6 Kids, 6 Days - Part 5

Puking is a fine art. Apparently when children sprint to a public toilet they quite likely will barf a second too soon. During the slip-and-slide effect, said child may actually careen completely under the toilet. Remember public toilets are wall mount? Sometimes it takes a few tries. Don't lose heart if at first you have a neat and tidy urp only to napkin it off.

On the way home watch for signs of round two mop-up. Pull over at the slightest groan. Most likely the almost empty wet wipe box can double as a has-mat container. The remaining three wipes will shine away an amazing amount of soggy shrapnel. You may feel like you are on a wet wipe commercial for their valiant effort. Of course, it will be dark and nice drivers will light up the smeary mess for your convenient clean-up.

By the time you reach home everyone will feel a little less barfy and just tired. Whoever hops in the shower first may miss another display when sibling pukes explosion style. Then again that may wait until morning. Of course, you'll have company to share the wild ride. Why keep it boring?!

At this point, a 21 gun salute to the modern disinfectant wipe is in order. And to Craig. THANK-YOU.

Here is our SECOND water park visit. This time I am queasy-green and in denial. Thankfully, I did not puke until we got home. Look what I would have missed!






























Just a little taste of the fun we had.

Special thanks to the boys' chaperon who was also wonderful. Feel free to visit his blog HERE and donate if you want. Enjoy the videos of the boys fishing.

6 Kids, 6 Days - Part 4

There is always a lull before bedtime. One night we painted.

Don't children always draw their mothers, the ones that tuck them into bed?

"Tell me about your picture."

The pause is long, as if the images cannot coalesce into English words. There is a woman. An airplane. A cane and swirling light.

"It is Grandmother."

For a moment he remembers a far away place. It's invisible to me. His quiet words splash out onto the table like a stone in a pond. And the moment is gone.

6 Kids, 6 Days - Part 3

"I really like my friends. Can they stay with us for 11 years?" Janie's eyes shine with possibility. Eleven years is so much less than forever. She's thinking I'll probably say, "Yes!"

Sunday we head for the park. Including the boys' chaperon, "Uncle" Chris, we are a party of nine. We walk through the wideness of green grass and tall oaks, pines, a footbridge, rushing river. I remember that morning weaving elbow-to-elbow through church. For a moment the mass of people had swallowed up Janie. And as I had turned to shout for her, a little black boy, quick as if released from a gun, had grasped her small hand and pulled her through the sea. To me. And for just a second, I saw the essence of being a man. I wanted to stare at that reflex to protect, the pool of safety that gathered at his feet. I wonder who taught these boys to be men. As we walk, each one is the epicenter of something extraordinary. And though we cut a wide path no one is beyond our reach.

6 Kids, 6 Days - Part 2

The Fishing Trip





"That the BIGGEST fish I ever saw!" Jack is shouting. His fish swallowed the hook. The other children, clutching their catch run up and down the river bank. Even Jane is bare-handed holding a little squirmer, slime and all. Thanks, Huck Finn. It's a first ever fishing trip for two of our boys.





The kids hold up their fish for us to admire. This after reassurance that they don't bite. Craig puts his index finger in the fish's mouth. Everyone laughs and tries it. I notice the boys' small hands. Eight years old. Only three short years more than Jane. I wonder where the boys were born and who cared for them. I wonder who released them to America.





Thanks to Gramma's fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and apple pie, we finish fishing with full bellies and wide smiles. Ain't nothin' can touch the hospitality on the farm.

6 Kids, 6 Days - Part 1

Jack keeps praying, "And Jesus, please keep Daddy safe BACK to Africa." Sometimes he adds a phrase or two about Janie and Lulie and Momma and him too. We sort of shrug and wonder if he will pray that again tomorrow.


Then, Janie wants to host the African Children's Choir, "Because I want to see a little part of how Daddy felt in Africa," she says. Africa. Daddy. She wants to be like her Daddy, her hero. A small breath of completely-inexperienced-hostess from me and I realize I'll have six children for six days.



(Lulie not pictured.)

Slum kids. They're slum kids. Orphaned. The paper said not to ask about family. 10 days of airplanes and airports, bus rides, duffel bags, fresh clothes and three little African boys land in the middle of our family.




Derrick, Benson, and Reagan sleep in our sun room for almost a week. A little corner of Africa unfolds. They arrive all grins, belly-laughs, and wide eyed fascination with everything they see. Our world is stretched and turned by these three boys. I've never seen such sterling manners and unbridled joy all in one package.

Quarantine Lifted

9:26 am the phone rings. Janie answers. Daddy's in the shower but... "I'll go get Daddy." She marches in, "It's me!" pops our phone through the curtain. Of course, it's an official call when you take it buck-naked in the shower (bless his heart). Over the din of water Daddy clearly hears, "Test came back NEGATIVE." {Sigh}

YAY! Thank-you, Jesus.

