typical new parents post

And so there's our little babe.  Our first picture!  To say we are in love is the understatement of the year.

I had an appointment at a hospital this week.  The whole experience was fantastic.  Look, I'm delivering this baby in a third world country.  The first hospital I visited almost four weeks ago now was...not such a nice experience.  I've had very few episodes of heaving "I-live-in-Africa-and-I-miss-home" tears but after leaving that first hospital, those tears revealed themselves.  

I was a bit stunned at the state of the beds and how "un-hospital" it was.  Everything was clean, though.  I'm sure the doctors there are nice and I've heard they have the best scan equipment!  After all, the doctors are American. :)  I just couldn't do the hospital.

Cue this other hospital.  Obviously, it's about 500 times smaller than a typical capital city hospital but it is a proper hospital.  Proper beds, proper cafeteria, proper rooms, the whole bit.  

Everything is paid for in cash here.  We've already paid for all the prenatal visits, scans, and tests as well as the delivery which brought the grand total to less than $2,000.  I know. So affordable.

My prayer requests mean so much more here without the safety net of a first-world country.  Here they are:  that the baby is healthy and I don't have to leave the country for complications, that the delivery goes smoothly, that I won't worry about things I can't control :) (like pre-eclampsia and whatever else could possibly go wrong).

So that's the baby update.  The scan reported the baby is 14 weeks tomorrow but the doctor still put my due date down as August 16th.  So sometime in August the wait will be over!

the newest babies

My sister-in-law got two new Boerboel puppies!  I am so jealous.  :)  I am not really a dog person but living here it is absolutely necessary to have dogs.  These two beauties are going to grow up to be nice guard dogs.

They have stayed on the farm since she got them and will be going to her place very soon.  This morning, I looked out our front doors and there they were, sitting in the orchard.  They had crawled through the fence where they're staying.  It wasn't hard to get them to trot over.  

They found my citronella candles quite amusing.  It was adorable to see the one carrying it around in its mouth.

We will miss having them here!  Can't wait to get my own someday.

pudding

When I first arrived on the farm in all my newly-wedded excitement, I began to make "pudding" (in American terms "dessert") every night.  I remember early on catching my brother-in-law throwing my husband a look when I mentioned pudding yet again.  The look was , "Really? What is this?  You can't be serious!"  So I began to question, "Don't you all have pudding every night?"  No.  "Oh really?  I thought you did!"  And so it ended almost as quickly as it began.  Now, I make pudding on the weekends (sometimes) and almost always when we host and any other time I or my husband gets a sweet tooth.

The past few nights, we have had pudding two nights in a row.  I saw a recipe on Pinterest for brownies and decided to make them Monday.  However, my sister-in-law was making cake for her husband and decided to send some over.  The brownies were finally made Tuesday.  

These brownies have 1) gotten me out of bed this morning 2) helped me through a mere two hours of homeschooling today.  It's been an epic, unsurpassed week in homeschooling and I'm ready for it to be over already.  Also, breakfast is my least favorite meal.  As I was lying there in bed thinking "what can I make for breakfast" I remembered....brownies!  

I've always struggled with brownies.  They are either too dry or too moist.  But these turned out beautifully.  I wouldn't say they're "too die for" or "over-the-top delicious" but they're definitely a keeper.

1 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup cocoa

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

4 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

Mix butter and cocoa.  Add flour + sugar.  Add vanilla and eggs but don't over mix.  Spread into a greased and floured 9x13 pan. Bake for 20-25 min.

ps...I courteously ask you not to pin from here.  Please pin from the website below.  :)  Thank you.

Recipe from here >> http://www.saltboxhousecreations.com/2008/12/have-brownie.html

it's easy to see the need

::four of the girls in this photos are children of our employees...I love that they come to church::

I don't know what it is about Saturday afternoons but it's one of my favorite times of the week.  There's a nice afternoon glow in the sky from the sun. I have finished visitation for the day and I'm heading HOME to the farm.....bumping down the road in my little Pajero with the windows down and the wind wreaking havoc with my hair.

Today for the first time, I visited the hostels.  In American terms, one would be a dormitory at a local college, the other was a boarding house for college students.  Wow.  What an eye-opener.  The house converted into a boarding house was something quite unlike anything I'd experienced.  

But as I got home, I began to think of those girls in the boarding house.  Many of them (probably most of them), come from different towns or cities throughout Zambia.  If they were saved and properly discipled, they could go back to their homes and be a light for Jesus.  What a need!  

I also have a huge burden for the teen girls in our church.  Recently, a girl named Jasmine was saved.  Her conversion has been a big blessing to several of us who had visited her over the previous months. She was hard and seemed (!!) not interested in the Gospel.  But over Christmas break, The Lord used an experience she had at another church to show her the truth that our church preaches.  She came home and was saved within a week!  She now comes to all the services on Sunday and has begun coming to Saturday soulwinning.  She has shown such an interest in the Bible and her Christian growth booklet.  But she's not the only one.  What of the other teen girls who come regularly to church?  They need to be taught purity, modesty, and other discipleship lessons.  Purity here is so flippant.  Girls get pregnant so easily.  Living in one room houses, they learn as small children the ways of their parents.  I have such a burden for these girls!

I am not a missionary.  I came as a farmers wife.  But oh what a need!  I can only devote so much of my time but the need is great.  We need more workers!

being resourceful

I began homeschooling M & T within one month of moving on the farm.  I absolutely love it!  It gives purpose and direction to my days.  If I didn't homeschool, I'd probably be a lot more homesick because I'm not busy.  :)  Right now, we do school in the spare bedroom.  It works out wonderfully...until we have guests then I have to shift everything.  But it's really not too tedious.  I try to keep the storing simple so moving is easier.

One of the biggest things that can discourage me as a homeschooler is the lack of resources here.  Most of all, I miss the public libraries and cheap art supplies!  I have been reading a lot about notebooking.  It is definitely something I'd love for the girls to get into.  With their current curriculum, it seems just a bit difficult to add another to-do in our day. 

Something else that is different here is that schooling is just half day.  Whether it's the traditional schools or even our homeschool, we only go for half a day.  We begin at 8am with pledges, singing, Scripture quoting, and poem memorization (a new hymn, Scripture passage, and poem for each quarter). School until break at 10:30 then 11 to 12:30 (or a bit beyond if books still aren't finished!).  

But one of the biggest blessings of homeschooling here is the flexibility.  We can easily take a day off, we only school 4 days a week (last term they were going to a friends for play date/school/art, etc...), and there's so many little things outside to observe.  This country really is filled with beauty despite the depravation that is visualized by most throughout the Western world.  We just have to look for beautiful and interesting creatures that God has created!

a Sunday morning

Here are some of the precious faces that come to Sunday school here.  It is such a joy to teach them!