Julia's First Haircut Ever!

Julia kept asking me to cut her hair, so one day I did it.  I read online about a way to layer hair where you have the person lay face up on a table with the hair hanging vertically. It said all you had to do was cut it across horizontally and you would be done so I tried it.  This is Julia's first ever haircut - I almost cried when it was done.  She looks so much more grown-up with it cut.  The bottom is not nearly as curly as it was before.  

This was an excited Julia saying "Thank You Mommy!".

I will try to find a "before" picture of her with her hair combed straight down and one now with it "done". (No crying, Mom!  It was bound to happen sometime!)

Just Another Wednesday Morning

As I write this it’s 8:45 AM and the generator is pounding away outside my bedroom window (the power went out at 8:00 AM – may stay off all day but no way to know). The presidential debate is being taped in the other room (‘cause it’s 8:45 PM central standard time in the US and it is airing live) and Josh is on his way out the door to buy yet another modem -the second new one in less than a week. It’s rainy season again and our modems have fallen victim to lightening hits. As he left Josh said that he was hoping the new modem was the only problem and that our router was still OK. We’re currently working on dial-up again. Boy, we sure do get spoiled with high-speed (which is still much slower than you get in the US but 3x as fast as dial-up here!). In the front room, a worker is installing a new door lock on our front door. Last night we went for a walk and (obviously) locked the door while we were gone. When we got back, Josh’s key, which he had used to lock the door, wouldn’t work in the lock. Josh and a friend had to demolish the lock to get into the house! It DID reinforce our peace of mind that it took so much effort to break into our house, but we had to pass a night with the door just “pegged” shut (not a major danger, but somewhat unsettling none the less!). So our lives are continually crazy!

Here's a silly picture of Katrina - she didn't seem to care at all that Josh put her burp rag on her head - just kept a pleasant look on her face!  We sure were blessed with a happy girl!

Mitchell brought home his report card for the first quarter yesterday. He’s had some hurdles with spelling and reading but seems to have come through them OK and continues to improve. His Math grade was mid-90’s for the quarter and all of the other grades were satisfactory or better! We’re proud of his adjustment to being in “school”. It’s a one-room schoolhouse with 5 grades in one room and MANY possible distractions for a very distractible 6 year old boy! Josh asked Mitchell this morning if he liked reading and spelling and he said yes, he did, so that’s great that despite challenges he still likes the classes. My hope for all my children is that they will LOVE reading and so far they all seem to! (Being a bookworm myself, I know how valuable it is to enjoy reading – it opens up the world to you!) I supplement their math curriculum with an additional math curriculum that they do at home and Mitchell really enjoys it. It’s a pleasure to have HIM ask ME to “do school” after school with him, rather than me bugging him to get on it!

Mitchell and Katrina hanging out together!

As to more of what’s going on in our lives - here’s an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend the other day –

Thanks for your prayers – we sure have needed them as we’ve been adjusting to doing life with 4 kids. More juggling is necessary at this stage – seems like every time I turn around Katrina needs nursing again (and she’s on a 4 hour schedule during the day – imagine if she was on the 2 ½ to 3 hour schedule the other kids were on)! Last night at 10:15 when she was looking for one final nursing I looked at Josh and said, “Can you do it? I want to get ready for bed.” I usually don’t mind at all but it does wear you down with time!

The boys dressed up today for school – Mitchell went as a pirate and Spencer went as Han Solo (we watched Star Wars IV last weekend). Mitchell loved the mascara goatee and mustache but wasn’t impressed with the eyeliner I put on him (a la Jack Sparrow)! Spencer’s new hero is Harrison Ford – when he found out he played both Han Solo AND Indiana Jones Spencer was amazed! I saw it as a teaching moment and asked him what he thought of Han Solo’s character (selfish, just “in it” for himself) and he did see that about him without me saying as much so that was good!.

