[hip-uh-krit]

Hypocrite.  That's what I s'pose I am.  I stood in a workshop I was asked to lead on blogging a month ago and talked about how blogs were so much more effective if you post regularly.  And since then, I've said nothing, not one thing, on this here blog, for about 6 weeks.  But let me tell you, it has not been laziness.  It's not been a lack of inspiration.  Its just that I have been plain old tired.

Here's a bit of what has been happening in our world since my last post:

Traveling:  I made a trip to South Africa for a women's conference, which was a really great and refreshing time.  It was an encouragement and also challenged me in lots of ways, some of which I hope to share in a later post.  I had the blessing of getting to room with two women I already knew and call friend, and they didn't know each other.  It was really neat how the Lord worked it out, as they were assigned to be roomates and their other assigned roommate got sick and couldn't attend. They had a last minute empty bed and invited me to move over to their place.  It was a great time of catching up and sweet fellowship.  I'm going to be honest and say that the last 18 months of my life have been the loneliest I've ever lived and that week was a real gift to my spirit in many, many ways.

Not only was my conference great, but I was able to spend a couple of extra nights in Johannesburg.  Wow, I was amazed by what I saw of South Africa.  I had heard that it was very developed, but I could not fathom how true that was.  The shopping centers, stores, and restaurants were unbelievable.  I ate at McDonalds, drank my first fountain soda on the continent of Africa, and shopped at an enormous grocery store where I was able to buy all sorts of things like bacon, affordable cheese, and abundant peanut butter.  I brought back two VERY full suitcases and a much heavier backpack than I left here with. 

Ryan has also been traveling.  He's made two trip to Nigeria in the last several weeks.  It's always crazy when he is away.   But thankfully, the trips have been productive and he is tying up loose ends that need to be completed before we leave for the States.

School:  We have been hitting school hard since July.  We have never had this much school done by Christmas, much less the beginning of November.  The younger four are more than 1/2 way through their science, history, and language arts curriculums for the year and math is coming along nicely too.  Abby is also making good progress, and is a diligent student, though it's trickier to finish early with high school credits, so she'll still have a good bit of work to do while we're in the States.  We're thankful that the Lord sent a volunteer to help us along with that this fall, but I'll share more about that in another post.

 Abe did a pumpkin unit study this fall.  We found a pumpkin that was almost orange at a nearby produce stand.  He guessed there would be about 50 seeds.  There were actually 367,  Of course, after we counted them, we roasted and ate them.

 

Here's Lily, dressed as Cleopatra at a history day we had with some other homeschoolers. We've just moved out of the ancients and into the middle ages!  Hooray for me, because the ancients are my least favorite.

 

Celebrating:  Abe celebrated his 7th birthday with all thing camo.  Ryan's parents had even sent us a camouflage cake mix with bright orange icing, so we enjoyed that at lunch time.  We also attempted a birthday bonfire, but the wet wood we have 'round these parts refused to cooperate.  We basically ended up roasting marshmallows using the flames we managed to coax out of assorted paper and boxes.  We used marshmallows and chocolate bars that we've been saving since our friends visited in July and made some yummy s'mores. 

 

Here's Abe with the 'mote control car we gave him for his birthday.

We also hosted a 50s style murder mystery for our volunteer's 18th birthday.  We had a good time, but it was complicated by the fact that the electricity took part of the night off.  Limited lighting definitely adds to the ambiance, I suppose.

Most of our 50's party crew

Packing:  We head to the States in 5 weeks and so most Saturdays, we've been trying to tackle a room.  When we moved from Nigeria, there was no organization or purging involved.  It all happened so fast that any willing hands were accepted and we literally ended up with all sorts of things that we wouldn't have packed if we'd have had time to sort and organize.  Combine that with the fact that things have been crazy busy since I took on the guest house responsibilities, and well, let's just say our closets were downright scary!  To compound it all, we've decided to accept a transfer for next term, (that's also another post waiting to happen), and so our house will be packed up completely, prepped for moving when we return to West Africa next spring.    Packing it all up is motivation to purge, that's for sure. 

Surviving: The last 6 weeks or so, we've had lots of opposition from the basic aspects of life.  You know...water, electricity, and the like.  Ghana has had an electricity shortage which has resulted in more outages than normal.  Our water pump is currently "on vacation" and the repairmen who were supposed to be here today to fix it have been no-shows again.  It's been 8 days since it functioned properly, which means that we have to boil water if we want any warmth for bucket bathing and laundry is a no-go.  I let it steal more energy than I should, but man it gets old.  I think that I will never ever take a warm, good pressured shower for granted again.  And the option to do laundry anytime I want without checking water supply or electricity first will never again be lost on me.

Stateside Preparations:  We are excited to be coming to the States soon, but we have had tons of preparations to make.  Medical paperwork, scheduling appointments and speaking engagements, working through calendar details (AKA scheduling time to rest), getting Ryan scheduled for the seminary classes he needs to take while we're there, and then thinking through the details of cell phones and those sorts of things, all take time and energy.  We feel like we're nearing the end of that "to-do" list for now.  It reminds me of wedding planning, there is a certain amount that you do ahead and then there's a bunch of hurry up and wait until it comes down to the final crunch.  We're thankful for a brief respite from the planning before we hit the final crunch.

Panto Season:  The three oldest are participating in a drama production this year with the same drama group they worked with last year.  They put on a British style pantomime every Christmas season and the girls really wanted to participate again.  Isaac was allowed to join them this year, so they are practicing every weekend and sometimes as much as 3 evenings a week.  That makes for a whole lot of taxiing and schedule shaping.  But, they're having a good time and they will be putting on their last performance of ,"There's No Place Like Rome" the day before we head to 'Merica.  That's one way to get them to sleep on the airplane, a whole week of dress rehearsals and nightly performances should wear them out!

Here they are, dressed for a Halloween practice.  Lizzy was Minnie, our volunteer, Bailey, was a scarecrow, Abby was a pineapple, and Isaac was a minecraft chicken.  Abe, not to be outdone, threw on a mask he had colored during school and photo bombed them.  Crazy kid!

That's a glimpse into the last six weeks round these parts.