A look into our possible future....

 

 

Please join our family in prayer during this season, as we find out if we will be blessed to call these two precious girls our daughters. We are ready for some good news and are full of peace and totally trusting God!

A love that multiplies....

I had shared a few weeks ago how our family was starting the foster/adoption process here in Tanzania. We also have some exciting news on two little girls who will possibly be joining our family, and I would like to tell you a little bit about them. I was telling my friend last night I feel like I have guarded this information for some reason and I am not sure why. She told me it was probably because I didn't want people to think we are crazy, and it made me laugh because she was dead on. I am ok with being crazy though, because when you really think about it the love of God is a completely crazy thing!

The very first month we were in Tanzania we had to travel a little over a hour to go to language school for three weeks. I remember driving down the road our school was on and we drove right by a baby home called Cradle of Love. I recognized the name from seeing it on Facebook and told Brian I would for sure be visiting it while we were in school. I think it was the next day I walked to Cradle with Brian on one of our breaks from studying. We met the amazing director at Cradle, who has since become a dear friend of ours. I spoke with her about my passion for babies and was so thrilled to have met someone with such a kindred heart towards babies as well. She took us around Cradle and introduced us to many of the babies, whose ages range from newborn to three years old. In one of the rooms we met a little girl who at the time was about eight months, and her little life story broke my heart. I remember instantly telling Brian that I thought this little girl was our daughter. She was very shy, sullen, and didn't like to smile much. :) I don't remember what they told us her name was, but I held her and fed her and felt a connection with her I cannot explain. I was sad because I also knew that in Tanzania adoptions are not easy, in fact they have a reputation for being a horribly long and drawn out process. You also have to live in Tanzania for three years before you are supposed to be allowed to adopt. So here I am holding this little girl who I instantly fell in love with, knowing there is nothing I can do about it. The next day we went to see her and I found out they had started calling her Glory. I couldn't believe it. I had very much felt the Lord tell me a couple of months ago that we had a daughter named Glory waiting for us in Africa. When we met this little girl that was not what we were told her name was, and then it was. It was more confirmation for my heart. Language school continued and I tried to get over to see Glory every day. Then our three weeks were up and it was time to head home. It was heartbreaking to have to leave Glory for Brian and I, not knowing when we would see her again or how the future would play out. Over the next few months we were in contact with the director to see what we could do, if anything, to get Glory in our custody. Once we were in our new house and settled we began the process of fostering and told our social welfare there was a little girl in a baby home we were wanting to take in. The told us it would be fine to take here in once we were approved. We have seen such favor with how fast things have moved for us, and we are just now waiting on our background checks from America to be completely approved. My heart was still uneasy though, I was not comfortable taking Glory in without knowing for sure that she would not be able to be taken away from us. We want to have every single last detail in order, and because of Glory's background it is a little complicated. So yesterday we went to Arusha to meet with the social worker there who is in charge of Glory's case. He told us that he is going to look into what he needs to {as far as looking for Glory's birth mom} but he thinks that we should be able to have her in our custody for sure. I cannot explain how exciting this was for Brian and I to hear. We had been told multiple times that we would not be able to adopt Glory for one reason or the other, but Brian and I have both felt very strongly from the beginning that this precious little girl was ours, so we continue to press on. God is so faithful! There are many other details to Glory's story, but maybe another time for those. We love this little girl very much, as do our four kids. They love Glory and talk about her often. They have spent a good amount of time with her, and very much want her to be a part of our family. So will you pray with us please? That over these next couple of weeks we will continue to get good news and everything worked out for Glory to come and live with our family?

Then there is baby girl. We got an email from our friend, who is the director at Cradle of Love, while my parents were here about baby girl. Her story was very different from Glory's and at the same time equally heartbreaking. The email my friend sent said they were getting a newborn baby girl whose rights were going to be signed over, would we be interested. It is VERY uncommon for a family to just sign rights over in Tanzania, as shame is a huge thing in this culture and would be an ultimate shame for sure.It also makes the adoption much easier when the rights are just signed over. So we waited to see if the family actually brought her to Cradle, which they did. The aunt and uncle had been caring for her and they were the ones to bring her. They both agreed to signing their rights over and us adopting her, but we need the entire family to agree. So the entire family is getting together on Christmas and will be deciding whether or not they will allow us to adopt baby girl. We went and met her yesterday and she is absolutely precious. She was born on October 10th, so she is just two months old.

