We're here!

Our new home

 We are unpacked and feeling so comfortable in our new home here in Doro. We are so grateful to have a place to call home. The boys are happily getting used to their new surroundings.

The guards on our compound have some chickens and Joshua loves watching them eat and helping the lost chicks find their mamas. The boys are even starting to name them.

 I have been so proud of our kids. Despite culture and language differences, Isaac, Evan and Josh have been taking the soccer ball out every day to play and make friends.

Yesterday we went to the river for a swim and as you can see we had quite the audience!

The boys and their soccer friends

And now I'm going to copy and paste an email I wrote to my family about our first days here:

There is so much I want to share about our new life here. I have been amazed at the ease of unpacking and getting the house to a functional state. And honestly, I’ve been amazed by the boys and how beautifully they’re adapting! Isaac especially started taking initiative a few days ago, he takes the soccer ball out to a clearing and plays soccer with a group of about 12 boys. Yesterday Evan warmed up to the idea and today Joshua joined! After playing soccer for about an hour yesterday afternoon, Isaac and Evan came home sweating and red-faced and asked if we could walk down to the river with their friends. Sara, a new teammate was here visiting and she said she’d enjoy going to the river so we walked, along with the boys’ soccer friends. It took about 30 minutes to get there but then they had a blast swimming! The water was brown, like chocolate milk and did not appeal to me at all, but our three jumped in right away and soon other kids were splashing around too. On the way home, the boys joked and some of them even held hands with Isaac and put their arms around them. I know making new friends with people of a different culture and language is hard and totally out of their comfort zone but they’re doing it and I am so so proud of them.

   Joshua is excited about all the different kinds of birds we see here. We got the bird book out and he’s spotted some cool turaccos and hornbills. I’m attaching a photo of Josh watching the chickens being fed. There is a rooster and several hens and their chicks on our compound that belong to the guards and Josh has enjoyed watching them, feeding them, and helping lost chicks reunite with their mamas. So far the rooster has been named Barney and by the end of the week maybe even the chicks will have names. J

   We really like the guards. There are four total, usually two here at a time. There are two sons and their fathers. The older fathers have several wives and they come to visit almost every day so I’m trying to learn names and learn who goes with who. It’s kind of challenging. But the boys are getting to know them as “Ami” which is their language for “uncle”. Yesterday the boys and I planted a veggie patch and our “uncles” were very interested in these strange seeds we were planting and asked to have the leftovers. They have already planted maize, groundnuts and okra in different sunny areas of the compound.

   I can’t remember if I told you this already but one major blessing during this first week has been the Lunch Club. SIM has Compound A (the original compound where some missionaries live and where the main meeting/dining hall is.) Then there is Compound B where the rest of the team lives and on that compound there is also the water project office and a small Bookshop that a teammate has opened recently. Behind both of those compounds, another few minutes’ walk is our compound. We are on a compound which is right next to the SIM/SIC secondary school that moved from Yabus. Sorry that might be more details than you wanted but just wanted to give you an idea that we’re not all together on one big compound. So back to the lunch club. The Lunch club is available to any SIM missionaries who want to be a part of it. For $1 a day, you get lunch cooked for you, Mon-Fri! For now, we have joined the lunch club which is going to be great next week once I start school with the boys. We can focus on school all morning and I won’t have to stop to start lunch. We can just go through until 12:30 and then walk down to compound A to eat. It got a little tricky yesterday when some friends came to visit right at lunch time and I knew it would be right to feed them so the boys and Eli ate with our guests (but didn’t eat much) and then we went over to compound A and filled up the rest of the way at lunch club. J

   Eli and I are amazed that every time we go out, especially to the nearby Doro market, we run into people we know from Yabus days (so from five years back!) I always keep my eyes open and of course when  I see a familiar face, then I have to try to remember the name! J But it’s definitely fun being reunited with so many dear people. We are also making new friends. Eli is so good about getting out and walking around. He’s also been “shadowing” some of our teammates and hearing what they do and learning about the tribes and community and needs here. Today he went with Bubba (we studied Arabic together in Khartoum) to the Ingessena camp. This morning I went along with a teammate to visit a friend of hers who has a little 2 month old who was born with quite a few complications. One of the major complications is that he has cleft lip and cleft pallet so they have to feed him through an NG tube and also with a special bottle brought from the States that the mom uses to feed her expressed milk. It’s been a very hard few months for this new mama as she struggles to feed her little one. He also has a heart defect. We spent a few hours taking turns holding him, feeding him, and encouraging the mother to keep doing what she’s doing. On our way home, we were invited to stop and drink coffee with a group of women so we did. It is so great to be back in this culture.

