A HUGE loss

We were very shocked and saddened yesterday to hear the news from Melut, that our dear friend and colleague, Rev. Philipa Eisa, Principal of Gideon Theological College in Melut, passed away suddenly. He was teaching a morning class and collapsed.
     Thankfully we were already scheduled to fly back to Melut on Thursday so we will arrive tomorrow and then on Friday travel to Mabaan county where Philip's family has taken his body for burial. We are grateful that soon we will be back together with our GTC family and able to grieve together with them.
     Please pray for Philip's wife Lydia, and their 5 children. And please pray for all who knew him as we each process this grief.

Weeding in his garden last August

Philip was a great teacher, father, and friend.

We will deeply deeply miss you Brother!

A Very Special R&R so far

As many of you know, we left South Sudan at the end of April to come to Kenya for a break. We met up with Eli's parents in Nairobi and flew to Mombasa, a beautiful beach on the Indian ocean! We spent 6 wonderful days together swimming, snorkeling, building sand castles, walking on the sand bars, exploring tide pools and eating lots of good food!

These were such happy times for all of us!

Don't we look relaxed?

We took a glass bottom boat out near the reef to snorkel and the boys found all these starfish in the tide pools. They gathered them into one place for the picture and then put them back.

 

 When we returned from the coast, Eli's 2 brothers and sister joined us! Jason and Caleb were passing through on their way back from a ministry trip to Burundi (in E. Africa) and Alyssa didn't want to miss out on a family gathering so she and our 9-year old nephew Jordan, joined us!

To have some quality time together, we drove 2 hours out of the city to Lake Naivasha and spent 3 beautiful days together catching up, seeing beautiful scenery and wild animals, and being so encouraged by one another.

At the lodge where we stayed

Isaac and his cousin Jordan on a boat ride to see hippos and explore an island full of wildlife.

A Change of Pace

The day before we left Melut, the boys caught their best catch of fish ever!

Then they had a big fish fry with all their friends. One of their mamas offered to fry it all up for them.

There was space in the back of the caravan plane so the boys played with their friend Rachel on the flight to Nairobi, Kenya

On our way we spent the night in a town called Lokichoggio which is on the border of Kenya and South Sudan
We got to eat burgers, fries and ice cream for supper! This is what we call, "initiation to R&R"!

On our first trip to the grocery store the boys picked out these gigantic lollipops that will take all week to eat!
We are so excited to have a month away to rest and be refreshed before heading back in May.

A Large Lamb Feast

Evan welcomes the 2 sheep and goat that Eli bought in the market for the big occassion.

Butchering and cutting the meat was the men's job

The women began by chopping almost 2 buckets of onions!

This was my first time to clean sheep stomach - lovely!

Karen and Monica made delicious kebab

Cheya (fried meat)

Viola and Claire baked bread together

At 4 pm all the men gathered on our new veranda for tea and coffee

Amie and her girls decked out in lawas (traditional dress)

We had a lovely program thanking the Lord for the completion of 3 new houses

Eli shared a few words

Isaac got to do the drumming

After the program we walked over to each house to pray and commit them to the Lord. This is our house - we moved in a week ago.

Then the women got busy serving up the food

Quite a team effort!

Yohanna, one of our students, with a tray full of delicious food

Everyone really enjoyed the food

Providence played a game with the girls

It was a very full day of work but such a joy to celebrate with our GTC family all the amazing work the Lord has been doing on our campus in recent months. Glory to God!

Another new addition to our team here in Melut

  On Wednesday, April 3, we welcomed another new family to our team. The Bolands with Pioneers, have lived in Sudan before and spent a month here in Melut as a family in 2012. They've come back to stay. Jamie will be acting as academic dean and teaching in the college.

The student body and all their families gathered to sing and welcome the Boland family.

In chapel on Friday we welcomed Jamie and his wife Claudia and their two children: Tomasso (5) and Chiara (3).

Eli was very excited to hand over all academic dean responsibilities to Jamie. He stuck a heavy metal weight in the envelope of documents to symbolize the "heaviness" of his duties. :)

Jamie also publicly thanked Eli for all his hard work as academic dean over the last 9 months.

All Moved into our new home!

It is hard to believe that only 2 months after we started building this house, we've moved in! Now, that doesn't mean it's completely finished. There are still quite a few little details like screening in the windows and getting our toilet set up, but we have officially moved in and slept our first night in the new house on Saturday night!

Eli's putting in light bulbs (notice the nice stone work our builder did)

On Thursday we went over to clean. We knew we'd be busy on Friday celebrating Good Friday at church and we wanted to have the house ready to move in on Saturday morning.

We had some super cute helpers

I'm so excited about my kitchen counters complete with tile tops!

On Saturday, moving day, most of the college families came and helped out. Here John and Marko are helping install the bar for the boys' hanging shelves.

The boys figured out that with the help of their triple bunk bed, they can peep over their wall into the main area. :)

To add to the excitement of moving day, as we were enjoying a lovely lunch at the Cross' house, we were attacked by mean bees and chased across campus - what a site we were! Poor Josh was stung 7 times, Eli 2 times, and Bethany 3. Here Josh was sleeping off the Benadryl in the heat of the afternoon.

In true Sudanese culture, we arranged a coffee/tea time in the afternoon to say "Thank you" to all our friends for helping out. Thanks to Miriam who roasted and brewed the delicious coffee for everyone.

The men and women drank their coffee separately

Eating calzones made by Amie Cross for our first dinner in our new home - on our porch of course!

One of the amazing things about our big move has been seeing what it's like to have a larger team. Our team has been so supportive, helpful, and loving towards us as we've cleaned, packed, moved, and then unpacked all in a matter of a few days. David Heska spent hours helping with odd jobs during the last week, Claire came and cleaned and carried trunks full of food and kitchen stuff to our new house, and Amie Cross cooked us 4 meals in a row!

This morning God gave us a beautiful "Welcome Home" sunrise.

Praise the Lord for His amazing timing and for how He caused everything to work out so beautifully.