Now, I understand where some people may think we are crazy. Taking in an 18 month old and a 2 month old while we already have four young children at home?! We had always wanted to adopt two children at once, for many reasons, and now it looks like that may be happening, and YES we are a little crazy. :) This is who we are though, and we are 100% positive this is a part of our families call being here in Tanzania. So will you please pray for our growing family? We know and fully trust that God is in control and that brings us great peace. It amazes me to see something we have been talking about for over ten years now, to finally be playing out. God's timing is so perfect and He already knows every single member of our family. It is amazing to walk out this journey, as it builds our faith and increases our trust and joy in Him. We will keep everyone updated as we find out more!

Guest blogging for Miss Grace Filled Life

Today I had the honor to guest blog on Kathy Olson's blog, Miss Grace Filled Life. I have known Kathy for fifteen years now, and have such love and respect for her and her husband. Check out my post and have so much fun looking around her blog!

Here is the link

http://www.missgracefilledlife.blogspot.com/

YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat... oh my!!

I have never been good at technology, but I am realizing there are so many different ways to stay connected to our family and friends at home, I have to at least try. So I have now hijacked my husband's iPhone {that someone so sweetly donated to us} and have an Instagram account {mandeeloudermilk}, a Snapchat account {mandeejoejoe}, and we just created a YouTube account. Here is the link to a video Brian made giving a overview of our first six months in Tanzania, Africa. I will be posting little videos of our daily lives often, so subscribe to our account to keep up with us and watch our beautiful babies grow up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie_dN3_aalI

Click on this link to see the video Brian made and check out our other couple of videos to see what our kids do in a typical Tanzanian church service.

Today I was outside hanging our laundry on our clothes line, and the Lord brought to my mind a blog post I had written a couple of years ago. It was about how Africa was our fourth child { obviously written before the birth of Harper Praise}. I made comparisons about being pregnant with Africa, and loving the country and the people there before I had even met them, just as a mother is with her unborn child.

This next part is so amazing {and funny} to me. I felt like He told me that I had had my first all natural delivery of one of my babies. Let me explain. With all four of my children I have been induced. They would break my water and then right away give me an epidural {gasp!}. This says two things about me, {one} I am a very inpatient person and {two} if there is a way to avoid pain, I will take it. All of my labors were very quick, easy, and pain free. But not this one. :)

The delivery of my "fifth child" was the complete opposite. It was long, painful, and at times seemed unbearable. I had a picture today of a woman in labor, screaming at her husband to please make it stop, the pain is too much she can't handle it anymore. Then I remember may times over our first few months here begging Brian to please take me home, the pain is too much, I can't handle it anymore. The pain of dying to myself, the pain of realizing how many idols I held onto, the pain of the loss of our old lives. Then I thought about a woman in labor with no pain medicine, and how the only thing that gets her through is the fact that at the end she will get to hold her precious new baby. Even through the pain of the first few months I knew {even when I didn't want to admit it} that if I stuck it out, it would all be worth it, the pain would be worth it. Woman who are preparing for an all natural delivery mentally prepare for what is coming, because they know there is no way around the pain, it is just a part of the process. For the first time in my life, I couldn't rush things, or turn to Brian to fix everything. It was just me and God, and although it was ugly at times, the birth is over and has turned into something amazingly wonderful. I love my life here. It seems crazy to me to remember how much of a struggle it used to be, because now it just feels so natural and easy.

If you are in the hard labor stages, be encouraged!! Cling to Christ! He is more than able to bring us out of any situation or trial!

