Four!

Not "fore!" like in golf, although maybe if someone would have yelled that Sam wouldn't have needed four staples in his head tonight!  Yup, this week's date night was spent in the Fairview Ridges Emergency Room after Sam managed to slice his head open on the air intake for our air exchanger conveniently located under our deck.  Nothing like standing up in the WRONG place.  I wasn't too worried until he said, "That's a lot of blood . . ."  One look from his wife, the First Aid Instructor, and we were in the car headed north!  As a bonus (because neither of us could remember when), he got a tetnus shot, too.  The good news is - it was our quickest visit ever.  From the time we left until the time we got back - one hour and thirty minutes.  Almost as good as the ship!

The Missionary Jar

Our neighbors have what they call "the missionary jar" and any loose change they have goes right into the jar.  Then when they receive a support request from anyone serving in missions, they go to the jar and "gift" that request.    Two years ago, they blessed us with the entire jar!  Can you imagine?  

Yesterday I was over at their house.  Their daughter is getting married in a little less than two weeks and they were putting her stuff in a pile in the garage, getting it ready to move to her new home.  Out walks her mom with a great big beautiful jar and says, "How about this for your missionary jar?" and I thought, "Wow, what a legacy!"  

  

The grass is just plain green . . .

After two consecutive summers in Africa, I stand amazed at how lovely and how green everything is here in Minnesota!  I am praising God constantly for the rain He sends to make everything so green because I can no longer justify watering the lawn.  So, Dear God, may the rains continue to fall that I may continue to enjoy all of Your greens!

Ship Yard!

 We survived ship yard in 2005 while serving  aboard the m/v Anastasis

in East London, South Africa.

We will NEVER forget the day we came back from a field trip with the kids

and supper was being cooked over an open fire in a big, black cauldron!

Yup, it was macaroni and cheese!

 

The m/v Africa Mercy is now in ship yard in Gran Canaria.

Check out these photos -

The wards awaiting new floors

New CT scanner ready for installment

The laundry room is getting two new industrial strength laundry machines.

The walk-in refrigerators have been removed from the galley to get ready for new ones.

The crew galley has become the ship galley - all meals are cooked here - where there are no cauldrons!

 

 

 

 

Hee! Hee!

Yesterday I posted a 2-minute video on our friend, Deb Loudin, and after I had published my post, I looked at her video again because I thought I recognized her sister so I e-mailed Deb who is currently in Australia and she e-mailed me back today.   Sure enough - I ran with her sister in the streets of Cotonou, Benin - past the peacocks, through the busy roads and into the port!  Amazing that I remembered that four years later, especially when we ran at 6:00 a.m!  

Meet Deb . . .

Deb is one of our Aussie friends who we met on the ship.  She's a ward nurse and we hope you enjoy your two minutes with her as much as we've enjoyed all of our times with her!

3FT

At our house, "3FT" stands for "Forced Family Fun Time" and our kids never really seem to enjoy it until it's over - then they usually decide that they had the absolute best time ever!  Today was no exception.

We volunteered at New Life Family Services Walk-a-thon at Lake Nokomis.  New Life was our adoption agency and we wanted to give back, so Micah and i worked in the crafts area and Matt and Sam hauled boxes from the "baby shower" area to the U-haul.  

We now have matching New Life t-shirts. But what made it most memorable was after the walk-a-thon we rented these bikes . . .

 Matt wasn't exactly fond of the helmet . . .

 But he loved racing his sister around the lake . . .

 Sam and I are tooling right behind them in a tandem bike for two.  What made this the best time ever was that the ship had bikes just like this and the kids have such good memories of playing on them, only these were bigger and that made them better . . . until Sam and I got a flat!  Arg!