And, thank-you all for your prayers.

Quarantine

"I'll give you a treat if you poop, but you have to do it in the little DISH." Yeah. The DISH. The lab gave us an upside down "top-hat" to fetch stool samples from the children. Stool samples, that's right. Guess who got to do the fetching. Did I mention Craig is sporting a strain of African Ghiardia? Oh, and one of the wee ones displayed an awesome spread of diarrhea, fully clothed, even shoes. The clean-up involved a plugged bathtub, lots of bleach, gagging, and my saintly mother. Let's just say I love bleach. And my momma.

They diagnose ghiardia with a stool sample - AKA, no stool sample, no medicine. Apparently the human body will sustain the entire life cycle of the amoeba. Indefinitely. Sooooo, hence the stool samples.

Of course the chillin's wanted to WATCH. Latex gloves, funny scoops, collection cups, I mean who wouldn't?! And Mom's on RED ALERT, the kids GIDDY. Giddy-up.

Then again, at least we can get meds. When the little African babies get this they die. Perish the thought.

Babylegs

Side Note: For everyone wanting more on the Africa story hop onto my momma's photo journal.

Click HERE to meet the people in my last post.

Click HERE for a day in the hospital.


:: :: :: :: :: ::

And in the spirit of pure sweetness, I present Babylegs.

That's right legwarmers are BACK!

Only a few short months ago my friend Heather tried to tell me, and now...























I'm convinced! (Incidentally, Heather writes a blog with an awesome title. Check it out HERE.)
























So, dress insensibly summer. Slap on polka-dot leggies and you're groovin' 'til lunch. Then in the noonday sun pull 'em off and soak it up!

















I think we've only made six or eight pairs...so far. For you bargain hunters, it's clearance season on women's knee high socks. Check out a great tutorial HERE to turn socks into legwarmers. Thanks, Cerissa! Your little Jude looks rockin' in them.
























Think Lulu likes them?!

Adiedo, Kenya - May 2009

So sorry to keep ya'all waiting on Kenya pics. These are snap shots of the village. Adiedo. No running water. Just rain. Until the dry season.

















Dirt floors. Blossoms on the path. A "shower" round back.

















And water collectors.

















I probably run enough water down the drain just waiting for it to get hot or cold to fill an army of these.
























A standard grain silo. The opening up top lets a small child in to retrieve grain.

















Home.

And faith that depends on God. Prayers. Prayers the size of a dirt floor and muddy pond of drinking water, the size and shape of a child's cries and graves for loved ones. And still they pray. Somewhere in their rich voices and straight backs, devotion emerges. The counterpoint of God answers them with the thunder of His presence.

I am impoverished praying small prayers to a small God, my two dimensional cut-out doll version. My kids forget their manners and ask God for the world. They pray He will heal our friends' baby, the one still in her mommy's tummy. They pray God will make this world well and help the cardboard-sign-guy by the road and help our neighbor's grandchild not have a tumor. They pray Lucy's eye will get better and Great-Grampa will know Jesus. They pray as if God will show up. As if he already has.

When have we prayed like that?! When is the last time we prayed for something so great, so embarrassingly huge that it truly depended on God. In the end our kids judge the size of our God by the size of our prayers. Makes me want to pray forever. I can't imagine God's intimidated. Probably delighted.

Anniversary

So today marks a nine year anniversary. Nine years ago I married this man (the one on the right). Here he is in Africa, handsome from half around the world.

Africa. The whole thing reminds me of an IQ test we took years ago. Craig beat my score. An unfortunate and decisive victory. {Sigh} It's laughable now, a couple of measly points and I did the only logical thing a smart girl does. I FREAKED. For those of you who know him, Craig wins at EVERYTHING. He's amazing. :) Think we're competitive? Let's just say we even have blood pressure competitions seeing who can score the lowest blood pressure at the grocery store pharmacy. (Try it, just thinking about it will raise your blood pressure.)

So anyway, I moped around for a few days until finally a very sweet sister-in-law asked, "Do you want your husband LESS intelligent than you?" Haha, touche'. No wonder it is a delight to banter with this guy still nine years later. He keeps me guessing. And who can put a score on irrepressible optimism. Pure gold.

Africa? That was an outrageous idea. Crazy. Out of the question. Worse than an IQ test, another worthy freak out topic. And still I hear my brother's voice, "Well, what kind of a man do you want Jack to be seeing?" And imitating. A fearless one. Honorable and fearless.