   I’m finding that the days are very full and physically draining. I think especially since everything is so new, it takes a lot of energy out of us. Last night after getting the boys into bed, I took my bucket bath and then came to bed with the laptop, hoping to download pictures, write emails, catch up with Eli. Eli and I did share about our days but somehow in the midst of it, I fell asleep! I know these first weeks will be the most busy as we try to figure out how to do life, as we meet up with so many friends (which means more visitors than usual) and as we learn where everything is. The market is only a 10 min walk away so I’ve been going almost every day. I’m soooo thrilled that if I need anything, it is close enough to run over. I want to show Isaac and Evan around the market so that soon I can send them on their bikes if I just need one or two things when I’m in a pinch.

   Tomorrow we’re going to attend the SIC Doro church which is right here in neighborhood. We want to greet the church and let them know who we are and why we’re here and then other weeks we might start visiting the different churches in the camps. There is really soooo much going on ministry wise in this place that it’s hard to keep everything straight but we know it will all come in time.

    Today is Saturday and German came again. He’s been hanging out with Isaac riding bikes and the two of them have been helping Eli fix a motorcycle that one of our teammates basically gave to Eli. He’s thrilled about it though it needs some TLC after being in storage for so long and Eli will need to figure out how to get it registered and get the needed papers so he can drive it around. It will be wonderful when he needs to get around to all the different camps. Some are quite far. This motorcycle is just one of sooooo many ways that God has provided so abundantly and beyond what we could have expected. Seriously, it’s quite overwhelming how God has been so present, so near, and so totally involved in all the details, big and small. We are humbled and always thanking Him for everything.

   One other funny tidbit I wanted to share is my cooking. You know how when you move somewhere new you have to learn how and what to cook there. Well, okra is in abundance here and this is definitely its season so I’ve been cooking a lot with it. Last night we had okra in our spaghetti sauce and the night before we had okra fried rice. Both were a huge hit with the family and again I’m amazed at my boys and that they can even get excited about okra. Today when Isaac saw that I bought more okra at the market he said, “Good! You can never have too much okra!” What a kid!

    Well, this is getting so long. Since we don’t email every day, it seems I have so much I want to share. For now the internet set up is that we walk down to one of the SIM compounds for internet. It’s been working well, it just means it doesn’t always happen every day. 

Thank you for all your prayers! We are definitely sensing God answering your prayers.

    With love,

              Eli, Bethany and the boys

You Make Me Brave

I recently started this new Bible study by Priscilla Shirer focusing on the story of Gideon in the book of Judges. It has been perfect during this season of my life when my weakness seems to be magnified. This morning, only 2 days before we begin a whole new chapter of our lives in a new place in South Sudan, my Loving Father met me so personally and powerfully to encourage me in my weakness and to inspire me to be BRAVE as we move forward.

My time with the Lord this morning started with these beautiful words from Jesus Calling:
"Trust me in the depths of your being. It is there that I live in constant communion with you. When you feel flustered and frazzled on the outside, don't get upset with yourself. You are only human and the swirl of events around you will sometimes feel overwhelming. Just remember that I am with you and within you."

Then in my Gideon Bible study I was challenged to answer the question: As Gideon and the Israelites were intimidated by the their enemies' iron chariots (or battle strength) what are the "iron chariots" of intimidation that keep me from moving forward in complete obedience? I pondered this for a while. And then I realized that the thing that intimidates me most about moving forward, serving God with EVERYTHING, is my awareness of my own weakness and limitations. I know what it feels like to give my all and get burned out in Sudan, so I'm always afraid of doing that again. So now I try to protect myself and in the guise of "staying healthy and balanced" I wonder sometimes if I miss out on something the Lord really wants me to do! Israel chose comfort instead of commitment to the One who had led and sustained them. God said He would continue doing it if they would actively trust Him for total victory.

