are off to bed now, long day. Lord gives me wisdom and a better perspective on life.

The Christmas Season

This is not the best pic. but it gives you a little glimpse of what our house looks like at Christmas from the outside. We would actally love to put lights around the outside of our house , but that would only be asking for it, I am sure. It would be drawing attention from kilometers around asking for theft!! Oh, well we do have fun decorating the inside, and have enjoyed geting pics from friends and on face book of homes at home all lit up.

Two of my dear missionary friends at our bible study Christmas party at our home!! These girls definitely make the season lots of fun and ease the homsickness durning the holidays.

At our home church here, the Internation Church, I was asked to help put together a ladies Christmas event. We were anticipating 40ish ladies to come to a nice evening with dinner (which was 1 hour 45 min. late, "african time"), music, gift giving and of course games. We actually had 77 ladies sign up and attend, amazing. What a great night to sit back and watch ladies get to know each other in a deaper more meaningful way!

My dear Nelly. Nelly helps us in our house during the week. What a blessing, both ways. We found Nelly through a mutual friend. Her husband passed away one year ago leaving her and her two kids, 10 and 6. They are currently sposored by the government for school because they are single orphans (one parent has died). I adore Nelly and her happy thankful heart and smile. She is so happy to have a job, as she has had nothing since her husbands death. We were baking for Christmas yesterday and chatting about life. She was telling me how much she loves our family and how nice we treat her and each other and how we are such a blessing to her. It is amazing to me how thankful she consistantly is, I feel like she is my blessing. It has been amazing to also see how it has become one of my ministries too. Nelly is saved and goes to church regurally with her kids, yet I am always talking with her about the Lord, life, etc.

A hot December day

Even after being here since 04, it is still hard to think of Summer as Christmas. So, on those hot 100+ degree days, we swim.
Here a a few fun pics of the kids.

Christmas Pagent

We had our kids Christmas Pagent this morning in church. Kylea was one of the angels, and Kaden a shepard! They did a great job. Kylea cracks me up though, if you know her well you know she loves to be the center of attention (as any first born girl). This week she has had two productions, one at school and now one at church. In both of them she gets up there and shuts down. No smiles or motion, I even looked at her today and motioned for her to smile, and she shook her head at me. Doug, unfortunately is out of town and missed it all. When I called him to tell him abou the day he laughed and said "it's because she is an independent, Norwegian, little first born girl . . . she must get it from me" I could hear the sarcasm! Kaden on the other hand was a ham, smiling, constantly moving around. It was his first large performance since playing baby Jesus at ECA at the age of 3 months!
All in all, proud mom, loving every minute of her kids!

On to second grade

Kylea had her end of the year concert at her school and awards ceremony. She was very cute. We have totally enjoyed her teacher, Mrs. Frost (who is the headmasters wife). She has really helped to make this transition a lot easier, especially on sis. She loves her teacher and has a great class. She along with the rest of her class move up to second grade starting Jan. 09. At Usutu the kids all stay together as a class unless there is a problem or conflict. The do not mix them up each year like in the states. Kaden will join Kylea at school starting grade Knot (kindergarten) also in Jan. He is totally excited, I am not sure how I feel at the moment.

adorable

I just could not resist!

Thanksgiving and the day after

We celebrated Thanksgiving with some of the other AG missionaries here in Swaziland!!

We had turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing, green beans, corn on the cob, jello, etc. just like home except for the fact it was in the the high 90's.

























The following night was our Friday Family party night so we made our pizza, put up the tree, watched one of our favorite Christmas movies, ELF, and decorated for Christmas!! Kylea was designated to top the tree this year.
And the kids had a blast putting on their antlers and mistle toe headbands, thanks to Auntie Niecie.

life at 33

This was the week that I was somewhat dreading! My birthday and Thanksgiving. Being so far from home and family, this tends to be a difficult week emotionally, but not this year! I woke up around 7.30 (compared to 5.45am), Doug let me sleep in while he got up and got Kylea ready and off to school. I was woken up to my three boys singing "happy birthday to you" at the end of my bed and breakfast on a try for me to enjoy! In preparation of Thanksgiving I rolled out lefse for about 2 hrs, which I love! And was taken out to lunch by some of the missionary ladies here on campus. We enjoyed a quiet dinner in with a movie. To top it off a bubble bath and a magazine! A truely amazing and relaxing day!

