Relief from the Heat

It has been scorching hot here. Miserably hot. It's not as hot as Sudan was, but it has been very hot and humid. The humidity makes me sweat all day and I feel gross until I can take a shower.

Usually we just suffer through it, but yesterday we had a day free of any appointments or ministry work and decided to go to the pool. We are VERY blessed to have a swimming pool near our house. It's at the YMCA and takes ten minutes to walk to. Pools are very rare in Africa so we know how lucky we are to have one in Moshi. Although it's close, this is only our second time to swim there. The YMCA has a really nice pool and they only charge $2 to swim.

Of course when we got there, clouds began to roll in. Fortunately, it wasn't too cold to swim. We were the only ones swimming so it was like our own private pool for the day. While Eli didn't cry during his first swim, he was hesitant. This time he was hesitant for just a bit in the beginning and then had a blast splashing away. I think his time splashing in the bath bucket recently helped him be more comfortable in the pool water.

(His belly served as his own personal floating device!)

After swimming Eli ate and conked out. He was exhausted from all the fun. Once he woke up he was in a great mood. We hope we can swim once a month so he'll continue to be comfortable in water.

After we got home, the rain came! It was a surprise since the rainy season isn't supposed to be until March. The cooler weather was much appreciated, but not so much appreciated was the 18 hour power outage. I hope that is not a sign of what is to come when the rainy season hits!

ABCs

On Saturday I began Kiswahili lessons. It's time I stop depending on George to translate all the time and start to learning how to speak the language myself. I know a little bit, but I need to get serious in order to be able to speak better than a 2 year old.

In the words of Maria Von Trapp “Let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start... when you read you begin with ABC.” During our first session, we went over the alphabet and pronunciation. My tutor is Redemta, Pastor Zach's wife, who is a pre-school teacher. She'll be coming twice a week. I admit I was restless and wanting to fast forward to forming sentences. However, I need a good foundation so I am trusting Redemta and will go slow.

So until next time.... Kwaheri! (Good bye!)

Mama Teddy

One of our roles at Yesu Anaweza is to visit and encourage church members. On Sunday afternoon, we visited Mama Teddy who lives behind the church. Alan and Shannon have known this family since Teddy was small and wanted to send their greetings and prayers. So we visited on their behalf. Like so many others, she is struggling to provide for her four children. They live in a tiny house. It might be 12x12 feet. Her kids Teddy, Jennifer, Neema and Baraka are adorable. Neema has a voice like a chipmunk and I just want to carry her around in my pocket all day. We had a chance to talk with Mama Teddy and encourage her. We encouraged her to keep coming to church and find strength in the Lord. Teddy has tonsillitis so we prayed for her and her family before we left.

Here is Baraka and Eli. Baraka is 11 months older than Eli, but I think our little porker outweighs him! Eli is a giant 5 month old!

You may remember him from a previous post. When the Africa Harvest of Hope team came in July, we met Baraka for the first time. He would go to no one except his mom... and George!

False Prophets

Pastor Zach is gone for a month, conducting a pastors school. While he is gone, George is preaching on Sundays. Today he continued in 1st John and talked about false prophets. I, unfortunately, missed his sermon. Eli didn't sleep well last night resulting in very little sleep for me. My wonderful husband took Eli to church with him so I could sleep for a few hours and meet them later. I heard George did a great job.

At the discipleship class in the afternoon, they continued to discuss false prophets which are very common in Africa. They are motivated by money to exploit the needy and take advantage of them. People here are so desperate for a better life that they will try anything and cling to the hope that is offered. Sadly, it's false hope and they are left worse off than they were before. Here is one example – one girl in the class talked about a prophet who claimed to heal people. In exchange for money, she was given five stones and told to put them in a drink. If she drank from the cup with the stones, whatever she was suffering from would be healed. Our pastors wife found the stones and threw them away, telling her to put her faith in God alone. Other prophets will tell people to bring their sheep, soil, food, anything from home to them. He will pray for them and they will be blessed... for a fee, of course. It's so sad to hear about these stories.