I had a great birthday party (I turned 32 on September 28th)! We had been missing ordering salads at restaurants at home (we used to always order entrée salads when we went out on dates ‘cause I used to hate making them – getting out all the ingredients, chopping, etc.) so we decided to do a “salad dinner party”. We invited 8 adults (no kids) and had them pre-order from 4 different types of salads (Chicken Caesar, Buffalo Chicken, Oriental Chicken and Mexican Chicken Salad). Then on the day of the party, I breaded and oven-fried the chicken for the buffalo chicken salad and Josh grilled the rest of the chicken with the different seasonings for the different salads. We washed and ripped up a TON of lettuce, shredded carrots, chopped cucumbers, etc, etc. I had made croutons, fried up tortilla strips and toasted some noodles, made all the different kinds of dressings (Ranch; Italian from packets, Creamy Caesar & Sesame Ginger from scratch) and I bought a bottle of Blue Cheese (unbelievably they have that here sometimes!). I also made 3 different kinds of focaccia to go with the salad and that was the meal. I baked a chocolate layer cake, mixed up the local equivalent of Dream Whip (which is actually better than Dream Whip) and with a can of imported sweet cherries, assembled version of Black Forest Cake. It was so good! I made the chai recipe from the India focus group (from Taste of the World - Harvest Fest a few years ago) which was a huge hit. We 10 adults played Spoons and “Scum of the Earth”. It was hilarious and I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time. Two of Spencer’s at the party and he couldn’t BELIVE how loud the party got, that his teachers were anything more than the calm, collected individuals he saw in the classroom..

Josh is just finishing up with a busy spurt and the boys are about to start a 4 day weekend. Ramadan (the month of fasting) ended last night (it was a very noisy night with fireworks and bamboo cannons going off every few minutes half the night) and seemingly the whole country is celebrating Idul Fitri. The entire country has a holiday – banks, business and even restaurants are closed, people are traveling home to see their families. It’s kind of like Christmas in the US – kids get gifts, they all eat a lot of snack food and visit friends and family for days. Everyone has off of work – it’s party time for them. We will be making our “traditional” visits to see our Muslim neighbors in the next week or so. For me it’s much less scary than last year this time. Last year I didn’t really know those neighbors and was terrified of their food or drinks making one of us sick! I will be praying and much calmer about it this year. Hope they don’t want to pass Katrina around too much (wouldn’t be a problem but many still have the same “ancient” bathroom habits – wiping with their left hand – and it makes me nervous to give her to people who possibly still do that)! It’s always something when you’re out of your comfort zone!

Here's a pic of the boys on their first day of school in August!  We were in the capitol that day working on Katrina's paperwork so they went from a friend's house!

Thanks so much for praying for us, friends!  Just like your life, some days are great and others are a challenge!  We appreciate your support as we serve here!

I'll Get The Glue!

Tonight Mitchell went for a bike ride with Josh. He came home having learned a very important lesson - driving through sand on pavement is slippery! He ended up with bloody scrapes on one knee. I'd just put a bandaid on his chin from a scrape he received while playing games at Kid's Club (organized by a co-worker and fellow mom) so the triple antibiotic* tube was still on the bathroom vanity.

I cleaned Mitchell's wound and started pulling out the bandaids I'd need to cover up his "owie" when Julia said, "I'll get out the glue!" and brought me the triple antibiotic tube. We've put so many bandaids on her with triple antibiotic (she is a mosquito magnet - and she scratches them til they bleed so we cover them all up so she won't have scars) she must have thought that the ointment was glue so they'd stick! :) Just a little taste of our everyday life... (The photo below is from one of the times we bandaged all of Julia's mosquito bites.)



*For those who don't know, triple antibiotic is the same as Neosporin.

Immigration and more pics

Today we needed to go into Immigration to get Katrina's picture taken. I think this means that her paperwork is almost done! We left the other 3 kids with friends and just took Katrina.

