Ahh, the beauty of Michigan, and some cooler weather!!!

Well, it's been a little while since I've updated the blog. We are all here in Michigan now, waiting on baby to arrive (2 days late as of right now!) Samuel, Rachel and I arrived in the height of the blossoming of the apple orchards in the area where my parents live. It was a spectacular difference from the dry, hot, brown environment that we'd just come from. The children are definitely enjoying all of the wildlife, and greeness here in Sparta. Samuel has ridden "Smokey", Aunt Liz's horse, and both have enjoyed golf cart rides with Grandpa. The favorite thing to do is tease "Mr. Grumpy pants" the male swan who is protecting a nest with his mate. The eggs (9) have unfortunately not hatched, and are well beyond the normal incubation time, but Mr. Grumpy pants still tries to catch the golf cart and the kids enjoy squealling with delight when he makes a run at the golf cart. Both the children enjoyed the annual summer preparation of the house with the planting of hundreds of flowers. The current project is the vegetable garden, which is only about 1/10th planted. Both Samuel and Rachel are now the proud owners of "garden boots" to help with the process. We hope that the next entry will be an announcement of the arrival of our little one. I suppose it is taking it's cues from it's siblings, who were 8 and 2 days late respectively. What the baby doesn't know is that 6 weeks from today we are due to fly back to Niger, and the visa in and of itself could take 4 weeks to accomplish, not to mention birth certificate, SS #, passport, etc. We trust that the Lord's timing is perfect for all of this though, and look forward to the arrival.

Trial Run!

Today, May 5 marks another milestone for Samuel. He officially went to school for the first time. "Aunt" Cindy invited Samuel for the day, so he could get a bit of a glimpse of what is to come in the fall when he starts at the Galmi Day School. He was up bright and early, wanting breakfast, and trying to hurry us along at 6:30am. At 5 minutes to 8:00, Samuel and I (Deb) walked the short distance to the Galmi Day School. The Lau children were already there, and they were painting on the sidewalk. Samuel ran off to join them without a backwards glance. (Though I managed to get him to look up from his painting and wave for me!) He had a very good morning, and I imagine will be anxious to get started with school when we return to Galmi at the beginning of August. Rachel and I enjoyed a quiet morning together, preparing for our trip to Michigan in just a few short days. This will probably be our last posting from Galmi until we return in August. But do look for the news of the latest addition to our family sometime around mid June. We'll see some of you soon!

The Flame trees are blooming

It is "spring" here in Galmi, and despite the fact that there has yet to fall a drop of rain here in Galmi, the flame trees are beginning to bloom. The humidity is increasing, and that seems to be enough to make the blossoms come out. They are no where as beautiful as they will be when the rains come, but as I (Deb) will not be here when that happens, I thought I'd give you a glimpse of their beginning glory. When fully blooming, and the leaves have arrived, they create a wonderful canopy as one walks through the compound. They are my favorite tree here in Niger. The children love to collect any fallen buds they find on the ground, and peel them open and look at the red and yellow streaked blossoms. They are incredible!

Close Encounter with a Wall

Well, Samuel has officially made a mark on May 1st 2009. He was running to the bathroom to wash his hands for lunch when he tripped, and crashed into the wall. The walls are relatively unforgiving here, and he split a nice gash in his forhead. With the blessing of a donated "pen" of Dermabond, Alan had him "glued" back together and we were calmly eating lunch less than a half hour later. The blessing of modern technology was not wasted on Samuel. The fact that we could remedy things so quickly, as opposed to arriving at the Emergency Department in about the same time worked miracles for the psychological healing of our son. He was back to running, and crashing around (as per usual) in no time at all.

Baby Waters

As if it isn't obvious, we are expecting the arrival of a third child during the month of June. We will be going back to Michigan for the birth of the baby, as some of the testing that needs to be done for the baby is unavailable here in Niger. I need to fly before I'm in my "ninth month" according to the airlines. I leave with a few days to spare. I will be taking Samuel and Rachel with me on May 8 and heading back to a much cooler Michigan. Alan will remain here in Niger to do some more intensive Tamajeq language learning for an extra 3.5 weeks. He will fly out on the 31st. The flights leave about 10 minutes before midnight--not a very agreeable time, but there is only one stop over in Paris, which makes up for it! We will be staying with my parents until after the baby is born, and then returning to Niger when the baby is about 6 weeks old--provided we can get all of the paperwork/passports/visa, etc. for the baby in a timely manner. There is only 3 weeks left here in Niger before the kids and I fly out, and the time is passing very quickly. My replacement, Lois Freeman, arrives at the end of April to take over the guesthouse responsibilities for the next 2 years. Lois has done this before in Galmi, which should make for a smooth transition.

Easter Monday fun!

As the Monday after Easter was a holiday here in Niger, we decided to celebrate with a little fun. The kids got to do some painting. They chose to make painted eggs. Striped eggs, abstract eggs, polka dot (Rachel) eggs, and a space egg (Samuel)with stars were some of the offerings.

Alan organized an egg hunt for all of the kids on the compound, and a potluck followed. The egg hunt was a huge success! There was a collective pooling of candy and plastic eggs, and the poor confused chicken even laid a few silver (aluminum foil) ones too! Alan has lots of experience finding eggs, as his mother still has an egg hunt every year for his adult neice and nephew. So with the experience of discovering eggs under his belt, he was an excellent egg stasher. The kids had fun, and even got a bit of extra candy in the end (a chicken can only lay son many eggs in one day!) No chocolate was to be found, as it would have been in liquid state anyway! My contribution to the potluck was the cake. Which was a hit with kids and adults as well. If you look closely, the picture of the cake was taken in my large deep freezer, where it was kept until dessert time, as the temperature soared into the 115F range. Icing doesn't have a chance in that kind of heat!

The Full Armor of God

Samuel, and some of the other school children on the compound have memorized some scripture in Ephesians about the full Armor of God. After a presentation at a Sunday evening service by the school children, who were all decked out in their armor while reciting their verses, Samuel has been bugging Alan to help him make his armor. Well last weekend, the task was finally accomplished. The design had to be remade a few times, until it fit and moved right, as well as allowed for a large enough visual field, so as not to cause accidental encounters with large and unmovable objects. The result was a brave warrior for Christ, who is ready to "take his stand against the devil's schemes".