The discussion was in Kiswahili so I didn't understand what was happening, but the debate was lively and exciting. The discussion was so good, it went into my class time. I was going to talk about finding rest in the Lord, but decided to hold off until next week. I try to get the ladies out on time (6:00pm) because it gets dark and our church doesn't have electricity and they need to get home to cook dinner. So,we went over last week's homework which was to come up with a New Years Resolution and plan to make it happen. I gave them a preview of next week by talking about the story of Mary and Martha before ending with prayer requests.

Another good Sunday at Yesu Anaweza.

Starfish Story

Everywhere we look, there are needs. There are people suffering and struggling. It makes me feel overwhelmed, sad, and helpless. The church we go to is in a poor area and many people within our church family need help. I wish I had Bill Gates' bank account so I could help them all out.

One major burden felt by anyone with children is that of school fees. School isn't free here and parents have to come up with tuition fees. Now, these parents make barely enough to survive. They are just able to pay rent and buy food. Many people cannot afford to pay for their kids to go to school and as a result many end up uneducated. Jobs are so scarce that unless you are educated, the only job you'll be able to get is manual labor like house help, cooking in a restaurant, digging, etc which pay close to nothing. Parents will do anything they can to come up with school fees. It breaks my heart to see how hard they work.

We set aside a portion of our support to helping those in need. However, the needs greatly outweigh what we have to give. So, we have to be creative with our budget. Whenever possible, we try to support the goods and services of the people in our church who are struggling. We recently found out, one of the ladies who attends our classes walks door to door selling vegetables. Mama Saida, is a single mom (as many women are. There are so many widows here.), who is trying to come up with school fees. George normally goes to the market to buy vegetables, but we would rather buy them from her to help out. George arranged for her to come to our house once a week to deliver a weeks worth of vegetables. She came for the first time last Friday and brought us a huge amount of stuff (tomatoes, green pepper, carrots, spinach, onions and more), for a fraction of the cost George would have paid in the market. We were able to give her a little extra and also give our neighbors a basket of vegetables since there was no way we could use them all in one week.

Mama Saida is a faithful follower of the Lord. Again, I am humbled by her servant's heart. After she dropped off the vegetables, she stayed to sweep our yard, even though we did not ask her too. We wanted to bless her, yet she wanted to bless us. The people here, just amaze me.

(She is the one holding the cup.)

When I first met Alan and Shannon (the leaders of Africa Harvest of Hope), they told the story of the sand dollar. Do you know it? I loved it and it helped me focus not on what I can't do, but what I can. Here it is for those who haven't heard it. Read it and be inspired to do what you can for those in need.

A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”

The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

“Well, I made a difference to that one!”

Bruce the Baker

You've heard of Bob the Builder. Now meet Bruce the Baker!

Bruce works at our local grocery store. We are blessed to have a supermarket in Moshi. It's called Nakumatt and it's a chain in Kenya. Their grocery selection isn't huge, but it's better than the small shops we had in Korogwe. They have a lot of home goods, but the prices are outrageous so we don't buy any of those things. Some of their groceries are high too so George knows what to buy at Nakumatt and what to buy at other small shops.

One department we love at Nakumatt is the bakery. Bruce is in charge of the bakery which makes all kinds of things: hot dog and hamburger buns, bread, doughnuts, cakes, meat pies, samosas, scones, croissants and more. We are not sure where Bruce is from, but we think South Africa. Whenever we go there he is there baking and servicing the counter. He is very friendly and says hi to us every time. Outside Nakumatt there is a life size cardboard cut out of Bruce promoting the bakery. There is one inside too and he was nice enough to take a photo with it. We love Bruce and his baked goods!

PS Eli is now 22 pounds and very heavy to lug around the store. Last time we went, we tried a shopping cart. Of course, his mouth went straight to the metal bar, much to my horror. At first he liked the cart, but then wanted to be carried. Anyway, it was nice to have a break for a bit (and he looked so old and cute in it)!

Power Outages

Grrrrrrrrrrrr........... Tanzania power needs lots of help. Sorry for the silence the last few days. We have had several power outages this past week and haven't been able to keep our computers charged. The last outage lasted 20 hours. It was so frustrating. We ended up giving away some food from our fridge to our neighbors last night before it went bad. We don't stock up too much because we know this happens, but last night we had to give away a whole chicken which was a bummer because that is two to three meals for us. Oh well... the power is back now and I am thankful. The saying is true... “you don't know what you got until it's gone.” We'll never take electricity for granted that's for sure.