A trip to immigration is always a "trip". We're such a spectacle no matter how we dress or how quietly we try to slip in! Every eye was on her infant carrier when we walked through the room. I guess it didn't help that a 6'7" blond guy was carrying her. Then in the room where we were to wait everyone sat and stared until it became apparent that I wasn't going to take off the blanket covering her. (She'd just fallen asleep and I didn't want her disturbed!) Once the girls in the office heard we were there, they came out into the waiting room to see Katrina. They pulled the blanket back and would have woken her up right then and there, but I explained that she was on a schedule and I'd rather she stay sleeping until "picture time". That interested them and they asked me all about her schedule. They were amazed that she was sleeping through the night! Then there were questions about what/how I feed her ("exclusif susu dari mama" - or exclusively breast fed?) and exclamations on how big she was for 8 weeks old.

Eventually they got back to their jobs and we were called in for the photo and fingerprinting. (So strange to me that they're fingerprinting an 8 week old but guess it's necessary.) As the lady and I were working on the fingerprints, suddenly people were DYING laughing behind us. I turned to look - there was a teen girl standing beside Josh and she literally came to just above his waist. She looked embarrassed but all of the others were laughing their heads off! This is a common occurrence - people even do it standing behind him in line at the cash register or walking behind him on the street. They measure how high they come on him with their hands.

There were many exclamations about how cute Katrina was and how big her eyes were. She treated them to a number of smiles which resulted in amazement all around. They just love all things North American/western - the white skin and blue eyes especially. (One lady commented on my mom's nose while they were here - she said she'd love to have a nose like my mom's! That was the first time in Mom's LIFE that anyone has complimented her nose! They notice and comment on things about westerners, like "wow, she's a fat lady" but generally they mean it in a complimentary way!)

Just as we were about to leave, one lady (who earlier had asked about how I fed my baby - she bottle fed hers, she informed me, cause she didn't have any milk) asked, in a very concerned way, about where Katrina's socks were. I've overheard a number of times where people would say, "poor baby - she doesn't have any socks on". I guess that's a must for a national baby even in 90+ degree heat. I explained that in our culture we don't wear socks on our babies in the heat, only when it's cold. She asked, "Aren't you afraid she'll get sick?" I said I wasn't and that this was the 4th child I had done this with and we'd never had a problem with it. She was amazed.

Needless to say, we were glad to be done there in the office. The whole thing took only 20 minutes start to finish!

One thing I'm so thankful for (and have noticed this when we travel as well) is that we know enough of the language to understand in general what is going on. When we first got here, including the first time at immigration, we didn't understand more than the very basic of greetings and it's hard to function when you don't understand what's going on. It is inconvenient but also can be somewhat scary. I still struggle with understanding the language at times. Just Wednesday I was hanging out with the helpers at the Mission Home and chatting. One of the girls asked me a question that I totally didn't understand. I think I asked her to repeat it 3 times and I was totally blank on what she was asking. Usually they can restate what they want to know in a way that I can understand but, poor girl - this time I totally didn't know. I sure do enjoy sitting and chatting with them though. There's so much to learn about them, how they think, how they do life.

Anyway, here are some more recent pics of Katrina and the kids. Enjoy!

6 weeks old already!

Katrina will be 6 weeks old tomorrow. She's doing really well, as am I. We both are sleeping 6+ hours every night, so that's a treat! This morning she smiled at our helper when she said Hi to her! She's awake more and more and it's a lot of fun to have her around!

I still haven't gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle - can't wait to do that - but all of the vehicles I have access to here don't have power steering and killer to steer with a healing incision... so I'll wait a little longer if needed. Josh said I could try it as soon as I was ready.

I've got a to-do list a mile long of all of the things I need to catch up on from the past 10 months of stuff falling by the wayside. I'll take it easy but it's time to get going on stuff.

Here are some recent pics of Katrina - enjoy!

A few more pics

Welcome Katrina!

We are so excited to announce the arrival of our daughter, Katrina Jane Dyck. She was born on Tuesday night, July 15th by emergency C-section.

