In This Life

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

January Birthdays at Rainbow!

A new tradition has just been started at Rainbow! We want to make sure everyone has a special birthday celebration during the month of their birthday. Sadly many of the kids here at Rainbow don't even know when their birthdays are. So we are going to let them choose a month to celebrate! January's birthday celebration happened this past Saturday. Below are pictures of the older girls (taught by AJ) baking cupcakes and brownies for the party. This particular month we had a couple of boxed mixes left over from the States. But the rest of the parties will have cupcakes made from scratch!

The girls also got to ice the cupcakes and add sprinkles and confetti to the top. They really loved that part! We celebrated on Karen's birthday so we kept the cupcakes a surprise from her!

Once they were done we took the cupcakes over to the kitchen to be passed out with their supper!

How do you spell trouble? Joshua, Praise, and Promise!

Painting on the wall of the kitchen where the kids eat! Fitting!

Waiting for the party to begin!

Collins and J have hit it off!

SM becoming a swing!

The January birthday kids! Julita, Praise (who didn't have a bday this month but wanted to stand there anyway), Promise, Clever, Karen, and baby J (Collins is holding him). Martin also had a bday but wasn't in the pic!

Happy Birthday Everyone! February is up next!

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Living out of boxes...again!

This time next week hopefully we will be moving (or already be done moving) into our home at Rainbow. It seems to come natural for us to just load up some boxes and tubs with our items and send them on to our next house. It's amazing that after moving to our 6th home in less than 2 years we are still carrying around too much stuff. We cull and we cull and we cull again yet still we have so much more than we need. It's humbling to live in a society that makes less than a dollar a day...Where a peanut butter cookie or a piece of chicken is the extent of many children's Christmas presents. And living in the city has somewhat shielded us from the true nature of Malawian living. It's easy to live like Americans here and accumulate lots of stuff. We hide behind our walls and pretend we're the only ones here. Life goes on just like it always has. But a quick look outside the gate (or even outside the city) reminds us that there are many here who are struggling to survive. Now we are moving outside the city. Our home overlooks maize fields and villages where dirt floors and grass roofs are the norm. Another cull...another humbling experience. Thank you, Lord for Your provisions, Your protection, and Your lessons.

Our new home...our family will be on the right side of the duplex.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Christmas Day at Rainbow!

Our Christmas day was spent at Rainbow! What a wonderful time we all had! The kids were all dressed in their nicest dress and they even decorated a few of the bushes outside for part of the festivities. Thankfully I brought a bunch of Christmas candies and decorations with me from the States and I couldn't imagine a better use of the items than sharing them with these beautiful children and the staff at Rainbow. There was "American" Christmas music as well as "Malawian" music throughout the whole day.

Here is a pic of our candy spread. AJ made 4 batches of peanut butter cookies and 4 batches of no bake drop cookies. Then we had candy canes and gum drops and red hots!

The ladies in the kitchen were busy cooking the chicken, rice, gravy, and bread!

Ida and SM!

Justina and CJ!

Our family brought a ton of spaghetti and fruit salad! Here they are chopping up the delicious fruit!

Some of the kids (and Martin!)

Boy will be boys!

Beautiful girls!

Jeremy sharing the story of the candy cane with Nasson and Martin! I had to share it to all of the kids once the prayer and preaching started.

Our beautiful spread!

Gospel time!

And this is what Christmas is all about!

Jeremy and Martin

J and Glory

The girls had been working on a dance/march to share with us on Christmas day!

We loved it!

Serving the food!

And don't forget the desert!

Baby!

Not to be outdone by the girls...the boys had their own performance for us. I believe they are supposed to be dressed up as old men!

Monica and J

After lunch we got out the water toys that we brought. A sprinkler type water game, a slip and slide, and a ball that shoots water! The kids had so much fun!

What an amazing Christmas day and a memory that we will never forget! Thank you, Lord for blessing us with this amazing place and these beautiful people! We are so thankful to serve!