Tasha Myers Blog

update on carsten

2011-02-23T20:05:00.002+02:00

Many of you have been praying for our littlest man Carsten (aka boose). He spiked a high fever last Wednesday evening of 104.2, the following night of 105 and continued thru the week with high fevers, esp. in the evenings. I called the Dr. here on Friday morning to get him in and could not get through and did not get a call back until 1.45, informing me he was leaving for an early weekend at 2, without a car I was out of luck. Why do my kids always get sick or take a turn for the worse on Friday, late afternoon?
We had friends come for the weekend from Angola. Saturday was Kylea's 10th birthday party in the afternoon and Doug had been gone all day out doing a compassion meeting with one of our regions. Carsten seemed to be feeling better, until the evening when again we were back up to 104+. Sunday morning Doug took the kids and I to church and then took Carsten up to the clinic in the capital city, Mbabane. The Dr. did not find it necessary to do a blood test, but gave antibiotics and MORE ibuprofin. By Sunday afternoon, he had lost his little perky personality and began to really look sick so I called a Dr. in Nelspruit (a great ped.)
We drove thru on Tuesday morning and after an extensive exam, sent us down to get blood work and x-rays. Because we are private insured through the states we have to pay everything up front, ugh! So I had to front $ just for the blood work. As I was getting ready to pay, the nurse came thru to let us know that the Dr. also was ordering a liver function test as he found belirubin in his wee. Poor little guy, they wrapped him up in a blanket like a little burrito and took 3 viles of blood. Traumatized, we then I headed down the hall to the radiology lab to pay, then to have x-rays taken. Back up to the Dr.'s where we were given meds. (different than Sunday), for sinus and ear infection. He requested that we stay in Nelspruit to have a check again Wed. and results on blood work.
Went back in this morning and his lab results were that he had some atypical Mycoplasma pnomonia (yes, I spelled that wrong). Which is not pnomonia. Also, the average child's allergy count is 0-10 and Carsten's is 302.2, so now the blood work is being broken down even more to see exactly what allergies we are dealing with. The liver function test came back fine, ptl!
That is the short version of our last week, thanks for your prayers as we continue to get our little man well again! We are home in our beds Carsten is coughing a lot but the fever is very minimal tonight! Thanks for your prayers!!

Needing to get out!

2010-10-02T08:40:00.004+02:00

I am soo looking forward to being home for Christmas! It will be nice to have somewhere to go during my moments of stir craziness. Like today! We currently have a team here from TX. The are doing some ministry/soccer camps down south, a little over and hour away. So with the kids still in school I get to stay home with them (which I usually don't mind, unless we get past 3 days of having to stay at home:) I was going to try and take them today, Saturday, but again Carsten woke up with another runny nose and asthma issues.

Days like today, home with the kids, all day, I find myself sitting here wondering if I am really ready to home school this next year (starting in Jan.). I wish there was a mall or somewhere to go just for an hour or so, but no, there is just Pick n' Pay our grocery store. It is pretty sad when I try and come up with things I need just to get out and go to the store, then end up spending money on pepsi or other things we really do not need.

I honestly do feel strongly that my main ministry this season of life is my family and raising amazing kids, but there are weeks where I am on skype with my parents and wish I could send the kids through the screen for a few days or weeks:)

I am excited to home school, since I do really miss teaching (I have my BA in elem. educ.). So the thought of turning our spare room into a school room and decorating it all up and getting my creativity flowing again, is pretty exciting for me!

I will miss my freedom for tea with friends and stuff! I will need more structure! I will need more patience! Maybe that is why God lead me to do a study on the fruit of the spirit this term before school starts, hmmmm.

He loves us

2010-09-26T16:02:00.005+02:00

I am sitting here completely overwhelmed by a new and deeper revelation of God.

I remember when I was dating Doug and just meeting his parents we went to Red Robin and they talked of God and faith all of the time. I was a Christian at the time but in my head were thoughts of, "why is this family so "spiritual" always talking about God and faith, etc. all of the time!!" Well as life has gone on and God has matured me in who he is and who I am in him, I get it!
There is a song by Jesus Culture called "How He Loves",(I challenge you to look it up and really listen to the words). Talks about how he is jealous for us, how he loves us, how beautiful He is and great His affections are for me, if grace is an ocean we are all sinking, I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way...he loves us. This is another one of the may worship songs that just "messes me up", in a good way. I am recognizing that if I am not changed what is the point?
My man, Doug preached at our home church here (and did an amazing job). He dug into understanding our covenant with God, and how we really don't get its fullness. He dug into Galatians 3:15-29, and wow! Coming to a new revelation of God and how much he loves us is so amazing to me! The law is our own efforts trying to make ourselves right with God. God gave the law to point out the flaws in us, we use law to prove ourselves holy. The law is not bad, Romans 7:7 “I would not have known sin if it were not for the law”. The purpose of the law is to point us back to Jesus.
My prayer this year 2010 was to truly say “I am in love with Jesus and mean it, not just words but a heart changed and truly in love with my Jesus”. I think that I am beginning to only touch the tip of the ice berg. I see his word for a true genuine love letter to us.

I'll be home for Christmas

2010-09-08T20:27:00.004+02:00

We are coming home for Christmas!!!
This all started before we came to Africa, the first time in 2004. We were in the process and recognizing that we were going to be raising our kids half way around the world (literally) away from family, our home culture and friends. We began chatting with other current missionaries about what they did to stay connected and help to keep their kiddos connected. One family in particular, said that they purposed to come home for a vacation half way through each 4 year term. So we did that our first term with help from the parents :), but Christmas 2005 tickets were cheaper and we were one less on the "Myers Team".
We have continued with that desire to come home for Christmas, this time Christmas 2010! Doug's parents will also be celebrating a pretty big anniversary so their hope was for all of us Myers to go on a cruise while home for Christmas! So they started putting money away for us, if we got home they would help to cover the cruise!
As we have gotten closer and closer we got serious and started looking at ticket for all 5 of us to get home ... Well, $7000 later. Yeah, and that was only the tickets home. We also wanted to get to Cali. to go on the 4 day Mexican cruise with the family and to Leavenworth with my family, the Sollie side. We tucked that one away and thought on it. In May on our 12th anniv. Doug and I got away for 2 nights and on the way had this talk of how that is a rediculous amount of money to spend on a few weeks of just being home. We felt 1. Not real good stewards of our money, 2. That in no way leaves room for God to do a miracle 3. Who has $9500 sitting around for fun! (I know there are some people out there, but not us). Doug and I began discussing that it is not a bad thing for us to go home, but why not trust God to provide it for us, a faith builder for us and for our kids to experience and walk out with us. So we set this amount of $ that we had from previous blessings and money we felt like we would spend from our savings, and then began to pray, daily, for the rest of it, with the kids.
June hit and we were doing our taxes and got a good return. Our tax guy informed us that there was another refund, but because we live out of the states we were probably not eligable for it. Doug, went to the living room and prayed with the kids that if God would provide this money we would use it for our trip home and that it would be part of our testimony .... you guessed it $3000 later we were getting closer to our trip home. A couple months went by and we began thinking where is the rest going to come from.
We just had a team leave us from Montana. The last night of them being here they prayed over us and told us how their pastor told them to over budget for a trip here, they cut out on meals, eating pbj with the kids at the soccer camps and trimmed down on some dinners and informed us the $3500 we still needed to go home was DONE!
We were Completely overwhelmed and honored, by this team, who was lead by Pastor Jason & Heather Bishop, who were one of Doug's interns when we were youth pastors! God is faithful. Though we give up things, he blesses us more than we could imagine!
I was reminded of Ephesians 3:17-21
"So that Christ may dwell in you hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!"
Actually the night the team told us this I skyped my mom and had itunes opened to the song "I'll be home for Christmas". When she answered I did not say anything, but played the song and she began to cry, and after telling her the great news, she cried even harder! (I think she is excited for us to come home or something!)

Intimacy

2010-07-22T21:33:00.002+02:00

I have written so many blogs ... in my head, usually in the shower, but they never seem to make it to the computer! LOL!
Each year I try and make some sort of resolution, but simple. In 2009, after coming back for our second term, I was edgy not really sure how long I wanted to do this missions thing! I recongized that I was missing out on laughter, just laying on the floor and laughing with my family. I even had a cute little black and white plaque that said "laugh out loud" and I kept that in a visible spot. Thank the Lord that he is faithful, because now it is hard to remember a dinner where we are not all laughting at one point or Doug and I just laughing together!

This year has been a year of intimacy! For 2010 I asked the Lord to help me truly say that I was in love with him, and really mean it. Not "christianese", but a true genuine love! And he is taking me there. He is challenging me in my daily devotion to him, and it is amazing. My personal time, bible study, church and small group are all lining up in the same direction and He is being so personal.

In a bible study that I lead at my house, we were going through Priscilla Shirer's "One in a Million" and I came to a point where she asked "do you tend to depend on someone else to reveal God's word to you?" followed later by "take the time to commit to obedience, whatever God prompts you to do, be willing to do it." which also goes along with the resounding theme he keeps me pondering and meditating on "obedience is better than sacrafice". From there I felt the Lord directing me to lead our ladies through the book of James (the NT how to book). It has been an amazing season and am loving all that I am learning of myslef and my savior!

a tree

2010-05-24T20:41:00.003+02:00

You know when you come across a song that you just can't get out of your head, or better yet a worship song that God keeps bringing you back to, to get it fully into your spirit? This past week I have has some pretty amazing times with my Jesus! The song that United Hillsong sings called "Hosanna" is that song for me, in this season. Every couple of days a different verse of the song seems to stick out to me! Today as I was driving into Mbabane (capital city), sitting at a robot (traffic light), I began to people watch. Thinking and wondering how people could get to a place of not taking care of themselves to the point of homelessness. At that moment the Lord brought a part of that song to mind: "Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your kingdoms cause . . .". I became completely overwhelmed with the Lord saying "I love them too you know".

