Home again! but remembering Maine.

Day THREE at home.  Time to reclaim the kitchen.  I've dodged cooking as cooking and jetlag are a dangerous combination, and because I could.  Monday we scraped by on leftovers, and Tuesday was Gloria's birthday and they invited us over for lunch, thus procrastinating the inevitable.

By the time I got into the kitchen today, I was itching to putter around, cooking, cleaning, setting the little  alfalfas to sprout, making a couple of batches of granola, and baking a huge batch of chicken to rescue it from going bad.  

But I do want to chronicle some things from our trip to America.  It was the ultimate good birthday gift, made better in that I didn't have to do it alone, but Josh was with me.  

 Josh is such a good travel companion.  One of the perks for him, was when he got to drive his cousin Ariel's car (Boris, an orange Kia) when we went to New Hampshire.  New Hampshire doesn't require a driving permit, just an older driver to teach the young upstarts so the three of us went together to give Josh a chance to practice driving.  Not only did he drive, he got to drive first on the same street where he was born, 2 Fortier Drive, in my parents' guestroom!  They've moved two or three times since then, so we all thought this was just symbolic and special and cool.

While we were in the neighborhood, we went to visit a bridge where we used to walk, and we enjoyed memories.  Josh was maybe 4 the last time he was there, but he remembered.

 One of my projects at my Mom's house was to work on cleaning out some of my boxes in her basement.  For 25 years, she has been harboring boxes of my stuff, mainly full of pictures.  So I decided to transfer the slides to digital, the only way I could without buying more stuff to stash in her basement.  I projected the slides onto my Dad's old screen with my old projector and then took a picture of that picture, either with my phone or with Joshua's camera.  I'll be putting them on Facebook or here or sending them right to friends and former students.

That was a fun project.  I got to see pictures of my life from age 16-26, mainly, as well as my parents' wedding and honey moon at Niagara Falls.  There was my first missions trip to Mexico way back in 1982, and some of the second Mexico trip, in 1986, with the Bob Jones Mission Team.  I delighted to see my teaching days in Peru, and some of my cute little students who are now big grown up people, and I loved sharing some of these pictures with the family.  I'm having a good life!  I praise the Lord!  Following Him fills a life "with all precious and pleasant riches."  No regrets here, not on the parts where I've obeyed.

 Then there was Chester.  Chester and Felix are my sister's family's cats.  They are identical in color, but different in physique.  Felix is an indoor cat, and he is so heavy and bulgy, while Chester gets to go outside during the day, and he's sleek and lithe.  I think I see a lesson in there for me...

 Of all the reasons I wanted to get back to South Africa, here's my number one!  The love of my life, my handsome hublet, Paul.  ( As usual, I must apologize for the weird order of this blog entry.  I struggle with dragging pictures around, getting them to the best place.  So I just flex, and go with the order they appear.)

 The airport in Portland, Maine was decorated with lobster buoys painted with flags so we grabbed a picture before we headed back to South Africa.

 My son in law Ryan and I had a fun moment
making a snow toddler, with a pine cone nose.
April could be quite warm, but this one hasn't been yet.  I was thrilled to see and enjoy snow for a change.

Pippin, my sister's dog, was not so thrilled about the snow, but quite pleased to hang out by the fire.  He will be 15 in June, so I guess he's earned the right to the pampered life.  

Four generations of funny people!  My Mom, our daughter Evangel, me, and Clarity, our granddaughter, all with fake braids.  Our pastor wasn't too impressed when we brought them to prayer meeting for head coverings.  We didn't actually keep them on, just long enough to scare him.  

This is a photo-driven post, showing what I had pictures of, not necessarily the most important things.  Just a glimpse, but some precious family time there, the issues of Life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Cousin Camp

 I've been hearing about Cousin Camps, and my nephew Daniel's been asking when we're going camping, so the day finally came!  We went to Chapman's Peak Caravan Farm. 

 Here's the closest thing to a picture of the four of us together.  We picked a scorcher of a day to go camping, so as soon as that tent was up, we hit the pool, not much deterred by the green water. 

 The animals were fascinating to us city slicker types.  The tortoise was probably the only animal that didn't run away when "we" ran straight up to it.  "We" had to be taught to approach animals a little slower and steadier. 

 Our group was so excitable, lets just enjoy a peek at a peaceful dove. 

 I thought these pigs were the worst thing I've smelled in a very long time, but Connie said they made her hungry. 

 The geese found "us" rather startling. 

 The playground there is unique! 

 Josh was everybody's favourite.  He wasn't just helpful, but very fun too. 

Notice the bandage on Daniel.  I made sure he recovered before we went to a store. 

 Uno's always a favourite. 