God is so amazing. I mean SO amazing. We had no clue about New Life Foundation when we picked up our lives to move to Africa, and now, New Life is the main focus of our ministry here in Tanzania. The kids at New Life have completely stolen our hearts, and I know the deep love and joy I have for them is straight from the Lord. We know full well THEY all are the reason we are in Tanzania!

The kids from grade six down to nursery are getting ready to go to their home villages for a holiday. Even though 70% of the children at New Life are considered orphans here in Tanzania, they still have some form of relative to return to during this holiday, which will last a month. We have been working a lot with the 6th grade lately, and a couple of the girls in that class have really stolen Brian and I's hearts in particular. When we found out that one of them had no where to go during the holiday, we knew right away we wanted to have her come stay with us. Well, then we found out that another girl very precious to us had nowhere to go either, so we knew right away we wanted to have her come and stay with us as well. Then we found out there was only one girl in grade six left with no where to go, so we knew there was no way we could leave her behind. So one turned into three. :) We have come to find out that all three girls are from the same village. The village is very far away {takes one full day to travel to} and very unreached. They have tried to send local African missionaries to go and minister to them, but it was even too overwhelming for them to handle living there. Their tribe kills their food daily, or they don't eat. They don't live in homes, they live in what was described to us as nest like things. If the girls ever do go home for a visit, they must have a chaperone go with them, otherwise there is a very high chance they will be married off and not able to return {remember they are 13!!!!}. We feel so beyond blessed to have this opportunity, and are excited to see our relationships with these precious girls grow. We are praying to see trust levels increase as they spend more time with us, and to have some amazing times of ministry with them in our home. They are really some of the sweetest girls in the world, we feel so blessed that this is our lives. Our kids are THRILLED, and will wear the older girls out I am sure!

Prayers

Would you please pray for our family? This season of parenting our four young children is proving to be a way greater challenge than I ever expected. They are such good kids. With that being said, when you take four young kids away from everything they have ever known, and throw them into a new culture that is crazy different than their old lives, there are bound to be challenges. After six months on the field, emotions are starting to come up.

One of daughters will become very emotional and cry for an hour at a time. She misses her friends and family at home. She is only six, and doesn't fully know how to express what she if feeling, so it bottles up until something sets her off and then has an emotional melt down. Unfortunately, I totally understand how she feels, I do the exact same thing. :) She will cry and cry because she just wants a baby doll, and how do you explain to a six and five year old, there is no Target here to go and get one? You can't really. There have been many tears over the last four weeks from all four kids.

Harper Praise is now two and a half. We have never really experienced the terrible twos until now. I know I have let her get away with way more than I should since being here, but mommy guilt is a very hard thing to deal with sometimes. Harper gets an unreal amount of attention here. Obviously, we stick out very easily because of our white skin. Throw in Harper's beautiful red & curly hair, mix in a little of her Swahili, and that girl is literally mobbed every where we go. Culture here is very different. It is very common for people to just grab Harper out of my hands and try to walk off. Harper will have none of that though, and she screams and screams. People have even taken her out of our car through her window a couple of times. Not being rude, again just culture here. She is constantly {like every minute} being poked, prodded, hair stroked, etc. People laugh here all the time, so now she thinks they are always laughing at her. She gets upset often, saying, "Mommy, they laughing at me again." Try explaining to your two year old they aren't laughing at you, it is just culture honey. She cries a lot, mostly it seems out of anger and frustration.

We had lots of help at home. My parents lived right across the street from us, and were a part of our daily lives, every day. Now I am lucky if I talk to them a totally of 45 minutes total every week, and that is really hard. Going from being a financially self-sufficient family, to completely living off of support is proving to be quiet the transition as well.