I know that the Lord called me to Africa to make a difference, but I think the biggest difference he was calling me to was a closer walk with him, and he has used Africa to get me there, though I am still a work in progress!

I am reading through Psalms at the moment and Love Ps. 1:1-3
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Love all of it, but meditating on God's word and then the visual of the tree planted by the water is amazing to me. As long as I stay in God's word and close to him he will never leave me. There are so many different season's of life! I remember just having Kylea and always being out of church due to feeding or diapers, etc. I felt so exhausted, my pastors wife Cheryl Jamison told me, "this is only a season, life if full of them". Simple, yet profound at least to me. Me or my "tree" may go through many seasons of life looking, sounding, feeling different with each one, yet knowing I am being "watered" is enough to keep me going til the next season weather enjoyable or not!

I so have a tendency to struggle with "the grass is greener on the other side" mentality. Honestly, I do have seasons where I long to be back in the states, back in my familiar culture, family, friends, church, shopping! Yet I have to continually remind myself to keep planted by the water, and see what season he has in store for me next.
just some of my thoughts lately!

He is

2010-03-10T20:37:00.003+02:00

Living half way around the world from "home", has it's challenges. One of them being so far away when an emergency strikes at home and recognizing there is no way you can get home fast enough, especially when there is almost 30 hrs. of travel in front of you.

Well, one year ago today Carsten and I hopped on a plane Seattle bound to be with my dad at the hospital where he would spend 27 days trying to get the dr.'s to figure out what on earth was going on after a back surgery followed by a 911 call.

Today I sit here and Doug has made an emergency trip to the states to be with his family after his dad, Gordon, suffered cardiac arrest followed by a drug induced coma. Just talked with Doug on video skype (which I thank God for giving someone the brains to figure that one out). Gordon is making progress each day, even by the hour. For a time we were not sure if he would even make it, he is now sitting up, walking with a walker a bit, drinking coffee, recognizing most people, etc. We still don't know the end result of his condition, but God does!

It has reminded me to stop and recognize who God is! And what I am needing him to be.
He is my healer, healing Gordon. Our provider, providing funds for Doug to even go home without stress on our personal budget. My strength, for our family to lean on, for me to lean on as my husband is half a world away and I play the role of a single mom of three kiddos. My truth, when my mind tends to wander in the "what if" direction, He brings me back to his truth. My joy, providing times of laughter when I need it most. I could go on and on.

Though I wish I could be there too, being with the family, going to Starbucks, eating pizza, etc. I thank God for life and life to the full.

one of those moments

2010-03-03T14:13:00.004+02:00

I facilitate a bible study that meets in my living room of 21 women. It is a highlight of me week. I look forward every week to Wednesday mornings 9.30-12ish! We are in the middle of the Ester study by Beth Moore and I had a "spiritual highlighter" moment, when the words seem to leap off of the page to you as if it were written just for you! Here it goes, hang with me:

"The hard truth of Mordecai's exhortation to Esther also applies to us. We can refuse to walk in obedience to God or cower in fear from our calling and He will undoubtedly still accomplish His agenda. As for us, however, we will pass up the fulfillment of our own entire life-purpose and we-and perhaps even "our father's family"-will miss a might work. Frighteningly, perhaps even a mighty deliverance."
"All of them will require the most difficult decision w think we can make. Decisions that we may feel will practically kill us. Then God does something miraculous and we become something we're not. That's when the "who knows?" becomes "I know"."

When I came across this I felt like she explained part of my life just there. I remember the whole missions process, or even backing up a bit, the thought of even dating Doug knowing full well he was called to missions, but I only felt called to do more of the short term stuff in between teaching, like summer trips to Mexico. So when the time came and Doug pulled me into the nursery at our church and told me that the church had approached him to pay off our school loans so we could go in a few years, I felt sick. Like this was the hardest thing I could do. Never living more than 45 min away from my parents and Kylea only one year old, yikes. But now, hindsight, that was only one small step to God being the "I know".
I am so gratful for a God who I do not totally understand or even comprehend, but completely trust!

Life

2010-02-14T16:57:00.003+02:00

I was reflecting on how amazing my life truly is! A friend and I were chatting the other day on how she could not imagine living my life, living half of the world away from "home", family and friends, moving back and forth every 4 years, etc. I had to reflect and really think about that. I can get easily caught up in what I feel like I am missing out on and truly live my life in 4 year sections, which is like living your life on a count down (which describes our first three years here in Swaziland, Africa). I am realizing more and more how much I need to enjoy the now. Especially in this season of life being a wife and mom, which is my main focus/ministry!
Kylea is now in third grade, on the swim team, won first place in a dance off at her school for the "Valentine's Day Ball" for doing the waltz and twist, and loves being a first born girl! Kaden is now in first grade, a new reader, loves to be kissed and cuddled (by mommy!), is up for any competition, and naturally athletic in any sport! Carsten aka Boose is my little buddy, still enjoying him at home, we love to read books, finger paint, swim, and play dress up.
Sometimes I do dream of what life would be like back in the states, but I do realize I have a lot of benefits for this season being here. Stay at home mom, great missions house, a husband who adores us all, and God's favor!

wow!

2009-09-17T20:35:00.005+02:00

So . . . I think I have been too addicted to facebook as my means to keep connected! I have totally neglected to take the time to write down experiences and life as I live it! We have officially been back in Swaziland one year now, amazing! Experiencing some of the things that have been accomplished in the past few months are truly amazing. We had a handful of teams here this winter (American summer), and were truly blessed as they all put wind in our sails in different ways. Encouraging, just having some other Americans to connect with. Blessed, by all three teams in amazing ways! Overwhelmed, as we began to see some of the dreams that we have had come to life in front of our eyes. As for ministry we have continued with regional trainings for our churches in teaching, and equipping them on how to work with kids and providing for them some basic tools to get started. We held our first National Children's Rally in August expecting 200-300 kids and registered over 750! Amazing day for us! As for the family. . . Kylea and Kaden are finishing their third term of school and are on the countdown for Dec. 4, the last day of school before Summer and Christmas break! Kylea was selected as the only second grade girl for the cross country team! Carsten is currently potty training and doing well I might add. "Wee" trained after day 2 and dry upon waking up from naps and in the morning! Now just for #2, we are getting there though! He made his first successful deposit this morning! HA! Doug and I are doing great, we are enjoying making our house more a home, which helps in the kind of lifestyle we live, moving back and forth, everything seems so temporary sometimes, which can be pretty hard. I am still organizing all of the Kids ministries at the International Church here, baby thru age 12 and teaching one of the classes. Also have a Wed. morning bible study I lead in my home with 18+/- ladies! I hope to do more teaching, but for now that is what I feel God has for me with keeping my hubby and kids my priority first! Pics from a recent team, thanks! Tasha

IC (International Church) Kids Church

2009-02-15T16:42:00.003+02:00

Another great day in church for sure!! My favorite part of church has always been worship. I think if I could have asked the Lord for a gift, that would be it, an amazing voice and talent of leading worship (it skipped me and landed on my bro. instead I guess!). I still do lead with the kids though, and I love it. I love singing, dancing, and especially teaching them about worship. Something I learned when Doug was an associate under Pastor Brian Dolleman was that there are only two times we worship, 1. when we feel like it, and 2. when we don't feel like it. I love teaching this to the kids in detail and how to and why we worship. It is such a passion of mine I guess. I have caught myself actally this week in the mornings going outside to do my devotions and taking my i-pod. I made a favorite worship playlist and blast it. I began singing and thought that I will probably disturb someone so headed to the back by the swing and waterfall to cover some of my "joyful noise". I was listening to the music pretty loudly and had no clue what I sounded like nor how loud I was. Later Doug mentioned to me that I must have been enjoying myself because he could hear me from the bathroom while brushing his teeth! Oh, well hope the bible college students enjoyed it as we are only
separated by the dunga/small ravine.

I thought you might enjoy some of the fruits of my passion as I do. The first pic is of Samkaliso, our bible college intern we are training under us for kids ministry. The next are a few of our kids in church worshiping.

our home

2009-02-15T16:27:00.000+02:00

dining room looking into the kitchen and back patio

Ok so some of our family and friends keep asking what our home looks like over here...well very "Americanized"! We have brought most of our furniture and stuff from the states thanks to containers! We were approved to retile and recarpet upon our return, which was a huge blessing. It is amazing how healthy we have been this term. I know part of that had to do with the "nasty" carpet that had been here for over 15 years. Doug has been doing a lot of "fix it" stuff and still has a lot to do. The missions house is 20 years old and no one had ever really taken care of it or done any up keep on it. So thanks to my handy hubby, he is doing most of it, in his spare time, which means not much lately!

kitchen looking on to back patio

our bedroom looking toward front of the house

kylea's room

2009-02-11T08:57:00.000+02:00

So, on the way home from school yesterday I was asking the kids about their day and what they did. Kaden piped up and was telling me how they talked about what their parents did. So I asked him what he said. He began to inform me of what other people said that their parents did and then proceeded to say that "I told my class that daddy is a pastor and my mommy does nothing!" I began to laugh as from the eyes of a kid, I do not have a "job" outside the house. We talked about it at dinner with daddy and we all had a good laugh. Doug then begin to build my confidence as he started asking Kaden, "who got up and got you ready? Who made your lunch? Who watches Carsten while you are at school? Who gets kids church, the nursery and 3-5's class ready for Sunday?, etc.". I was feeling pretty good after that.

