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!