One little bump in the road

Living without electricity was fun. The kids enjoyed using flashlights and wearing headlamps at night while we played cards or did other silly things. And reading by headlamp isn’t too bad either.

One of the funny things I realized I needed a flashlight for was make sure I got everything when I wiped Caleb in the bathroom, but everything else was do-able. When one of Karis’ friends came for the afternoon today, she didn’t quite understand why I wouldn’t let her turn the light on when she went to the restroom. Her parents know what our assignment was, but I would love to hear a 4 ½ year olds version of what she understood. Her family is going to South Asia, so they didn’t have this assignment.

During my ESL class last Saturday, it poured rain, so Doug and the kids just played cards, play-doh and games at the Quad when they came back from the post office. My class was interesting, fun, and a small review of my linguistics class at A&M.

The food assignment got put on hold this weekend. The Quad decided we would all cook next weekend, just on the stove top, after we had a chance to get to a grocery store. It has been decided that for my family, eggs and fruit for breakfast would be good. For lunch, the quad is going to do a "buffet." I'm going to saute squash and onions in my two omelet pans. I only have enough room to saute about three squash, and I'm thinking the other rooms are going to be in the same situation. We decided, after we eat all the food, we would head to the cafeteria to fill up the rest of our bellies.

I hope that's okay with the "uppers."

Our one bump in the road came Sunday morning. Caleb came to my room at 5am to snuggle with me, and he peed on my side of the bed!

Now I know that I could have saved the sheets until Monday and put some of the available twin sheets on our bed (Doug and I have put two twins together to make a King), but I didn't. I "pretended" that there was electricity in another sector of the "city," and I hauled my sheets to Quad #21 to wash. I live in #3, so I figured I traveled a good distance :)

It's been rainy here, but nice and cool. Monday and Tuesday were "Special Meal" days in the cafeteria (while our kids were in school - although Kylie did this exact thing with her class). That means, wash your hands thoroughly, walk into the cafeteria, sit down, and when the table has all 8 people, someone goes to the kitchen to get the tray of food. We have discussion questions to go through while we eat, and we pray for the area of the world where the food came from.

Since we were eating in "right-handed cultures" we tried to keep our left hand in our lap. Our first meal, on Monday, we had no untensils, just pita bread to pick up our meat and salad mixture. It was Middle Eastern food, and it was divine!

Our second meal was curry-filled Indonesian food. Spicy!! But we did get a spoon. Doug and I really liked it. The toppings for the rice and curry-meat were the most interesting: tomatoes, coconut, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and preserves.

I had African culture worship practice tonight, so I need to start homework instead of procrastinating some more. (Sunday night worship is going to be all in African languages, and I'm going to be on the dance/worship team singing in Swahili. And in case you are wondering, no, I do not know what I'm saying when I sing the words.)

Lights out in the Quad

This week we had 12 enlightening hours worth of seminars on spiritual warfare from Dr. Jerry Rankin. Those 12 hours and the "talk" from Gordon Fort this morning, were our favorites. We've also had two "fun" seminars from the medical clinic. One was a full hour on malaria: which one (1) can kill you, and which ones (3) can't; all the symptoms; how to prevent it; what kind of medication to take and when; and how to get tested if you think you might have it, etc.

The second seminar was today on all the other diseases you can get and how they are transmitted. We learned how to wash food, which foods to never eat, which things to never drink, and how to prevent some of these problems. Our next one will be all the things you deal with overseas. It's called the "diarrhea talk." Don't you wish you could be there for that one?

I've decided to let somethings go...like emailing or blogging every day. I'm not able to get everything done each day, but my new goal is to get more sleep, and I think that is going to mean choosing somethings and letting somethings go.

I'm writing really quickly right now for a reason. One of our cultural assignments for our Sub-Sahara Africa Affinity group is to go without electricity one weekend. Three out of the four quad mates have agreed that this is a good weekend to do it. It will get it out of the way, and we will hopefully have mild weather before we have to go without heat during a really cold time. In addition to that activity, we have to cook two meals from scratch during the weekend using only our stove top (because we will have gas stoves in Africa). The interesting dilemma is I was only supplied with two small omelet pans. Two of the quads have small pots, but if we are all trying to cook this weekend, I'm going to have to make a go of it in the saute pans. I see bacon and eggs for Sunday breakfast, and I still haven't figured out lunch. Doug will have to go shopping tomorrow.

I am taking a class tomorrow from 9 to 5 to get ESL certified, so Doug will have the kids, and he is borrowing someone's car to go to the post office in town to mail our Visa information to Uganda and he will pick up something for me to cook.