More catch up blogs to come...

New Years Resolutions

Yesterday, George and I ended up having the same themes for our classes: working on things we want to change in our lives. George's discipleship class continued to work their way through 1 John. Then, my women's group discussed New Years Resolutions. We discussed the need for change and how to go about it. First we talked about why we need to change our behavior. If God forgives us, why worry about sinning? They came up with three reasons: our lives should glorify God, we should be a good example to others and by obeying God's word we show Him we love him.

Next, we looked at the "put offs and put ons" in Ephesians chapter 4. When we want to stop doing something we have been struggling with, we need to replace the bad behavior with something good. For example, the Bible says, if you are a thief, stop stealing and use your hands to work hard and give generously to the poor.

Because we want to apply what we are learning, I shared my New Years Resolutions with the group and asked them how I might go about succeeding in them. They are: reading my Bible more (Since having Eli, it has been a struggle to find the time for consistent Bible study) and being less grouchy when tired (I am a new mom and struggling with the lack of sleep). They offered good advice: make reading the Bible a priority (dishes can wait!) and pray for joy in moments of grouchiness.

I challenged them to pray about what things they want to work on in their lives and come up with a plan to make those changes. If they are brave, they can share it next week.

After class, I had one on one time with a woman named Angela. She is a new Christian, having been raised Muslim. She shared that she is struggling to read her Bible. We talked about where she can start. I told her that my life changed when I began to read my Bible consistently. I, too, struggled to read it previously. I didn't know where to begin, it was so big, what in the world is Leviticus talking about, etc. I shared with her advice I was given by my pastor's wife (shout out to Kelli!) in a discipleship class. My daily plan is: read one chapter in Psalms, read one chapter in Proverbs, read one chapter in the Old Testament (start in Genesis and read it like a story) and then pick a book in the New Testament and study it by reading one verse a day. I liked this method, because it gave me a plan I could easily implement and also gave me a good overview of all parts of the Bible. I didn't want to overwhelm Angela, so I told her this week, just read one chapter a day in Psalms. If she does ok with that, we'll add Proverbs next week, then add the Old Testament and then finally the New Testament. She was really listening intently and I could see her desire to love the Word. I was so proud of her for asking for help and look forward to checking in with her next week.

Bath Time with Dad

Look what happens when Dad does bath time...

Last night I was in the kitchen while George was giving Eli a bath. Usually I give the baths, but last night he did. I heard them both laughing and went in to see what was going on when George called me to look. In order to have warm water for Eli's bath, we have to boil water and then add it to cool water in a bucket. Eli sits in a bath chair while we pour the water from the bucket on him with a cup. George decided to switch things up and Eli ended up having a blast in the bucket.

5 Months Old

Eli is 5 months old today. It seems like he has been here for much longer. He seemed to do a lot of growing this month. Here is what he has been up to:

- He has two new teeth.

- He discovered his toes and we have found him munching on them a time or two.

- He likes to sit on the couch and play with his toys.
- He has lost most of the hair he was born with and is growing new hair which looks like mine.
- He has discovered how to scream and likes to do it often. Not crying, but "talking."
- He still smiles all the time and has a cute giggle.
- A just started taking food. So far, just a little banana.
- He constantly munches on his hands (and our fingers if he'll let him) and drools a lot.

- He hasn't been sleeping well lately, but we hope that will change soon.
- Other than a current cold, he has been very healthy.
- Although he is 20 pounds and is a bit chunky big boned, he still fits into six month size clothes.
- He just started doing raspberries and gets really messy.
- He still isn't rolling over (with that belly it will take more time to figure out!), but he seems to try to be crawling when he is on his belly.

- He loves to be outside and go places.
- He grabs our hair all day long and makes me wish I was brave enough to shave my head.

Can't wait to see what new things this next month brings.

First Food

Today Eli had his first bite of food. He has been reaching for our food and drinks for a while now so we decided it was time to let him try it. We wanted to try baby rice cereal first, but we couldn't find it anywhere here. So, we had to jump straight to mashed bananas (shout out to the Wiggles... mashed bananas, mashed bananas...). They also don't sell baby spoons here so we used our smallest spoon for him.

Here is the first bite...

And the verdict is..... excellent!

He liked it so much, he kept trying to crawl to get more.