Do I say all of this to complain and grumble? Absolutely not. It is never easy to expose our weaknesses to others, but honestly we covet your prayers!! We love what we are doing here, and are thankful for this calling on our lives. That doesn't mean there aren't hard times though. :)

I guess from all of that you can pray for us in the following areas,

*Supernatural love, supernatural peace, supernatural patience for Brian and I as we parent our kids during this harder season in our lives
*Our kids emotions to stabilize, that they would find words to express how they feel to us before emotional break downs occur
*Wisdom for Bri and I, and for our marriage to stay strong and unmoved by everything going on around us

Photo A Day

 

 

{pure joy}

Photo A Day

 

{had Madame Joyce over for dinner tonight, wonderful friend and wonderful woman of God}

Photo A Day

 

 

 

{the girls in their sunglasses from Grandma Lana}

 

Photo A Day

 

 

 

My favorite lunch. Rice and beans with avocado.

{those who know me at all, know how shocking this is!}

Photo A Day

{Mondays are grocery day. It takes our entire morning to get everything we need for the week.}

 

 

{inside the big market where we get all of our produce/rice/beans}

 

 

 

 

{Harper hanging out with the boys. The carts they are sitting on will be packed full of produce that they wheel around all day and sell.}

 

{ew. We don't eat meat a ton anymore}

 

 

 

 

{Harper with Rosie. Her fruit stand is near our house. Kind of equivalent to a gas station, where we run if we need something quickly.}

Church {in the village} & {hiking and swimming @} Lake Chala

 

 

Picture{s} a day!

                       {{ Harper Praise and Sophee helping Mommy make banana muffins.}}

                    {{the kids came with us this week to the juvenile prison for ministry}}

               {{Em and Soph praying with Mercy before going into the juvenile prison}}

Stopping for the ONE

I am totally THAT Mom! I have an obsession with kissing, hugging, and cuddling my babies. I love that my seven year old son still asks for cuddle time! I love being a Mommy. While I may not always excel at it, being a Mommy is one of THE greatest joys in my life. I will admit that I baby my children more than I should, and dote on them probably more than I should. So it has been quite the culture shock for me, moving to a country {or even continent!} where that is not the norm whatsoever. A place where every where you look, there is an orphan. I have cried so many nights as I put my babies to bed, and just watch them sleep peacefully, thinking of all the children in our town that will be going to bed without a Mommy giving them kisses goodnight, or a Daddy praying night time prayers with them. Remember that I am THAT Mom while reading my story from today.

One of our main ministries is working with New Life Foundation here. New Life Foundation is an amazing ministry/school about ten minutes from our home. We feel so blessed to be able to partner with them and all they are doing in Tanzania. About 70% of the children in this facility are considered orphans. They are truly some of the sweetest children I have ever met in my life. We love going out and doing ministry out there, but also just love going out on Saturdays and playing with the kids, loving on them. The first day we were there a couple of the girls were brave enough to come up and talk to me and the kids while Brian was inside working with the seventh grade students. They were so shy, but it was great getting to know them, and they loved playing with the kids. As we were getting ready to leave that first day I naturally hugged the girls goodbye {touch is one of my love languages}. I could tell they weren't expecting it, but they sort of hugged me back in shock. {Hugging, as far as I can tell, isn't super common here}. Well we have been back many times since that first time {we go out to New Life to do ministry about 4-5 times a week} and it has been so fun to see the progression of my relationship with these girls. Just last Sunday at church one of the girls ran up to me and gave me a big hug, which surprised even me, but blessed me SO much! I see my relationship with them deepening and trust beginning to form.

Today we headed out to New Life, and as soon as we got their I saw one of my favorite girls {gasp! yes I have a couple girls that are very special to me :)}sitting down near us. I could tell something was wrong right away, because she usually comes running to our car as soon as she sees us. I walked over to her and could tell she had been crying. I asked her if something was wrong, and she said no. I knew that wasn't true, but also know the culture and that she more than likely wouldn't tell me, so just sat there with her in silence. Brian announced that it was time to start drama practice and she was in the first group. I came into the room about five minutes after they had started, and she was crying again, trying so hard to hide it. I asked her if she wanted to go talk outside, and she said yes. So we went outside and I asked her what was wrong. She had an awful headache she said. I asked her if I could pray for her, and we spent some time with me praying for her. She said she had already taken some medicine but it hadn't helped at all. She was in so much pain, she couldn't quit crying, so I just held her. Tears flooded my eyes, and I felt Holy Spirit so strongly. This is why I am here, to hold this girl in pain who has no Mommy to hold her right now. to show her the love that her Heavenly Father has for her. I cannot tell you how honored I felt in that moment, that I was the one getting to hold Haika. We sat outside for a little bit longer, and I asked her if she wanted to stay out or go back to the drama. She had really been looking forward to doing the drama, so we headed back. I can't help but get emotional as I type this thinking of her going to bed tonight, not feeling good, alone. I think of Kayden and how if he had a headache I would be snuggling with him, doing whatever I could to make him feel better. I love how Heidi Baker puts it, that we are to stop for the one. That it all I can do here, and this afternoon Haika was the one. These kids we are working with are literally changing my life. I feel so blessed.

