A gift, our car, and Caia.

We went this morning to visit the family of one of our guards, Bonamar. His family lives about 30 minutes out of the city. We brought him and his half brother and our family. His father was so thankful we were willing to bring Bonamar out there and that we wanted to meet him. He gave us a goat as a gift. We now have this goat in a trailer because, the dogs attack it. We don't have a fence to keep it in or anything, so we will probably have to have it butchered in the next few days. When we mentioned that the kids, they were devestated, so we will see what happens. The picture below is us with Bonamar, next to Michele, and his brother, next to Tim. His family only speaks Chiyao, so we could not communicate very well with them, but Bonamar translated for us. It was a very humbling experience as they also fixed us rice with some beans and sent us into a hut all by ourselves to eat the food, while the family stayed outside and ate nothing. We also ate rice and beans without silverware for the first time. The kids had a ball of course!

This is our new car. We are really enjoying have wheels.

Here is Tim and Jeffrey, our guard doing some evangelism in a village called Caia.

This is the greeting we received when we arrived in Caia. The kids swarmed the car. We could barely get out. I had to distract them by taking their picture.

This is what Traeger thought of the attention. He was quite intimidated at first, but eventually warmed up.

Jalea.

This is our new puppy Jalea. Jaleo in Yao means giant, we changed it to Jelea to make it more feminine, since she is a girl. She is a Great Dane and Ridgeback mix. Some YWAM missionaries raise Great Danes and tried this new mix, they gave her to us for free, so we were so happy to get a great dog like this for free. She was the tallest of 13 puppies, so she should be a giant as her name indicates. She is 7 weeks old right now. I guess this is a great mix, both are very big dogs, but very friendly and mild mannered. As you can see from the pictures below, she is quite a snuggler. She will be an outdoor dog, but right now we have her inside because the two dogs on the property bully her(even though she is almost double their size already). Today they have gotten along much better, we'll see how they do together. The dogs actually belong to another family, so we aren't sure how much longer they will be here anyway. Since we don't have dog food here, she eats rice mixed with either eggs or dried fish twice a day. It's kind of strange to cook rice for a dog everyday. Thankfully both are relatively cheap here.

A few updates as well...our car is fixed. It is still in Cuamba, so we aren't sure when we'll actually get it, but at least it is fixed for now. There is still one ongoing problem that we will have to fix eventually, but you can at least drive it now. Also Tim has been doing the teaching/training with this young man Oswald for a few weeks now and it is going very well. Tim has enjoyed it and it has really given him insight into the way African's think and how their culture infiltrates their thought processes, even as Christians. Chiyao classes are going well and we are learning slowly how this language works. It is so different from the latin based Portuguese, it's taking us to whole new level of thinking...

A Week Of Firsts...

This was a week of firsts for me. I hired my first house helper. I actually hired two because I couldn't decide. I had 4 people here begging to be hired for help(somehow the word got out that there was some new rich white family in town that would need help). It was so hard to choose, I felt bad for all of them. I have a young girl, whose father is not in the picture and her mother is home and doesn't work and they have absolutely no income. So I hired her two days a week to do some light cleaning and do my shopping with me. She can help carry and she knows how to pick out good fruits and vegetables. Her name is Regina. You can tell she is starved for attention. She comes almost everyday just to see if I need anything and when she is here to clean she stays all day and just hangs out here. It's hard to know what to do about setting up some boundaries, but yet I want to be here if she needs me.

The other lady I hired is older and is a great worker. I hired her 3 days a week. She works hard and has been so helpful for me. I have started homeschooling with Traeger in the mornings and so while I do school, she does my dishes, laundry, floors, bathrooms, and just about anything else I need.

Another first for me this week was going to the market and buying meat for the first time. I bought a big hunk of goat leg. I had another missionary come with me and help me figure out how to do it. So we find a good sized goat hind end laying on the table and smell it. If it smells good(well not good, but doesn't smell spoiled) we buy it. I cooked it for dinner that night and it was alright...I could only picture the hind end on the table the whole time I was eating...I think it's going to take some getting used to.

I also made my own homemade granola and yogurt for the first time. It was actually pretty good. We have heard that it makes a great breakfast here, so it will probably be a regular part of our diet from now on.

I included a few pictures. The little boy in the pictures is the son of the lady who cleans the guest house. His name is Sufucu. He came over to play with kids while his mom worked one day.