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