25 days and counting...

It is hard to believe that we will be heading home in just 25 days. We do feel like we are at a good point to leave, but we never realized how hard it would be to up and leave for 9 months. There are so many things to arrange for and think about. We do have a family who will be living in our house for the entire 9 months while we are gone and they are good friends of ours so we trust them. But we still have a lot of things to pack up and store away. We have had to make arrangements for running the guesthouse and library while Michele is gone. There are lots of goodbyes, as for the kids especially, 9 months is a long time. They have made some good friends they will need to say goodbye to and they will also have to say goodbye to our 2 dogs and cat. Karis has already cried because we can't take Obi our cat to Michigan with us. There will just be a lot of transitions for the kids going back to the States, so please pray for them.

This past month has been very busy for us and it will continue to be busy until we leave. We have a lot to update you on though.

Michele hosted a homeschool conference here at our house. We had 2 ladies from England and 1 from South Africa come to run the conference. They work for Anchor Education and they travel all over providing these homeschool conferences for people in areas where homeschooling resources and support are hard to come by. They also provided testing for the children, so parents could determine where they were at academically. We had 11 women, 1 man, and 30 children. The ladies offered testing for the children and ran a childrens program as well as 4 sessions a day for three days. It was very helpful and it was a great time to connect with other moms and build a support network. It was a busy time for us and we had 2 other families living in our house with us and we hosted the conference in the house, so we are still trying to catch up from that.


This is Kallen's friend Isabel. Kallen refers to her as "my Izzy". They are so cute together and walk around all day laughing and playing and holding hands. Isabel's mom attended the homeschool conference, so Kallen got lots of time to play with Izzy that week.

Here is the homeschool crew.

Tim finished his first class on Psalms with a group of women from the Anglican church. It went really well. He had about 22 women attend. There is still a problem with the language barrier, even though most of them spoke Portuguese and Tim did his teaching in it, there were still some women who didn't speak Portuguese or Yao. The women really did get a better grasp on the Psalms and how to apply them to their life. Song and dance are very important in their culture and in the end they came together and wrote a song about they had learned. It was very encouraging.

We also started our parenting seminar out in Lumbiza. The first week went well, but parenting is tough subject here. We will take pictures next week and update you more later on this class. We have 3 more weeks left before we leave. Just pray for health, because many people are having to miss because of sickness. Malaria and colds are really common this time of year. Pray that God will work in their hearts in the area of parenting and they will get a better grasp of God's plan for us and children.

For other issues of prayer in these last weeks, please pray for Tim as he now begins his second class with the Anglican church. This will be a mixed group of men and women and he will be teaching doctrine issues such as grace, mercy, salvation, heaven and hell.

Then pray that we would finish well with language. Tim has been preaching on sundays in Yao and is making huge strides in the language. Michele is moving along, but is moving slower than Tim. Just pray that we would finish well and then be able to keep up with it while we are home for 9 months, so we don't forget it!