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.

Palm Sunday

This Sunday we did something a little different. Our whole team took a boat ride down river about 30 minutes and found a beautiful spot for a picnic.

We found a patch of shady trees where we could spread a blanket and have a picnic. After lunch we sang a few songs and David read the Triumphal Entry to us from Scripture.

It felt so good to get away from the campus for a while and enjoy the peace of the river and the sweet fellowship of our team. The kids had a great time exploring, climbing trees, and swimming off the boat.