We don't have a high chair so we fed him on the couch> George did really well and only a tiny bit ended up on his face.

Overall, it was a success.

Next up... vegetables!

Visiting Edita

Yesterday we went to visit a woman from our church, Edita. Edita is a faithful member of the church and attends our discipleship class and women's group. She is a tiny little lady, but full of love for the Lord. Seeing her at church, I never would have guessed the pain she has been through. A few months after getting married, her husband died suddenly, leaving her alone and pregnant. Although she had a normal delivery, the baby was born dead. These tragic events occurred a couple years ago and left her devastated. Now, she has rebounded and her life is a testimony to God's healing power. Edita exudes joy and peace.

As part of our ministry, I think it's important to become involved in the lives of the people we work with. So, I want to visit the ladies at their homes or work places. When Edita told me she cooks at a restaurant, I told her we would come to visit her. Here is the little place where she works

This is a typical type of "restaurant" or "hotel" as they call it. It's a little hole in the wall place that offers cheap food. As most hole in the wall places in the US, the food is usually the best. I had one of my favorite meals here: beans and chapatti

Eli came along, of course, and had a nice time too.

People here work so hard for survival. Edita works six days a week, early morning to late a night. The day before our visit, she didn't close until midnight. Jobs are so scarce that people take any work they can get. They work so hard and get paid so little. People can't afford to pay much for food so they can't charge a lot. My meal cost about 75 cents. George and I took some chapati for "take away" (their version of "to go") and had them for dinner.

Every now and then, Edita gets a Friday off to rest and she asked us to come to her house for lunch on her next Friday off. For her, it's an honor to have us come there and cook for us. It humbles me to see her hospitality and kindness. She hardly gets any time to rest and would rather serve us during that precious time.

Despite the long work hours and hardships of life, Edita is always happy when we see her. I know that is because she knows the Lord and finds her life's purpose and happiness in him.

Crib

Eli got a crib today! My mom sent some Christmas money so we were able to get this for him. Cribs are very hard to find here. Because most people live in very small houses, it's rare for anyone to sleep in their own bed (adults and kids alike). It's not uncommon for there to be three to four people to a bed. Babies sleep with their mom and then sleep with their siblings when they are older. We found a crib in a store that cost more than $450! Yikes! There is no way we could afford that.

Fortunately, in Africa, they have fundis. A fundi is a carpenter or handyman. They are all over and can build anything. Fundis are very talented. George's sister in Kisumu has a neighbor from the US whose house is full of furniture build by a fundi. Her house is so cute and looks like a Pottery Barn. She just gave him photos and he built replicas, again at a fraction of the cost of the furniture in stores. George found a fundi to make Eli's crib for a fraction of the cost of the one in the store. Today it was ready so George went down to his shop and picked it up. There was no Jerome's delivery truck available, so a nice man put it on a cart and wheeled it to our house with George.

We are VERY excited for Eli to have a crib and now want to start sleep training him. Then perhaps, we can join the land of the rested once again.

Thanks Grandma!

The Art of Reusing

Since my time in Sudan, I have learned to be very frugal and often reuse things. Since money and supplies (especially things that people send from the US) are precious and often hard to come by, we are in the habit of reusing them. It’s not just me, but everyone here. People are very resourceful. At first, it was strange and hard for me to adapt to. For example, in Africa, they reuse oil that is leftover. As far as I know, no one does that in the US (I never cooked much while I was there, so maybe I am wrong.). Well, I had a hard time doing it because I thought it was gross. If they fry anything, the leftover oil is poured into a container and used the next time. I am used to the US where we are blessed with abundance and don’t think twice about throwing things away. Now, I am so used to reusing oil that I don't even think about it. Another thing, we wash zip lock bags and reuse them (I know some people do that in the US). Also, empty milk and formula tins are used as sugar containers. When we buy a crate of eggs, we ask the vendor to just put them in a plastic bag for us to carry home. We don’t want to pay for another crate when we have one at home we can use.

Anyway… you get the point. Everything is recycled and nothing is taken for granted. Last night something funny happened that made me think about all this and how it has become second nature to me. Since we received our container contents, we have had use of a fridge that someone donated. I can’t tell you how amazing it has been to have cold drinks. Because most people don’t have a fridge, I couldn’t find any ice cube trays here. Although, I have been loving the cold drinks, I have also been craving ice. I haven’t had ice in a year and a half.