The kids still talk on Africa. Yesterday, driving in the heat their giggles weave into the roar of wind blowing through the windows. Through the white noise Jack's voice surfaces, "But, WHY did Daddy go to Africa?" His voice hangs in the air.

Janie takes the reigns, "Because GOD told him to go to Africa!"

What a gift. He went because God told him to. It's as normal as water. God TOLD him to. How inadequate I feel. Or blessed. Spoiled.

Janie's chest swells with a smile. "'Cause God told him to!"

Banana-Banana, Knock-Knock

If I let them, my monkey children would eat a banana at every meal.


















And some inbetween.
























Now that Daddy is home from Kenya Jack continues to pray, "Help Daddy be safe in Africa, A-MEN," constantly.

And Janie informed me, "Hey Momma, you wanna know something that is TRUE?"

"Sure."

Banana in hand, she swallows. I should probably pause at the scary gulpy noise but don't. Eyebrows raised, "Everyday," she blinks, "someone in the whole entire world has to go PEE." Blink. She dissolves into gopher-tooth-grin.

And the fun continues.

HOME

So he stepped off the plane whole and handsome.

And HOME.































































































































































































More to come.

Love you ALL.

~Bethany

Almost HOME

Moments ago Craig boarded another plane headed back to Nairobi. Now just more planes, airports, layovers, little baggies of salted peanuts, packets of oyster crackers, luggage, funny shaped neck pillows, hopefully no more blown hatches, and the man I love will be ... HOME! It still feels sort of pretend -- like a well drilled in an African village far, far away where there they don't have running water and all the while my own children wage water-war in our green yard with water cannons and a bucket.

















Before I know it Craig will be here and I'll face a man gone half around the world and come home. Can't be the same one who left. So begins the next leg of our journey, "Hi, I'm Bethany, who have you become? Tell me everything the same and different so I can love you all the more." How frequently the best things in life are the impossible combination of letting go and hanging on. I don't know weather to laugh or hold my breath.

To all of you, thanks. Thanks for being a hand to hold down the path of this journey. A listening ear, fresh encouragement, fun, {Grin} you've been FABULOUS! Wish I could HUG you all. Please pray for traveling mercies as the team heads home. They sure could do without the 17 EXTRA hours of travel they ended up with on the way there. :)

WATER!

A note from Craig:


Water!

We pulled into the village today and witnessed the drill rig SPEWING forth WATER! As they drill, water is forced out in a GEYSER like process every 3-5 minutes. Less consistent than Old Faithful but much more moving. Some of the mommas from the village said it best, "Praise God, Hallelujah." They are limited in their English but captured the moment perfectly. The drill rig hit water at about 97 meters, and the original goal was 100.

They are cleaning out the hole and preparing to put in the pipe. The estimates on the water are around 8 gal/minute which may seem low for American standards but when the alternative is walking 30 minutes or more to get water from a murky pond, 8 is great! They will be running tests on the water and finishing the pump which could take as long as a month but maybe sooner. We visited with the people in the village and took some pictures of the water shooting out of the drill rig. Joe blessed the well and we loaded in the vans to go.

It really is interesting how little we understand about dirt roads any more, we made it about 10 meters down the trail before we were STUCK. This is after they had delivered a load of large rocks to help us. After getting unstuck and another attempt, we decided to take a different TRAIL. I say trail because they don't really have vehicles passing on through on any sort of consistent basis. We drove down the path, past the murky pond and the "health clinic" to the road. We made it!!! Once back on the road (still dirt but dry) we were fine making it to Kisumu for lunch and our flight to Nairobi.

The airport was an experience. They don't allow you into the airport until 2 hours prior to your flight. There is a nice park like setting just outside the security area that is equipped with chairs tables and shade. We had 3 hours until our flight so we read, wrote in our journals and some even took short naps. A couple of people in our group actually needed to use the bathroom (which is inside) and the heightened level of security/metal detector was unmanned so they just walked in and used the bathroom. We entered later and heard the metal detector go off and the security person just let them PASS on by. After we checked in with the ticket agent (which is past security) we proceeded to a waiting area which is between the "terminal" and the runway. Finally, when we boarded our plane I was lucky enough to procure the emergency exit row, window seat (extra leg room).

The stewardess came to our row and did the usual, "Are you able to man the exit in case it is needed?"

"Yes."

She looked directly at me, "Can you pull that down?" the EMERGENCY handle.

"This?" I reached out to touch the handle.

"Yes, can you pull that down?"

I took this as a question like, "Sir, can you put your tray in the upright and locked position?" SO I PULLED the handle. And BLEW the HATCH!

In retrospect I think she just wanted to know if I felt comfortable being the designated hatch-puller IF needed. I re-latched the handle. She double checked it, and we had a rather uneventful flight to Nairobi.