I know it sounds kind of silly, but I see now that me being a doting mommy is part of the calling on my life, and I love it.

Well, I have not been keeping up with this blog like I had hoped or planned. :) It makes me laugh now when I was so ambitious and said I wanted to try to blog every day for our first year here, and now I am feel accomplished if it is once a month!! Here are a couple of updates on what is going on in our lives over here in TZ.

The older three kids are on summer break for the next few weeks. They will be attending Hope International School again starting in the fall. Brian and I prayed a lot about doing home school next year, or sending them back to Hope, and feel so much peace about them going back to Hope. It was a step of faith for us, seeing as we have not raised any of the funds needed for them for school next year, but we are trusting God to provide all of our needs. The kids are so thrilled to be going back to Hope, and can't wait to see all of their friends and teachers again. Brian will be serving as the campus pastor again next year, and will also be serving on the school board. We are looking forward to an amazing year!

Having the kids home for summer break has been a big change of schedule for us. It is not like America here, where you have multiple options of things to do with your children. We have one playground here, and that is about it. I have never been more thankful for a creative husband, who is very gifted at thinking up new and creative games and such to keep the kids entertained. It is actually not even warm enough to go swimming here right now! We are so surprised at how cold it gets here during our "winter". When it is in the low 70's here, it is freezing for us! It is funny to us how acclimated we have become already! :)

One of our main ministries here is working with New Life Foundation. We go out there usually five days a week. On Tuesday and Thursdays Brian will work with the kids teaching them dramas that they will be performing on the streets, in the juvenile prison, at local churches, and things like that. On Wednesday Brian teaches on the Holy Spirit to grades 5th, 6th, and 7th. On Fridays we are out there bright and early at 7:30 so that Brian can lead chapel for all the students there, which is somewhere around 450 kids. On Saturdays we love to just go and play with them and work on building our relationships with the kids. They are some of the sweetest kids I have ever met in my life. They love our kids and spoil them. It was amazing to me when we were there one day last week, and I felt the Lord bring to my mind when I had {multiple times since being here} cried out to Him that I just wanted my kids to be loved on like they were at home. Looking around I realized that these kids are doing that to my kids. I know my kids feel so loved by them, and it just overwhelmed me in that moment, these kids that we are ministering to, are ministering to my heart each time we are with them.

This last Sunday, church was led by the youth. The kids did a great job presenting a drama, and sang some song with motions as well. The seventh graders performed the drama they had been working on so hard with Brian, and did a wonderful job! We were so proud of them!!

 

We are absolutely LOVING being in our new house! It is amazing to me to watch it become not just a house, but really our home. It is such a safe haven here. People ask us all the time how we are doing and how we are adjusting. I cannot believe we have been here five months now! Time has really flown by! The kids for the most part are really enjoying it here. On occasion they will really miss family at home, or get upset not understanding things, like why they can't just go to the store to get a baby doll they are really wanting. They are learning amazing life lessons though, and Brian and I honestly could not be any more proud of them. I {Mandee} am adjusting much better as well. I still miss home like crazy, and still struggle a lot with dying to my flesh here daily. I am relying on God to show me what it really looks like to "consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds" I am learning so much during this season of my life. It is honestly a pretty painful time of learning, but I love that as Christians we truly have hope through all things!! I have joy in knowing that I am being made stronger daily.