 

 

 We were only away about 24 hours, but our family was glad to have us back. 

Nathanael is telling me how big he is, and I think he wants to be in on the next Cousin Camp.  Jedidiah has a ways to go. 

As for me, I have to recover from this one before I can get psyched for another, but I think we made memories in a big way, and I think the animals will remember us for awhile.  Happily, none of the cousins are strict about our outings being in a tent.  They like that, but they also like staying over at our house, or other places too.  Since we'll be tenting on the way to Rwanda, I might rather see what other type of place we can find to stay for the next Cousin Camp. 

 

Connie and the sheep! 

Cousin Capers

 For a long time I've wanted to take the 2 biggest little cousins camping, imagining they would be thrilled to sleep in a tent. 

 Our tent hadn't been used since the Zambia trip in 2013, but the boys remembered how to set it up.  One thing to note here, we went camping at the camping area on the end of our street.  Taking a 3 year old means I'm not going to outer Mongolia.  We were about 2 blocks from her house, and 3 blocks from our house which, I know, is a little weird, but it worked! 

 Josh was SUCH a big help.  Notice the solar snowman he's holding to give that Christmas ambiance we needed.  I think Daniel kind of got conked with it, hence the agonized face.

But we did it!  We cooked sausages and marshmallows over the fire Josh made, we played lots of games of Concentration/The Memory Game in the tent, and we went to the playground.  We read 6 new picture books--Daniel liked the one about inventions the best--and we even slept a little!  My air mattress went pancake flat, so I crawled onto Connie's foam mattress.  Daniel started on a mattress and ended up on the ground.  I loved the way Connie woke in the morning--with a huge smile, delighted to still be in the tent.

Another thing on the to-do list was cousin pictures and we did it!  Gloria had the 3 Yarmouth Youngs dressed in orange, so our 3 big kids got into some shade of orange too and ...

 we did it! 

 Nathanael slept through last year's picture so this is his first time to appear in the cousin collection.
He's next to Josh, Connie, Evangel, Daniel, and the inTIMidating Tim. 

 Notice the fancy footwork on 5 out of 6 coordinated Youngs. 

Children are a blessing from the Lord!  and the fruit of the womb is His reward!  We are so thankful for these guys, and so happy to share them with my thousands of readers  :-)  especially the 3 grandmothers and aunts of these guys.  Merry Christmas! 

Stop for Stop Motion

Josh has produced another stop motion video, with a little help from Evangel's Apple and Tim's nice bass voice.
You can see it at
http://youtu.be/mhjlfVAP8Bw    and it's less than a
minute long, but has a very earth-friendly message.  We'd love to hear what you think, unless it's not nice, then you can just keep it to yourself. 

Family Project Report

 We're at the half way point for our current ministry trip!!!!  Five weeks down, five to go.  Paul has been very busy in preaching six days a week, but the kids and I get a lot of time to ourselves so we tend to bring projects on trips to try to get them accomplished.  Some of things we have at home like piano lessons, youth group, Joy Club, and close friend visit, are missing, so this is a good time to find satisfaction in projects and never have we had so many interesting ones going on as on this trip.  

Evangel finished her braided rug today.

 Exercise is one of our daily priorities.  At the moment we are staying on top of hill, and it is about 4 kilometers down the hill to the nearest shop.  The kilometers are even marked!  So each day since Monday we have trotted down the hill to do our shopping, and then we catch a ride back up with Paul. 

 Today we went down, and then hiked back up, carrying the groceries.  Tim carried most of them, bless him, so we had a good workout.  That uphill part will make you breathe deep!

 I found this kit, this rumpled, well-traveled-looking kit in a second hand shop years ago in America, but I finally got started when we went to Zimbabwe earlier this year.  I mostly only work on this during our family Bible reading time.  It's going to say "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you." from Numbers 6 24, 25.  If I can finish it by March, it'll be done in a year, but I have my doubts. 

 Josh has made two Lego movies recently.  Those can be huge projects.  One of his has 900 pictures and is 4 minutes long.  A mom admires a kid with that kind of patience. 

 More in the exercise department.  Sorry I look goony, but we have really enjoyed tennis when we stay places where it is available. 

 Our kids miss a lot of team sports with all our traveling, so I was delighted that they have been delighted with tennis. 

 Josh and Evangel have also tackled unicycling together.  In the beginning they had to hold each other up, and/or use the tennis court fence, but now they can do it alone. 

It was rough in the beginning, but they are better now.

Some of our biggest projects are not so

 picturesque, but they deserve a mention.  Evangel is working for hours each day on her movie, editing it.  It's exciting to see it coming together.  