I love the innocence of a child, most of the time! So brutally honest!

Kylea came home on Monday after team swimming and was pretty sad. I guess they had try outs for the teams for the swimming gala on the 20th of February. She got in the car very sad and kind of teary and began to tell me that only she and one other boy out of all of the second graders did not make it. Than she began to cry as she said that they informed them infront of everyone. My heart broke. Dealing with rejection once again, but through my little girl. I wanted to fight, but knew this was a great teaching moment for her.

I struggled to believe her at first because while in the states she was in swim lessons and at age 7 was one of the younger kids at a higher level, swimming with the 10+ year olds. I have to recognize though that swimming is huge here and she is at the top school and most competitive! So we set some goals to work at. Doug and I also talked to her about finding sports and activities you love and going for it. She does love swimming and was excited to see her get in the pool yesterday and doing a little work out of her own, trying to better herself, go kylea go!

International Church

2009-02-01T20:26:00.000+02:00

Last term here we stepped in as the Children's Pastors of the International Church. We did it for a year and a half + and trained some of the national students at the College of Theology here into that position. IC is an English speaking church so we have many different nationalities represented in the church.

Coming back to Swaziland, this position was not even on our radar, until one of the interns graduated, went home to South Africa, and was offered a position about 9 hrs. away from here. So I was asked with Doug to take over and train up some more of our College students into Children's Ministry. Honestly I had a hard time getting into it. I got into the curriculum and worship, but actually putting everything together and pulling it off, I felt like I have been "going through the motions". I hate that! I have been praying about this and other things that God would change my outlook and heart, ugh! So today is Sunday and the third week that we have been with the kids now and I actually enjoyed it today. I did not feel like I was once again "going through the motions". I felt like I (and the team) were actually teaching and getting through and having a blast doing it.

This picture is of our group of kids we are growing, 34 the first week and 51 today.

We also are getting involved a bit with the youth here at the church, God put it on Dougs heart very strongly on a long ride home from Johannesburg, South Africa. So, we decided to open our home this past Friday for a "Back to school Braii (bbq)". Pastor Raymond, the youth pastor, told us to prepare for 40ish kids to show up. They meet on Friday for their youth meeting, so we met at our home instead. I had it all set up, we were going to set up tables out on the patio in the back yard and Doug would Braii Chicken and sausage. Well . . . it began to rain at 2, bummer. So on to plan B, we set up our table and three folding tables in our dining room with chairs to seat 37. Yeah, wish I would have taken a pic. So at 4.30 two of the guys show up for the braii that was to begin at 6, very un-African to be that early!! I started prepping the kids for "strangers" in the house, as we really don't know many of the youth, rooms closed, no one in any of the rooms, let me know where you are at all times, etc. I was beginning to be not so excited about opening up our home for all these kids. "Were they going to be rude, dirty, mess up my carpet?" (just being honest!) I found myself having the "self talk" that is not so healthy! I stopped myself and asked the Lord to prove me wrong!! The night came and went and we had 42 students, our 3 kids, and 4 of us adults! We had a blast, the food was eaten, my carpets still clean and some of the most polite kids ever. I guess I was a bit shocked having done more with more "rural" kids who are a bit tougher and have more of a poverty mentality of being out for themselves, esp. when it comes to food. God did prove me wrong!

"I go to sool to mommy!"

2009-02-01T19:56:00.000+02:00

Now that Carsten and I are home all morning from 6.30am til 2.30pm, we are having a lot of quality time together! I have enjoyed some one on one time reading, coloring, doing puzzels (his favorite), playing Mr. Potato Head, and of course trains!! He still goes throught the day asking for sissy and bub, and I always reply, that they are at school. Last week I found Carsten in one of Kylea's pair of tennis shoes, with his backpack on, walking around in a shirt and diaper telling me "I do sool too Mommy!" (I go to school to Mommy). So cute, little stinker. He is so full of life and expression and loves having Mommy all to himself, and does not want me out of his sight now, hmmm.

first day of school!

2009-01-24T21:27:00.000+02:00

Being in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are opposite and so is the school year. We start school here the end of January and there are three terms with a few weeks break between each term and school ends around the first week of December, just in time for summer! This year Kylea started second grade and Kaden went to grade 0 (aka kindergarten), here they actaully call it grade not. So this week has been a little different. We are up and at it by 5.45 am to get dressed, eat, and uniforms on. Then by 6.30am we are out the door to catch the bus. The bus and school are both private f.y.i. The are in school from 7.30am -12pm then after school activities are until 1pm, when they catch the bus again back home, by 2.15ish when I pick them up. We love the school and all the teachers and curriculum are great. The only thing we struggle with is the long bus ride. I pray over them daily as I drop them off (would love any other prayers too)!

And they are off . . .
It is very quiet at home these days with just Carsten and me! We have enjoyed some extra quality time though reading, building blocks and he is now totally into puzzels! But I cannot get over having Kaden now at school from now on though, when did they grow up so fast??

a long day full of emotions!

2008-12-28T22:22:00.001+02:00

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

2008-12-23T16:21:00.000+02:00

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

2008-12-23T15:55:00.000+02:00

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

2008-12-07T21:51:00.000+02:00

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

2008-12-06T20:45:00.001+02:00

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

2008-12-01T21:49:00.000+02:00

I just could not resist!

Thanksgiving and the day after

2008-12-01T21:44:00.001+02:00

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

2008-12-01T21:28:00.002+02:00

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

2008-11-23T16:28:00.000+02:00

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!

2008-11-23T15:56:00.000+02:00

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)

2008-11-09T20:44:00.000+02:00

2008-11-07T23:59:00.000+02:00

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!

2008-10-31T11:05:00.002+02:00

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

2008-10-21T20:41:00.002+02:00

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

2008-10-07T21:06:00.003+02:00

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!

2008-08-31T05:09:00.003+02:00

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!

2008-08-28T07:17:00.001+02:00

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"

2008-08-19T06:15:00.003+02:00

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".

Enjoying our kids at the beach

2008-08-03T08:20:00.000+02:00

Learning to relax, having fun, and make some great memories has been fun this iteneration. As we go around from church to church, Doug meeting with or cooresponding with Pastors, family and friends we have not stopped making our family a priority! I love that about my husband! We both have such a strong conviction about the importance of ministry, yet finding a healthy balance of that with raising a family.

It can be so hard in Swaziland or anywhere to get off balance in those two areas. The needs around us are sooooo extreme and demanding, yet needing to be tended to. Yet we are a young family with kids who need to know that they are a priority to us. There are days that are easier than others, but it is a choice for us that we stand strongly by!! thank you Lord for this opportunity!

22 days, 3,500 miles, and three carseats!

2008-08-03T08:02:00.001+02:00

We just completed 22 days on the road. Starting off in Seattle, down to Oregon for two nights then off to Nevada. We stayed one night in Reno and one night in Las Vegas. Then off to Arizona for a few meetings in two different locations (where I had to chance to reconned with two of my cousins)!! From there we headed to San Diego for a Sunday service and to hang out with Doug's brothers family. We had a blast visiting the San Diego Zoo and spending a day on the Coronado Beach (thanks uncle Rick). From there we made our way for a day pit stop to Disneyland to make some memories and see how many princesses we could find!! A few more stops with friends and family up through California as we had meeting and services, and the kids learned to knee board and just have some fun in the water. Then through southern Oregon to again visit family, friends, and great grandma. Then to Auntie Nieces (dougs sis) for some meetings, a service, and more boating, tubing and splashing around.

It was a long trip over 3,500 miles in just over three weeks, with three car seats! We figured we layed our head on 12 different beds, ate out way to much, and made a ton of great memories.
The goal of this trip was 1. to connect with some more churches out of our district and hopefully gain some support, since we are sooo close to our goal. 2. Reconnect and say some good byes to friends and family we probably will not see for at least another 4-5 years. And we can say we did both of those things, yeah!!

punkin girls end of june 08

2008-07-02T06:22:00.001+02:00

This last weekend three of my college girlfriends and I got together for a weekend get away!! We were planning a get away before we left back to Africa. Now that we are on the downward slope of leaving, it worked out for all of us to get together, which is no small task being from 4 different states, 4 husbands, 7 kids, and who knows what else to leave behind.

We spent the weekend at the Oregon coast and did a lot of walking, chatting, eating, and drinking tea or coffee!!

This weekend lead me to reflect on so many friendships I am privelaged to have. Now that we are 2 months away from departure, I am sooo anxious to get back to my Swazi girls. I am missing that deep rooted friendship, yet will miss my life long friends here.

People have been asking me a lot lately, "Are you excied to go back, . . . why?" It seems to be such a torn thing for me. I have a life in both places, two different circles. I will miss it here, our families are here, this is our home culture, everything at your fingertips (or at least not to far). Yet I enjoy the quality of life there, much slower pace of life, doing what we are supposed to be doing and the fullfillment in that. In the new testament when it talks about being aliens, I have a whole new appreciation and understanding of it. Some days are easier than others though.

Our 10th Anniv. in Maui!!!

2008-06-11T06:16:00.010+02:00

On our honeymoon we dreamt about returning to Maui on our fifth anniversary. Well due to pregnancy, a lack of cash, and our first iteneration (prep for going to Swaziland), we did not make it. So as it came closer to our 10th we realized we would be in the states and began to dream again!

God provided for sure!!

We added up all of our mileage, to get free airfare, we went with Doug's cousin and his wife (Phil and Heather in pic). Doug's other cousin has a condo and vehicle he blessed us with, and a couple of churches had given us personal money, that we used for meals and fun.

Doug and I at sunset at the Royal Lahina Luau.

At the luau with monkey cups cut out coconut for our "virgin lava flows"

Snorkeling at Turtle Reef

Doug and I enjoying the beach, ahhh the sun!