 

We cherish all of your kind emails, words of encouragement, and prayers for our family! If you would be interested in joining our monthly support team, please send me an email at mandeeloudermilk@yahoo.com

We are so thankful for all of our supporters, we literally could not be here without you. We are humbled month after month getting our reports, and seeing people sowing financially into our family and the work we are doing here. We love you all!!!

 

Visiting the Masaii {{in pictures}}

 

 

 

 

 

Birthdays!

We celebrated Kayden turning SEVEN while at language school with some amazing new friends!

 

A week later we celebrated our Sopheroo turning FIVE! For the next couple of weeks her and     Emmersyn were both five, and Sophee thought that was pretty cool!

 

 

May 9th was actually Brian's 30th{!!!!!} birthday and our sweet friend here watched our kids so we could go have dinner together. It was a nice night just the two of us. We were telling our server about how in America when it is your birthday they will come and sing to you, so a group of the servers surprised Brian and brought him some ice cream and sang to him. It was really sweet of them!

Then two days later it was Emmersyn's big day and she turned SIX years old!

 

 

We went to a tea garden about 25 minutes from where we live, and Em got a really nice birthday cupcake from the owner. It was a fun day together!

 

 

The very next day was Mother's Day. It was an emotional day for me, which I was not expecting. I was pretty emotional all morning, so Brian let me stay home from church and have some time to myself, which was so nice. Then he came and picked me up after and we went to a picnic at one of the churches in town.

 

 I LOVE LOVE LOVE our four precious gifts from God. I feel so blessed that He has entrusted them to us. We had a nice day together as a family, and Brian had a table made for me for our new house. I need to get a picture of it, it is beautiful!

Better late than never with pictures, I am going to try to play catch up with the blog over the next couple of days!

Here is a quick recap of what we have been up to the past couple of weeks:

 

Brian is the campus pastor at our kid's school here in Moshi. This is Brian teaching chapel on Friday last week.

 

 

We had one of Kayden's best friends from school come stay with us Easter weekend. We had so much fun with him and were so sad when it was time for him to leave. It was so funny watching him observe things while he was with us. He kept asking me what lots of things were, for instance he brought me a package of Kleenex and when I showed him what they were for he laughed and laughed. Luka has had an extremely hard life, and yet he is one of the sweetest, most obedient, kindest little boys I have ever met. He thought dying Easter eggs was pretty great too! :)

 

 

On Easter Sunday we had a wonderful service at a church in our town here and the kids did a program that consisted of them singing songs and reciting verses they have memorized. It was so sweet!

 

 

 

 

Lots and lots of work being done getting our house move in ready!

 

 

 

Brian taught some of the youth a human drama that will be performing in school and churches starting this week. They are doing a great job, and the drama is very powerful!

 

 

Brian has preached in three different churches the past four weeks. Just this morning we went up into the mountains so he could preach. The drive up there was actually one of the scariest moments of my life. It is pretty steep in some places and it had rained the night before, so the mud was very slick. We kept sliding backwards and I kept thinking we were just going to roll right down the mountain. It didn't help that we had nine grown adults and six children all squeezed into our car. We were full to the max. Thankfully we made it though, and had a great service with our brothers and sisters in Christ

 

I do not have any pictures of us going to the orphanage we went to this weekend, but that is by far one of my favorite things about being here. I love being able to love on these children who have no parents, and pray over them, that they would feel their Heavenly Father's extreme love for them. I truly consider it such an honor.

 

We are getting ready to head up to our language school two weeks from today. We are very excited for the help with the Swahili and have heard great things about our school. We will travel about an hour to get to it and it just so happens within the three weeks we will be there Brian, Kayden, Emmersyn, and Sophee will all have their Birthdays! So we will have lots to celebrate while we are there! We plan on staying there the entire three weeks and will live on the school grounds.