While waiting for a ride from someone who was late, we were just hanging around so she was editing again, using Tim's jacket to block out the light.

Tim is writing another book, and loves reading about his time period and all things involved With Sword and Saber.  Josh is also writing a book, but his is a school assignment.  He loves the research part of writing a book. I'm also writing a book.  We're getting to be a booky family.

In the sewing department, Evangel pieced together an old skirt with a top of some jeans to make a new skirt.  My goal is to get the cutting done for a quilt, but I don't want to start sticking it together til we are at a machine.

Evangel's got a whole stack of books she wants to finish reading, including the daunting History of the Irish Race.  She's half done with her stack, as far as books, but not half done the pages.
She also has a blog called Proverbial Womanhood  www.proverbialwomanhood.blogspot.com which she is growing with worthwhile pictures and verses.  That's not a project to be finished.

I am just pleased to list these for myself.  It's better to focus on what we can do than on what we are missing, and this has been a busy, profitable trip.  The paper part of school happens 5 days a week, and these other learning experiences will be helpful for us and others. 

"Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it with all of your might!"  Your hands find more to do if you go looking for profitable projects. 

Increasing in wisdom & stature & favor with God and man

 Joshua turned 13 on the 21st of May!!!  Our traditional celebration involves a game of Capture the Flag at the beach near our house, and then a big squish back inside to play games and eat cake.  I counted 29 people we had in our house this year.  We've had 35 before, but the people are getting bigger and the apartment isn't. 

We were 10 days late with our party, giving Josh time to recover from having his foot run over by a car.  Our friend Oliver turned 17 on the 22nd, so it was a joint party.  Oliver (in the plaid shirt above) was deathly sick on Monday, and there was a fear it was meningitis but he's doing much better today. 

Joshua got a remote control UFO.  We're hoping this might be helpful in drawing crowds sometime, but it's rather tricky to drive. 

 

We're thankful for Joshua John. He really is growing in wisdom and stature and in favour.  He's a few inches taller than me, but I still outweigh him.  What a dubious claim to fame. 

This boy's aging fast

 

 

Joshua turned 12 on the 21st.  Look how old he looks!  We think he looks like our friend Mr. Ford. 

Evangel made him that little goodie for his birthday.  She crocheted it.  

 Not only are the kids growing in stature, but also in wisdom.  Paul reads to them nearly every day.  Sketches from Church History is one of his current reads.

 And Operation World is an old favourite.  Paul plays games with the kids and often their friends, over each country, and they learn so much. 

 I was pleased to find Jungle Doctor books in a used book shop yesterday!  We love Jungle Doctor.  He lets us know how far Africa has come in the last 50 years as far as the comforts we enjoy.

Harold St. John was a missionary evangelist.  One time a lady gushed to him, "I'd give the world to know the Bible like you do."

He replied, "Madam, that's exactly what it requires."

 

It takes a long time to read as much as we do; it costs; but we like what we're reaping. 

We're not supposed to be here--or maybe we are

We  planned to drive east to Port Elizabeth FIVE DAYS AGO.   Paul went, but the rest of us remain at home.  I know that's normal for a lot of ministry families, but it's not normal for us!  When Dad goes,we all go.  Unless of course the car is STILL in the shop, after more then two weeks. 

So we're making the best of it.  We all 4 have been busy.  All 3 kids have been having math troubles in their homeschooling, and Tim is still battling that out, but the other two are free!

So Josh set up "cones" in the driveway and practiced on his new swayboard to see if he can get through 10 cones, without knocking any over and he can!

And I am finally writing again.  I've been so wishing I could put some of the good books I/we read on here, to share the joy.  My friend Margie loaned me her friend Jenny's book There's a Sheep in My Bathtub by Brian Hogan.   I laughed so hard over his stories of church planting in Mongolia, and then I cried.  He told of their loss there, and through it all I learned, and I ended up more at peace with what we are doing in South Africa.

I've always believed it's important what we're doing.  We're trying to help all the problems of the world from the inside out.  We're introducing people to Jesus, King of Kings and their Saviour.  That's huge! 

It's the solution to the Aids problem if people will follow God and be pure.
It's the solution to stealing, which would be a huge economic help. 
It's the solution to the orphans' loneliness, as they enter the family of Christ

just to name a few things that pop into mind for the social issues, never mind giving them a hopeful, wonderful eternal life in Heaven with pleasure forevermore.

But I also can't help but notice our lacks.  We can't stay with our new converts.  We kind of have to "love 'em and leave 'em." This book gave me a new peace about that!!!  They boldly live what I believe.  I won't re-write the book here, it must be available all over the Internet, and it's worth reading.  Good stuff, and hard to stop once you start. 

Tummies are growling, time to run.