It was an amazing trip! 9 days away, (while the grandparents were here helping to hold down all the schedules of our precious 3). As I have said many times before our anniversary has always been one of my favorite holidays!

2008-06-10T20:27:00.001+02:00

It is about time!!!

2008-06-07T07:19:00.001+02:00

As many of you know we have been "home" on furlough (a break from missions to go home, refresh, re-raise our budget for this next term) since March of 2007. I totally lost track of my blog and then the passwords were changed and I honestly do not get a chance that often to sit in front of the computer.

This last year home has been full of ups and down. Coming back (reverse culture-shock) was a lot harder than I had ever anticipated it to be. I think I had idealized it so much in my head of how I thought things were going to be that, let's just say it was a big hill to climb!

It has been great being home and around family and friends and Starbucks. Kylea jumped into Kindergarten finished that and hopped right into first grade and has done great, I love reading all of the stories she writes at school, esp. the ones about our family!!! She is quite the reader too, always up for a challenge. Kaden is still our life of the party/funny man. I think after furlough I will write a book entitled "saying from the toilet by Kaden", so funny! He is in pre-school at our church and is inseparable with his best bud, Dakota! Carsten, who was formerly knows as "Chub-chub", which we changed at his first birthday in December to "Caboose" which later shortened to "Boose", all because we did not want the chub thing to stay with him too long, he might need counseling later. He is my squishy man and has such a sweet personality!!

We are looking forward to heading back to Swaziland here by the end of (state side) summer, missing friends, our stuff, and the people, and the weather and pace of life.

time flies

2007-02-02T16:42:00.000+02:00

Well Carsten is two months and we are one month from heading home to the USA. It has been a crazy last couple of months. My parents were here for the birth of our third baby. During their time here Kylea lost her first two teeth. Kaden has suddenly become such a big boy (probably due to the fact that he is not the baby any more, though still my “baby”). The kids started school Kylea in grade 0 or kindergarten and Kaden in preschool. He has come home sooo dirty every day we stick him straight into the bath, by the time he is out there is a ring around the tub, all boy I tell you.

We have a girl here, Bri, with us until we leave and then she is off to Hwane farm to work more hands on with orphans. Our kids are in love with Miss Bri and I thinks she has fallen for them too.

the vehicle saga continues

2007-02-02T16:27:00.000+02:00

We just got our car back the 11th of December and we were headed to Nelspruit, South Africa for some dr.’s appointments when in the middle of no where our car breaks down, again!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I was having some major back issues so I could barely move and with a nursing baby and two kids and Bri, we were 6 in the car. We called a friend who lived somewhat close to see if he could help, but the car was more serious than that so we called the company who had just “fixed” the engine. Three hours later a “tow truck” came in the form of a small truck with a trailer on the back, mind you we have a full sized SPEED THE LIGHT! SUV (yeah STL!!!!). Yeah, so, it didn’t quiet fit. We had already missed Carsten’s appt. and my back apt. was that afternoon. Our friend told us to go due to a nursing baby in a hot car in the middle of summer and my back. We made it to Nelspruit in his small vehicle he lent us, yet found out he sat there for another 3 + hrs. waiting for a more appropriate tow truck. So our car again is now in the shop and we are getting ready to head home for furlough. Some day there will be a sense of humor in all this.

Carsten Timothy has Arrived

2007-01-15T21:58:00.000+02:00

Carsten Timothy Myers has arrived. His orrigional due date was Dec. 15, 2006. We planned to head to Johannesburg the day after Thanksgiving, yet due to numerous braxton hicks and anxiety we headed over the Sunday before. We did end up having to wait around two weeks but ended up getting to know Joburg and the malls there very well. Doug planned a special Thanksgiving day of the zoo and pizza for us, as we were away from all friends and family. We also celebrated my 31st bday enjoying cinnabons and some shopping!!
Finally on Friday Dec. 1st the real contractions started in. That evening we headed to the hospital and began the labor process. All was well until about 3am when I was no longer dialating. I had gotten to a 7 and was stuck there for a couple of hours. They found that Carsten was turned wrong and "brow presentation". So my options were to proceed with no promise of moving forward or c-section. My midwife contacted my dr. and we decided to do an emergency c-section!! So on Saturday morning they rolled me into theater (surgery room here) and Carsten Timothy Myers was born at 6:20am weighing in at 8 lbs. 13 oz. and 22 1/2 in. long. He was a big boy esp. being two weeks early!!

Motshane project

2006-10-23T16:05:00.000+02:00

Daddy and Kaden working hard, notice Kadens lovely working attire, he either is seen in his cowboy boots or his fireman work boots, as if he doesn't have any other shoes, such a boy!

Doug getting the framing down for the wardrobes in our garage.

The fam helping daddy finishe the project. Doug and Pastor Stan.

Doug has finished these wardrobes/closets for the orphan homes. He was asked by a fellow missionary, Stan Drew to put some wardrobes together for one of our churches that has taken in and supports about 15+ boys. We did the final touches on Saturday and the kids had a blast helping daddy and playing out in the dirt with some of the boys. We have slowed down on some of the kids crusades for now as Doug cannot do it all by himself and me and my belly and back are counting down the weeks til Carsten arrives. We are doing a whole lot with the International Church here as the pastor here is on furlough and Doug was asked to be one of the interim pastors. So that is keeping Doug pretty busy with also teaching at the bible college and doing smaller projects here and there.

September (the rest of the month)

2006-10-23T15:48:00.000+02:00

I cannot believe that it is already the first of October! The kids and I decorated for harvest yesterday, as we head into summer here. The seasons are opposite here but I still decorate as if we were home.

Kaden turned three on the 21st and boy is he excited. We have a little rule that the kids cannot chew gum until they are three. He got a batman outfit for his birthday and some other cool things and had his “Super Hero” birthday party this last weekend. About 10 of his little friends came dressed us as some sort of super hero, we even had the “Alpha and Omega” here!!
We are about 9 weeks or so away from the birth of #3 Baby Balocious, as Kaden calls him. We actually have decided on a name though – Carsten (anointed) Timothy (after my dad meaning to honor God) Myers.

My friend Tracey (we are due on the same day, obviously my 3rd, her 1st, right???)
The kids are pretty cute about the baby, they talk to him and kiss my tummy every night. Kylea does the most talking to him, she is so curious and proud that she was a big part of our decision on the final choosing of the name. She is wondering if this baby is going to come out brown since we live in Africa where most of the babies are brown!! I think I set her straight on that one. Pregnancy is going well I feel huge and am still having trouble with vein issues in my legs ahhhhhhh!
Doug is busy lately doing my “honey do list”, as he informs me I must be nesting! Anyways, he is helping to build wardrobes (closets) for seven orphan homes for one of our churches, so he is either playing “Bob the Builder” or “Tim the Tool Man” either way he is pretty handy and super busy with some of the work projects going on here. Good thing he is so handy with all of this stuff, thanks dad Myers!!

September 2006 (so far)

2006-09-13T22:29:00.000+02:00

September,
Our trip to Jo’burg: We took James back to Joburg and decided to stay a couple of extra days since Monday was the Reed Dance, where annually the King takes another wife, and Wednesday was Independence day here. So we took some of our good friends, Charles and Kristen with us and went for a mini get away after a long winter (summer in USA). We got there Monday, and I had another baby dr. apt. and all it well, he is right on target for Dec. 15, so we will see. The only troubles that I am having are my legs, luckily my mom was able to send out a pair of surgical support hose with 20-30 compression, boy are those fun getting on. Let’s just say it took Doug and I and about 10 minutes to get them on. . . .
We took James to the airport and sent him back to the states, the kids were pretty bummed as they love having family here and we have been so blessed our first term having so much family come out for some reason or another. So Tuesday we shopped and ate and relaxed, my kind of fun, sometimes you forget what that is like and with South Africa having major malls just like home you almost forget you are in Africa! Wed. we of course did some more shopping and found a nice rug to go under my dining room table since my chairs are getting destroyed from the tile (yeah)! We then proceeded on to take the church projector in to some place we had three different directions to, after making a few wrong turns and finding the unmarked building we realized it was almost 4 o’clock. We decided to stay and extra night since South Africa is not the safest of places to be esp. in the dark. So we found this new shopping center and ate at this amazing new restaurant called Cappuccinos, it was wood fired pizza and it was great. We felt like we were in America. Across the way was this Espresso restaurant places where they had this section for kids to roll out dough and they cooked the cookies for them.

We headed back to our hotel and came across a lady who had just been robbed. We saw this man running across the street and then another one following him. As we looked where they were coming from we saw a lady standing outside of her car with glass everywhere. Doug and Charles jumped out and I got in the drivers seat and locked the doors. They sent us to the hotel (which was across the street) to call the police. Come to find out this man was pretending like he was begging and came up to the car, saw the ladies purse on her lap, busted the window, grabbed her purse and ran. Her husband got out and ran after the man. There were 2-3 other guys on different corners of the street that were coming towards her until Doug and Charles got out to help her. These other guys then backed of and a car came up and at least one of them got in and drove off, so who knows what else could have happened. There is a lot of car theft in Africa. So all is well now, the husband somehow retrieved the purse and they left. Crazy world we live in. We headed back to Swaziland and had the worst boarder experience so far, oh well, life goes on!

August 2006

2006-09-13T22:15:00.000+02:00

August,

James our nephew arrived and then the team from Yakima, WA followed the next day. It is always exciting to have teams, a lot of work, but fun! My kids especially love it. It started of snowing in Jo’burg the day before the team arrived, we were all shocked, just flurries though. The team arrived to one of the worst storms we have had in Swaziland in a long time. Lights and water were out everywhere and trees and power lines down all over. We were without power and water for about 3 days and the team for the first 5 days as they were up north. It was quite the welcome to Africa. Kaden had a blast with this team as it was the first kids crusade he got to be a part of. The team left and James stayed another three weeks.

