Friday, December 10, 2010
In Atlanta
Getting Close
Her flight from Atlanta to Columbus leaves at 4:10 and she should be home by 5:45. I'm guessing it will be sooner than that assuming everything takes off on time. She is going to be on Delta flight 2254 for that portion of the trip if you are interested in following her.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Landed in Germany
Left Paris
Flight Delayed
Landed in Paris
Just checked the website again and her flight is now scheduled to leave Paris at 6:15 pm (12:15) our time. They are scheduled to land in Germany now at 7:41 German time.
The kids are excited to see mom again and hear the stories and see the pictures that she has on the way home and over the next few days.
Thanks for praying
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Tuesday afternoon
I was also able to meet many of the orphans that people in our church sponsor and give them the gift that were sent. It is so nice to see their smiling faces when they receive a gift that is for them.
We arrived at the center during recess today and it was a mob scene. You could hardly walk becuase of the 50 kids who wanted to touch you and shake your hand. Later I was told by a group of teen age girls that I was the whitest person that they had ever seen :) It is fun to try to communicate with little langauge in common, but with smiles and hand gestures.
For supper we went to a French restraurant and had "El Capitan" which is fish caught in the river. It was very good - like a nice seafood dinner you would have in the states. They had live trumpet, sax, and guitar music and nice candles and ambiance. Then we drove out of the parking lot and saw a boy catching "kindagozo" - crickets! He was stringing them live on a piece of string. It is a highly desired food here that they fry in oil and eat. Some of the culture swings here are really hard to adjust to. We just laugh, because it is only way you can process some of the information.
Tuesday Morning
I still haven't been able to meet Rodrigue, the orphan we sponsor. He is supposed to be at the school today, so I am hopefully that we can finally meet.
Overall, I am feeling great, just tired. The sun rises here about 5:30 am, and that is when everyone starts their day, so it is difficult to sleep past 6:30 am.
I am getting spoiled on their freshly baked bread, rolls, and pastries. Everyday, either the ladies make some fresh bread, or we get some from the french cafe down the street. That is one area that Europeans really have it better than we do. Who ever thought white bread in slices in a bag was an acceptable substitute for fresh bread? It's not even the same food group. Last night we had a braided bread with sugar sprinkled on top. It was wonderful.
I tried a new fruit last night: palm citer (that is so not spelled correctly, but that is how it sounds :) The outside skin looks sort of like a potato - it is sort of shaped like a kiwi, but tastes very sweet and sour. The inside has spiky ribs, so you have to take small bites and eat around the large pit in the middle. Barb says it is the perfect fruit to describe Africa. Not something I would want to eat everyday, but it tasted ok.
Monday afternoon
Monday, December 6, 2010
Monday Morning
Also pray that we will be able to get the pictures of the orphans at Bercail (prounced ber-ki). We are on schedule, but starting to feel a little pressure to finish the process by tomorrow.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Sunday
We closed the service singing, "How Great Thou Art". Which was really special. It was so cool to be able to sing along with them. It didn't matter that we were speaking 2 different languages, we were both worshipping one God.
This afternoon has been restful. The other group just left to go back to the center to finish the High School student's pictures. I am staying here because my church will be calling soon. PTL for Skype. I will be able to talk through the sound system at church so that everyone can hear our phone conversation. I'm not sure what I will say yet. It is hard to figure out how to share this whole experience in a few minutes. Barb was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find a quiet place at the center to talk on the phone, so I am by myself at the mission for this phone call. When they get back, we are hopefully going to the pool. :)
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Food
This morning we walked to a French Cafe, Le Grand Cafe, and had breakfast. It is an internet cafe with some great pastries and air conditioning. We had a great breakfast - I had a ham and cheese croissant. It was great.
It is really hot here, which I expected. But it seems strange to see Christmas lights when it is so hot. This afternoon the power was off (actually the power is off every afternoon from about 3 pm until 9 pm.) So, we didn't have any hot water (the generator will run the lights, but not the hot water heater.) I took a freezing shower and it felt great! We were having leftovers for supper, so we had to turn off all the lights and unplug everything we could, so we could use the microwave to heat up our pizza. It's funny how things are so modern here, yet so antiquated at the same time.
