Pigs, Prayer, Praise, and Power

Our growing family is healthy and growing well.

Caleb now has two and a half teeth and I call him our little snagle tooth. Even with teeth coming in for the most part he's a very contented little boy.

Emily is well also. She's our little pink, poofy dress, wedding veil (piece of old mosquito net), princess shoes, singing, little darling. She loves to put layer upon layer upon layer of skirts (in the middle of our hot season) to make her dresses as big as possible. But under all those layers of princessy hoopla she loves to get down and dirty and play in the rain, or make all sorts of mud cakes and what not in our back yard sand box.

Lydia's our little animal lover. I can see her when she grows up becoming either a park ranger or a "save the whale" type person. Well, in her case it's "save the baby kittens from the overly loving clutches of her little two year old sister".

Matthew has been on break from school dew to a variety of reasons. We've had to make a trip to Lusaka to take care of Caleb's papers. Rick or I having to take care of different duties around here so Matthew with a big smile willingly gave up some of his school time to play with his friends. He's so heart broken. ;) He's a good student and is learning very well. But like any normal six year old boy he'd prefer climbing trees, wrestling with his friends fighting "bad guys", or splashing through mud puddles and playing in the mud.

Rick has been our electrical hero. Almost every day our house gets brown-outs for about two hours in the evenings. He was able to fix it as of yesterday. It's nice to be able to flip on a light switch whenever I walk into a room or not have to worry about my electric burners turning off right in the middle of my supper preparations. The kids will be happy to not have to take a bath by candle-light either. "Thank you daddy," as the kids told him yesterday.

I'm my usual self. Cooking, changing diapers, playing, cooking some more… I did get out the Christmas decorations earlier this week and we decorated our Christmas tree. The kids sure enjoyed helping. Now, for those of you who read the subject and may be wondering what pigs, prayer, praise, and power mean I'll tell you.

Pigs: we have now officially become pig farmers. We have started a sustainable animal farming method that can really help the local villager. We have our first pig (named Kelly by Lydia) and just five days ago, she gave birth to little piglets. They are so cute to watch and their mama Kelly is a good mother.

However, two days ago we had a little scare. Two year old Emily decided to sneak out the house and follow big brother who feeds Kelly because she wants to pet one of the baby pigs. Before Matthew could stop her Emily had climbed the fence and toppled head first into the pig pen. Thankfully one of Matthew's friends was with him and jumped in and got Emily. She was ok except that her pride was hurt. She got a little more hurt when Mama scolded her for going to the pig pen without mommy or daddy. I think she learned her lesson.

Prayer/praise: We have a friend who has been away from the Lord doing evil things and has been trying to hurt the Lord's work here for some time now. We have been praying that his life would change. It did, and I am happy to say for the better. He had stolen thousands of dollars, had been abusing his family, and spreading lies about our team. A few weeks ago he told lies about one of our teammates and it was brought to court. Needless to say, God shined like a light in the dark. The judge, the chief and everyone else saw the truth. And even local villagers would leave early in the morning on the number of court days and walk all the way to the court to show support for our teammate. Through all this our friend saw Christ and had a change of heart. He now wants to pay off his debt, reunite his family and come back to the Lord. Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow.

Power: I already wrote about how Rick has fixed part of our electrical power problem and boy are we thankful.

- Karen