 

So there is a little bit of an update on lives lately. Along with all of that we are still adjusting to life here in Moshi, and just every day life of being of family of six, with four small children. We LOVE it here, and feel so honored that this is what we get to do with our lives. Thank you all so much your support!

I woke up this morning so excited. We were taking all four kids and going with our friend and her daughter to our first orphanage since being here. One of my very top excitements about coming to Africa was to have the honor of loving on sweet orphans here. One of my dreams for our future would be to have our own baby/children's home, but I am getting ahead of myself now. :) So we woke up today, had breakfast, everyone showered, and headed off to the orphanage. The one we went to today is actually just up the road from where our new house is located. We were all really excited as we pulled in and we explained to the kids what we thought would be happening and to prepare them, as they have never been anywhere like this before. As we walk in and are being shown around my heart starts to melt already. We walk into one room and there are about eight one year olds all in a row in highchairs getting fed at the same time. I wish so badly that I could have taken pictures, but out of respect with it being our first time there we didn't. Then we got the tour of the rooms, kitchen area, and play area. The line of boys came out of their room and they all started running straight towards me, so I bent down on my knees and they ran right into my arms. It was the sweetest thing. Then they got taken to the big play area. Then it was the line of girls with the same thing happening. They see me and start running for a hug. I am a complete puddle of mush by this point. We go with the girls to play with all the kids in the play area. It was a complete mob. I wasn't really prepared for it. I was holding two kids and had about four at my feet crying because they wanted to be picked up. It is heartbreaking as you see that all they want is love and to be held. As soon as you pick them up they stop crying and start smiling and laughing or snuggle right in. I notice that many of them have wet shorts {with urine} but there is no way I can put them down and stop loving on them. I remember reading Heidi Baker's book and reading about her holding the kids with lice, scabies, urine soaked, and wondering if I would be able to do that. Well, in the moment it didn't even cross my mind that I was now covered in urine. They were just precious little kids that needed love, cuddles, and snuggles. Kayden was thrilled beyond what I could have imagined! He kept saying Mom this is so amazing! Can we take all of them home? Mom I love them all so much! Our girls though were very overwhelmed. The kids kept touching them, trying to lift up their shirts, pinching them trying to get their attention, and the girls didn't understand. So we decided it would be time to go, we knew it wasn't fair to our girls as they just couldn't understand and were so overwhelmed. So we all left, and the screaming and crying began. It was more than I could take. I just broke down and started crying. Seeing all these precious kids younger than most of my kids, screaming and crying because you were leaving and they just wanted love from you was so hard.
My friend that we went with and I plan on going back every Saturday we can, without children, to love and spend time with the kids. Brian and I got the head of the orphanage's phone number and are going to be calling her this week to get the information we need to set things up so we can start fostering some of these children if possible. It is a home for children under the age of five, so once these precious kids hit age five they have to go somewhere else, and they have a hard time finding places. Brian and I are very excited about dreams we both are starting to have for our future here, involving many children. It will be so exciting to see over time how God will allow us to pour into these kids lives.
I have so much to blog about and will be playing catch up this week. The internet has been very unreliable lately so I am hoping this week it will be good and I can update everyone on what we have been doing! We love you all so very much!