While in Kenya, I found an ice cube tray and immediately bought it. Last night, after several previous attempts (thanks to power outages), our first batch of ice was ready. I added some to my Crystal Light Fruit punch and had a delightfully freezing cold drink with dinner. I drank it so fast that my ice cubes were still left when the drink was gone, except that they had decreased in size by 25%. By then, George was just getting his drink and started to get up to get ice cubes when I said, “here take mine” and I dumped my ice cubes in his cup.

It happened so fast and without thought that later I realized how funny that was. There was no reason he needed to use mine. We had more ready. I just thought they were precious and didn’t want to waste them! I was just in the habit if reusing leftovers that it naturally extended to my ice cubes too!

(Side note – one time in Sudan, I made a classic Stacie cooking goof with reused oil. I didn’t like to use the reused oil for certain foods. When I made pumpkin bread, I always used fresh oil. One time, I made the pumpkin bread from scratch as usual and was horrified when I tasted it after it finished baking. It tasted awful. After talking to Mercy, the cook, I realized I accidentally used the reused oil which had been used the night before for making grilled onions. So, I made Onion Pumpkin Bread. I thought it was terrible, but it got eaten anyway!)

Back from Nairobi

George, Eli and I arrived back from Nairobi today. You might be thinking when did you go to Nairobi?

Well, we had to leave Tanzania for a few days. Until we have our work permits, we have to leave the country every 90 days. This past Tuesday was day 89 so we went to Nairobi. We didn't have the time or funds to go all the way to Kisumu this time. We just planned a quick trip to Nairobi which would allow us to re-enter Tanzania.

It was quite the trip. First challenge... riding a bus with a baby. We were those people. You know the ones... with a crying baby on a plane. That was us on the bus. Eli did pretty well, but had a few moments where he was hungry and tired when he cried. Those moments are so stressful! We scrambled to make him stop crying before we disturbed everyone. Eventually he settled down and so did our blood pressure.

When we got to Nairobi, we headed to the hotel we always stay at. It's cheap and we have befriended the staff members. Then came the second challenge... no ATM card. We don't know where it went, but we knew where it wasn't, in our wallets. We literally had no money. Nothing for the hotel, for food, for phone credit. Nothing. Then came the panic. We were in a big city, with a baby and a no money. YIKES! What do you do when you are stranded? Call mom. Yep... that's what we did. My mom was able to arrange for us to get money from our account through Western Union. We couldn't access it until the next day so George's friend sent us enough for the hotel (although the staff said they would make an exception and let us pay the next day.) and for dinner.

After that was settled and once again our blood pressure decreased, we went about our business in Nairobi - went to the embassy to get my new passport (I am officially Stacie Orwa!), do some lab tests, get supplies for Eli (at half the price of Tanzania prices), etc. The third challenge was getting around Nairobi - taxis are expensive, buses are over crowded and there is tons of traffic. Nairobi is nuts!

We were also able to meet up with our good friend from Sudan, Margaret. She helped us find a place to get the lab tests done and went with us to the embassy. On Thursday, Margaret invited us to her house for lunch. George was in heaven. She made fish, sakuma and ugali.

I miss Margaret so much and am thankful we have kept in touch. We can laugh and talk for hours.

Fourth challenge - entertaining Eli, who was out of his routine, while we toted him around with us. For the most part he did very well. Of course there were times like this...

But mostly, it was like this...

By Friday we were ready to go. Happy to go home... but not happy to be back on the bus! It's an eight hour journey (5 with a private car) which is hard with a 4 1/2 month old who we discovered had come down with a cold. Challenge number five.

By 4:00, we got to Moshi and were happy to be home. Although we had a lot of challenges, we felt God's presence and provision through many ways - help from family and friends when we were in a pinch, kind hotel workers willing to make an exception for us, guidance and hospitality from Margaret, safe journey on the bus, ease at the borders... and so many more.

Hopefully we'll have our permits before the next ninety days is up so we won't have to do that trip again for a while.

There is no place like home...

Packages from Home

Today George went to the post office and brought home some packages from home. Getting mail is very exciting for us.

The two packages were filled with books from Eli.

