Catch up News

It's been a while since I last wrote. There's a lot to catch up on. I guess that's part of the reason I haven't written. We've been busy. Since Nazinga we have had two of our kids leave with their French adoptive parents, had a friend come visit for a few days, we currently have a drill team here drilling a deep deep clean water well for us(called a forage), I got sick, and we had a surprise party for Nichole because she leaves tomorrow for the States. Her time here is up. These are just the big things that have been happening...not to mention all the little day to day things that make life here interesting. For example, Alfonsine (or Sina for short), an eighteen month oldish who is not yet able to walk, is now able to find me no matter where I am. When she sees me, she crawls and scoots over workers, babies, toys, and any number of other obstacles that might be in the way to get to me. And when she gets to me she, sits near me with her hand on my leg, very possessive like, and screams when other kids try to touch me. If I don't have a baby in my arms already, she will most likely try to crawl into my arms, which sometimes I let her and sometimes I don't. You have to be careful with Sina because if you pick her up and then put her down, she screams. And its not a typical baby cry. It's a bloody murder scream. It's horrible. We pray for her because of it.

The big things: Mathieu and Mariam are in France or on their way there with their new families. The moms and dads came last week to pick them up. They were kind and M & M were ready for them. We had talked and talked about their parents coming. They were as ready as two three year olds can be for a new life in a new country with new people. It was pretty amazing to see them with their families. Things are pretty quiet without those two...especially Mathieu. It's going to take some getting used to. Our Peace Corp friend, Corey, just came for a short visit. He went with us on our camel-riding adventure in Gorom-Gorom. He was on his way to Ouaga to catch a plane to the States for Christmas and had a few extra days and decided to visit. It was good to see him. It's encouraging to see how God is using him in his village while he is here with this government organization. Friends In Action is here drilling a well for us. We have a well, but it's not clean water and it dries up during the dry season. We have city water currently but it's expensive when you use as much water as we do(45 kids!!) so with this new well that is so deep the water is clean, we won't ever have to pay for water again because the well won't run dry!!It's pretty loud and dusty but the kids are having a good time watching the drilling.

I GOT SICK! For the past three weeks or so I have been feeling flu-like off and on. Some days I would feel horrible and then I would be fine. Sometimes it was with in hours that I would feel bad and then good again. And I was often tired. Tuesday Dec. 11 was Independence Day here in Burkina. The whole Northern Region celebrated here in Yako. The governor came and there was a big parade....and I was about to faint before Lynn caught me and sat me down in a chair. It was decided that I needed to go to the doctor. There is a Belgian doctor in Ouaga who works with some of the missionaries that we know, so we decided to go see him. He found that I had really low blood pressure (One doctor said "Was she in a wheelchair?!!" I wasn't...I was walking!) He ran some blood work and found I had some weird lymphocytes or something and also something with my liver. He said these were indicative of a viral infection like Mono or CMV. He didn't know about the BP. So he had me stay over night in Ouaga and drink Cokes to get my BP back up and he let me go home the next day, telling me I needed to rest. So that's what I'm trying to do now. Which is kind of hard because sometimes I feel fine, and sometimes I feel not fine.

MY FAMILY IS COMING IN TWO DAYS!!!! So I really hope I'm feeling more fine than not by then. But you never know because these viral things can last for while. I'm so excited to see my family. It will be good to have them here and see what I've been doing. They are also planning on helping me set up some things in my new house...I'm renting a house! We decided it was probably the best decision seeing as we have visitors all the time and it is tiring to have visitors in your house and space all the time. I'm glad they come, but it would be nice to have my own space as well, and having my own house will hopefully allow for that.

Nichole is leaving for the States tomorrow night. We had a surprise party for her with the big kids last night. It was a lot of fun. I made a slideshow of pictures from her year here, the kids made her cards, and Lynn made cookies and had games and hosted the party! She was surprised and the kids had a great time. I'm really going to miss her. She's become like a sister to me and things won't be the same without her. I'll start crying if I say anymore.

That's just a brief update on all that's going on over here...hope the snow and ice and cold weather is treating you all well!! :) Merry Christmas!