July 28, 2007

Lydia can spell her name! She is so smart. The other day she told me, I need to go see if Grandpa and Grandma Shaarda are they still white or if they are brown now. How her little mind works. She is always talking about what brown people eat and what white people eat or say.

We celebrated Lydia’s forth birthday a few days early (cause we are in Kampala for the real thing). Lydia helped me decorate the house with balloons, streamers, and signs. (Thank you to everyone who sent such thoughtful birthday decorations and gifts to make Lydia’s birthday so special. She knows she is loved.) We made a cake in the shape of a four and invited some of our friends. Tim, Angie, Avalien, Moses, John, Barb, Sam, Tabitha, and Kristine and Claudia came. We had so much fun! Lydia opened all her presents – princess dress, books, games, colors, and more. We sang happy birthday and ate yummy cake on Dora the explorer plates. What a birthday. We all enjoyed talking and laughing. We were blessed to see Kristine even smiling and laughing. I am so glad we can celebrate with our friends here.

We had a sudden visit from Brad and Amy Nyhof. The Nyhofs live in Seattle and know Rick and Annie. They started emailing us in January because they were interested in coming to Uganda. They ended up coming here with a different mission in Kampala but they were driving through Soroti and wanted to stop and meet us. They arrived Friday evening and left Saturday evening so it wasn’t much time but we were blessed to have them here. We talked till late on Friday then gave them a whirlwind tour on Saturday. They were very touched by Amecet. They love kids and have two small kids of their own. (By the way Lucy is still hanging on. She struggles to breath and seems to be suffering.) Amy is a hairdresser so she ended up giving us haircuts in the afternoon. They ended their visit by praying over us. We are thankful for their visit and encouragement.

Then we packed up our house so the construction can begin while we are gone. We even put plastic over the door and counters to keep as much dust out as we could. They are breaking down two walls and filling in another. I am just glad we wont be here for the real mess. We will see.