What's in a name?

Choosing a name for each of my kids was a big choice for me. I really had a hard time deciding. I wanted something unique and yet meaningful. But I also wanted names that I liked and that sounded good with a last name like George. Here in Mozambique names are remembrances. They give their children names that will remind them of a significant person or event in their lives. Last week our guard Bonamar and his wife, asked me to name their new daughter. She was born on Feb. 2(she shares a bday with Jurnee), but they waited to name her until I arrived, because they wanted me to name her. They told me they are grateful for all we have done for them and want to always be reminded of us when they use her name. It is quite a humbling thing. I have only provided some clothes and maybe a coat or a blanket here or there. We do employ him, but to name his child seems like a little more than the "thank you", I would expect. I took a couple days and prayed about what I would name the little girl. I wanted it to be a name they would be familiar with and be able to pronounce, but have a significant meaning. He and his family are Muslim. So I wanted to give her name that reminds me to pray for her. I finally chose the name Ana. It means grace or full of the favor of God. I pray that she will learn of the Savior who loved her enough to come to earth, live a perfect life, and die in her place. I pray that she will be full of the favor of God and God will be gracious and draw her and her family to Him.

This is a picture of Bonamar and his wife, Amelia, while she was pregnant. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of baby Ana yet.

Back to life, back to reality...

Today is one week since we crossed the border and officially arrived back in Mozambique. The trip went really well and we want to thank each of you that was praying for that journey. I think over all it was our best trip yet. It has taken us a week to get moved back into our house and get settled. We still have a few undone tasks, but for the most part we are functioning as normal and it feels like we getting back into the groove of things here in Moz. We are officially back to life and enjoying the warm weather after the freezing cold winter of Michigan. The kids are back to bare feet and daily baths as they are always covered in mud or dirt. We have already had a number of visitors everyday and have been out visiting others. We have had people everyday at door wanting to buy eye glasses(we brought about 800 or 900 pairs back with us out of 4,000 that friends of ours have gathered for us). We are also back to the reality of life here, broken water heater, broken projector, and still no car. It is normal here to have something broken at all times, but our car situation is beyond the normal for even here. It has been a year since it has been working and it looks like another 3 months before the part comes in and we can see if this time it is fixed...Please pray that it will be fixed for real this time and will run well or that we can figure out what to do if it still isn't running well. We also found out a day after we arrived here that our second highest supporting church has decided to stop supporting us. We left thinking we were at almost 100% of our needed support and this will bring us down to 89%. Please pray that we will be able to make up that difference somehow.
Thank you again for all your continued prayers and support. We are so grateful. I will hopefully be keeping this blog updated much more frequently than I did over our home assignment. Tim is sending out an email newsletter in the next few days, so watch for that. It will give more updates on the Bible School. And once again, if anyone is not on our email update list and wants to be, please let us know!

We had two nights in Washington DC before we headed to Africa. We took one day and did a whirlwind of activities. We visited the Ford theater and happened to be there on the one day they had the box open where Lincoln was shot. The kids studied the life of Lincoln in our homeschool last year and were so excited to see where he was assassinated. 

We also visited the Museum of Natural History, which was pretty incredible.



Another Lincoln attraction.

The kids also attended their first birthday party back here in Moz. It was a dress up party.

 



All settled into our house again.