I'm going to stay off the internet all weekend. I think I have enough reading assignments to keep me busy. As of today, I have 5 books in my possession I'm supposed to read, there is one more available in the library I supposed to get, 12 articles on Africa, plus two movies Doug and I are supposed to watch. He is actually at the library right now seeing if one is available to watch before our midnight electricity cut-off time.

I've unplugged all the nightlights, all the heaters are off, no clocks, we will switch to cell phone light or flashlight, we can't open our fridge and use anything, and I'm washing my last load of clothes. Between you and me, I don't see myself taking a cold shower, so I'm guessing I'll be smelling by Sunday evening. But if I can boil a couple of saute pans worth of water and add them to about 2 inches or less of water in the tub, I might could stand to rinse off my body in tepid water. Too bad I don't have any baby wipes:)

I'm sure you wanted to hear all of that, but I'll still take this over living without electricity after a hurricane in the deep south with 105% humidity. And I'm actually excited that when it gets dark, I might just have to go...to...bed...

Well, it's almost 10pm here, I'm going to read a little before Doug gets back from the library or I have to cut my lamp off, whichever comes first.

Fitness Test

I had already tried to tell myself that if I walked during my fitness test, then in December, even if I ran a LITTLE, it would be an improvement. Oh well, so much for that.

I was put in a group that had a couple who must sprint marathons for a living! There was one marathoner in another group that hadn't even broken a sweat and was just finding his stride when the 12 minute timer went off. Yes, I know, 12 minutes isn't much to most of you, but I...don't...exercise.

The wife sprinter easily lapped me twice before I made it around the gym once (it was too wet and cold to do it outside), and I was running!

Yes, I ran.

I don't know what was wrong with me.

Maybe, it was a little competitive side of me, but I didn't think I had one.

So, crazy me ran the whole thing except for the two straight-aways I chose to walk and catch my breath.

Not smart.

Not smart.
I made it around 19 times in 12 minutes. Doug did something like 25 or 26. The sprinters did 31 or something.

The point is (and it's not a good point), I have to beat 19 in December. What was I thinking???

It's mandatory to work out 4 times a week here, so hopefully, I will have improved by then.

I'll let you know.

It's 41 degrees this morning!

Well, we're here! We slept with the heater on last night and we all had on coats this morning.

We spent the night in Austin Monday, and got up at 4:45 yesterday to fly here. The kids were great travelers, just a little tired and hungry when we arrived.

Kylie has 5 kids in her class with two teachers. Three boys, two girls, and the other little girl is named Kyleigh, too. They became fast friends, and then they loved each other more when they realized they both had the same American Girl! (insert commercial: "American Girl - bringing the world together - one doll at a time").

Karis has about 6 kids in her class (I couldn't count because I was walking through to drop off Caleb), also with two teachers. Karis was pretty excited about the new day, so I look forward to good stories.

One of Caleb's teacher's name is Cinderella. I'm sure it will be a "magical" day. He had no problem saying goodbye to me when he saw plastic tigers on the ground to play with.

Doug and I are off to class now in this beautiful 41 degree weather. We are starting a little later today, but that is nice. When we arrived yesterday, we had to unpack our 8 pieces of luggage, sign up for ministry teams, participate in a scavenger hunt to learn the property, and find out where all of our children's classrooms would be. Thankfully, some of our friends babysat our three for one hour after dinner so we could make beds and set up "house."

Thank you for everyone who emailed and texted. We love you. Thank you for praying!

Scrambled Eggs for Brains

Karis wanted Doug and I to eat lunch with her today at school, so after working in the storage shed all morning, we got cleaned up, ate some yummy cafeteria food, and now we're at the library again.

We are checking the girls out in an hour to go to Victoria to a Walgreens and try to get flu shots for the girls. All three towns closer to us were out yesterday when I called. I'm hoping Walgreens can also help with our fluoride prescription. The pharmacy here can't get what we need, and I need a 3 years supply of fluoride tablets for the kids before we go.

These "drugs" are taking up a lot of space in our crate. I hope they don't push out my dishes or peanut butter. Monday, we bought 18 bottles of Flintstones, and 17 bottles of Vitamin C. Rather than count them off the shelf in Sam's, we just took the whole box. Nice.

On top of that, we got mulit-vitamins for Doug and I, and Super B Complex and odorless garlic to help fend off mosquitos. 480 bandaids, 26 tubes of toothpaste for all 5 of us, 5 bottles of hair de-tangler for the girls, 6 bottles of sunscreen, 52 razors, LOTS of batteries (for our cool headlamps and a few toys), and then smaller amounts of every kind of medicine you might need on a yearly basis...in Africa.