Beth Moore, an excellent bible study writer, speaker, etc. came to South Africa! So of course that called for a road trip with my Wednesday morning bible study group. All 10 of us crammed into two cars, luggage and all and made the 4+ hr. treck to Jo’burg to hear our current bible study teacher. She was amazing and even invited our group in back afterwards to chat and take pics.

Still no word on our car, we have to get the approval from speed the light before we can do anything, needing a new engine is quite expensive! We are so bummed as we hate having this car trouble and having to depend on speed the light to depend on it, we are such believers in speed the light since being youth pastor’s previous to coming here. (speed the light is the offerings that come from AG churches from youth ministries to help missionaries get vehicles).

July 2006

2006-09-13T21:53:00.000+02:00

July,

The month started off with us having a little 4th of July party here at the house. We had just a few friends over and Doug went down to one of the three little Chinese shops and bought some fireworks. It just doesn’t feel right though all bundled up freezing outside watching fireworks, since we are in the winter here.
Kaden caught a nasty virus going around called rotavirus spiking a temp and then followed by throwing up with runny tummy. Followed by Kylea who spiked an even greater temp of 105.1, which was a little scary, but we got it down and the kids seem better. Now poor Doug is battling a soar throat and sickness of some sort. Lord, protect me and the baby.
I don’t ever remember being sooooo teary with the other pregnancies, but man this one I am having about one day a week where all I can do is cry. I feel so homesick and stuff. I think we had such a great time with Doug’s parents and them leaving, teams coming knowing June-August are our busiest times and then we have summer which seems sick and wrong with all of the seasons and holidays at home. October through December have to be the hardest months for missionaries.
My cousin (one out of the five of us girls all on one side who are prego and due before the end of the year) emailed the other day and informed us she is also having a boy. That now makes three boys so far. Kylea piped up and said "you know what daddy I think that God just ran out of girl parts and now he is just into makin' boys" hahaha. She was a little disappointed that it looks like we also are having a boy; she wanted a sis so bad. I have been sorting through clothes of the stuff I brought here from the kids and looking at Kylea’s clothes made me a little sad thinking we probably will not have another girl to dress up in these cute clothes, I felt like I was mourning, oh these hormones gotta love them.
20th- I went to check on the kids during their nap before getting on the computer to get some things done and 20 min. later Agnus, the lady who helps in our home came to me to ask where Kaden was and if I had seen the big mess in the bathroom. I got up headed for the bathroom to find red cinnamon toothpaste and blue kids toothpaste bottles on the floor and smeared into the carpet. I noticed our bedroom door was closed so as I opened it I was my patriotic son standing there in just a shirt and a toothpaste body mask, red from feet to knees and blue from knees to waist and white on his face.
25th- today reminded me of a children’s book I used to read to my first graders, "Alexander’s horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day!! Obviously not that bad but frustrating enough!

Our car was knocking so we went to the petrol (gas) station to get the oil checked and it barely registered so they put 3- 500 ml cans in of oil. I go to get a muffin at the coffee shop and they are out, at breakfast time and I am prego and hungry. I go to leave while Doug has his meeting and am blocked in cuz someone parked right behind me AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHh! We get home in time to lay down for 30 min. then to wake up pack up the kids and go to Motjane and pick up the intern and take him all the way to Bulembu, where we also have a meeting and dinner plans. On the way up the mtn (malagwan) to the main city Mbabane our car starts knocking louder and louder and then it sounds as if something in the engine was severely wrong. So we make it to the top of the hill and drive it into a garage and they check the oil and the reader shows it is dry!! So we put 4 more 500ml cans in and get it to a different garage. They told us it would need to be towed to South Africa, something is very wrong with it!! Not to mention we are to go to Johannesburg Monday to pick up our nephew and a team and a baby dr. appt which is a 4 hrs drive. So we have borrowed another missionaries car til Thurs. then we have to figure something else out. Needless to say we did not make it to Bulembu or to pick up the intern, thank the Lord Pete was here to help us and take us home and get the intern to Bulembu.

Oh let me back up before I get too far. After waking from my little nap I went to wake kaden only to find he was not in his bed asleep like he should have been. I noticed the bathroom door was closed and someone was trying to get out. So I opened the door to find my little cherub buck naked standing on the emptied out garbage can trying to open the door. He was proclaiming to me that he went wee wee and also put paper down the toilet. Then he got this little grin and said “I went wee wee in my shoe too!!" I said what, show me. So still buck, he proudly walked across the hall into his room and picked up his light up fire truck tennis shoe and showed me he weed in it and boy did he. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh. I think God has a major sense of humor on me right now knowing I have another boy on the way!! I don’t relate to this at all as Doug says it is totally normal for all the "exploring " this boy does. By the way after washing the shoes a few time and febreezing (which I brought from the states) them we ended up giving them away, the smell was way too bad.

We ended the month with a little Christmas in July party, since it was the middle of winter and the closest feeling to Christmas we get around these parts!

June 2006

2006-07-11T21:45:00.000+02:00

Kaden was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia on Friday before leaving for Jo’burg and was given some meds to take along with a nebulizer machine. We picked up Gordon and Teri on Sunday morning and Monday had my baby dr. appt. We headed back to Swaziland and Tuesday took Kaden back in for a follow up. I was shocked when she told us he wasn’t doing better and we needed to head to Nelspruit, South Africa to have him looked at by a specialist pediatrician and most likely admitted. She told us to be prepared to stay at least three nights. We were not able to get into a specialist til Thursday though. So, Thursday we headed up to Nelspruit (2.5 hr. drive) and left Kylea and Grandpa and Grammi behind, not knowing if we were coming right back that night or staying. The dr. checked him out, sent us for x-rays and told us he wanted to admit him. I began to cry, I was so sure that he was getting better. Doug headed downstairs to fill out the paper work while they took me to the children’s ward and began giving him inhalations and an IV, and taking blood. My little baby was screaming and crying and I was trying so hard to be strong and not to do the same, but I gave in. Kaden looked over at me and asked “mommy, why are you so sad?” in between his sobbing. He had an IV hooked to his hand, physiotherapy twice a day, inhalations three times a day and meds. We had some amazing friends who drove from Swaziland just to see us and Kaden, what a blessing being so far away from home.

Sunday came and we were told we would be able to go home, but the dr. wanted more x-rays first. After he looked at the pics he was not completely happy with what he saw. Needless to say he told us we would have to stay at least until Tuesday. I was once again devastated and we began texting some of our friends to see if anyone was coming up so we could get Kylea and grandpa and grammi up with us, which we did. Tuesday came rolling around and we were discharged and headed home.

We had a blast with Doug’s parents going on dates and playing around. Every weekend had been filled with some sort of children’s ministry too. Doug has been busy doing Children’s teacher training for Sunday schools and kids clubs and we had a two man team come in for a set up trip in that time too.
We had planned a trip to the Drakensburg Mountains in South Africa for the 19-23 of the month. Well both kids this time were sick. We decided to postpone our trip and see the dr. once again and she said kaden had a pretty bad ear infection and bronchitis again and Kylea had the same but not so bad. So we cancelled our trip and stayed warm (as it is winter here) and hung low for a few days. We found a couple of new places we had not yet been, we went to the cultural village and hiked back into the water fall area, it was nice to get out.
The 27th we headed back to Jo’burg to take back Gordon and Teri, but first had my first scan (ultrasound). She informed us I was 16 weeks instead of 15, which is always good news and that moved my due date from the 21st of December to the 15th, which was good too, farther away from Christmas. We brought the whole family in for the viewing of the baby and boy was the baby active!! She took a pic and stopped for a view to ask us if we wanted to know what it was, we all agreed and she informed us that she was pretty sure it was a boy. Well Kylea did not like that. She began to question the dr. and ask how she knew, if she was sure, and that it could still be a girl, the dr. could be wrong. But we all confirmed we saw some parts of him that definitely made him a boy. Kylea began to fight back the tears as she backed out of the room silently, we turned around to see her half way out the door still looking at the screen with big tears in her eyes. Doug went over there and took her out and talked with her about how God knows exactly what our family needs. She is doing much better with it, but still argues it could be a girl!

April & May 2006

2006-07-10T20:43:00.000+02:00

April 2006
“Round 3” as of April 17th we found out that we are adding to the Myers tribe!! We are so excited to have another addition to our family. I know some people think that I am crazy, we already have one of each and we are in Africa, so far away from home. Things are more normal here than some may think and we are 4 hrs away from Jo’burg, South Africa if we want to deliver there.

It was exciting today to see that the school was donated two water tanks for the children to drink and for making their food, as there have been many days they barely had enough clean water to cook with. The kids can now wash their hands before eating too, which is a good thing!! I had been an interesting task teaching this group of teachers. I went to assess them, yes the teacher and found out that two of them know almost all the letters except about 2-3 letter and sounds they missed about 7 sounds each. So, it is like I am teaching first grade all over again. God must have a sense of humor since I have been missing desperately teaching in the states where I have all the resources possible at my disposal, and now I am teaching some of those same basic first grade skills with no resources.

The end of April to mid May is holiday or term break. The schools here run Jan. to Dec. and consist of three terms separated by about a three week break. So we got with some of our missionary friends and headed south to the beach, Durban. It was so nice to go down and see the ocean, especially with both Doug and I growing up in the northwest area around water all the time. We had a blast jumping waves in the Indian Ocean, making sand castles, digging for crabs and gathering shells and just relaxing as a family.