The new question I'm asking myself is: What comforts or perceived sense of security would I need to give up to fully obey God's instructions? When you think of our family in the next weeks as we transition into a new place of ministry, will you please pray for Eli and I to to find that beautiful balance where we know we are fully obeying and fulfilling what God has called us to Doro to do, but in a way that our family, marriage, and our own personal lives can continue to thrive. This is my prayer this morning. And in yet another beautiful way, the Lord encouraged my heart this morning with this song called, "You Make Me Brave".  You can listen to it in the link below but here are some of the words:

I have heard you calling my name
I have heard the song of love that you sing
So I will let you draw me out beyond the shores into your grace

And Your love, in wave after wave, crashes over me
For you are for us, you are not against us
Champion of Heaven, you made a way for all to enter in,

You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves
No fear can hinder now the love that made a way
No fear can hinder now the promises you make.

Details

This blog is for those of you who like details. Many of our dear friends and family are asking questions about what our new home/life will be like in Doro. Let me try to fill you in. Above is a map of South Sudan and if you look at the upper right hand corner you will see arrows that show where Melut is (where we used to live) and where Doro is- where we're moving in 6 days. You can see that we are very close to the Ethiopian border.

Photo by snipview.com

This picture shows just one frame of the many white refugee tents that dot this county. Because of fighting and unrest in other parts of the country, many thousands of people, from varying tribes have fled and settled in Maban County. At the beginning of 2015, the numbers of refugees were 130,000. That was before the situation worsened so I imagine there are even more now.

So this is where we're moving. We are very humbled and thankful for how God has provided us with a great house for our family.  We will have plenty of room and I'm most excited about having space for hosting and having a whole room to set up as our schoolroom!

There is no electricity or running water so we will use solar power for lights, fans (at night) and charging electronics. Another thing I'm so excited about is that we'll have an indoor, western style toilet! Since there is no running water, we will just flush it with a bucket.

I will cook on a 2-burner propane stove but since propane is so expensive to get in South Sudan, I am also taking in a nice charcoal "jiko" or stove. This way when I'm cooking something like beans or meat that takes longer, I won't use up our gas quickly.

We will not actually be on the SIM compound. This house belongs to a missionary family with another organization so we will be on a small compound with one other missionary family that will join us in September. We already know these folks and LOVE them, so this will be yet another wonderful aspect of our new home!

At the SIM Doro base, the majority of our missionaries are nurses and medical staff. SIM has a hospital, clinic and nutrition village very near to the compound. There is also a secondary school - the school actually began in Yabus and was on our compound 'back in the day' but had to transfer to Doro because Yabus had become unstable. Besides medical work and education, there is also a water project - providing clean water for the many hundreds of thousands of refugees - and a great evangelism and discipleship movement going on. As you can see, this is a very exciting place to be and the ministry opportunities among the many different tribes who have moved to Doro for safety, are endless!

We aren't sure what our first month in Doro will look like but we imagine it will take time to get unpacked and settled into our new house, do some exploring around and get to know the market and local area, connect with old friends, and then Eli will begin his discipleship work. To start out, that will mean lots of meeting together with pastors and leaders of different churches in the area, discussing the different materials he has for teaching, and creating a vision and plan together. We would really appreciate your prayers in this.

Right now, it is still rainy season in South Sudan so we've got our mud boots and bug repellent packed. We hear there are many cases of malaria and many bugs! Will you stop and pray for our family's health and safety when we head in? We've all started our anti-malarials already.

Photo by actalliance.org

Because there are so many different tribes in the Doro area, we have not picked a specific people group to work with. We are thankful we know Arabic and that Arabic is commonly spoken among the different tribes and in the Doro area. We are looking forward to visiting different churches in the many camps and we pray we will be an encouragement to the believers there.