My mom suggested I take pictures of our haul from Sam's so it would help people get their heads around it. When I went to do it, we had already taken every tube and bottle out of each box, but I'll try to download the pictures to my computer soon.

Packing is getting crazy. What goes to Virginia? What goes to Africa in a crate? What goes to Africa in one of our 15+ suitcases? What goes to Virginia and then Africa? What goes to Virgina for the cold weather, and then goes back to storage? Better get back to work...

If brains can look like scrambled eggs, then I'm there.

5 States in a month

We have unpacked our suitcases, and we will only pack them two more times this year. Granted, the number of suitcases we will pack the next couple of times is exponentially increasing.

From Colorado to Florida, and then driving around Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, I feel so drained, but it's a good drained.

We saw so many people we love and who loved on us. It was so nice to be encouraged! The body of Christ is an AMAZING thing.

I'm sending out "Christmas" letters with prayer cards this week to all the people we didn't get to see on our journey, because we leave next Tuesday and won't be back in Yoakum until December 11th.

I hope to update more often while we are in Virginia and stuff is actually going on.

For example, would you want to hear that we got our International Drivers' Licenses yesterday, and are now qualified to drive like James Bond...in Uganda...on dirt, pot-hole-filled roads.

We also spent about $1400 buying vitamins and a few other knick knacks like seasonings, trash bags, and zip locks at Sam's yesterday. The only good news about that, is that there should be no out-of-pocket expense for vitamins (and other things) for the next 3 1/2 years. Nope. The thought didn't make me feel any better either.

We bought new wedding rings because we didn't want to wear our gold and diamonds in Uganda. Maybe I should take one of those cute wedding-type photos of our hands together, so you can see the new rings...Nah!

Today, we worked in our storage unboxing all the toothpaste and medications we are taking with us. The extra air in the boxes is just too precious when it comes to crating.

We are still working on purchasing all the "things" we need for solar power. The process has been slow since we have been driving around and not always near internet access.

Which leads me to now. It is 10 minutes until 6pm, and the library is getting ready to close. My parents lost internet a week and a half ago when God answered all our prayers and sent rain to this area of Texas. Doug and I now have to come to the library to get work done. So, I'm being kicked out. Gotta go. Write more later.

Headed to Louisiana and Mississippi

We returned home last Thursday, and we were met by some pretty excited children at the door. Then we only stayed at my parent’s for two nights before heading off again to Brownwood, TX.

We are/were back in Yoakum for a very short time. Doug left town again yesterday to go to Waco and speak to the youth group at the church he grew up in. After he returns Thursday (today) at lunch, we will do a quick turn-around and leave again for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We will be at Barry & Aimee Staples’ house Friday night from 6 to whenever and Saturday morning from 10 to noon if anyone wants to stop by and see us.

Saturday evening, we will leave for the Reservoir in Mississippi. We are looking forward to worshiping at Pinelake on Sunday. There will be a reception for us Monday night from 6-8 at the gym if you are around and can make it. And we will also be at the Wednesday night service at the main campus.

I hope that when we get settled in Virginia, I will be able to be more consistent with writing. But right now we are still busy everyday finalizing so many things before we can go and packing and re-packing for all of our trips. I'm also trying to get an early "Christmas-type" card out before we leave for Virginia, so those people who don't know where we are living or where we are going can get an update and a prayer card.

With a heavy heart, I look forward to seeing everyone in LA and MS, only to say goodbye again for a little bit longer this time. Thank goodness we have email and internet as we go.

First Day of School

Last post today. Sorry for the onslaught, but I have high speed internet for the first time in a month, and I couldn't resist.

A couple of you asked to see pictures of the girls on the first day of school, so here is the token picture with the over-sized backpacks and the unsure grins.













Caleb had no idea he was about to lose his two favorite playmates for 6 weeks.

Snakes (but not on a plane)

Karis was climbing a tree in August, and she ran inside breathless to tell me there was a snake in the tree. I said, "Is it green?" We have lots of grass snakes that climb my parents' trees, and I knew I didn't have to be worried if it was green. She said, "No, it's grey with diamonds on its back."

Well...maybe we should get your grandfather.

It was indeed a grey, speckled snake, about a foot long, with small white diamonds on its back, but no rattles. My dad caught it, checked for fangs, which were non-existent, and then after all the kids touched it (mine and Kelly's kids), my dad let it go down by the creek.

In about five minutes, Jonathan (Kelly's oldest) yelled, "SNAKE."

Everyone ran outside again, but everyone lost sight of it. My dad saw movement, stepped on it, saw that it was an 18-inch coral snake, and then cut it's head off. Even though I had already told my children the rhyme, it was a good reminder that "Red and Yella kill a fella."