Our friend Lynette who was saved in our living room a couple of weeks ago went to Mozambique for holiday and we found out that her 5 year old son got Malaria and went through some pretty bad stuff at the hospital. He had three or four of the strands possible and was admitted and the nurse put all his IV down him in less than half of the time it was supposed to be done, etc. We phoned her and asked her if we could come and pray with her and Keenan. We went by the store and got him a little toy and some sweets and headed to Manzini. We prayed with them and two days later got a call from Lynette saying his Malaria has been cleared!! So cool!

May 2006
Kaden is so cute with the baby, he is telling everyone he has a baby in his tummy! And when we are cuddling or he is laying or sitting on me he is very sensitive that he is not hurting the baby, cuz it could cry. Kylea, is going to be such a great help she is putting her votes in for a sister, of course. Who knows with how sick I have been! Kylea I was very sick that first trimester, Kaden just nauseous, who knows?! This one I have been very sick multiple times daily and nauseous pretty much all day every day, fun, fun! Thank goodness for a husband who is not afraid to help, esp. in the kitchen!

We were driving somewhere and Kaden was doing something that surprised Doug and I and Doug looked back at him and said “you little smarty pants”! Kaden replied with “I am not a farty pants, daddy, you’re a farty pants” haha! He had trouble with his s sounds in some words and they generally come out as f’s. Oh, he is all boy!! Kylea on the other hand is all girl, she loves to dress up and put on make-up and play mommy. She is getting so grown up too, I look at her to expect to see my little pixie at 18 months old with two little piggie tails sticking out the sides of her head with her big blue eyes. She loves going to school and is learning her letters and picking up spelling. She can of course spell her name, but her first word to spell was MOMMY!! Ha after saying daddy first I finally get my name in there in the spelling hall of fame!! I will never forget on mothers day when she was 1yr. and at church they had a mom video of a bunch of the kids in the church and at the very end they had her standing there and asked her to say mommy and she tilted her little blond head and batted her big blue eyes and said “dada”, it was cute!

This is a month of celebration, Doug turned 31, it was Mothers day and we celebrate 8 years of marriage on the 30th of the month!! Party, party, party!

We are gearing up for Doug’s parents to come “Grandpa & Grammi”. We actually have not seen them since we were in the states and Kaden was four months old. They have been in Indonesia and are coming to see us, the kids cannot wait.

Ministry wise, I am still doing my Wednesday morning bible study with a group of about 9-10ish ladies, we just finished a book by Joanna Weaver called “Having a Mary heart in a Martha World”, incredible book. I also just started another bible study in my home for a couple of new Christians. There were four of us this last Sat. and am excited to see it grow. It was amazing to sit and begin to disciple these ladies and have God confirm his abilities in me. I am seeing strengths that I never knew I had, and a lot that I am still lacking!!

God has begun to open some serious doors with our hearts desire and the vision that he give us before coming here. We are praying for direction and continued favor with the people.

We headed to Jo’burg to pick up Doug’s parents and have my first baby dr. visit.

March 2006

2006-07-07T10:07:00.000+02:00

“The month of potty training!” Now that Kaden is officially 2 ½ and has an interest in going on the potty we have been slowly going for it. Doug got tired of consistently having accidents so he picked up the potty training in a day book, and did it with Kaden. It was so funny to watch Doug get a doll put a sponge in her making her go potty. The funny thing is it worked, for now. We are still having some accidents, but he is a big boy. You will hear him yelling “I’m a big boy” over and over again when he has to go as he is running for the bathroom!

I am still going down south to one of the rural areas Phuzumoya (poo-za-moy-ya) every Tuesday. I has been a challenge doing so as the teachers themselves do not know English very well. I have to have a translator with me at all times. Yet we are plugging away.

Doug had the opportunity to preach at the International church here on Sunday and it was phenomenal! One of the queen’s who often attends was there, which was pretty cool too. He preached on intimacy with God and it was very powerful. The next day one of my girl friends called and said she had brought a friend to church and she wanted to accept Christ in her life, but wanted to talk to Pastor Doug first. They both came over and had a nice long chat with Doug and I and right there in our living room she knelt down and accepted Christ into her life!! I have been with others accepting Christ, but this was different God was so pursuing Lynette it was amazing and she was soooo incredibly passionate about it. God is faithful.

In my devotions I came across something that came pretty profound to me:
In “My Beloved Disciple” by Beth Moore:
“have you ever exclaimed in exasperation, “God never lets me get away with anything?” have you ever noticed to, God seems particularly jealous with you? Then he refuses to allow you to do mindless and meaningless actgivities that He seems to toleralte in other believers? **He does so because you have proved to be a cooperative, fruit bearing child. He knows that you are his prime branch through whom He can be glorified.” Wow that one just hit me upside the head. To be completely honest this is how I sometimes feel when I am throwing my two year old tantrum “why me, why so far away, in Africa? Why not someone else? Why can’t I be at home where everything is normal?” then God reminds me, it is not about little me, there is more out there, I have found favor in God’s sight. As my pastors wife say’s “I am his favorite daughter!”

February 2006

2006-03-07T21:23:00.000+02:00

February 2006

10th - I went with Glenda down south to what is referred to as the “bush”. I always imagined the bush more like a jungle or literally in the bushes. This is just the most rural part of the country, and extremely poor. We went down to meet with the pastor and community and leaders to present our heart for the community and wanting to help by training some of the teachers of the informal schools there. There are so many kids here uneducated due to lack of money. So many kids are orphaned that the oldest child is left to fend for the rest of the kids left behind. It is said that approx. 20% of home are lead by children 13 yrs. and younger. This community has come together and tried to put a school together. They were first literally meeting under a tree and when the rains came the community came together and put up a stick and mud hut for them to meet in. The are fed two meals (usually a pourage of some sort) and educated by volunteers in the community, young adults with very little education themselves no higher than a seventh grade education at the most, no teaching education whatsoever. So my job is to work with these teacher once a week just training them, giving them ideas or what ever I can help with. It has been a total challenge for me going from teaching in the states with all the curriculum, paper, copiers, art supplies, markers, desks, etc. to nothing here. They have one med. sized chalk board to teach with and some random old already-used donated book from a local school (which do not seem to be too helpful), no desks some paper and pencils that have been donated. Wow I have gotten off subject, well we had this meeting with the community and leaders completely African outside this hut on the ground in the dirt. We were surprised that the community was so open to us and gave us pretty much free reign with the school and training teachers. During the meeting some ladies started screaming and we turned around to this homestead directly behind us and a man was beating his wife with a stick. First on the back of the head then her face and more, I will spare you the details. The pastor and some of the men got the old man to stop and he claimed he left her at the pub and came home to eat and she walked in on him eating!? Crazy, and this meeting was at 10am. So the police were called and they actually came with in the hour, but did nothing because it was a domestic problem that needed to be taken care of on the property. No wonder there is so much abuse and violence, no one wants the responsibility of dealing with it or being held responsible. It all died down and the meeting ended well and we are now off and running with this community and their school. This afternoon my heart has been so extremly heavy over what happened down in the rural area today and for so many more reasons. We feel like God has been challenging us to step out in some areas, but doors seem to always close and I am not understanding, I know we always do not understand. I have such a passion to teach and do what I know I am good at, like I did in the states, yet we are here and really not doing what we thought we would be doing. Trying to work towards it, I don’t know!

13th - Our first training day in Kumkwele went well. I had four teachers that I was working with and you would have thought I gave each of them a bundle of money. Simple things as making poster with them to put up on their stick and mud walls and talking through some structure of a schedule and stuff and they were shining from ear to ear. It excited me as I was feeling so down lately as to what my purpose here in Africa was. My priority is obviously my family and then ministry. I was a little nervous with teaching teachers to teach with no resources. I will be working with them next week and will probably be having all 64 kids drawing in the dirt floors with sticks or their fingers, we will see. I would love to see them get so much: individual chalk boards, desks, books, etc. but the community is coming together to fund a building and put it up and when we can pour a whole floor in the main hall for the same price as the mini chalk boards we have to live in the reality that they are used to having nothing and they do not notice the difference. Also when they are given everything they do not take care of it and seem to take so much for granted and generally looking for a handout. It is hard for me as an American though who is from the want it and get it now generation and mentality, which just does not work here.

14th - Doug and I actually had a date for valentines. I came home from grocery shopping and there were beautiful roses on my table and then we went out. The funny thing was that two other missionary couples were at the same restaurant having dinner. That is what you get with soooo many options here in small little Swaziland Africa!!

16th -Tonight we had a medical team here for dinner from the states. They are here and working daily holding clinics in different locations daily for 10 days straight, sooo much work. They have been seeing over 150 people/children daily and having to turn some away due to it getting so late. What an amazing ministry though.

19th - My baby girl turned 5 today!! I cannot believe it, time is flying by. We celebrated as a family today and will have a party next week.

25th - Today 6 of Kylea’s little friends came over to celebrate Kylea’s birthday with us. Since it is summer here we played sprinkler games and Kaden and I got burned. We had a blast running around with water balloons, sponges and just getting wet.

28th - Another month has come and gone! I spent this morning down in Kumkwele training we are up to about 8 teachers that I am working with. I am teaching them how to teach phonics and the alphabet their sounds and how to properly write the letters, I actually feel like I am teaching first and second graders. Some of them do not even know the sounds to each of the letters or the difference between a lower case and capital letter.
Tonight we had a spout of disobedience with Kylea. She reverted back to lying and telling me her brother did something and she actually did it. So we had a time of thinking and talking and discipline. Usually after discipline she pulls away from us. Now we are going through “Growing Kids God’s Way” and they touched on this in our last session so I tried it. I disciplined her and she pulled away and so I told her I would let her be and think about what just happened for a few minutes and I would be back. As soon as I began to leave she started crying for me and said she just needed me. So I sat down and she crawled up in my lap and we talked about why we discipline, how much I love her, etc. She has been amazingly clingy tonight, loving and hugging, and smooching. I know some parents are so much against disciplining, but for us it seems that when we set boundries and are consistant with them it truly shows our kids how much we love them and are watching out for them.