We'd gone in for a routine "overdue" checkup and the Doc was immediately concerned when he did the ultrasound. I could tell right away something was wrong - he didn't answer my questions and the screen wasn't looking right to me. After the ultrasound he met with Josh and me in his office and told us what he'd seen: There was almost no amniotic fluid, reduced fetal movement, and he saw calcification of the placenta. He recommended immediate c-section. This was all communicated in the local language. I thought I understood what he said, but I wanted to hear it in English to make sure I knew what I was getting into. C-section and a spinal block here in this country was not on my list of things to do (whose list is it on??). We got in touch with an American doctor from the Baptist Hospital in our region. He and my local doc have known each other for years, and we thought it would be helpful to have him hear what our doc was saying and give us his recommendation. After conferring, our doctor friend agreed that an immediate c-section was the best plan.

From 8 pm when we agreed to do it, things went really fast. They prepped me and wheeled me into the ER, but though they had said Josh could be with me for the surgery, they didn't actually mean it and kept him out. He kept trying to come in, and I kept asking for him, but he was encouraged to wait and pray (really) and they told me he was behind the observation window (a lie). Katrina was born at 9:25 PM, healthy and hollering. I heard my doc say "Suction" and then a very healthy cry! She had the umbilical cord around her throat twice - so we're so glad we ended up doing the c-section. She weighed 4.19 kg and was 54 cm long (9 lbs 3.6oz and 21.3 inches). Her apgar score was 10! My spinal block and the incision all went well, seem to be healing well.

We stayed in the recovery section for 2 hours and then were released to our recovery room just after midnight. By the 17th (Thursday) they let me go home. They actually were planning for me to stay one more day but since I'd already been up, I didn't see any reason to stay longer. We definitely ran into some cultural differences in the way they do things, but generally we were firm about the things we definitely didn't want to do and quiet about the ones that didn't make that much of a difference. The nurses were really nice and helpful.

My short hospital stay went well but I'm glad to be home. Still in pain but Tylenol helps. Katrina is a happy baby, smiles often (REALLY, not joking, not just gas...) she giggled in her sleep a bit ago, got on a schedule right away, and has been sleeping long blocks of time at night already, so that is a total blessing. We're so thankful that my folks were here to help out - it's been great to have Mom here to help me remember how to do this stuff!!

Thanks for praying -please continue to pray for adjustment for the family and for healing for me!

PS - A fun fact about Katrina's birth is that she was born on her Great-Grandma Esther Dyck's birthday - we're pretty excited about that! :)

Mangosteen!

Called manggis (mahn-geese) here. It's in season again and we're excited, though somewhat cautious! I LOVE this fruit - the reason for the caution - it STAINS and WON'T come out. Josh dropped a piece on a pair of khakis last year when it was in season - has been wearing those pants for a YEAR since then and it still hasn't come out or really faded (not even with all the stain treatments I'd tried). If you can get a hold of some to try - DO IT! You'll love it! But be careful...

Prayer Requests

Here's an updated list of things you can pray with us.


PERSONAL:
-For a safe delivery and a healthy baby
-For health and stamina for me (Josie) while I'm waiting (including good sleeping at night)
-For a clean hand-off of my guest facility duties this coming week
-For the boys as they finish the last of their homeschool before the baby is born (for persistence and understanding)
-Typically at the end of pregnancy there's a "down" feeling as part of the waiting - maybe in part because of my size, level of exhaustion, as well as the anticipation and no way of knowing WHEN it's going to happen. Please pray for ENCOURAGEMENT for me - it's easy to get discouraged with all the waiting. Also pray for FOCUS - as I focus on my SOURCE, getting discouraged will be less common.