Everyone got to examine its head to verify that there were no real fangs. It was then that I learned that their mouths aren't big enough to bite more than your toe. Then the kids took turns touching and handling the body of the snake. My mom said something curious to my dad, "Keith, don't they usually travel in pairs?"

"What?"

My dad said that since 1987 when he saw the first coral, he has only seen a total of 6 coral snakes in the yard. That's enough for me!! Of course, that is not counting the rattlesnakes and copperheads we've seen. Yikes! Dad mowed the grass later that day.


Well, it would be great if the story ended there, but it doesn't.


My kids and I went back to Katy to finish up our move, and my dad caught another snake on the carport. The cats had cornered it. My dad thinks it was an indigo snake. He took it to the creek so that it could continue to hunt rats or mice. It was FOUR feet long.

The story is still not over.

We moved from Katy to Yoakum , and our first Thursday there, our neighbor who came to pick up mom for Bible study, walked up and saw that the cats had cornered another coral snake under the 4-wheeler. My dad, in the middle of brushing his teeth, was ordered by my mom to come in a hurry! My wonderful dad swept it out, stepped on it, and cut off its head.

It was Karis, this time, who wanted her picture with it.






Maybe God is taking extra measures to make sure we are ready for Africa...

Kylie is 7!! (On August 21st)

Kylie had a fever on her birthday, and she hadn't been feeling well for days, so we didn't do a whole lot. We let her chose where we ate for lunch (Double Dave's), and we gave here a journal to record her journey to Africa and a bulletin board that she asked for. She wants to be able to hang pictures of her friends and familiar places in her room in Africa, so now we are trying to get some pictures together for her.











Listening to Kylie's singing card...













Why is it that the packing peanuts are always a more popular hit than the actual gift?

Pictures as promised

I'm just going to upload a few, but you'll get the idea.





This is the compost toilet with everything pulled up so you can see the bucket sitting in a Rubbermaid tub (in case of accidental leaks). The sawdust container is on the right with a mug for each-"time" use.




This is what it looks like when the seat is down. Pretty normal, right?





This is the compost pile outside. The one on the left is "cooking," and the one on the right has just been added to. After he dumped his bucket, he added cow manure and then some coals from his wood stove. It's all about mixing the nitrogens, hydrogens, and carbons.

The Noah Project, Part 2

Well, our training went a lot quicker than normal because...we don't know a lot. Basically, it came down to us learning everything and finding out how to set up our solar system and finding out what we needed to buy, but since we are not very "electrical" savvy, our teacher said, "You're going to need to get an electrician for your needs."

We aren't really THAT dumb, but the problem is that we will not be building a solar system from scratch. We will have to tie in a solar system to an existing grid. He kindly told us that it's really easy to blow yourself up doing stuff like that.

BIG NEWS! I used the compost toilet. I held it all the first day, but I decided I should really give #1 a try, so on day 2 (yesterday), I geared up, and gave it a try. Not bad. A little different. A little more odor than usual (although Doug told me I was smelling the sawdust). But all in all, not bad. Of course, I'm not picking up the 5 gallon bucket to haul it out to the compost pile and then cleaning out the bucket.

I also forgot to mention that Jack really loves to teach people unique ways to insulate their houses. He trains missionaries for a living, and his job is to help them do projects with what is available in their country. The walls in his house are FIVE feet thick. His kitchen window has a window over the sink and then a 5 foot shelf before the other, outer window. Guess what is in betweeen the walls? Hay bales. Yep!

He trains people to do insulation with polyestor, tires, Wal-mart bags, and SO much more. Doug and I learned LOTS of stuff we will never use, but Jack is training us to train others. What better way to get the attention of a Ugandan woman to listen to the Gospel than telling her how she can make her house cooler at night? Or how she can use a solar cooker to cook her food all day in the sun while she is out working? Or how she can have a more productive garden that will provide food for her family?

LOTS of information! Today was our last day and we learned about gray water (dirty water like washing machine water and bath water) and black water (toilet water and water with chemical cleaners in it) usage. We learned how to catch rain water and how to make tanks to drain off gray and black water.

One example: We need to wash our cleaner clothes first and then re-use that dirty soap water for the second wash. Also, after I rinse my clothes, I need to save that water for the second wash. Basically, washing is a big deal, but it's also a big water user, so we have to be careful.

Enough of that, I know you aren't all into this.

We are leaving tomorrow. I think we are going to get to see the Garden of the Gods and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs in the morning and then get the opportunity to visit with friends there we haven't seen in five years. We have a late flight out of Denver tomorrow night, and then we get to see our kids. YEAH!!