Today, May 26, we are heading to the Masai Mara, a national reserve, where we will be for the next three days. 6+ hours travel, then we will stay 2 nights and return on Thursday. Fly out Friday and arrive back on Saturday. The time has flown, pray for safety in travels the next few days.

Love you all,
Craig


*****


When I told Janie she prayed, "Dear Jesus, thank-you, thank-you, THANK-YOU that they were able to drill 100m and find water. And I just pray you would keep the water clean."

She later added, "Now at least they have a good idea of what they can do to bad guys."

"Oh, what's that?"

"Give THEM the BAD water."


Life is so SIMPLE when you are a little more than four-and-a-half but not quite five.

83 Meters To Go!

Sometimes I think prayer should be more like this.


"Okay, Momma," she's on tip-toe bobbing from foot to foot, "I'm gonna go for a run now. Get ready, I'm gonna run by again!" All polka-dots and swishing skirt, she half skips like a penny gliding over the water. Zing. Sploosh. A bucket of love runs over.

*****

Here's a note from Craig that you may know how to pray.

• Speaking went well; I talked about the need to be ready to bear witness. Then I walked through my testimony and then the Roman's road. It went well. Today was Colt speaking at the boy’s high school and he had a good message. There were about 700+ boys there. After a short tour, we went to an all girl’s school. Maybe one of the best parts of the trip. There were about 850 girls and they were singing when we came in. WOW! Singing praise songs and they were almost deafening. It was amazing and moving. They sang a total of 4-5 songs while we were there. We introduced ourselves and after we were introduced, they went wild cheering. When the next person would stand and they would go silent again... 850 girls singing in complete unison and stopping together instantly. It was amazing! We leave for the village at 7am tomorrow and then back to Kisumu to catch a flight at 6 back to Nairobi. The well drilling has started and on Saturday they reached 47 meters and we are shooting for 130 meters... it would be amazing if we could hit water tomorrow while we are there. PRAY!

*****

As I write Craig and the team are on a long and treacherous road back to Kasumu. It's crazy to picture him bumping down that road in a bus full of people for 10 hours. If there is another thunderstorm as there are most afternoons the road becomes a veritable landslide...

Love you all, and thank-you again for your prayers and support. I don't know what I would do without you!

A Well for the Village

Please join us in prayer. The drill rig is now on site in Adiedo, Kenya. As they bore deep, deep down into Kenyan soil, our prayer is that they find WATER, a pressed down, shaken together, overflowing, splash out onto the land abundance of water.

It's 50/50 odds of finding even a small trickle that qualifies as wet. We're going for pure miracle, a gusher. And so we pray...

Also, please pray for Craig who will be speaking at a near by boys' school.



















Adiedo is located in the semi-arid expanse of Kenya where water is so scarce that it can only be found in a few stagnant murky ponds or dry stream beds and ditches. Animals drink from this water and urinate in it. Often times, animal carcasses lie rotting at the edge of the water. It is hard to imagine anyone drinking this toxic untreated water. It is not unusual for a child to go two weeks without bathing or having their clothes washed for lack of enough water.

However, for nine out of ten families in western Kenya, it is the only water available. They trek several miles to fill containers with this mud-like water. During the dry season, after these water holes dry up, people walk even further. Water-borne diseases are the number one killer of children in Kenya.

~David Opap – Founder of Spring of Hope International

Firsts

Well, I'm sorry to say Daddy is missing a few firsts while away in Kenya. {Sigh} Like today, Lucy's first PUKE. A shame I know. Isn't this the sort of thing we should all be enjoying together? :) Alright, I know him immersed in the underbelly of human suffering has to count for something, but still I hate to hog the fun here at home. :) A few days ago Janie may have said it best, "I'm so happy I just want to grind my teeth." Ha-ha. Grinding away!

Which brings me to a very sincere THANK-YOU for all your prayers. Really, it's not so bad after all.

Putting things in perspective, this next day Craig will be visiting a Kenyan infant orphanage. By comparison, what a fabulous burden: my no longer puking baby.

Are We There Yet?

Daddy sure leaves a BIG hole.

Feels like forever until he comes home and then Jane says something like, "Momma, why does your face look all golden, all, all pretty?" A little manna from heaven, that girl is.

{Sigh.} How many more days?

H-U-G

"Janie, what about you?"

"My prayer request is to help this whole family be righteous and worship GOD." She is already folding hands and squinting shut blue eyes. The unmistakable tang of faith baptizes our prayer. I slide a little closer. She pauses, kisses my hand.

















"Amen."

"You got boogers in your nose," he tells me.

"Oh."

"Sometimes I see boogers in your nose," he wrinkles he forehead. "Maybe you can eat your boogers if you want to."

















"Hhhhuuuuugggg."