Asher, ready for take-off

We are officially renaming Asher, "Tigger". Nathan and I've realized that Asher never walks anymore. He always leaps, bounds, hops and boings wherever he is going. We've noticed also how many picture we have of him without both feet on the ground. In these two shots, he's airborne. Sometimes, I'll have to get a picture of this, he even flaps his arms like he's going to take off and fly away!

Northern PA

This weekend we visited our 2nd cousins in Troy, PA and Nathan spoke at the churches they belong to while we were there. One of the churches was the Olde Covert Church for the mountain folk (like the parking sign?)...we kind of felt at home driving on the dirt road (though they needed a few million more potholes to be like our Cameroonian roads) and following the cloud of dust the car in front of us left.

It was so awesome to see the little kids I played with when we visited them 12 years ago all grown up now. It's difficult for me to as we travel so much to offer myself and get involved with new people in new places, so I really enjoy the times we get to visit and catch up with family and friends we know, but just haven't seen for years.

More Hershey Park

Ever had a "Nathan's Famo Frankfu"?

Experiencing Life in the USA

Here is Asher, totally content to be on the "Granny Bug" ride at Hershey Park. Forget about keeping all hands and feet inside the car while the ride is in motion!

I did this!!!

I found this on YouTube and this is the exact zipline we did in West Virginia on our 1 day fun trip to ACE Adventures. Here's another video of the river we went rafting on and at 25 sec and 51 seconds in the video it shows people jumping off the same rock that we. not including Diego, did. I think I impressed Nathan with my fearlessness (I even fell out of the raft going over the first of MANY rapids and was still up for the rest of the trip...but leaned farther INTO the raft from then on). However, my kids weren't impressed when I told them about what we did and showed them the videos.

All About Nandry

Check out Nandry's blog, she's having fun taking pictures and posting them (even if I'm the one making her come up with things to write next to her pictures to explain them).

Blessings from West Virginia

This past week, Nathan and I left the kids with my parents and joined the BBC youth and their leaders on their mission trip to the old coal mining town of Gary, West Virginia. We worked on a house in the run down neighborhood (one of the poorest in the US), painting, roofing, yard cleaning and making porch repairs. Our hosts at the School For Life program told us in their beautiful southern accent that we were going to hear some real good country music from a friend of theirs, Jimmy Whitaker. Well, Jimmy got in late on Wednesday night, after a day of driving from his last concert and still mustered up enough energy to play the 19 of us a few of his songs. This guy is amazing, has a heart of gold and deeply loves the Lord. After a lot of admiration of his ability to play and some joking about trading guitars (Bill Cliff's guitar for Jimmy's "Taylor"), Jimmy cleared out his guitar case and said to Nathan, "The Lord told me when I bought this guitar 2 years ago that it wasn't mine, I was just keeping it until He showed me who to give it to, and I knew as soon as we started talking that you were the one it belonged to." WOW! After we all finally convinced Nathan he had no choice but to take the guitar, Jimmy promised to teach him some things to improve his sound and technique, which they stayed up 'till 2Am the next night going over. I think all the youth and leaders on the trip could tell you that the next worship session Nathan led on the guitar for us all was the best of the week! Praise God for his blessings when we are least expecting it!

Adjusting

The kids are adjusting well to life here. Some may disagree, but their quirkiness from living in another culture is starting to wear off. They understand now that the answer "monkey" to the question "what's your favorite pet?" is going to get strange looks unless they explain that they've lived in Africa. They are gaining more vocabulary (TRX, Shady Maple, Amish, VBS, speed limit, McDonald's, play land, Teletubbies, microwave, crushed ice, Walmart and soft serve ice cream...) and becoming accustomed to the things they are seeing. Asher, a few weeks ago, was curious why there were so many spaceships in Lancaster County, PA. It took us a while to figure out what he was talking about. Who knew those Amish folks were ahead of us with technology?

I found this You Tube video about one of the many problems found in Cameroon, especially out our direction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4E0ih5Zro

Watch part 2 & 3 too.

"Where are you going, bumble bottom?"

...Is what the wolf said to Little "light green" Riding Hood in the mad-lib that Nandry and I did today! I can hardly believe that we have an 8 year old daughter...wow! She's so beautiful and growing up so fast. Today we had some Mom/Daughter time and Nandry blew me away with some of her insightfulness. First, she told me, "Mom, sometimes I just don't think Daddy understands like you do, you know, him being a boy and all." And then a little later she said, "It's like I'm just growing up so fast and becoming an adult already." Ever since we left Cameroon less than 2 months ago, Nandry has matured about 2 years!

Here's another picture of my 8 year old princess, and her little brothers.