Overall, things are going well. I love it here. I find it funny that my mind always translates what I want to say into Spanish - but that doesn't help either. Both languages I know are no help to me here :) Despite not being able to communicate in French or Sango, a smile really is the universal language.
MIRACLE!
So we get to the airport and Barb gets us through the first gate! Then we make it through the second guarded gate. Then we get to the customs official and he takes our passports and shows us our luggage. We then have to go through customs, where they opened them and searched everything. Barb at that point had to go talk to a person behind a desk. He asked why he should give us our stuff. She explained that people in America were sending gifts to help orphans in this country have a good Christmas. And he let us go through! It was miracle after miracle! By the time we made it to the car we were so emotional - we basically did a back dive into water that we couldn't see, trusting that God would provide and He did! He is Amazing! Thanks for praying. This is just one more way that we have seen this week that God has provided for our needs and some of our wants too.
So now this afternoon we are going back to the center to take pictures of the High School students and hopefully be able to finish packing the rest of the presents.
Saturday Morning
Barb finally figured out how to access the visitor email. I am reading it on her computer, so I still don't know how much access I will have to it, but at least I can send this one.
Slept pretty good last night - we were really tired from the long day. We made some mistakes that made the labeling process take a lot more time. All 5 of us were working on a computer to label the picture files and match the kids names with PHC numbers. Not an easy process actually.
This morning we are going out for breakfast and then this afternoon we will go back to the center to get the pictures of the high school students. It is hot here, but not completely unbearable. The conference room at the PHC center has a nice breeze with all the windows open. We have been to the pool both afternoons which is heaven! Barb loves to swim, so I imagine we will go most days right before supper.
I have asked to see the seminary so hopefully we will be able to drive out and see it. We also have plans to see a hand in hand school, the widow garden, etc. It sort of depends on if our luggage comes today and we can finish our jobs.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Friday
The other part of the team, Brenda and Amy were taking pictures. They got the entire morning class finished. (Here in Africa, you only go to school for half day. All the kids eat lunch at the center, but either have classes in the morning or afternoon.) We are back at the mission residence now for lunch. The photo team is leaving soon to go back to take pictures of the afternoon classes. Caitlin and I are going to go through all the pictures that were taken this morning and change the file to the child's name. Lots to do.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Just wanted to let you know we are here. Every flight we had was delayed, so we waited a lot. In Paris, we actually went through the ticket counter and then walked down the jetway, down the stairs...to a bus that drove us out the parking lot on the other side of the airport where we waited more than an hour for the rest of the passengers. We finally landed about 8 pm yesterday. I was going on about 2 hours of sleep total. We were at the airport until 9:45 pm fighting the crowds to get through customs and get our luggage. The bad part is that only 2 out of our 4 bags arrived. One of my trunks and one of Brenda’s is still in
Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of the CAR - so it was a major holiday. The city is all decorated and they have had lots of parties and parades.
We had supper here after we got home about 10 pm – we were exhausted. So we basically got things unpacked and went to bed. I took some Tylenol pm, but I didn’t need it – I was asleep in about 20 seconds and slept all night.
We visited Project Hope and Charity – both the large campus and the smaller campus – this morning to hand out the thank you cards. The kids began to color them and tomorrow when we start to take pictures, we will write their photo number on their card, so it can be matched later when the pictures are printed. I will start the assembly process tomorrow with either Amy or Catilin. Brenda and the other one will start pictures.
When we got to the school this morning, we weren’t even out of the car, when Brenda’s orphan that she sponsors, Delphin, was there. He gave her a huge hug and was crying – he was so happy to see her again. It was so touching.