LOGISTICAL:
-We're using a vehicle right now owned by some coworkers on home assignment (which they want to have sold but we don't want to buy)but need to think about possibly purchasing a car of our own. This would have to be a minor miracle financially as we just are paying for the home renovations. The challenge is the fact that I (Josie) do a lot of my own driving and the vehicles we have access to don't have seatbelts to be able to buckle a car seat. We don't prefer to pay to install seatbelts into the two mission owned vehicles that we have access to as there's no guarantee that they would be available for our use at any given time (they are shared by the guest facility keeper and all of the guests at the mission home as well), but that may be the best option for us. Please pray for wisdom for us as well as that the Lord would provided the needed finances for the purchase if He directs us in that way.
-We also have to take a trip to the US Consulate to get our baby's paperwork started pretty soon after her birth - including birth abroad records, passport and ultimately a visa to live here and re-enter the country if we were to need to leave. Pray for wisdom again to know when a good time for this is, as well as all the details and finances involved with another trip.
-Vaccinations for baby - at home this is not a big deal but here we've been encouraged by our doctor friend to not consider vaccines offered in-country to be safe for our child due to the inconsistent power supplies and the fact that vaccines need to be kept cold for them to stay "alive". We are considering the viability of us going to another Asian country at some point soon after the baby gets her paperwork to get those vaccinations from a more viable source. Again, we need wisdom in this decision - coworkers here have gotten their kids vaccinated here - but how do we know they "took"? Guess at the root it's about trusting the Lord with this...

Thanks for caring for us in this way. I've often said we couldn't do this without you - it's still true. We need you all in the ways God has called you to partner with us. Thanks again!

Crazy Wednesday!

LENGTH WARNING!! Grab a cup of coffee - it's story time!

Last week Wednesday was a pretty crazy day for me. I don’t get out much these days since most of the rest of my world is not A/C’d and the heat makes me feel quite sick. BUT, circumstances being what they were, I ended up “out” almost all day.

Background first: Tuesday night we had a doctor friend stay with us. She observed some symptoms in our helpers’ child that alarmed her, and with permission from her mother, did an exam. After talking more about her daily activities, etc., our friend recommended we get her in to see a doctor as she suspected that Melania possibly has TB. As her parents’ employers, we have responsibility for at least part if not all of her medical bills. Her mom was saying that she was going to have to wait until she got her next months’ wages to take her in to a doctor but on our friends’ recommendation, we decided to take her in first thing Wednesday and try to get treatment started right away if it indeed was TB. We hoped that she would then be referred to a specialist and hopefully be able to get on the (excellent) government program which provides the meds free of charge (the meds are from the WHO and our friend said they were better than what we could get otherwise for her).

Well, we left home at 9 AM to go to the government clinic. We registered her and were told that she needed to bring Melania in every single Saturday to monitor her until she could prove that she had had all of her immunizations (she had had them, just not at a public clinic.) Ros said THAT was not going to happen!! I don’t blame her…

Then, long story short, the nurse was surprised at how underweight Melania was (7.3 kg –or 16 lbs- at 2 years 1 week old). She’s a peanut, but a little livewire, so since her parents are small too, and she’s never sick, we had not really seen this as an alarming thing. It is, though, a possible symptom of TB (among other ones she also exhibited).

Ros, her mother, got a bizarre 15 minute lecture from a young-looking (read: probably not a mother herself) lady, finger shaking and all, about how to feed her child (not like Ros doesn’t feed her multiple times a day – she’s very capable). (Can you picture me sitting there trying to understand what she was saying? I don't think I've concentrated as hard in a long time as I did that day.) She recommended that Ros add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and 1 teaspoon of sugar to each bottle of milk that Melania drinks, among other recommendations. Then we were sent to the Doctor’s waiting room. (That was when Ros said she was never coming back to this clinic again! I agreed with her – as long as we could get the meds for her for free elsewhere.) The doctor, on the other hand, did a short exam and immediately referred her to a specialist (whose office didn’t open until late afternoon on the other side of town). Ros and I agreed to leave at 4 to go to the specialist.

I went home, and a friend called to see if she and the kids could stop in for a bit to see the house. They had helped us move in but hadn’t been over in the 3 weeks since to see it without boxes everywhere. We had a nice chat and the kids were playing when Spencer showed up, saying, “Mom, look at this – my eye was wet so I wiped it with my shirt.” Brown stains on his shirt. I looked at his eye and noticed that the growth on his eye (see photo) was bleeding. (Background on growth – we sent photos to 3 docs and got 2 different diagnoses – hemangioma from 2, and granuloma from the 3rd who actually saw it in person. The 3rd doc said we could just remove it ourselves but we hadn’t done it yet.) Below are the shots we sent the doctors via email.




