I think this picture says it all. One of our teammates came down from Addis with an envelope full of letters from home!!! :)  The internet has been having some issues, so getting some communication from home that I could hold in my hands was so amazing!  We are so thankful for all of our friends and family who continue to pray for us and love on us even though we are on the other side of the world! We are so blessed :) 

Currently we have 45 Sports Friends Church Denominational leaders at Camp for the week going through a refresher course. They give reports on their programs and it is a time for teaching and encouragement for all. And of course – every day we play a football match! After the match one of the women asked me where my husband was, I promptly responded with ‘he is at home, cooking dinner.’ Those words nearly killed her. After picking her jaw up off the ground, she asked me to clarify my statement. Haha. I kindly spilled it out for her once more. She could hardly believe it. Finally she exclaimed in pure amazement ‘Abasha (Ethiopian) culture is so different from foreignji (American) culture. In Abasha culture the husband would never cook dinner if  the wife was out playing football.’  I told her that my husband was amazing and I reassured her that he was a great cook. While it may be uncommon in Ethiopia, I love the fact that my husband is willing to serve me by cooking dinner while I’m out ‘knocking the rock’ :) 
What a blessing Bryan is to me!

Every night Bryan and I close the bedroom door and start looking around. I am typically armed with a book, while Bryan’s weapon of choice is one of his tall socks. As soon as the door closes we become like hunters looking for our prey. If we do not successfully kill our prey, they will suck our blood all night long!!! One of the fun things we do here in Ethiopia is count the number of new mosquito bites we have each morning. Currently we have parts of 7 mosquitoes stuck in our bed net and the blood and guts of another half dozen smeared on the walls. Last night I killed a mosquito and then called Bryan over to share in my excitement. The mosquito was completely pulverized and there was no trace of blood!!! I cannot even begin to find words to explain the joy and pride I felt. I had finally killed a mosquito before he bit me!!! Oh the small things in life that bring me so much joy :)

Matthew 12:26 has never made more sense to me, “If one member suffers, all suffer together…” Right now my entire body is uncomfortable. Both of my index fingers are infected and one of my thumbs. It started with one and has spread to the others. My knuckle joints are sore because of inflammation and the tips are so sensitive to any kind of touch. If that wasn’t bad enough, my chin and scalp wanted to get in on the action. My chin is oozing as I type this. When one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers…but when multiple members suffer the body is completely miserable. I cannot wait until this infection leave my body. My whole body will definitely be rejoicing :)

With a week off from camp, several of the camp staff (myself included) decided to go visit one of the local Sports Friends teams.  The game plan was to meet at the stable at 12:30 pm and be loping down the road by 1:00 pm so that we would be at the training before 2:00. It seemed like a great plan – that was until we arrived at the stable :)

To our surprise when we arrived at the stable, neither the horses nor the stable worker were in sight. After about 20 minutes we finally found the stable worker. He was sweating profusely and looked extremely defeated. He explained that he had been trying to catch the horses for the last hour but was very unsuccessful. Since we live on a compound that is surrounded on each side by either a body of water or a fence, the horses are allowed to roam the grounds during the day. On this day the horses decided to be particularly ornery. As soon as we would ‘corner’ the horses, they would take off sprinting to the other side of the compound. During one of our attempts to catch the horses, Asse and I stopped to re-hydrate at the home of one of the clinic nurses. Lucky for us it was lunch time and the nurse joyfully gave us several mouthfuls of gorsha (a sign of friendship where you feed each other). An hour and 45 minutes later we finally had the horses saddled. It was at this point my boss turns to me and asks if I felt comfortable running the horses. I smiled, looked at the saddled horses and assured him that I would be fine. Hahaha. The whole time I’m thinking ‘is a lope the same as a run? I’ve only loped a horse for about 6 strides…how much harder could a 10 kilometer ride be?’

I mount the horse and we hit the road. Who knew getting a horse to run would be sooo hard. I kicked, whipped, and tried every noise I knew how to make with my mouth to get the horse to run. Once I finally got him running, it became very apparent that my stirrups were about 4 inches too short. Oh good times. It took every muscle in my body to stay on that horse. During the entire ride I kept trying to remember what Jacki and Hannah Cook had taught me during my lesson back in Idaho, but all I could think about was how to keep the horse running without falling off.  At one point my foot slipped out of one of the stirrups just as the neighborhood boys thought it was a good idea to run along side the horse and crack their whips. Talk about exhilarating.

We finally made it to the training session and were able to watch the boys play. We engaged some of the spectators in conversation and spoke to the team and crowd after the training. I was excited because there were a couple small groups of teenage girls gathered to enjoying the sporting activities. Who knows, if there is enough interest I may start a team and ride a horse to practice!

Oh…in case you were curious, we made it back home safely and I was RIDICULOUSLY sore the next couple of days!!!

It was 2002 and I was 14 years old. God took me on a short term mission trip to Guatemala. One of my best friends, David, was also on the trip with me. During that trip, and the return trips over the next 2 years, God planted the seeds in my heart for overseas missions. It was an amazing time in my life. The last couple days of that trip were, well, a little less pleasant. David and I both became horribly sick with amebas, and I topped it off with a bacterial infection. Let’s just say, I lost a lot of weight in a very short time. This is a picture of David and me on the side of the road in Guatemala puking our guts out.

It is now 2012 and I am married and living in Ethiopia. David came over on a short term trip this last week to work at Camp Langano. It was such a blessing seeing him in a place where everything is new and different. Fortunately, neither of us got nearly as sick during the past week. So instead, we took a picture of us cleaning the blood off of our hands from killing dinner on Thursday! Haha, It is so cool to see how God works and all the things he did to bring us together again on another continent! Who knows where God will take us over the next 10 years, but I am excited to follow where He leads.