November-January journals (catching up)

2006-02-06T19:58:00.000+02:00

Novmeber’s Journal 05

As I am back tracking as this month we lost our computer to an electrical storm! Trying to see if we can get anything off especially my pics from 05 since I have not currently backed up anything-YIKES.

We had a full month of trainings and crusades which kept us pretty busy. Doug was also wrapping up another semester teaching with Graduation weekend being the same weekend as Thanksgiving and my birthday!

Thanksgiving day we spent with a lot of our friend missionaries here that are also from the states. We went to Ben and Susan’s home and had a blast sitting outside in the sun and the kids swimming and the guys out there in the yard with shorts on playing football. It was different, but a totally relaxing day. We had turkey, ham and a rotissary chicken with all the great stuff we usually have at home. It was humerous to me that a couple of Swazi’s came by and we offered them a plate of food and the actually did not care for it.
I was shocked as I think it is the best meal on earth.

My big 30 was on the 25th of this month (the day after T-day) and Doug did a great job. Twila, Judy, and myself went to the Guava Galleries, which is a little luncheon place where you sit outside and look at all the beautiful hills and stuff. Then at lunch Twila handed me a note from Doug letting me know to be at the Royal Swazi for a massage, which was wonderful. Sunday evenings is our time with about five other missionary couples with kids around the same ages and currently are going through Growing Kids God’s Way. Well we were on our way to class and little by little I was finding out that there was a supprise pary waiting there for me. Doug had been working with Ben and Susan the whole weekend and more preparing a luau for me. The had brought in sand and completely covered the veranda with sand and palm trees people brought my favorite foods. It was the best bday party I have ever had! They had the Beach Boys music blasting and we played some games including the Limbo! I felt as if I were in high school or I should say college all over again ( as I had way more fun in life in college).

December’s journal 05

We had the best December ever! God has totally blessed us with the opportunity to go home for the holidays, thanks to our Dad’s and Mom’s and the IRS, God supplies in mysterious ways sometimes!! We went home the 6th of December and hit the ground freezing and running. Going from 100+ degree weather here to low 30’s the day we came it was a shock to our systems. After getting our stuff and getting through customs we were off to the Olive Garden (our favorite). It was so nice to be with our family and be cold. The next few days we spent catching up on sleep and of course hitting Starbucks daily!! We were blessed by my “shopping” mother with some early Christmas presents of winter clothes, as we were not completely prepared for it being this cold. We arrived on a Wednesday and that Friday we spent the afternoon and evening in Seattle getting Santa pictures, and building some great memories. We spent that night with my brother and sis in law in their incredible new home, which I honestly was a bit jealous. Completely happy for them, but knowing in my heart they were living my idealistic dream. Saturday we got up and headed home not knowing my mom had planned surprise party for me to celebrate my thridieth. The house was full of family and friends and I was shocked. My parents gave me a silver necklace with one of my mom’s orrigional wedding diamonds in it. It was such a nice day and a total blessing as people brought us gift cards galore (that helped with our Starbuck’s addiction as we never had to pay for a coffee once!) Sunday, mom took Kylea and I to the Nutcracker in seattle which was so much fun, especially as my daughter’s eyes light up watching the ballerina’s and knowing the story. That next week we spent the week in Oregon with Genese, Doug’s sister and friends and family. We had a blast playing going on walks to the park, eating and just having fun. We came home with a fright as we got a call on our way back to my parents that my mom was being taken to the hospital by ambulience. She was having an irregular heart beat and her heart beat was increadibly fast. She was in and out of the hospital through Thursday which actually made for a nice and relaxing Christmas. We spent Christmas eve having a brunch followed by opening presents and playing games and having some quality family time. Christmas day we got up to see what Santa had brought us and then headed up to church. We came back to mom and dad’s to have a nice Christmas dinner with all the fixings.
Kylea had her first sleep over besides being with family. She has a little friend from home that has written her faithfully and we had picnic with them and the girls were having so much fun that Michelle asked me if Kylea wanted to sleep over with Megan, it was great and the girls are much more connected now, yeah!!

As is family tradition we went up to Leavenworth, WA up in the mountains for three wonderful nights with family. We were blessed with lots of snow the second day we were there. Kaden and Kylea could not get enough and Papa (my dad) had a blast playing right along with them. One time while sledding my dad went to go down with Kaden and he slipped out from under him and Kaden ended up going down on his own, well that was the end of going with others. Kaden was a little dare devil going down himself, while Kylea got tired of waiting for a sled and used her body as a sled and just ran and slid down the whole hill in her full bodied snow suit. And of course mom and I had a blast shopping and “just looking” at all of the cute little shops.
We came home New Year’s Eve in time to help unload the car and pack and Doug and I took off for two night with just us while the kids had some quality time with Nana and Papa. We went to some friends that we used to be on staff with and played games and ate til after 2am. Had not been a while since doing that.

January’s Journal 2006
New Years Day we met up with our best buddies Kendra and Jeremy (with no children) in Seattle. We had such a blast hanging out and just having fun. We ate at one of my new favorite restaurants PF Chang’s and of course had our Starbuck’s and then played games and ran stairs (hahaha). We had such a blast hanging out and not worrying about anyone but ourselves, we felt like we were back in college all over again.
After many trips to Target, Costco and the mall we headed home on the 9th. We left Seattle and arrived in London 9 ½ hrs later. Exhausted and waiting for a 5+ hr. layover. As we went to check in the guy took our tickets and informed us that we were not on that flight, but the one that left two hrs. later, AAHHHHHHHH! So make that 5+ hr. layover to almost 8hrs. We were glad to get to South Africa with only a 4.5 hr. drive home.
It took quite a while on this end to get adjusted, esp. for me for some reason.
24th- Kylea started back to preschool with a different teacher, which she is very partial to her teacher from last year.
29th-I am staying home from church with Kaden as I think he may have chicken pox. It has been an interesting day to put it. Doug captured and drowned a mouse this morning in the house! Kylea has told a couple of lies in the last day or two, and now Kaden may have chicken pox. I feel so down, I think coming off of the high of being home has done it too me. I go to the grocery store and find myself completely frustrated that they do not have what I need and a lot of the shelves are bare especially after coming from shelves of food in the US that were overflowing with food. Oh yeah, and the other day we were swimming I think Wednesday or so and Kaden was sitting on the steps and I did not notice he took his water wings off and I was talking to Doug and watching Kylea and I turned to glance at Kaden and he was in the pool frolicking to stay above water, I paniced sp??. So my son could have drowned thank the Lord he did not. He freaked out pretty bad, but Doug got him back in the water to make sure he would be ok. Worst mom award here for the week!!
30th-So I think that Kaden actually has a case of hand, foot, mouth but still watching him as his blisters are pretty bad. I think motherhood should be only given if you have some sort of a nursing background too.

October Journal

2005-11-07T20:39:00.000+02:00

What a busy month!

1st-We started off the first day in a rural community called Gaigai (gey-gey). We did our first training and crusade back to back. It made for a very long day, but went extremely well. We got there and did training on the importance of children’s ministry and some practical how to’s and some hands on practicing of what we just taught. We took an hour break then got ready to bring in the kids. We have a blue gorilla costume that we are currently borrowing, until we can find our own, and a battery powered megaphone. We brought in over 80 kids in the community and a few adults to bring us over 100 people in this church. Mind you the church is a small room off of the back of a market that has a big pole support beam right in the middle of it. The crusade went from 2:30-4pm and lots of kids wanted to invite Jesus into their hearts and come back for Sunday school the next day! Our goal is to help churches develop or strengthen their children’s program and get the community to know more about the local church and show kids serving God can be exciting. After getting home we about collapsed though. The kids stay with a babysitter during the day as it is too hard to take them out all day and keep and eye on them.
Kylea and I decorated for fall, even though we are headed into the summer here. Another tradition that I want to keep up for my kids, and we really don’t have the true season changes like at home so we do our own season changes with decorating.
We are getting closer on the pool project. Doug has built a waterfall into the pool as the inlet, now we are just waiting for the electrician to come out and hook up electricity to the pump and stuff!!

10th-We are doing a small group with five other couples and going through “Growing Kids God’s Way”. We decided to take a family day and go to Badplaas (bod-plauce), South Africa. About 1.5 hrs from home. It is a very small town with pretty much this little hotel and water park. It was fun though; it in a way reminded me of starting a tradition like camping with all of our family and friends when I was little. They had four speed racing slides and one long winding slide, an intertube run, a kid’s pool and two hot springs pools. It was small, but nice to get out of Swaziland and have fun with family and friends.

19th-Our home church in Issaquah (Eastridge Christian Assembly) came for a trip this week. It was sooooo good to spend some quality time with Pastor Steve and Cheryl (since that is my love language). We had a great time as Pastor Steve spoke here at the Bible College and then in the afternoon’s we hung out. Wednesday, Cheryl came to be a part of the bible study I am leading at my home, which was incredible! Doug and Pastor Steve hit the greens as it was well above the 90’s. The rest of the week we had a chance to eat out and in our home and give them a small tour of some of the local places we have done some work with.