I immediately tried to call our doctor friend who was still staying with us, but couldn’t get through – she was on another call so Josh sterilized the scissors and tweezers and cut the growth off. (Our friend later said we shouldn’t have done that – to call her first but we’d tried. Just moved too fast…) Once it was removed, we couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. (Turns out it WAS a hemangioma and not a granluoma.) I continued to try to reach her, and when we finally got her, she came right away. She tried for an additional 30-45 minutes to get the bleeding to stop, but couldn’t. Then we started looking for silver nitrate which she said could help her to stop the bleeding but we couldn’t locate any. Her clinic/hospital is several hours away from here so she didn’t have any of her equipment to help us. We decided to take him into a local clinic. I was so thankful that she could accompany me as medical terminology is something I have not picked up much of yet. Since she practices in-country, she knows not only what’s best procedurally but also can communicate with the doctors!

We arrived at the clinic and were seen as soon as the paperwork was done. Ultimately they called in a surgeon and they decided to stitch the wound (was about 2 hours of trying to get the bleeding to stop). Spencer got 2 stitches on his eyelid. He was a real trouper! No crying or fear, and NO anesthetic! He stayed calm and conversed with his new friend (the doctor). They were making up stories of what he could say to impress the girls a little later in life when they ask about the scar on his eye! :)
Laying on the stretcher in the Operating room.
His beautiful stitches - it's healing well!

We arrived home after 2:00 and I had a bit of time to put my feet up before our 4:00 departure for the specialist. We left at 4 and ended up sitting in a traffic jam for probably 20 minutes just a few short meters from the doctor’s office. We went to the WRONG office first, waited a while to talk to the receptionist, and then were directed to another office that was to open at 5:00 –in 15 minutes. We were the first patients of the day so that was encouraging. We had a seat in the waiting room and waited. And waited. And waited. (No surprise there...) At 6:00 the doctor finally arrived. In the mean time the waiting room had filled up, the power had gone off for about 20 minutes and come back on again, and we’d almost exhausted ways to keep Melania occupied! The doctor did a short exam, then prescribed a vitamin syrup and said if nothing had changed (meaning if she hadn’t gained weight) in 1 week, to bring her back for a chest x-ray. Personally, I think he was putting us off because the waiting room was full and he didn’t have a lot of time for us. Guess we’ll be going back this week again.

I arrived home at 6:30, an hour and a half after my 5:00 PM meeting had started (Josh attended too so that was not a huge problem). I knew I'd be late but didn't think I'd miss the whole thing! We had dinner all together with our team after the meeting and then went home.

Long, hot day, but full of God’s grace and strength to get through it. I enjoyed conversations with both our doctor friend and our helper Ros as we sat in waiting rooms. I was blessed to see how the Lord provided the help of our friend when maneuvering that situation with Spencer would have been infinitely more stressful had I had to do it myself. What a provision from the Lord!! And my teammates were very gracious about my not showing at the meeting that I usually end up hosting! I was very tired, my ankles were swollen, but I was carried along by the Grace of God. Praise Him!!

Followup on Our New Home

In response to questions from the comments:

The little (and it is very little) red door in the backyard goes into the neighbor's backyard. It's padlocked for security reasons.

I could line the walls with potted plants - that would be very like the locals do - but would be more likely done in the FRONT yard where visitors and passers-by could see them. We're hoping the vines that are growing on the wall grow down lower - Josh is trying to train them that way. I also have access to some morning-glory like plants with purple flowers and a vine that grows with nice coverage - so I may put some in pots and train them to go up those walls as well.

