Shania🩷Lately I have been thanking God over and over for her. She brings us such joy! Seeing a little girl bustle around the house with her two tiny French braids and her little bows that she loves in her hair just heals something in me that I didn’t know needed healing. She loves to pick out her dress and her jammies. She is quite drawn to the color purple! “Pettty!” And she LOVES when I let her put on some of my perfume. Been trying to get her to eat with a spoon since she’s always just eaten with her hands like the Bengalis do. It’s slowly working. Some days she gets tired of it and just piles the food on her spoon with her hands and then shoves it into her mouth. I’m trying to teach my children manners so when we come home they aren’t like total cave men. Shania was hit with a terrible stomach bug the first of the month. We tried everything we could think of…. Dewormer, parasite meds… she was so limp and pale and slept a lot. Was starting to wonder if an ER visit was in order. Finally was able to get liquid IV and Gatorade down her and that seemed to perk her up. Took awhile though before she started eating and drinking good again. She was just so worn down. Had to make games out of trying to get her to drink. I knew she was on the mend one day when she started asking for pickles. (Her favorite thing.) Her speech continues to expand by leaps and bounds. She comes up to me and hunches her back and says “scatch scatch!” She wants me to scratch it. One day she got out of the bathtub and said “spash spash! I scared!” If it rains outside it really turns her world upside down. We often have to put her in bed with us at night to get her to calm down if it rains. She huddles up beside Jared with her hands over her ears and says “wain wain I scared.” Clearly she doesn’t remember last rainy season!
Layton 💙 He is tickled to be done with school! He told me “mom I just want to be able to spend more time with you now.” Thought that was pretty sweet. However, 5 days into his summer “vacation” he was tearful and wondered if we could do some review sheets because he missed school. Shana has his school work caught up until middle of October. He loved school with Maddie and Jaira. Shana had a really neat art project for them where they made houses and all sorts to go with it out of cardboard. One day when he was perturbed over some menial issue that came up when he was playing with Jaira he told me “mom, I prefer being with boys over girls, but don’t worry when it comes to getting married then I prefer girls.”🤣 Been giving him more chores to do around the house now to keep him from tearing the place apart and he can be quite helpful when the mood suits.😂 We got rid of his fish sadly. I’ve had a lot of mom guilt over it. He wanted a pool to play in on the veranda now that the heat has settled in to stay. It takes an hour every week to clean the fish tank and the pool has to be cleaned out at least that often which then requires the veranda to be cleaned as well. So I said “something has to go… I’m not cleaning fish tanks and pools and verandas every week.” The lack of enthusiasm to help his mom clean said fish tank was severely lacking despite many reprimands so thus he decided to clean a pool instead. After Jared flushed the fish down the toilet Shania kept looking around for the “shishies.” 😢 which only worsened my mom guilt. Anyways…. Layton has been into listening to Boxcar Children Books. Really Enjoys those! Plus we are reading Henry and the Paper Route and any random Geronimo Stilton book. Even though he can read on his own I’m still so glad he likes me to read to him. Shana left him some extra school work to do for review when he gets bored. Some penmanship, math pages and reading. We are trying to do abit several days a week just to keep it all fresh in his brain. 🧠 Some days he loves to write little stories and make little books out of them. They are usually about Sam and Tim and Pam. Anything from Sam being in a “hree.” (Hurry) to Tim getting bit by ants on “Halween.” He has aways to go with learning to spell but that’s what school is for! 😊
The children’s last day of school was May 8! Friday after church they gave their school program. They had a poem they recited and they each picked out a song to sing. Layton picked out “My Homes in Montana”. That is his favorite! Josna and Sumita and Miriam really enjoyed it and clapped away when they were done. Madison thought it was more scary to give a program here instead of at home. She said since there were less people on the audience then you for sure got stared at! The Saturday after we all loaded up in the van bright and early for a “play day!” Shana had had a water balloon fight with them a few days prior for a “good behaviour award.”☺️ It was a nice warm day. 104*. But we persevered because we are strong hardy missionaries. We got to the zoo around 9 which was perfect timing. There wasn’t many people there at all! We took our time meandering from cage to cage. The snakes didn’t bring many of us joy. The monkeys were making quite a racket! The sign said such racket meant they were bonding with their families. Anyways the children were getting a-bit faint so we stopped by the monkey cage and had a snack and cold drinks. The monkeys quieted right down and we figured it was because they saw us and thought we looked like family. By the end of our two hours there we were ready to leave, hot and sweaty. We sat in the van and decided that driving the extra ways to Herfeys was better than Burger King since it would give us time to cool off. Plus Herfeys beats burger king any old day. Got to Herfeys and we were all ravenous. Layton ate a whole burger plus 12 chicken nuggets plus ice cream. Came home and we all turned on the AC and crashed for several hours! It was a fun day! Nathon came over later on to bring some beef curry. He thought we were sure dumb to go to the zoo on such a hot day. He said “I bet even the Bengalis weren’t there.”😂 He came inside and said “I am SO TIRED.” We asked him if he was ok and he said “this heat just makes me tired all the time.” How well we know!
