Eli's Ganza trip

This morning Eli, 3 colleagues, and 3 Sudanese friends set out with our donkey packed for a four day trek into the bush. There is a tribe south of us called the Ganza and Eli wants to learn more about them, where their villages are, and some of their needs. This could be a potential focus for us in the future.

What our boys do for fun

Bethany's Namesake

One of my dearest friends in Yabus is a lady named Hakima. She is one of the first friends I made when I arrived in Sudan two years ago. She owns a nice tea and coffee shop in town and I used to go visit her to practice my Arabic.

Over the years our friendship has grown very close. On July 10th, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Her son Mohammed came to tell me the good news and told me they were waiting for me to visit before giving the baby her name. I thought they wanted me to name her so I'd picked a name - Hadiya - which means "gift" in Arabic.

When I got to her house and started admiring the perfect little baby girl, Hakima instantly started calling her baby, "Bethany Sagair" which means "Little Bethany". I was more honored than words can express.

When I came home that day and was telling Eli about my visit, I remembered the meaning of my name: House of God. I have been praying that Hakima's family would embrace the one TRUE GOD and my prayer is that their home truly will be a house of God one day.

Isaac turned FIVE!

On Monday I turned 5. My mom made pepperoni pizza and a chocolate cake. While I was taking my nap, my mom blew up balloons and decorated the dining hall with streamers and a race car sign that said, "Happy Birthday".

At dinner time, our whole team ate pizza and then my dad lit five candles on my cake and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me. My favorite part of the whole day was getting my present. It was a new Mater truck. Evan and my mom picked it out at the store in Nairobi. We've been having lots of fun playing with it.

So now I'm five and the oldest kid on the compound. I think it's cool being 5.

Joshua is ONE!

For someone so young, Joshua is well loved and has more friends than any of us. Whenever I'm in the market, the shopkeepers call out greetings to him. As a product of Yabus, he's been named "Yabus" and people give him gifts and want to hold him or shake his hand.

Yesterday he turned one year old and he had quite a turn out at his "small"birthday party. I baked two cakes and made several gallons of Koolaid and we invited all our little neighbor friends. After cake and Koolaid, we taught a few fun games like "duck, duck, goose" and red hot pepper.

walking with Daniel

I'm amazed that our little baby has grown up. He's now taking steps on his own and wants to walk everywhere. We're so thankful he's been healthy during this first year of his life.

Chewing on his own goat leg!