Home Sweet Home!

Well, here we are at home at last!

I am so happy to tell you about our new house! This is not the next post I meant to put here. First I couldn't wait to tell everybody about Joel's trip to Zambia. I even meant to put pictures up, but turns out he didn't take any. Then I wanted to tell about our sweet puppy Jasper that Joel brought home from Zambia. I used to have some cute pitures of him, and maybe I can ask Jamie to post some for me. He is a little fluff ball even though I know he will eventually be big and scary looking. Then I wanted to share about the great time we were having with our friends Chad and Becca Zuber who visited us from their home in Tanzania along with their 3 kids and their dog (Jasper's brother) Buzz. Becca and I had dice tournaments outside at the lake every day and I have to tell you all that I was the final winner! Then of course I wanted to tell you about the break in that we had at the lake house. That was not fun...having somebody break into your home when you are sleeping is scary and it is very annoying to have somebody just take your stuff...especially when it involves all of your pictures for the past 5 months and your tennis shoes (and your favorite Sonlight bag...). Joel might be slightly more concerned for the laptop, the phone and the camera...but I will really miss the pictures, the shoes and my good old bag (is their a country song in there somewhere???).

Mixed in with all of those posts that got pushed aside for lack of internet access or time, came the cracked finger of Joshua's that just doesn't seem to be healing (and has me kinda concerned, even now, almost 3 weeks later), Kaleb's strep throat that he gave to me (and has had me sick for the past week) and Jonathan's first lost tooth! Now I will just fast forward to the present and tell you about our move to the city.

Several weeks ago we found this great house that was for rent. We came to the city to see it and decided to rent it; it was ready now, not like the house we have been waiting for. It is big enough (now actually seems almost too big) and even has a yard!! We had to wait awhile to actually move into the house because we had no furniture. After the break-in at the lake we decided to borrow some of their stuff until we could afford our own (or until the conference being held there in June, whichever comes first) so we moved here with some beds for the kids, a stove, a chest freezer (that kind of works as a very cold fridge that freezes veggies but melts ice) and a kitchen table with chairs. Our house echos and we keep getting lost going from the kitchen to the livingroom or the bedrooms (the house is confusing at first), but we are starting to feel at home here. I even have a school room!!! I love it, and I put up a big calender for March on the wall. How fun to have a room where I can hang school stuff up on the walls!!! We need to get a few big bookshelves for the room, but even now we are very, very happy with it!

Today our good friends James and Lee-Anne (remember, we stayed at their house over Christmas when they were in S. Africa) came by and brought us what they called a housewarming gift...we called it furniture!!! They brought us furniture for the livingroom, a bed frame for Joel and me, and a water dispenser so the little kids can get their own cold water without needing me or one of the big kids to open up the freezer to get out the jug of water (which after sitting in the bottom of the fridge/freezer is more like a block of ice most of the time). So we had a wonderful devotions tonight, sitting on real furniture in our livingroom, with our sweet puppy yapping outside the window (he wasn't allowed in because he messed in the livingroom earlier), thanking God for his provision and blessings in our lives. Thanking Him for bringing us home.