If you are a long time reader of the blog, you may remember my long time scramble to do some kind of celebrating of American holidays in an effort for creating stability and positive memories for our kiddos. The first year in Ethiopia, we tried to skip it but then…well, read about it here. It’s weird this holiday is such a big deal for us but it’s because I remember my desperate feeling that first summer where we were all like plants, pulled out of our pots, starting to wilt and looking for ways to root again. And…I also dyed rice because it was all we had.
I am about dying of the girls’ 3 year-old cuteness!
By the next year, I knew I had to be more intentional as even though I can’t execute a holiday exactly the way I experienced it, it’s so important and fun to celebrate holidays. Here’s a link to 2014 where we were blessed to hang out with teammates and family on the fourth. 2014 4th 0f July. This was the year the girls’ wanted to make everyone choose which country was better. Thanks to Erica and several others, we had decorations to pull out for the 4th!
By summer of 2015, we were back in the states for a 4th with all the fun Jon remembers growing up.
2016, we are back in a hut, this time, the new one at our house, grilling burgers with teammates and friends.
Here we are, 2017. Living at SIM Headquarters (HQ). We are in a lovely, two bedroom apartment here, but it isn’t our home in the US or in Ethiopia. We were all still a bit tired but I saw it was July 3rd. All of our decorations are in Injibara but I am slowly learning that celebrating life isn’t what we have or where we are but taking joy in the little things and recreating what we can. We invited all the Americans around (4 couples) and ate Mexican food on a tiny veranda. (I know, why not burgers? It was what I had around and it is usually raining every afternoon/evening, so grilling was out) The girls spent the afternoon coloring flags and beading red, white and blue jewelry while Raquel and I made potatoes, meat, salsa and guacamole.
I want to be an intentional mom and a woman who can truly celebrate the little things.
In other updates, we spent the weekend in Ziway, we had a few meetings, went to a Lifesong School graduation and enjoyed God’s beautiful creation. More pics to come of this trip. Our trip down took much longer than we thought because of a missed turn, busy roads and the dynamics of traveling with four children, but we made it and were so happy to crawl out of the van!
Prayer Points:
-Jon leaves on Friday to go up to Injibara and fix up our house. He especially needs wisdom on getting our water running again.
-Eliza, a young woman from Australia, flies in this week and will be with our family for the next three months. She is 19 and it is her first time abroad. Talk about diving in deep. Pray for her, her heart, her safety, her time with us.
-We are all so sad thinking about saying goodbye to Raquel, she has truly been God’s provision for us in this season.
-Babies sleep, last night Tiger slept for the first time all night! Miss T is waking up at least 3 times, I can usually nurse her and get her back to sleep.
-We’ve resumed language study. It feels good to apply my brain in Amharic again but I also feel rusty!
Thanks for loving us so well.
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