{ONE month!!}

I can hardly believe it has been one month since we first arrived in Tanzania, and what a huge difference a month can make! The first couple of weeks here were hard, and I would even say hard is an understatement. :) I am so thrilled to say though that I have seen and experienced God's grace and peace in such a deep way over these past couple of weeks. Once I worked up the courage to fully submit myself to His will for my life here in Africa, everything started to change. I was able to sleep soundly and on my own at night {I had been taking sleeping pills to help me the first few days}, joy and laughter were making appearances in my life again, my heart was open to be excited about the work we will be doing here, I started embracing relationships with new friends here, and so on and so on. I feel like a completely different person than the girl that was here the first night. I am SO thankful to be on the other end of that first major transition of adjusting here! I am realizing {even daily still} that just because our family is here, in Africa, doesn't mean we lost our family and friends back in the States. Those relationships will always be there, and it has been amazing to see them even deepen with us being here. Even typing this my eyes are full of tears of thankfulness, as I am truly amazed at the work He has done in my heart. He is such a good and loving Heavenly Father.
This past month has flown by! It has obviously been a month of adjusting for our family. Our older three children are attending a school here called Hope International. The school has been such a blessing to our family and the kids are loving it there! Sophee and Emmersyn attend for a half day {this year} and Kayden is in school for the full school day. They are all thriving and making new friends here. It is such a blessing as their Mommy to see them doing so well, and fitting right into their new lives here. I am so proud of them. They struggled with the food when we first got here, but we are finding things that everyone likes, and they are doing much better now. Our little Harper Praise is LOVING it here. I could have never even imagined how much she would enjoy being here. She loves to play outside all day, and loves here one on one time with Mommy while the older three are at school. We found a play group with a lot of children her age and have gone one time, and she really enjoyed it. The only thing Harper isn't super crazy about is that when we are out in public the Tanzanians will just come up and try to grab her right out of my hands. It is just a cultural thing here, but she wants nothing to do with it. She has learned to stiffen her arms up so they can't grab her, and they get the point.
Brian has been asked to lead chapel at the kids school every week, and is very excited about it. I often wondered  why God would take Brian out of his youth and children's position at our church, when that was so obviously one of his major gifts, but doors are opening here for him to just jump right back into working with youth. I love seeing him in his element, working with precious children. He has also had a couple of drama practices, where he is teaching the youth one of the human dramas we did back in the States. The youth are doing a great job picking up on it and they hope to be bringing it to the streets in town very soon. I will for sure try and get a video of it!
Last Sunday Brian preached at a church in one of the villages right near us. It was so great to be back in a Africa church! Next weekend we will be heading to another church, where Brian will be preaching as well. We are also working a lot on our house, and hope to have it move in ready by the time we get home from language school, which is mid-May.
So there is a quick update on what we have been up to this past month. We are working on a newsletter right now, and hope to have it out in the next couple of days, and it will have more details about our home project, and more details and pictures of what we have been up to.  Thank you all so much for you love and continued prayers!

My {first) African Birthday

My birthday was a week ago, but I thought this post was better late than never. It is amazing for me to look back over the past few years, and remembering always thinking that my next birthday might be in Africa. Always wondering what it would be like, and what we would do. I just remember the morning of my birthday waking up and thinking, " I am in Africa." I felt so blessed that our time has come and we are here. On the same hand, I was a little bit sad because I knew the day would not be spent with our family and friends at home. I was a little unsure of what the day would hold. We woke up, got the kids ready and took them to school. After we had picked the girls up from school {Kayden stays a full day while the girls are only a half day right now} we went out to lunch to my favorite restaurant for pizza. Don't be fooled when I say pizza. :) It is good, but nothing at all like Pizza Hut! :) My dear friend here, Mary, had just delivered her third daughter via C-section earlier that morning, and her husband called me and asked if I would like to come up and see Mary and the baby as a birthday present. Um, of course! If you know me at all, you know I have an extreme weakness for babies, especially little newborns. It was so nice to get to see Mary and meet sweet Naomi. It was also very interesting, and a little sad, to experience my first trip to an African hospital.

Once I was home from the hospital it was time to head over to our friends house for dinner with them. I had already guessed by then that Brian was throwing me one of his "surprise" parties { I am pretty sure he has thrown me one every year since we have been married :) } and sure enough it was.

It was a great night with our new community of friends. Of course my fun loving husband had some games planned that were fun for everyone.

Brian had even picked me up cake from a bakery in town.

 It was a great night and I left feeling so blessed for so many reasons. It is still so surreal to me sometimes that we are actually here. I have spent the last seven years of my life wondering when it would be, and it is here. God has been so good and faithful to our family, it honestly blows my mind. This past month has been the hardest time of my life, and yet at the same  time some of the best and most precious times of my life. I will be posting next time about what we have been up to this last month, and how I have personally seen God's amazing grace overflowing in my life. Love from the whole Loudermilk crew to YOU!