22nd-We had another back to back training and crusade, which went well also. This church is not far and we had 9 workers who came for the training! The kids kept on coming and coming it was great, we had 137 kids there. It is so encouraging to train these leaders and get them right back involved with the crusade, helping with worship, the bible story, etc. It is encouraging to go from church to church and see the people with a heart for kids already!! That night we came back just in time to put some lasagna’s in the oven and get ready to feed the whole ECA team (11). It was nice to have them all in our home especially with all the church has done for us! One of the girls stayed at our home for the next three nights as they did some local ministry.

24th – We took our first swim the pool, finally! It was so nice after waiting for a year of it being
built, falling apart then rebuilding it; things seem to take sooo much longer here. It is perfect timing though as summer and rainy season are upon us and we are averaging 90+ days two 110 degree days back to back, yikes. Coming from Washington, we are not used to this but it is quickly becoming the norm. It will be quite the change going home for Christmas in a few weeks here.

26th-I am realizing more and more how different boy’s are from girls-ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Today I had bible study and there are three little toddlers, 2 of them are two and one is three. Well I decided that I would have them watch a movie in the office on Doug’s lap top while we did our study since none of them wanted to just play. So, I turned on a spiritual movie, veggie tales of course and the next thing I knew was that they came out covered in markers, not just one color mind you, a rainbow of colors. I walked in the office to see markers from my teaching bag everywhere with no lids!!!! As I looked around I noticed the desktop computer turned into a work of art. All over the screen, keyboard and white desk! It took us about 45 minutes to clean it all up using a q-tip to clean in between each of the keys.

29th- We ended the month with our annual little harvest party for the kids. We had 7 families that we had another party for. We had the kids dress up and went around on the campus here to a couple of other missionary homes (some had 3 doors that we went to). We came back to our house where Doug had set up a couple of games. It was fun just remembering some of the things we do at home, it helps us not feel so far away.

Kylea's comment of the month: I had read the story of Peter and Paul to the kids before bed, then taught them the song that goes with it “silver and gold have I none . . .” At the end of the song it says “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk”. So Kylea was walking around the house the next day singing it again and again then stopped and asked me “ Mommy if I told someone “In the name of Jesus Christ stand up and walk” would they?” I informed her that healing had nothing to do with her, but Jesus using her to heal someone. We talked about this for a while that Jesus uses us to love, heal, encourage others. We are not to be proud or get the glory for it, because we did not really do it, Jesus did. I explained that Jesus died on the cross and because of that He has the power of healing people. I asked her if she died on the cross, she thought about it a while and said “No, but I’ve been hurt pretty bad before!”

September Journal

2005-10-16T22:08:00.000+02:00

We are finally getting some work done on our bridge. We had to get all new support beams and slats (almost 300 slats). At home this job should have taken 2 days, but here we don’t just have Home Depot down the street. We had to order the wood, and then treat it with tar/cresol stuff and then screw them in. Unfortunately you cannot buy screws in bulk so we are working with little packets of screws. At least the bridge will be safe and usable again soon.

I went to a meeting tonight dealing with the AIDS pandemic here and the government is having a consensus taken in all the regions of what to do, how to do it, and who to help. It is crazy over here. The published rate of AIDS as of 2004 was over 46.6% which was determined by testing only pregnant women. So if you throw in the men to that number we are talking over 60% said by some doctors. We discussed the effects of AIDS on individuals, families, communities, etc. We talked also about the overwhelming orphan increase and how to deal with it all. We came up with a couple of things. We are in desperate need of education/counseling centers. This would be for people who are affected with AIDS or working with AIDS people, the medical workers are burned out and loose hope as well as the people in general. We came up with coming back to the importance of family, family structure, and influencing leadership. When the culture and leadership of this country is polygamist it is really hard to make a change for the better with abstinence or remaining faithful to your wife. Swaziland need our help and more so our prayers, as it has gone too far and needs God's mercy.

Kaden poked himself in the eye with his screwdriver as he thinks he is Bob the Builder (which is the theme of his party this month). My mom sent these cute little kid friendly ice packs called “boo boo buddies”. He is still working on all of his sounds so for him it comes out “boobie bunny”, he is such a cute little guy and for the most part the kids play so good together. I guess they really have no choice!! He has been trying to catch up with big sis and is counting and they love the 1-2-3 count with me by sesame street video. He is counting up to 11 missing only 5 and is shocking Doug and me. Sorry had to brag a little. Kylea is working still on her fruit of the spirit chart and has to count her stickers to see how far she is. When she reached 25, we took her to the store to pick out a candy bar; of course she chose an ice cream bar. She is now close to 50 which she will earn another candy/ice cream bar and an extra family party night on her choice of night (family party night for us is every Friday night, we have a fun dinner play games make milkshakes and watch a movie together). Kylea is now counting to 39; she is doing great and is remembering all sorts of stuff that Doug and I don’t even remember. She is excited to come home for Christmas and make snow angels (we make water ones here in the bath), a snowman and throw snowballs at Papa!! She is quite the artist!! I would love to get her into art lessons with a friend of ours but it is the same time a ballet, we will see. She is just enjoying life and curious about everything, esp. God and how it all works right now.

Today we trained another church, well actually two as the original church invited another church. We did training on the importance of children and how to do a program with and for children then did some practicals and demonstrations. Next week we will return for a kid’s crusade.

Today after church we went again with Lad and Crystal to the Lugogo, which is one of the nice hotels in the area. Lad has the entire Dream for Africa teams come in and stay there so he has good relationship with them and we can swim at the pool if we eat there.
After we got home one of our boys from church that we teach came to our home and told Doug he ran away from home. His parents are out of the country and have been for almost month and left he and his sisters there home at the homestead with the neighbors. Well the neighbors are accusing him of breaking some things and are threatening to beat him and he obviously does not feel safe so came here. Doug and Musa (the bible college student that we are training and run the children’s church here) are meeting with him now in the living room. Doug counseled with him earlier and we took him back home and he returned not feeling safe to stay there. Oh as Americans we are so spoiled and guarded by laws and organizations. Here no one really seems to care about the children. My heart breaks that these parents would even leave for such a long time. Lord have mercy on the children here as they are so innocent, most of them and still have so many horrible things happen to them. In our bible study tonight we are going through Growing Kids God’s Way and learning about child-centered homes (where parents put the child as most important in the family, where that is not how God intended the family to be, your relationship with God should be first then your spouse then your children). It is weird to think that it is the opposite here. Sometimes children are not even considered! Pushed to do the work, or not even cared for. Lord have mercy on the parents!

We are doing great, Kylea just started her third term of preschool and will finish for summer break in Dec. (weird huh) Yep, we are heading into summer here and it has been hot, at least the mid 90's. Kaden turns two Sept. 21 and is talking up a storm and love to make believe and go on walks around the bible college campus with mommy. We have stayed pretty busy on the weekends with children’s ministry training. we are going out to churches and training leaders on the importance of children and training them while they are still young, we also help churches plant a children ministry by training and getting some simple supplies to them like Sunday school curriculum, paper (the end of a newsreel), markers, and sometimes sock puppets (which we teach them to make and use) with a mini puppet stage. Following the training the next weekend we do a kid’s crusade which on avg. we have 150-200 from one community come. We have also started doing kids clubs running 3-4 consecutive days. Doug during the week is teaching part time at the bible college, training and building relationship with pastors. It is funny because we are not doing all that we though we would be doing here, working with orphans and AIDS, in a way we are, but not as we pictured. We totally feel like God is laying a foundation for us as we are still learning the culture and language. Please pray with us though, Swaziland is at the top of the charts with this aids pandemic, it is absolutely crazy. In the papers we on average are counting around 50 deaths per day (not including the rural communities where they are so poor to even advertise), and in a country that only a few years ago was 1 million people (obviously smaller now) that is a lot. The king has recently redone the constitution and taken out that Christianity as the main religion, and suddenly Islam is everywhere. The latest paper advertised scholarships for school if you would convert to Islam, yikes! Please pray for us, the only way this battle will be won is on our knees.

So the saga with the package is this: we got the notice in our box this morning that we had a package and it said from USA, so we knew it was yours. Looking at the slip we saw that we would owe 336 rand to get it, which equals almost $60. Doug has made some relationships with a man in customs so we went to try and find him to see if we could only pay the tax which was 130 rand = $20+. We went to the building where customs used to be and it moved. After four stops of trying to find the correct building, keep in mind not many places are marked here, Doug finally found it. He went in met the prince, who is in charge and is a Christian man. He told his secretaries to get what Doug needed, he had to leave. The ladies told Doug he would have to go across town to the post office to get the form first, come back and they would sign it and then go back to get the package (these two places are on opposite sides of Mbabane). So Doug came back out to the car and we were out of gas, due to parking down slope. Two guys towed us out of our parking spot so we were now faced up slope and had enough gas to get down the hill to the station. We then headed to the post office and were told there is no form. Doug got them to officially write down all the information on the package, they informed him that a signature would not work, and we would have to bring someone down from customs to deal with the situation. We left and went back to customs and got the secretary to sign the paper. We headed once again back to the post office and the lady had to talk to her supervisor and finally agreed to give us the package only charging sales tax. This episode took over 2 hours, yikes! Can you say we need a little organization and efficiency training here in Swaziland? I am not telling you this to make you feel bad, just a little humor of our lives here.

We had Kaden’s Bob the Builder 2nd birthday party on Saturday the 24. We had a blast playing pin the wrench on Bob’s tool belt and dressed all the kid’s up with mini tool belts and hats (all the stuff was from the states of course). I gave in a made another cake, though I had resigned from that position on the last birthday party as making and decorating cakes is not my gifting. After he opened all his presents, Doug brought out a train table that he made (I found a picture of one that I liked in the Pottery Barn for kids magazine). My parents got him a Thomas the train set, which he wore the first set of batteries out in 4 days. We are still on the second set. He is now officially into cars, trains and crashing them into each other. Boys will be boys.