Birthdays, bugs and broccoli!!!

Rebecca loving the balloons on her birthday!

Rebecca is one! Yesterday we celebrated Rebecca's first birthday with cake and balloons and all our MAF friends. It was great fun and a welcome break in the middle of a busy week. I cant believe it is a year ago that we were in the UK sitting in hospital trying to work our how this tiny little spinning baby was going to come into the world. Now a year on we have a gorgeous little lady with a great personality. She is so peaceful, easy going and loves spending time with her big sister. More and more we hear squeals of excitement from them both as they chase each other around the floor or hide under the table. Tiny nuggets of pure joy in the day which just make all the other hassles of life fade away! 

The girls are loving exploring all the weird and wonderful bugs and insects that are all

around their feet. Chameleons, lizards, crickets, grass hoppers, praying mantis, beetles, ants, sand lions to name a few. I often look out to see what Rachel is doing, only to see her squatting and digging in the sand looking for sand lions. Tiny little insects that live in the sand and eat ants. They make a small hole in the sand above themselves for the ant to fall in and then they pop out and eat them, so if you are quick and drop an ant in (or gently blow the sand in the hole) you can catch them! All good fun!!! Rachel is also enjoying seeing horses pulling their carts around town. (Okay, thats

not a bug, but brightens a journey!) Talking of horses, last Saturday we went out of town to a horse farm with two other MAF families. The children were able to have a short horse ride which was very exciting and Rachel loved being able to ride the horse. 

These last two weeks we have had two visitors from the MAF programme in Uganda and both came bearing gifts. I never thought I would say this, but fresh broccoli really is better than chocolate!!! And that is quite something coming from me (yes I do love my chocolate!). A few weeks ago one of the supermarkets here had fresh broccoli for sale....it was 8000CFA ($16/ £10)...for one head of broccoli!!!! So you can imagine our excitement to receive fresh broccoli and cauliflower. Every last bit was enjoyed by us all!! And then our second visitor brought us fresh oranges, apples, passion fruits and home made cookies from a friend at our church in Kampala along with cards and messages from so many friends at KIC. We feel incredibly loved and were so grateful to receive so many messages from dear friends. 

So now we are on the countdown to Rachel's 3rd birthday. She knew Rebecca's birthday came first but lacks the concept of time, and so each day is expecting it to now be her birthday!!! Today she told me it was now her turn for presents and cake!! Roll on 30th November!!!

Lastly we praise God as Rachel is now happy and content going to her pre school each day. She went back happily after half term and we have hardly had a tear since. Our little lady is growing up and feeling more secure and happy in her new surroundings. Thanks for all the prayers on this, please do keep them coming!! 

Twelve beds in twelve months!

This certainly will be a year to remember in relation to all our moving around. A year full of people, places and new experiences. Unfortunately this is another temporary move we hoped we could avoid but finding a longer-term house to rent in the city has proved harder than we thought. So

Packing to move with the MAF Kit to
our next home!

with the two other MAF families returning we needed to move off the MAF compound. We are now living on the SIL compound (another larger mission compound). It is only about 5 minutes drive from MAF so easy to pop between the two! The new house and compound also has a small play area and trampoline, which is great for the girls. 

I now have the packing down to a fine art form, made easier by the fact that we are still moving around with our seven bags we arrived in Chad with as we wait for the rest of our items to arrive from Uganda. Two small delays with that though as firstly we need to have a house to put all our items in, and secondly we need to wait for MAF Uganda to be able to fly them all up on one of their planes. (Due to an issue with the CAA in Uganda, no Ugandan registered air operators are allowed to fly internationally at the moment. We hope and pray MAF Uganda will be able to fly internationally again soon, not only because of our needs, but due to the amazing work they do supporting South Sudan and DRC). 

Living out of seven bags has been interesting though. I remember packing in Uganda panicking as to whether we were bringing the right things. So many unknowns and what ifs!! On some days it has made me realise though how little we actually need and question what exactly is in the 20 or so boxes waiting to come! On other days in a moment of frustration or sadness I have longed for a few of my photo frames or kitchen comforts or the girls toys! But with the iPad full of photos, and generous MAF friends sharing their kitchens, and with sunshine all day and outside areas to play we quickly move on. That said we will be very excited when our things do come! 

Another major change we have had to adjust to this last month has been the weather. When we arrived in July it was the start of the rainy season. Highs of around 30ish degrees celsius, very muggy and humid and some amazing storms which cooled everything down momentarily! As we crept into October the rains ended and it started to get very hot and dry. On an average day we now have highs between 38-40 degrees and humidity can be as low as 8%. For a few weeks it was just hot, all the time. We especially felt this moving to the new house as we had been blessed with air conditioners at MAF (depending on power) where as now we just have ceiling fans. The temperatures at night were staying around 30 degree so that took a bit of adjusting to. Now we are heading into November the nights are cooling off and for the first time early this morning I actually needed to pull the sheet up!

So as we now head into November we have lots going on and lots to look forward to. The house hunt continues, Rachel returns to her pre school after two weeks half term, two little ladies will be having two special birthdays (Rebecca will be one on the 19th and Rachel will be three on the 30th), we hope and pray all our things will arrive in Chad, and Sam has a very busy work schedule. 

Thank you again for all your love and prayers. We love hearing news from afar and apologise that we don't always manage to reply.