Happy Easter!

April 9, 2012

Happy belated Easter everyone! Jesus has risen and I am so thankful. We had a wonderful Good Friday service in the village. The service was very meaningful. The girls and I did an interpretive dance to “At the Cross”, Josh preached, and afterwards the church sang and danced for joy! It was a celebration. It is finished! We are now forgiven. I wish you could have seen Lydia dance her heart out and Luka plug his ears. Then we had a meal with the church. Our teammate, who use to cook at a restaurant in Chicago, made a Ugandan/American meal that fed 190 people. I was impressed. The whole day was a blessing. We worshiped, our kids helped serve the food with us, and I love our church family.

On Saturday we had Amanda’s baptism. Amanda is Tabitha’s daughter’s child (her 17 year old who got pregnant). There were probably 50 babies baptized. Thankfully we only had to go for a short time. We are one of Amanda’s godparents I guess. Afterwards we took Tabitha and the kids out for lunch to celebrate.

Sunday we had church then had our team over for Easter dinner and a service. We even had an Easter egg hunt. Our party ended with a huge rain storm and eating grilled monitor lizard thanks to Uncle Tim’s road kill find – What?! (see pictures)

Josh had his 34th birthday last Thursday. He taught most of the day for a Maunday Thursday service but we celebrated with him in the evening. Lots of yummy desserts and treats to thank him for being a great father and husband. Because he seeks the Lord with all heart and puts it into practice we are truly blessed. We love you Josh!!!

We had Sliedrechts over tonight to say goodbye. They will be leaving later this week for Michigan for four months and we will be in Kenya for the next few days so we had to say goodbye. We are so happy for them going home to share their new daughter Miriam and have a baby, but we are also sad to be apart. Poor Grace takes it hardest. Her and Avalien are pretty close so there are lots of tears. And it makes my kids want to see Grandpa and Grandma too.

Pray for us as we venture to Kenya. Our visitor visas are up so we have to cross the border. We will be traveling Wednesday, stay for a couple nights, and return on Friday. Pray that all goes well and we return with another visitor visa. Praise God our NGO papers will be handed in later this week so we can get our work permits! Pray for a speedy and problem free process. Thanks! (The kids are so excited to get away for a few day and have “spring break” from school!)