I feel a little like a rock star here. I have shaken more kids’ hands in the last several hours than I ever have. If you shake one hand, you have to shake them all! And they all want to touch us. Already I have seen several that I would bring home with me if I could. J
Anne and Rosalee (the guest house workers) send their greetings. We were introduced last night. This morning Barb told them I was Pastor Jason’s wife. They started to do the motions with their arms and feet and asked if he was that Pastor Jason. We said yes, and they ran and gave me big hugs and said welcome. Then they went and got our family picture that Jason had given them. It was really sweet.
Pray that the details will continue to fall in place for the gift assembly starting tomorrow. We are still waiting for the coffee to be delieved and the rice is still in 50 lb. bags. Hopefully those things will fall in place and we will be able to get our jobs started tomorrow.
What She Should Be Doing
I looked up her schedule on an email today and they were supposed to start to work on assembling the Christmas gift bags. They have well over 1000 to get packed and so I'm sure they were up early and at it. I do figure that sometime today I will get an email from her that I will post on the blog here to keep all of you who are following her trip updated on what is happening.
Thanks for continuing to pray!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Hurry Up and Wait
So far the schedule for the day is breakfast in Columbus, lunch in Cincinnati, and supper on the plane on route to Paris. Sounds tiring :)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Africa - Here I Come!
While I am in Africa I will be working at the Orphan Care Center to assemble and pack Christmas Presents for the 1200 (or so) orphans. We will be packing backpacks, a book, coffee, toy, tea, rice, sardines (their favorite - because they make a toy car out of the container) for each of the orphans. We will also meet with each child to take their picture and help them to make a Christmas Thank you card for their American Sponsor. I am especially excited to meet Rodrigue, the orphan that our family has been sponsoring for 2 years.
I will be traveling with Brenda, a lady from Columbus who has been working with Project Hope and Charity for several years. This will be her third trip, so I am glad to be traveling with someone with experience. We are meeting 3 other Americans in Africa who will be helping us with this project - Barb, who is the American based director of PH & C and 2 other college aged interns who have been in Africa for a few months.
I will be staying in the same place that Jason stayed when he was there, and am looking forward to meeting some of the people that he loved and seeing what he saw as well.
While I am excited, I am also a bit nervous. I am praying that God will use this trip to change me. I don't want to be the same person when I come home. I know that God has been working in bringing this trip together and I am so excited to see what He will be teaching me through this time.
If everything goes according to plan (which I am told NEVER happens in Africa) - I will be able to update this blog twice a day. Hope you check back to see what is happening on the other side of the world.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Micaela Turns 9!
Alyssa Turns 7!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
First Day of Fall
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Josiah's First Day of Preschool
His classes are Wednesday and Friday mornings. We made the final decision that he would attend there when we found out his teacher would be Mrs. Gilbert, a friend of ours. Even though he is 4, he is in the "3-year old class" because he will not go to Kindergarten next year.
Last Thursday we had his orientation, and he was very shy. New building and new faces and he just wasn't so sure about everything. He sat on my lap or very close to me the entire time. I wasn't sure about dropping him off this morning. But...
He did great! Jason and I went to drop him off today. After getting his name tag and putting his back pack in his box, he gave us hugs and kisses and went off to play. That was way easier than I thought it would be.
Jason and I went out for breakfast and celebrated having all our children in school. Then I went to the grocery "all by myself." It was wonderful!
Josiah said on the way home that he loved Mrs. Gilbert and can't wait to go back on Friday, so we are off to a good start.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Girls' First Day of School
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Josiah turns 4
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Long time
Monday, May 3, 2010
Josiah
I was exercising in the living room and had a drink of water on the table.
He told me -"Mom, this is a coffee table, not a water table."
Monday, March 29, 2010
Van Duyne Family Photo Shoot (3/27/10)
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Alyssa Lost 2nd Tooth
New Member of the Family
Friday, March 19, 2010
New Experience
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Josiah's quotes of the day
Josiah's word for guacamole - "Rock-and-rolley
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Snow Storm
Friday, February 5, 2010
Josiah's Zingers
As Jason was watching TV -
Josiah - "What are you watching?"
Jason - "The News."
Josiah- "Is it good news or bad news?"