They were from two new little friends from Rancho del Rey, Carson and Sawyer. You have to read this cute little note to Eli:

We are so thankful for the books and can't wait to get started reading them.

The third package was from my former workmates (shout out to Aloha West Insurance Agency!) and had a Happy 1st Anniversary card along with some of my favorite treats: Pixie Sticks, Abba Zabbas and a Slim Jim. Not just any Slim Jim... a Monster Slim Jim! Thanks for thinking of us guys!!!

We felt so loved today. Thank you!

Look Who Has Teeth!

He is super excited about it!

Eli is 4 1/2 months which is a little earlier than usual for teeth. George said he got his first gray hair at twelve so our family just must be very advanced!

Meet Giro

This is Giro and her little brother, Joshua. They live two house away from us. We often see her through the fences. Whenever we do, she shouts her greeting. She must be only six or seven, but seems to take care of Joshua quite a bit. Frequently she is toting him around on her back. It always blows my mind how much responsibility is given to young kids here. Giro loves Eli and is always saying hi to him through the fence (mtoto...mtoto - baby...baby) and shaking his hand.

The other day she came to our gate and wanted to come in, but Eli was fussy so I told her to come back when George came home. I didn't want to disappoint her so I sent her a way with some cookies I made. The next day, she was back at the gate. Unfortunately all the cookies were gone.

A few days ago, George and I were sitting outside our gate and were spotted by Giro. She and Joshua hurried over to say hi. She gave Eli some kisses on the hand and then was busted by her mom. "Giro... what are you doing outside the gate all alone." She answered "I'm with the white lady!"

It's fun to get to know the people in our neighborhood.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

We hope you had a fun celebration last night. We didn't have any grand plans and just hung out at the house. I wasn't sure if I could stay up until midnight, but I somehow managed. Around 11:45pm, we went outside to sit on the porch and see what was going on around us. Our neighbors (the ones that came over for Christmas) were on their porch too so we celebrated with them. They had Martinelli's Sparkling Cider (or a similar kind) they wanted to share with us. I was so excited. Poor George had to listen to me complain earlier in the evening that we didn't have any. I always have that on New Years Eve... even in Sudan and Kenya. They have it at a store here, but I forgot to get it. So, when they offered it, we happily accepted. In return, we gave them some cookies that I made that evening.

We rang in the New Year with them and watch people shoot off fireworks. We heard lots of guns being shot in the air which always makes me nervous. (Those bullets have to land somewhere.) Eli woke up around 12:30 for a feeding and celebrated with us, although he had no idea what was going on. Then it was back to bed for him and we followed soon after.

We look forward to 2013 and see all the the Lord has planned for everyone.

Rainy Sunday

This past Sunday, George and I ended up having the day off. Pastor Zach taught on Sunday and our evening classes were cancelled. The morning service was really nice. Zach taught about thanking the Lord for all He has done for us. In order to be more grateful, we should keep track of all our prayer requests and at the end of the year, we can see all God has done. If we don't keep track, it's easy to dwell on our needs and what didn't happen. We might feel overlooked and forgotten, wondering why God hasn't answered our prayers. This way we can look back and remind ourselves of the little and big things He did. I was excited by this idea and want to do it in 2013.

Instead of going home right after church, we ended up being trapped there... by the rain. When the rain comes, things shut down. Schedules are dropped and people have to wait it out. The roads are not paved where our church is and there was no way a taxi could make it there during a downpour. So, we hung out with Zach and his family whose house is on the same lot as the church. We had a great time there. George and Zach pow wowed about ministry ideas while I hung out with their youngest son, Daniel. Daniel is sixteen and very inquisitive. He asks so many questions, which I love. He speaks really good English and isn't shy. He brought out the family photo albums and we had fun looking at them.

Zach's wife, Redempta, and her daughters prepared lunch for us - spaghetti noodles, beef and potato dish, ugali, spinach, fruit and cake. It was delicious. The cake was baked by a woman at the church, Edita. I had a chance to talk with Edita for a bit and get to know her. She cooks at a little restaurant and we hope to visit her this week.

Our impromptu lunch and hang out time with Zach's family was really great. They are so hospitable and caring. It was an unexpected, fun way to spend a rainy, Sunday afternoon. When the rain slowed, we called a taxi and headed home for the evening.