Last Thursday we had dinner with our partner here is Ethiopia, SVO. We had a great time catching up and talking about what we can do together for this year!!! On Sunday it was planned for us to greet the congregation at Burayu Church. As we arrived on Sunday so many of our friends, children and guardians were standing there waiting for our arrival. I loved driving up seeing their smiling faces and hands waving at us. As soon as we got out of the car they come over to give us hugs and shake our hands. Lawson and Eli were a little overwhelmed at first and could not wait to get into the church…….but for Lawson that quickly changed. I have to admit it was really nice to be at the church to see our extended family, but I have to tell you the highlight for me was watching my boys play with the other boys there. Eli was definitely overwhelmed when we were surrounded by large crowds but Lawson was not. In fact, at one point we were in one of the classrooms with a lot of the children and guardians and he just wanted to walk through everyone to look for Guta (the child he chose to sponsor). It was 3:00 by time we left, I was having so much fun I had no clue it got so late. Below are some pictures of Sunday. I have included a pictures of the church building in June when there were no windows and one now with the window. What amazing progress!!!

On Tuesday the boys had off from school so we went Digging for Dinosaur Bones!!! Before we left the States we bought the kids safari vests and “tools”.  Lawson and Eli found a Dinosaur tooth (a horn of an animal) on our Digging adventure. Take a look at the pictures!

School: The boys love school! They stared there second week today and were very excited to go. The campus they are on is very large; it has a lot of green space and several playgrounds for them. The classrooms are great. The first 2 weeks are shorter days for Lawson; his day ends at 1:00. After that he will go until 3:20. Eli’s day ends at 12:00; we are hoping they start their extended day program in September. He would love it and it would give me more time for to dive in to work with Because of Kennedy. The campus is parent friendly. In fact, I am there now using there wireless internet to catch up on emails, etc now. Their track, library and cafeteria are open to parents as well. We can also come on to campus on the weekends with the kids. Lawson has made friends already and want to have a playdate. Eli is doing great, starting an art project of tracing his body and playing with his classmates. At 12:00 we pick up Eli and have been having lunch with him at ICS (the boys school) and it is great watching all the children from countries from all around the world eating lunch together and hanging out together. What an amazing experience!

Shopping: Shopping in Addis requires patients, and some days I think I might explode. Each time we buy something it takes at least double the time it would take in the State. We have been doing a lot of shopping around town for furniture and food. Food has definitely been an adjustment for us. The biggest challenge is finding milk that the boys like that is pasteurized and homogenized. We are still working on it but I think we have found one. We found one supermarket that has some US products that we like (fruity pebbles, pancake mix) and the US Embassy has a commissary with stuff; I can’t wait to shop there. The embassy also has a pool, playground and gym that you can become members of. That should be fun.

Beggars: Everywhere we go there are beggars. This is one of the things Rudy and I were concerned about for the children. We did not know how they would respond. We thought they might be fearful and uncertain, but they have been doing really well. Whenever they come up to the car or we walk by, Lawson kindly says “no” or nothing. Eli just looks at them. The only comment we got yesterday from Lawson was why are these people always begging. He does not quite understand the poverty of this country yet. It will be a conversation for another day. I tried to quickly explain how hard living is for them, but the car was not the best place for that conversation.

House Staff: We have hired our house staff and they are great so far!!! We have hired a guard he watches the house and takes care of maintenance needs we have. His is so sweet, very kind, old man and speaks no english. Lawson loves to kick the soccer ball with him. We call him apapa (father in Amharic). We have hired a nanny mostly for the girls, and occasionally for the boys. Her name is Tsion. She if very nice, quite and a little shy, but the kids love her. When we went shopping the other day Lawson wanted to hold her hand every time we went into a store. We also hired someone to clean, do our wash and cook dinner for us. She is sweet and made us a great dinner last night. It is very weird having all this help, but it is very nice. The back our house outside has several enclosed rooms for the guard and nanny to sleep, they have a small kitchen, and a bathroom (not with a US style toilet).

Rainy Season: Rainy season is no Joke!!! It rains everyday really hard and saturates everything. Rudy laughed at me when I bought me and the boys rain boots, but I have worn them almost everyday! It is winter here so the temperatures are much cooler. It is in the low 60’s in the mornings, but then it warms up in the afternoon so that we can wear t-shirts in the afternoons. The nice thing is that it does not rain all day. It usually rains in the morning and is sunny in the afternoon or the other way around. Rainy season goes thought September. I am not a big fan of the rain so I can’t wait until it is over. The cooler weather is refreshing since when we left Atlanta it was in the 90’s. The key is to layer each day. The school has several playgrounds for the kids, but the grass playgrounds are off limits during rainy season because they are so saturated. They have a nice playground that with a large sandbox and slides, etc that is on concrete and cushioned for rainy season.

The Car: Most cars here are older Toyotas and have no seat belts. Our drivers are GREAT. Dere we met when we came to bring Isabelle home, and Biruk is a friend of Dere. The car is small and seats 4 plus the driver, so when it is 6 in the back it is really tight. Yesterday we went to lunch and to run a couple of errands and it was the Gleason’s and the nanny and we were jam packed. The boy’s love rolling down windows and looking out at everything as we drive around town. The girls love to move around. Driving is crazy. There are very few traffic lights, and lanes don’t always exist. Cattle, goat, and donkeys are often on the road, crossing the street and slowing down traffic. There are several nicely paved roads, but there are still many that are not paved. The road in front of our house is not paved, but the crossroad is.

Internet: Sometimes they make things so much more complicated here. We have great internet at the house and at the boys school. For our personal internet you have to go the government office with your computer so they can register you and then you get a flashdrive that connects you to the internet. That is not such a big deal, the part that is more difficult is that you have to keep buying time to put on your flashdrive. So unlike the US where we set up our wireless internet for unlimited time and pay our monthly bill, here we set up our internet and have to keep buying time. We can buy time just about anywhere around town. The great news is that is really fast and we have not had any problems with connection. We can also have our computers linked so that we can get free wireless internet at the boys school and at the US embassy. It too is very fast and seems great.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Things are goings really well. As we have been preparing our house and getting settled we are also excited about the good works God has prepared for us to do here. We feel like this week is going to be our first week that we will start our routine. Rudy went to the hospital (Black Lion) today to start getting everything rolling. We will also be meeting with SVO this week. There have definitely been some challenges like the boys getting sick, and shopping with the kids, but we feel so blessed that things have been going so smoothly so far.

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