We are stateside!

Well, we made it back to Knoxville without any problem on Monday.  I call that a miracle when you can say a trip with 4 young children was uneventful!!!  We are thankful to be home for a few weeks and would love to see many of you if possible.  The board of Knox ProCorps is hosting a potluck dinner in January and we would love for you to come if you live around here.  Here's the invitation:  

If you need to get in touch with us while we are here, we have our old cell phones reactivated, so you can call us on those.   

Identity Crisis

Back in July, Little Monkey received this stuffed lamb from Nana.  The poor lamb is having a major identity crisis-- she has been named "Piggy" and the other day Little Monkey informed us that "Piggy" says, "meow".   So cute!!!

We are so close to high-speed internet we can almost taste it, therefore you will have to stay tuned for a detailed post about the recent Knox ProCorps team and the water project in Semesche.  Also, stay tuned for a report about a sweet time with our Ulpan team during the last few days.  More to come!!

Please pray for us as we fly home tomorrow (Dec. 17th)--we are all so excited we're about to jump out of our skin!!  However, Mark is not feeling well at all today (yucky cold) and we definitely work as a team to get our crew through the airports.  We would really covet your prayers.  Healthy bodies, much energy for Mark & I during the journey, and much tranquility for los ninos.  Muchas gracias!!

Water in Semesche

I am sure Mark will post more later...but here is a little preview. 

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

We have been listening to Christmas music for weeks and on December 1st we were able to begin one of our favorite traditions.  We have been reading through the Advent Jesse Tree book for several years.  It basically walks you through the entire story of the Bible and shows how everything God did throughout history was pointing toward the coming of Christ.  The kids and I made the ornaments a few years ago and they love taking turns (or fighting over whose turn it is if I'm being honest) to put up the ornament.  Well....this year a little improvisation was necessary.  I still brought the book and our ornaments, but we made our tree out of construction paper.  We're really excited about heading home for Christmas in just a little more than a week.  Do you think our make-shift Christmas tree can make the journey so we can finish all 25 days?

**On a side note...the team from Knox ProCorps arrived safely last night and they plan to get started on work today.  I'm sure Mark will send updates about their progress.  In the meantime, please pray for good weather, safe travels (there will be a lot of that for all of us this next week), and a rich time of connecting with the villagers of Semesche while they are here.

Houdini

Our Little Monkey is quickly earning the name of Little Houdini.  She has figured out how to unlatch the gate on our porch...which keeps her from careening off the side of a mountain or tumbling down a large flight of concrete stairs.  So...we installed a second, Houdini-proof latch.  Hopefully this will contain her!

Beautiful places, beautiful faces

 Just thought you might want a glimpse of the beauty of life here...