Furlough Pros and Cons

We're coming home for furlough in July. Here are the pros and cons (or what I'm looking forward to and what I'm dreading).
PROS:
1. Family, friends and my dog
2. Worship in English at our home churches
3. Restaurants, movies, babysitters, grocery stores
4. Places to go, people to see, food to eat
5. Cold weather, and cold Christmas at home
6. Playgrounds and all things especially geared to kids
7. No mosquito nets
8. Libraries
9. Constant water and electricity

CONS:
1. Traffic and gas prices (cheaper gas but more driving in the States)
2. Expensive produce that's not even that fresh
3. 8 hour jet lag with 2 children after 4 flights - yikes!!
4. Changing diapers on a kid with multiple layers
5. Layering clothing on kids who barely even know about socks
6. Busy, busy, busy American life
7. Well, I can't think of any more cons. Maybe that's because we're so ready to come back to the States that Dusty mutters Chipotle, Chipotle, Chipotle even in his sleep! :)

Birthday Insanity

Tessa turned 3 on March 18th. On Good Friday, we celebrated her birthday with our neighbor Micaiah who also turned 3 that day. We had 21 kids and 21 adults here at our house for the swimming party and NO WATER! That's right folks; the water was off till Tuesday night. That's 5 dry days with guests for dinner on Easter. Fortunately we have external tanks we used for the baby pools and filled buckets of rain water for bathing, toilets, and dishes. Whew! In addition to water issues, the kumbi-kumbi hit the night before the party. These are bugs attracted to light who shed their wings and crawl under the door leaving behind them masses of wings. The kids were in and out of the pools and every foot dragged wings back into the pool with them, so it was quite a mess, but they didn't care and the adults pretended they didn't either.

Here's the classic screaming kid photo - Josiah was then replaced by his baby brother who also cried for later photos. We're so blessed to have so many missionary kids in our community - it's amazing really. All are 7 and under, but most are younger than 4. Anybody out there want to come over and help us teach them? Please, please?! Seriously, we would love to know if God puts it on your heart to share this opportunity with someone who loves kids and wants to come to Africa for a while. Please pray for a short or long-term teacher for our kids. We want to start a co-op school soon, and just look at all these precious faces waiting to learn fractions!!

Easter Bunnies

Tessa's pink Easter dress this year came from mtumba (the used clothing market) here in Musoma. It is 100% silk, was probably a flower-girl dress once, and we bought it for less than $5.00 for a dress-up princess birthday party that she attended in January. We hunt the mtumba for upholstery/curtain fabric, fitted sheets, clothes, shoes, and other random items. You might remember the huge America flag I bought there? Jack doesn't have dress-up clothes, and guess what? He doesn't care and neither does anyone else! Of course here, any piece of clothing without rips and stains is pretty much dress-up anyway.

The Easter package from my mom arrived a few days late, so we had the Easter egg hunt the Saturday after Easter - it just made the holiday seem longer. Thursday before Easter was a Muslim holiday, and Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays here too, so we all enjoyed our 5 days off. I think Easter is a bigger holiday here than Christmas is. Churches have services every day starting Thursday. It's nice to be in a place that has never heard of the Easter Bunny, and where God has all the glory. Not that we don't appreciate a little Easter chocolate of course.