Sunday morning! After
the cooler afternoon and evening yesterday we slept even under the sheets last
night and turned the fans down off full!
Was a pleasant break.
We got up around 7 with Wedly sleeping in a bit longer. I cooked pancakes and fried eggs as Sunday is
the only day they don’t provide breakfast and lunch. At 9 we headed to church which is on the
compound. Nick and Nikki and kids attend
as well as Carla and a few kiddos, Courtney (the nurse), Joel and his wife
(however she stayed home today with their middle child because they were not
sure if our kids knew about our adoption and believed she would have spilled
the beans if they did not), and the Vanderpols who are moving back to the
states next week. Joel led worship with
a guitar with some kids songs and then adult worship songs. Was a nice time of worship. The kids spent some time with us and some in
the back drawing. The message was a
video sermon from a church in Michigan I think, called Radiant church. Was a good message on staying awake and
ready, watching for Jesus’ return.
After the service we were heading to walk to the Hope house
to play and noticed the boys were with Rosmani at the playground – so we joined
them there. Nick, Eventz, Josiah, and Avalyn were there as well. I spent a portion of the time playing monster
below the kids who would try to evade me up on the play structure. Except that I’d get hot and sweaty instantly
and have to chase in spurts. Should have
changed out of my cotton "church" shirt.
At 11:30 or so we called it good and each went his own way
for lunch. We came up to the house and
had left overs or PB&J. Then Calvin
and Sarah headed for nap and the boys and I headed over to Joel’s house over at
Manna to hang out and watch some football with them. Joel is a Lion fan and Nick Seahawks of
course. They go in on an NFL subscription so they can each stream their team’s games through the
season. Because they are international,
they are able to do this pretty reasonably.
Of course this was just the start of the pre-season so though they were attempting
to kick off their football season, the enthusiasm was not at full
throttle. The night before though I had
been wearing a Seahawks shirt which Joel automatically called me out on. I think this gives them a nice disconnect from
reality here and connection to home in some ways.
I was in and out of the boys – Wedly was off running around
with Eventz and a bunch of Joel’s and the Vanderpol’s girls. Gabe was hanging with me most of the time –
he and Josiah are both pretty quiet and shy a bit and haven’t seemed to really
hit if off. Wedly and Eventz seemed to
have connected pretty well. Eventually
that migrated to a swimming pool they have over there (16’, similar to Nick and
Nikki’s I think). When Sarah came over later with Cal, the kids talked her into swimming rather than football (not hard in this heat)! Joel also indicated that we can use the pool
whenever we want, so that was a sound for hot ears.
We came back to the house for another play date with Roni
and a few of the boys. They came over to
the volunteer house with their Play Dough again and some sidewalk chalk (which
we didn’t get to this time). The Play
Dough was more successful this time and lasted the whole time. Sarah dove in and helped the kids make birds
on nests in trees. Roni brought Bonnet
this time which was cool – I received 6 hugs in the hour they were with
us. However – he is definitely a handful,
always moving and getting into stuff and doing things that make you fearful
that he is going to get hurt. Our challenge
was that he kept wanting to go down the stairs (which are way too steep and
long, with small steps). But he is very
sweet and usually obeys the “No’s” that he is afforded. As Roni and the boys left I helped Anderlin down the stairs. His choice was to get help to "walk" down - and he chose/tried to jump/hop down the last few.
We broke for dinner and Sarah made chicken Quesadillas and
chicken soup and we had our first round of bottled pure cane sugar Coke. Tastes like the original Coke that we used to
have at my Aunt Naomi’s and Uncle Don’s when growing up - while we watched Knight Rider or Seahawks games.
After dinner we went back to the pool over at Manna and
cooled off some more. We talked Calvin
into going in and gradually got him more used to it. They had a cool floating kid device which was
great for him to be self-sufficient in the pool but then he also allowed us to
bounce with him with his life jacket and also have him swim (by holding his
life jacket). Progress. But he still can’t figure out how to keep
his head out of the water and how not to breath in water if he is floating at
all alone with his life jacket.
After getting back from the pool we got ready for bed, read
the Bible and the kids watched a power ranger episode before going to bed. Younger 2 went down pretty well, but Wedly had
a hard time falling asleep (hot). Calvin
was up 4 times in the middle of the night asking for water, but he went right
down after each.
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