The next day one of the bible studies that I started in 05 (which has grown and is mostly made up of missionaries and interns) all went out to lunch and again celebrated my bday, yeah. Here are a few friends.

Monica
Crystal and me

Polony Pizza

Doug and I had the opportunity to get away for a night and head to Nelspruit, South Africa for one night . . . childless!! That in a nutshell is no small task here. It is not like I could call up Nana or Grammy and ask if they could come and stay with the kids or we could send them there. Luckily we have some amazing missionary friends (which are like family here) who piched in to help. Kylea went to school, and Charles and Judy (our neighbors upstairs) picked her up and brought her home. The boys we dropped off with our friends the Allens (another american missionary family here with the Southern Baptists). We had Alice, who is a graduate/intern at the college and church come in the evening to stay and watch the kids. She is from South Africa and the kids adore her.
We got home on Saturday and quickly made a pita pizza for Doug and I since we missed dinner. As I was cutting up the salami (the closest thing we can get to pepperoni), and ham I noticed that the meat had not been opened yet. I asked Kaden what kind of pita pizza Miss Alice made him and he told me "a salami pizza". I thought that was not possible since the package was still sealed when I opened it. I looked in the fridge and noticed that the polony was half gone and asked what the package looked like that the salami came from and the kids told me it was red. When I pulled out the polony they said that was the one, oh I just about gagged!! OK, so polony is a "meat" that the swazi people like here, it is cheap and almost like a loose form of bolony except flourescent pink, yuck! It comes in a tube and you have to cut of the slices. I only have it for our house helper for lunch, if I don't have anything else for her.
So Kaden had a polony pita pizza, and liked it!

Some of our American missionary friends we hang with

Some of the cool MK's the kids are buds with!

So, our container arrived . . . finally. We had a youth ministry in Spokane, WA that raised money for us to take a container back with us to Swaziland. We were able to put some personal things on there, but it was mostly filled with ministry items: shoes, computers for the bible college, nike shoes, uniforms, pencils and papers for schools, etc. It was amazing and fun to watch this thing pull away from us in Tacoma, WA and pull up in our driveway in Swaziland Africa!! Doug could not wait, he had a dream of getting a dirt bike while we were home so he could use it to get out to some of our pastors and communities easily and not have to take the car, since we have one very amazing Speed the Light vehicle.

I also thought I would add some pics of the kids having fun in Swazi,

Kaden skateboarding

















The kids in a jeep given to them by our friends the Baumls, thanks again guys. The kids have a blast riding this thing around our yard whenever they can.














Cute boys in the tub, they are getting so big and love to make mohawks and get their pic taken.

our version of fall pics (in the summer)

Well we are back in the swing of things! Our phone was hooked up yesterday and we were able to get "ADSL" which is "high speed internet" so they say. I am not complaining though it is so much faster than dial up!!!

We are getting into the grove here again. Doug has been working with a team from Texas that just left yesterday, so now I am looking forward to getting some more things done around here, like fixing some of the damaged furniture!!

I am soooo excited for our furniture to get here I can't stand it. It was supposed to arrive by today (friday), but it is held up in Jefferys Bay, S. Africa. I guess there are not enought freight cars to get the stuff here so we will wait another week. When in Africa, smile, God will teach you patience.

The black and white here is of our other missionaries home that we stayed with when we arrived and Kylea in her school uniform.



We did a kids crusade with the TX team and felt like we were back where we belonged. A bit difficult though, as the areas were a little tougher than anticipated. We did 2 crusades that day. The first one I brought Kylea and Kaden with me to do puppets and worship and just interact with kids. The crusade went well but the hand out stuff, not so well. Kids were getting stuff and sneaking back in to get more, so dishonest, it is often frustrating the poverty mentality we deal with here. A lot of people are just out for themselves not concerned with who gets in the way or who may get left behind because of their selfishness. ahhh, Lord broaden my perspective!