Hopefully you can hear the excitement in this post. We are deeply grateful to the Lord for opening His good plan for us and guiding us in this direction. Though there are many uncertainties and changes in our future, we remember: "this Hope (our God) is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls." Hebrews 6:19.

We fly into Doro this coming Tuesday, August 4th, on a small AIM AIR plane loaded down with 300 kg to start over in a new place. 6 days and counting!

Exploring the Great Rift Valley

We just came back from a really special 3 days out of the city with our good friends Jeff, Heather, and little Jordy Ladine. We drove only an hour out of the city, to the edge of the Great Rift Valley and did what we call, "gourmet camping."

Eli and Evan followed us on the motorcycle

This was the view from our place

Totally relaxed

Lovin' on Little Jordy

The pool was cold but the boys enjoyed cooling off after a long hike

Our three boys

Enjoying the breathtaking view

Mother/Son hike just the two of us 

Plenty of rock climbing too!

Jordy was so happy on the walks

Drinking coffee in the most beautiful spot on earth!

Afternoon game of scrabble

Grilling for dinner

Checkers by the fire in the morning

Potty with a view

I am not joking! This was the bathroom! You basically sit and look out at the view of the valley!

The shower's view

And this is how the shower is set up. You shower with one side of the shower completely in the open so you can enjoy the scenery while you shower! And yes we did it!

A cool cave we found on one of our many hikes

Eli and Jeff after a morning hike

We basically spent our days eating, relaxing, and hiking up and down the mountains. There was so much for the kids to explore and we even saw some wildlife. This was just what our boys needed after 2 months of living in the big city. They are definitely bush kids - they love open space and freedom - so they were very happy here.

The timing of this trip with our friends was perfect. Eli and I had just spent the previous days shopping for everything we needed for our new house in Doro, South Sudan where we move on August 4, and then packing it all and weighing it. We had reserved 300 kg thinking it would be more than enough but when it came time to weigh, it tallied up to 298,5 kg!!!! Super close, but still within our limits! So yeah, it had been a stressful week and getting away from it all with good friends was just what we needed - like a last hurrah before heading back to South Sudan for the rest of the year.

We all decided we'd like turns on the motorcycle so Eli took us on some fun trail rides.

This has always been one of our favorite places to be as a couple - on a motorcycle together!

Group photo with the valley in the background

L'ol Dacha was a beautiful place to stay and catch our breath before this next adventure ahead of us.

Shopping for South Sudan

Eli with one of the 5 full carts! 

We are very thankful that we can get just about everything we need here in Kenya! Since our flight back into South Sudan is in 2 weeks, we need to have everything packed and at the office by the end of this week so it can go through processing. Today Eli and I set out to Nakumatt, Kenya's equivalent of a Walmart, with a long list and a cup of coffee in our hands. We were very thankful friends invited our kids to come over to play so we didn't have to drag them along with us!

This is our amazing Nakumatt

After spending 30 minutes in the pharmacy buying medicines for the next 6 months, we spent about 3 1/2 hours in Nakumatt. Since we lost our entire household in Melut, we had to buy things like fans, drawers for clothes, chairs, food items and other essentials like toothpaste and toilet paper.

The crazy thing was that by the time we came to check out and everything was rung up, our Visa card wouldn't go through! Granted we don't usually spend such large amounts of money in one go so our bank in the States must have blocked the transaction. :) Here we were after almost 4 hours of shopping, everything had been rung up, but we couldn't pay for it! After trying a few different ways, Eli went out of the store to an ATM machine and was able to withdraw the amount in cash! He came back to the cashier with very bulging pockets!

How are we going to get all this stuff into this little car?

 Sure enough, when Eli went to pay for our parking, the ticket read: 3 hours, 57 minutes. That's how long we'd been shopping!

Tired but oh so thankful for how God provides!

The Lord is with you!

