After almost 2 1/2 years of construction we finally moved in!!! Yeah!! The blessed move happened in the first week in February.  We have officially been in our house for two months this month.  It has been a long, hard, tedious learning experience but we have possessed the land.  When we were moving all the beds in, we couldn’t remember who’s room belong to whom.  We brought Dan The Man with us, because we knew he would remember, and sure enough he did.  After we had all the beds made, we went back to the old house to pick the rest of the children. The children were so excited.  The first thing they did was run through the house screaming.  They could not believe that after all this time they were finally in their own rooms.  They created a song that they sang for months before we moved in and they sang it that day. “Only two in a room this time. Girls are upstairs and boys are downstairs”.  They sang it over and over again as they ran through the house. As exhausted as I was it was music to my ears.

John unfortunately missed out on this part because he had to drive the truck we borrowed for moving 1 1/2 hours away. The person that was suppose to come and pick the truck never turned up and the owner wanted it back.  We all watched Daddy leave as he backed out to make his journey.  The first night we were in the house, we (the children and I) called Grampa Carl on the mobile phone loud speaker.  Grampa, also the Chairman of the Board Directors, said a prayer of protection, blessing, and thanksgiving over all of us.  We locked up the house and all went to bed, unaware of the fight we were going to endure as we attempted to sleep.

As we all tried to sleep we were under attack!! Mosquitoes were bigger and more aggressive than we have ever seen.  As you try to swat one away, three more are biting you from behind.  No one slept very well because of the mosquitoes and all of us woke up the next morning swollen with lots of mosquito bites. Diana (my assistant and I) went right out bought mosquito nets for all the beds.  We also bought insect repellant.  We developed a little ritual at night.  We line up all the children and one by one we spray them with insect repellant to keep the mosquitoes away.  Of course a few weeks later we had lots of cases of malaria but everyone seems to have recovered now.

One of the funniest things that will always keep me laughing is the kids and the bathrooms.  When we were in the old home, there was only one bathroom so the kids all knew where to go when nature called.  Well here there are many different bathrooms and they just couldn’t figure it out that it was ok just to go to the nearest toilet.  I’m laughing even as I write this.  Whenever someone had to go the bathroom it was an ordeal.  One of them would come running through the house, trying to find me and screaming my name “ Mommy, mommy I have to go to the bathroom.”  While they are telling me this, they are jumping up and down or running around in circles holding themselves.  So whatever bathroom was nearest to me is whichever one they used.  Of course we had some accidents because they wouldn’t get to me in time.  It was mind boggling. To solve the problem it took several trips through the house with all the children telling them, “These are also your bathrooms. If you have to go potty and you are close to one of them, use it. It’s ok.”  It took quite awhile but after a month they seemed to get it.

We are still adjusting to the new home.  New routines, extra staff, new environment.  It’s good but also has it’s challenges. Keep us in prayer and we’ll keep you posted as we go.

Here are some of the remaining needs we still have....

Construction Update for Late 2006.

Construction Update for Early 2006.


Construction Update for Late 2005.