A down-side to this house is that there is no "good view". All of the views are less than desirable (unless you don't look out the windows)! :) That's part of why I put the curtains up. The windows are tinted and you can only see IN from outside when the light is just right, but everything looks better through a gauzy curtain! :)

Do you remember your first time?

The occasion for this picture was that the boys had saved enough allowance money and for the FIRST TIME EVER bought something ALL BY THEMSELVES with their OWN MONEY!! Spencer chose an army set complete with a hard hat and AK-47 and Mitchell chose a bow & arrow/sword set. It was fun and interesting to watch them choose - there was not a lot of indecision, nor did they just grab the first thing they saw. They also kind of decided together. As I expected, the bow has already broken but that's what you get when you spend what they did!! Good experience!

One of the joys of moving - playing with the boxes! The kids planted the flag - claiming part of our back yard (specifically the fridge box) for their "homeland" of Wisconsin!!
Saying goodbye - Julia and Afa have become close friends this past year. Afa's mom is a widow from one of the tribes that we work in. When we needed a helper for our time filling in at the mission guest facility, we hired her. She had not often been out from interior and it was quite the experience for her. She was very homesick though and is glad to be going home this weekend. It has been a joy to watch Julia and Afa playing together, communicating in both English and the local language as they taught each other. Afa learned to count to 20 in English and learned other various phrases. Julia learned songs and phrases in the local language from Afa as well. Afa is actually twice Julia's age but they're the same height. :)

Our New Home

Good morning! Many of you have been asking and now I finally have pictures to share of our new home. It's amazing what some kitchen cupboards, a paint job and curtains can accomplish! It was a long haul sewing all the curtains as the windows are all tall and the fabric slippery but it was worth it! It's probably good that it took almost 8 weeks to complete things - it kind of grossed me out at first to think about moving in here - but now it's "ours" and feels just fine!! (I think I felt that way before moving into the home we owned in West Allis too...) Best of all - all of the doorframes are now higher and Josh can walk through them all without hitting his head!!

Here's the tour: let's start at the heart of our home - the kitchen (and dining room)! The pretty lattices on the windows are actually security bars. All the windows have them. (They were previously pink, blue and copper with touches of gold - we had them painted plain white.) You saw photos in a previous blog of the kitchen before, here's the after! This room was previously 2 very small, very dark rooms. We had them knock down the walls to open it up. I chose the yellow paint and light colors of wood and tile to brighten it up cause it only has one partially covered window. During the day the door (which is to the right of the stove) is mostly open as well, letting in light. The door goes to the back yard.
Here are Josh and Julia enjoying our back yard - against the wall to the left are the clothes lines. To the right the windows are Josh's office (which is 2 meters wide and 6 meters long but perfect for what he needs!). We have NO lawn - just a cement courtyard and backyard.
This is the other view of the backyard - the washer is in the back (I got an automatic this time - it's backbreaking to use the 2-tub washers, lifting wet laundry in and out of the tub and spinner). The movable drying rack is nice for rainy days. The orange thing is a rainwater reservoir - we use rainwater to supplement city water as sometimes water can be salty or unavailable. We don't drink city/rain water but use it for everything else.
Here's Mitchell in the boy's room. They love their new bunk beds!

This is the bathroom (shower and toilet to the left) that we moved the door from the kitchen to the dining room. It previously only had a "squattie" toilet and a "bok mandi". The floors in the bathroom were replaced with light-colored rough surface tile to minimize slipping (to my huge relief as they were previously really dark and made the tiny rooms even darker and harder to see if they were clean!).

The 2 previous shots are from one of the other (VERY TINY) bathrooms - the sink is 12"x 17" - but it FITS!! We had to search long and hard to find sinks small enough! The shower drains into the drain under the sink. The toilet is up on the "pedestal" where the squattie was previously. Bathrooms here are generally "wet bathrooms" as they flush the squatties with buckets of water and it goes everywhere - same with bathing with a bok mandi - you pour dippers of water over your head and it all drains into a central drain. So no bath mats! They'd be soaked all the time. The bath mats go OUTSIDE the bathroom door so you can dry your feet and not slip on the tile floors OUTSIDE the bathroom.