Yesterday was the 2 month "anniversary" since we were evacuated from our little town, Melut in South Sudan. I feel like it's been a good 2 months and God has taught, grown, and healed our whole family. The exciting thing is that we are now gearing up for what is next. In about 2 weeks, on August 4th, we will fly to Doro, South Sudan, and settle into a new team, new ministry and a new house and try to make it home. When Eli and I first started seriously discussing this possibility I was nervous and did not have any peace about it. With the news of fighting continuing in South Sudan, especially in the Upper Nile region where our mission works, I didn't want to invest in creating a new home if there was a chance we could lose it like we did our home in Melut! But God has been infusing peace and hope into me little by little so that I feel free to be all there and move forward wholeheartedly.

For some reason, whenever we have a pretty big decision in front of us, I expect that God will make our future plans clear in some big, flashy way. But lately I've realized that it's more in the daily obedience and trust that He guides us. I was reminded of this fact this morning in my quiet time. I'm doing a Bible study on Gideon and these verses stuck out to me from Judges 6:11-12,
     ' Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon, son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!"'
      When you look at those two verses you see that the angel didn't suddenly appear in great splendor or light. The Scriptures say the angel first came, sat down nearby and watched Gideon, and then appeared or came forward to Gideon. The author of my Bible study, Priscilla Shirer says, "Just as the angel came to Gideon, God often comes to us in our boring days - veiled in the most ordinary circumstances. If we only anticipate grandiose events to accompany the times when we encounter Him or hear His voice, we will miss out on many intimate moments in our relationship with God. The mundane, the routine, the commonplace - these are often the contexts in which He will reveal Himself to humanity."

This is exactly how God has been doing His work in our hearts these last few weeks. We have been faithful in seeking Him, marinating in His Word and Truth and committing our future to Him. Rather than a sudden BOOM! as we have been aware of the Lord's presence with us, He has made us aware of what He has next for us.
     Yes, things might get tense in Doro and we might even have to leave at some point. But I'm at the point, thanks to the Lord, that I know He would give grace to help us through it so I'm OK with that possibility. That is something only the Lord can do in our hearts and I'm so so grateful for His quiet, gradual work in our lives. I am realizing now that even while I was struggling and felt stuck emotionally, God was doing His beautiful thing in us in His time.
     Since we sent out our newsletter yesterday, sharing the news of this move for our family, many have asked how our boys feel about this decision. We've shared it with them and they are really excited too. Our oldest said, "As long as we're in South Sudan, I'm happy." We have shared that we don't know how long God will give us in Doro and that we will need to take life month by month, but we are planning on making it "home" for the unforseeable future.

When you think of our family, please pray for us as we purchase what we need to set up home and pack it all, and as we prepare our hearts and our family for this new move. One verse that keeps coming to mind is Hebrews 11:34 - that one little phrase that says - "their weakness was turned to strength." In this context it's talking about all the heroes of faith including people like Gideon, Samson, David, etc. God turned their weakness to strength and we're trusting God to do the same for us as we move forward.

Cuddles at the Babies Home

About a month ago I realized that I needed an outlet, something I could do a few hours a week outside of the apartment building to stay healthy. In God's sweet way, He led me to New Life Home right in my neighborhood! Every Wednesday a babysitter comes to watch the boys from 1-5 pm and I head to the babies home to help wherever they need me. Every week has been different so far. I've been with the one year olds, the real little babies and the crawlers. They are such a joy!

We are actually not allowed to take pictures in the babies home so I haven't taken any but I found this photo online and it looks just like what I see at the babies home. There are 45 babies in this home from newborns to 2 years. Once they're 2 years old, they are moved to a home with older children.  This orphanage receives babies left in hospitals or abandoned on the streets. Each and every one is so precious, all with their own beautiful names. I find myself thinking of them and praying for them throughout the week. It's been such a neat experience for me to go each week and hold, feed, tickle and play with these little ones.

I have to admit that since adoption has always been a huge desire of mine, it has been hard to leave the babies home each week and not bring one home with me! How I wish we could be a family to one of these sweet little ones. But adoption and our crazy adventure in South Sudan just don't seem to be matching up right now. The two can't happen simultaneously...at least they haven't been able to yet.

So as long as we're in Kenya I will keep going every Wednesday to this oasis in this huge city and cuddle all the babies I want and remind them that Jesus loves them and so do I.