Counting down...only a week and a day to go!

Wow...lots to do, lots of stress. We are so excited that we will be leaving for the US in just 8 days. Nathan's been spending all his time on completing the addition (except when I need him to carry stuff to the container for me), and I've been packing the house. All I've got left is the last stuff, the hardest part, where you just can't put "like" things together anymore and it's all odds and ends that end up just being thrown in a box or thrown in the trash pit. My "odd parts" bag is getting bigger as I find things that go with stuff I've already packed days to weeks ago.

We will be in the bush until Tuesday, so that only gives Nathan 3 more days to get a roof on the addition. The walls are 95% completed, and tomorrow Nathan expects to have the frame and tress up so that he can nail on the corrugated metal roofing on Saturday. All this, and he's had a horrible tooth ache since last week and needs to see a dentist. He started on antibiotics and that's helped some, it seems, but he's still popping the ibuprofen every 8 hours. Things have been going very well during the past week on the addition because of one of our Bantu neighbors, Komba (who's wife just had a baby and the baby is now the second baby named after me), who has acted as the "chef chantier" or foreman, and getting all the other guys to work more efficiently. We are praising God for this blessing! It's usually like pulling teeth to get the guys around here to work hard, but Komba is very kind, but firm, with the guys and they respect him.

The Abbotts left today with Darla the chimp and are going to drop the latter off at a zoo. They have a really nice facility and are able to take care of abandoned baby animals like "Baby Boo", the name that Desma affectionately gave the chimp. Check out their blog Jungle Abbotts, they will be posting some pictures in the next couple of days. Darla is super anxious to get home and will fly out from Yaounde on Sunday. We are so glad that she could be here these past 6 months!

I tried to post some pictures in this post, but our internet connection has recently gotten alot worse, so the pics will have to wait a few days.

Lord give us strength to make it one more week!!

Not to take away from my Mother's Day Post, but...

Wow...look who our team's been babysitting for the last 2 days (fortunately the Abbotts have been doing most of the work changing diapers and keeping her overnight). She's maybe less than a month old has taken to our kids in the past 48 hours, and the kids have really taken to her as well. What an opportunity, sad for her and for the chimp population in general...but our kids will NEVER forget this. Again, like Kemi, hunters shot her mother. Pray for wisdom over how to handle this situation (we would like to take her to the Limbe Zoo in Cameroon where they have a huge primate facility and can care for her and introduce her to a surrogate mother...but our neighbors don't like that idea, they want to make money by selling her, but we don't want to buy her from them because we feel like that would encourage more hunting of chimps, among other illegal matters).

Happy Mother's Day

I will never forget the good times with my wonderful mom! One thing that made the biggest impression on my life was the time she would spend with just me. She would take me with her to Shady Maple to do her weekly food shopping. We'd hang out and I'd "help" picking out certain things for the family to eat that week. Then, as we were leaving she'd always buy us a soft pretzel or ice cream cone AND let us go look around Good's Store for a few minutes AND buy me the newest book in the Mandie series if it was out (even when I was in college and was too old for Mandie anymore!!!). Also, I remember various times after church when we would stop by the carwash for the boys and Dad to do a quick check and make sure things were running smoothly. Mom and I would stay in the car because we were in our nice dresses and to keep me busy, Mom would make up all kinds of games and word puzzles for me to solve. Thanks for teaching me things like cooking and what substitutions will work and what won't. Thanks for quizzing me to help me study for test after test all throughout my years in school. Thanks Mom, for being such a great Mom, being there FOR me and WITH me, and loving me so well! Thanks for inspiring me to be a mom who is involved deeply with my kids. I hope that I can be as giving and loving to them as you were to me. And I promise I'll never tell Chad and Curt that you said I was your favorite (nudge nudge wink wink) ! :)

I'm so thankful for my mother-in-law as well! Thanks for having Nathan and for encouraging and supporting him as he grew up to be the man he is today. Thanks for always being his biggest cheerleader for his desires to serve God on the mission field! One example of this that is so awesome is when you let everyone know that for your 50th birthday (that was just last year, right?) your desire was for your friends and family to send support to World Team for us, instead of spending anything on you. Thanks! And thanks for showering me with your love, in the various forms that it came (among other serious things: the color orange, smiley faces and socks -- by the way I'm not bringing any socks back from Africa...so if you see any that you know I'll like get them for me please!). And I'm not embarrassed to tell everyone that I'm your "favorite youngest daughter-in-law".

I love you both and hope that you each have a wonderful day! We will see you in just a few short weeks!!!

"They taste kind of flowery..."

This was Darla's response when Nathan asked her how the plantain chips tasted. Every week, our cook makes chips for us from plantains (similar to potato chips). He fries them in oil in a pot over the fire. This week, when he brought the chips inside I noticed that the empty bottle of oil was not our normal "used oil" container. I called out the window to Nathan, "hey, what does massage oil consist of?" His answer was that it's made up of mostly olive oil, grape seed oil (?) and a bunch of essential oils. Hence, the flowery tasting chips that got thrown out in the trash. Though the massage oil wasn't where we normally keep our bottles of oil, I guess keeping it anywhere in the kitchen in an unmarked bottle is a bad idea!

Outtie

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