And this is the "ruang tamu" or sitting room that is traditional in local homes. We ended up putting toys in that room as well as it is the biggest room in the whole house. The front door was my "thing" with this house - previously it was the same color as the pink mat you see in the bottom left corner of the picture - now a beautiful shade of red. I always wanted a red door! (The bonus was that the neighbors offered unsolicited approval - they said it was the perfect shade of red - a brighter color would have been, in their opinion, "too Chinese". Whatever...but glad they approve!) We bought the furniture in this room (and a number of the other rooms) from a couple that had to leave the field for health reasons. The other furniture we had locally built from photos I got off the internet. Most of it is nice and sturdy but unfortunately our dining room chairs ended up uncomfortable! So if you come for dinner - sorry! We don't mean to rush you off with bad seating!

Anyway, that's our new place. We're thankful to have a place to call home for the next year or two - and it's finally "ours" as the homes we've lived in the past 2 years have been someone else's. Location-wise it's great, too. You may notice I didn't post photos of the front of our home - that's for security purposes - but if you want to see it, just let me know and I'll send you a shot.

Thanks for your prayers for us in getting this all figured out, and for continuing to pray as we now begin to prepare for the arrival of our daughter. Last night I was able to get some more information about the hospital I am to give birth at - helps me know how to pack the "go bag". Also we have the additional challenge of figuring out paperwork needed to get a US birth certificate, passport and visa for the little one. The down side (which is a little humorous) is that last night we also watched an episode of Mythbusters with the kids so last night when I was SUPPOSED to be sleeping, I ended up dreaming about having the baby in a hospital with the Mythbusters there testing stuff or doing experiments or something... a little disturbing!!

Today is 4 weeks left until my due date. The ladies in my life here say that it looks like the baby has dropped, which explains the additional discomfort. I'm depending greatly on the Lord for stamina for each day. Thanks again for praying!

"Cutie" Mark?

The other day Spencer was looking at the beauty mark on the side of Julia's neck, trying to get a rise out of her by telling her she had a "zit". I overheard him and reprimanded him for it - so he changed his tune - and told her it wasn't a zit, it was a "cutie mark". I couldn't help but laugh! She sure IS a cutie!

Julia and Mitchell enjoying storytime with "Miss Judy" - a guest who was with us this month.

New Brothers and Sisters!

We recently enjoyed this humorous (but true) list written by coworkers who recently taught through the Bible chronologically. What was really exciting to us was the fact that a number of people from this tribe BELIEVED as a result of hearing the teaching! THIS is the reason we're here, doing what we do day in and day out - supporting our coworkers living interior, serving with great personal sacrifice so that those people who have not heard about Christ's sacrifice on the cross have the opportunity to do so - and believe! We have new brothers and sisters - and are rejoicing with the angels in heaven!

“You Know You Are Preaching to the ____ People When…”

…you need a bow and arrow rack in the meeting place instead of a hat rack.

…you have to make an announcement that there will be no sorcery taking place during the meeting.

…in spite of your announcement, one of the men sit with a frying pan in front of his face the whole meeting to ward off sorcery.

…they ask if those are bamboo smoking pipes that the Israelites have in their mouths when marching around Jericho (ram's horns)

…they ask if they can have a sleep over in the meeting house and listen to recordings of the teaching all night.

…in a society where no one is the leader, even toddlers yell out before the meeting, 'Everyone sit down and be quiet!"

…one of your most prominent men, interrupts the meeting by asking all three of his wives if they have any mao bark for his beetle nut. It's just not gummy enough with out!

…our believers from the previous evangelistic outreach don't understand it's ok to laugh at funny illustrations from the teacher, and yell at the eager listening 'heathen', "Stop laughing! This is important talk! Satan is blinding your eyes!"

…you have to explain which one is Mary and which one is the angel in the picture.

…asked if even missionaries have sin, they respond confidently, "yep, your sin is disgusting as pig poop." Brutally honest.