On May 13, Khira Schultz flew in! She is from Scenic Ridge where Shana hails from. She has been teaching in Ethiopia for the past two years and her time was up. We can get direct flights from Ethiopia to here so she flew in here and then her and Shana will fly home together! That evening I made a wild comment that wouldn’t it be neat if Shana and Khiras other friend Sarah Shetler that’s teaching in Nepal could come too! They are all the same age and from the same congregation! I messaged Andrea Nikkel (also from Scenic Ridge) and made a joke about it not expecting much. Cautiously hopeful is the right term! Well by the next morning the board had given approval, Jared had sent Sarah the visa things she needed and Chris had a flight for Sarah booked! To say the girls were excited was an understatement. We told Chris and Andrea and their boy Anderson they should come too but they felt best to stay at home and tend to their responsibilities which we totally understand! We were all excited! Sarah flew in at 11 pm so the girls and Jared went to get her. Jared told me later there was a great deal of squealing and shrieking going on in the van.😂 Her flight was only 1.5 hours long. I just loved being with those girls. I was ready to adopt them all on the spot and keep them for my very own.🩷 Hearing them laugh and shriek upstairs just made my soul feel less crusty and I felt quite young again! More like 20 and less like 34.😍 And oh boy… did we have fun! FUN! The girls are all mission teachers so they were not afraid to pitch in and help with food or dishes and whatnot. I told them they should just have fun together but bless their hearts they had fun AND helped! It was rather humorous, once your you’ve been in the mission you view things differently. They would say “can I use your brown sugar or is it something that’s hard to get here?” Or “should I be careful how much milk I use? Is it expensive?”😊 It was so neat to hear the differences between Ethiopia, Nepal and Bangladesh. They all agreed the humidity is worse here.😂Anyways… all too soon the 19th arrived and the final preparations were in place. I think Shana and Khira packed and repacked their bags at least 10 times and we will not say how many times they weighed them.😂 or the amount of plastic wrap involved. We took them to the airport at 9:30 pm and dropped them off. Jared hired a guy to get them in the door and get their luggage checked in. You may wonder why such an individual is needed, well there’s only a thousand (I’m not exaggerating) people milling about outside the airport. Sarah’s flight didn’t leave until the next morning so she came back for the night. I was so glad she stayed abit longer. Helped the sting not be so bad telling Shana bye knowing i would still have one girl under my roof! We really miss Shana! Keep waiting for her to come bouncing down the steps in the morning. Layton hopes she comes back soon. The kids keep going into her bedroom. But She needed Taco Bell so what can we say? We can’t stand between a girl and her Taco Bell. (Shakes head sadly.) The house is awfully quiet now without her and the other girls. We are just rattling around in this big ole house like a bag of old bones. First time in almost a year it’s just been the four of us. I told them they can all come back and live with us in Kansas if they find Ohio to be less than appealing.
Lonnie’s moved out to Khulna May 14. Jared drove with them half way to help haul their luggage and totes then Doyle met Jared and they handed off the stuff. Sounds like they are getting settled in. How well we remember those first few weeks “on our own.”
The government issued a report saying they will no longer be issuing work permits for foreigner NGOS if it can be proved that a Bengali can do the same job. They also said they will be deporting any illegal foreigners. We aren’t sure how seriously to take it. In the past there was a family that was deported, but Jon tells us not to worry. Others have told us they don’t think the government here is organized enough to actually pull something this large off. So until we go home in September we will just keep doing what we came here to do. Prayers would be appreciated though for paperwork to go through for “N” visas for Brian and Kaylee and Aleigha and Christina. After we found this information out we discovered my passport had expired. So we made a quick trip to the visa office to drop off necessary documents and what not. Sounds like it’s quite backed up now to get a passport renewed for the states, but the other day I got an email saying my passport was on its way here to the visa office! So at least now I will have a legal passport if we all of a sudden have to pack our bags and head home out of the blue.
Clinic continues to go well! Nothing out of the ordinary has happened recently. Some days when it’s very hot out the numbers are definitely less! I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to hold the babies that stay at the clinic and to talk with the moms. They always love to have the white lady hold their babies. Seems like lately we’ve had more moms that want to sit in on our singing evenings and occasionally a service here and there.
Cheesy Beef Burritos with Fries - My Grandma's Pie
Hawaiian Chicken Sheet Pan - Recipes by Nancy
Easy Mexican Tortilla Pinwheels Recipe - A Pretty Life In The Suburbs
Carlsbad Cravingshttps://carlsbadcravings.comAvocado Cream Sauce - Crema Recipe. (This is so good on breakfast tacos or any Mexican food.) Avacados here can be up to $6 USD a piece so they are bought VERY sparingly.