So, our container is in Durban, South Africa and they say it should be 5-15 days til it arrives here! It could be next week or the week after, or even the week after that, haha!
It is the 31st and I am missing the crisp cool weather of the fall. All the smells of harvest time, going to the punkin patch and all the yummy candles and stuff. We are having a little party here though. We live on a bible college campus and there are four American missionary homes here so we will go from house to house trick or treating and around our house to our 3 doors and then have a party.
We are still waiting for our phones. Doug and some of the workers here were in the ravine and climbing up a large tree to tie the phone line to a rock and throw it over to our home (oh, the African ways of doing things). The telecom guy was supposed to be here to connect the line mon. or tues. of this and has still not come even though Doug has called daily. So for now we keep bugging our neighbors upstairs from us (the Mcknights, one of the couples that helps at the bible college every term) for their line to at least check email.
Missing everyone!

Home Sweet Home

We have officially been in our house for one week now. We moved in last Tuesday and had the movers deliver our stored stuff on Wed. Well . . . lets just say it was not in the same condition we left it in. All of our wood furniture (dining table and chairs, dresser, 3 night stands, armoire, desk, and some small tables) were mildewed. Doug has been working the past few days on sanding stuff down and repainting. We did have to throw out a lot of things, most all of our games, all the kids books and most of Dougs books (concordences, etc), toys, stuffed animals, etc.
Oh, well it is just stuff right!! It has made the unpacking process a bit harder as we are having to wipe down each and everything in each box.
On the up side, the kids are doing well, it is nice to begin to get setteled. It is hot and we have consitantly lost power each night for the past 4 nights. We have made application for our land line, hopefully we will have that in the next week or so.

Back in Swaziland

wow, I forgot how slow dial up was, yikes!

We are back and have been on the ground in Swazi almost three weeks now. We are currently staying with our other AG missionaries as our house was needing some TLC before we moved in. And now remembering that we are not on efficient American time, but slow and sometimes agonizing "African time".
All is well though. I have thought a lot about uploading some pic's and getting onto my blog to update, but since we are back on dial up, which is inconsistent and the past few weeks have had trouble even getting mail, I decided to wait. That was a true reality when another missionary friend last week was all excited because she had went to one of the upscale hotels here for one hour and was able to upload 8 pics. on high speed Internet!!!! Oh, well, life goes on.

Kylea started school at Usutu Primary (which is a British based school) this week and is loving it. We put her back into first grade, since school ends the first on Dec. She will begin on schedule with grade 2 at the end of Jan along with Kaden in kindergarten (which is called grade 0 or knot) here.

The boys are loving the dirt and the sun and running all around the campus, the transition has not been too hard, except for missing family. and getting all the things at the grocery store I want. Haha.

Swaziland here we come!

We are so excited we were approved to purchase our tickets even though we are still a few dollars short! We have secured tickets for Tuesday, Sept. 16th, yeah. (we will not get final approval until we reach 100% of our budget). We are currently in the middle of a two day garage sale to sell all of our "stuff" we have accumulated, wow! Let the packing begin!

We are sooo close we can almost taste it! It is currently Wed. and Friday is our deadline to have our budget, yet we are still about $200 in monthly support away. We cannot buy our tickets until we have final approval, and cannot get final approval until we have totally raised our budget, so we are in limbo. Ahh, the transition stages of life!!
The teacher in me is having an absolute fit. I like to pretend that I am organized and orderly. So to not have a departure date on the calendar, yet know that it is quickly approaching (we are planning the 16th ish of sept) and I need to have us and our 10 or so suitcases packed and get us moved out of our house, etc. is stretching me. A few times this week I have set off to pack, yet don't make it too far because I am not sure where to start. You should see all of the "to do" listst that I have been creating, even adding things I have already done just to check a task off to feel like I have accomplished something. I know that in the next month, when we are in Swaziland, I will be able to look back and smile, about my anxious, overwhelmed current feelings.

"doe, daddy, doe"

My amazing husband!

Doug is constantly putting me first, a great daddy (with more patience than me, except in the car), and just finished his first tri-athelon!He had a goal of doing at least one while we were home and just did it this past weekend. After a couple months of training for the swim, bike, run he beat his goal and finished in 1 hr. 37 min. The kids and I headed down to Beaver Lake to cheer daddy as he swam in the lake 400 meters, then on to the 14 mile bike and finished it off with a 4.3 mile run, way to go babe!

As you can see the kids were sooo proud and daddy came around with each transition cheering and yelling. Kylea made a sign saying "Go, Dad, Go" and Carsten would shout out "Doe, Daddy, Doe, Yeah".