Merry Christmas!

 Hard to believe its already Christmas time, especially since this is what we do in our free time now.... sit in our teeny tiny baby pool and dream of snow. (notice the christmas tree in the background)

This past Sunday we were invited to attend Beiro's church. Beiro is a young man the mission is sponsoring to attend school. We are also hoping to assist him in recieving surgery to correct the horrible burn scars he recieved as a child. His home was set on fire during the war and he was very badly burned. We had a great time at the church. There was much dancing and singing, which is always the best part- although it was SOOO hot that we didnt do much of either. It was nice to watch though!

Tendai crawled over to Uncle Dwight to assist him with the sermon notes he was writing in the sand. :)

This little girl had a ton of fun dancing... even though she was just learning to stand and cant walk yet!

The whole church, us and Beiro- hes the guy by Dwight and Lynn in the red and black striped shirt.

I love this picture! Rick, Mateus and Carey (one of our short termers). Mateus is completly blind and it was really neat for Carey to be able to meet him. Carey's family helps sponsor Mateus for school so I made sure to get a pic of them together!

Also last week, Keren gave blood, to help an infant in need of a transfusion. Brave girl she is. I took pics but i was almost feeling woozy myself! The needle was HUGE and they took half a litre in less than four minutes!!!! (at home aparently it takes 15). Crazy. Tendai was not woozy at all- she found the process fascinating.

Big Needle. 

Really Big NEEDLE!! 

Tendai decided to add a few of her own thoughts to Keren's pages on the Health Manual.. and even after all that, Keren still was such a sweetie and drew the most amazing picture of Tendai for me.

How beautiful is that?? I cried.

And the last pic of the week, Magnum. Our poor dog is apparently very allergic to some insect.. bee perhaps? He swells up like crazy... this isnt even as bad as it got! We had Keren and Lynn rush over with meds- injectable benadryl, steroids, and an epi-pen just in case. Yes, our dog has an epi pen. How crazy is that. He looked so miserable, I felt so bad for him. Thankfully, the drugs did the trick and he is back to normal, but i dread the next time it happens- every time hes been bitten the reaction has been worse- im a little scared what will happen next time.

We hope each of you is having a wonderful Christmas season, filled with family, friends and lots of yummy food. We also hope you are able to take time to celebrate Jesus' birth and remember while opening your gifts that He IS the greatest gift!

Thank you for praying for us, as it is difficult at times like these to be so far from home, family and friends. We are thankful for the friends we do have here, and the plans we have over the next week to celebrate mozambiquan style with them!  Our major prayer request right now is that the request we have before the judge for Tendai's travel documents will be approved- and quickly! We know how effective prayer is, and are asking that you will pray for a speedy aproval, and that her travel documents can be proccessed quickly as well.

Merry Christmas & God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Sorry... Long time no blog :(

Hi all, so sorry its been over two weeks since my last post! Its been crazy around here but so much has happened! Aside from planning, prepping for and hosting Tendai's birthday party, we also planned, prepped and hosted a Christmas party for the orphans and widows in our Amigo Orphan Program, attended another birthday party for friends, made numerous trips to town to push Tendai's paperwork along, hosted the social workers for a "home visit" and about a billion other things! Rick taught another two courses at the Intensive seminars for the Pastors Bible School in early December, and we have booked four more Childrens Ministry Training seminars for next spring/early summer. We have to wait for the rainy season to end so we can drive up north- the roads are impossible to pass during the rainy season

Rick, Myself and Tendai at her First Birthday party! What a blessing to have a happy healthy baby! Now that she is one we were able to have her tested for HIV- the test came back Negative and we are so grateful!!! God is soo Good! Rick thought I was going to faint when we were waiting for the test results- im telling you.. that was one of the hardest things Ive ever had to wait for.. and the longest two minutes ive had in quite some time!

Christmas is coming quickly, so we set up our little Xmas tree ( up high this year since we have both a puppy and baby interested in it!) Thanks so my sister for the box full of wrapped presents to put under it!

All of our orphan kids and their grannies, what a great group! We had a blast at the Christmas party, with even the grannies getting involved in the fun.

Little Nailene enjoying his plate of food. He may be small but man, can he pack in the food!

After lunch we played lots of fun games, by far, one of the favorites was the limbo, since it brought about A TON of laughs! I love how Gina can make anything look graceful.  Even the Limbo.

Ok.. there are several Tito picks in this post.. mostly cus he allways has really hilarious pictures. His version of the Limbo wasnt nearly as graceful as Gina's but it was as entertaining for sure!!!

Little Nailene decorates his grannies face- with her help! I think she was scared of having an eye poked out!

End results of Tito's face decorating!

Handing out Christmas gifts to the  kids. Thanks to some generous sponsors from Canada, South Africa and England we were able to purchase wonderful presents for everyone this year, including capalanas for each of the grannies.

Mae Vaida was VERY excited about her new Capalana. All the grannies danced and sang and ululated when they opened their gifts!

I think Luckmore's looks says it all- the party was a huge success!

Yet another picture of little Tito.. he is just so photogenic.

Ok.. so here is a yucky picture of a little creature who decided our house was safer than outside where it was raining... bad judgement call on his part! Rick managed to spear him with the blunt end of our Broomstick. ick. I hate rats, so i dont feel too bad for him. ick. Just one of the many oodles of creatures that are beginning to invade our home now that the rainy season has arrived. Spiders, flying ants, strange stick bugs, rats and tons of moths... ick.

ewwwww.

These guys have invaded our house as well, but we like them so we will let them stay! These are the three current short-term volunteers we have. Carey, Keren and Jeff. Carey and Jeff are here for three months, Keren is here for at least ten months.

We were also blessed to receive mail when Rick was in South Africa to get the truck- one package was from my mom... but addressed to Simon! He was thrilled to get a noah's ark flannelgraph book to use in the preschool- im pretty sure that package was his first ever piece of mail.

Here is the cake Lynn, Keren and I made for Tendai's birthday. It took a lot of work and a ton of scrounging around in Chimoio to find all the decorations.. and some homemade creations and creativity as well- but it was so cute and worth it in the end!

It took days to make.. but only a few seconds for Tendai to discover her deep love of CAKE!!!

And in closing.... a family pic... dreaming of a white christmas... in our minature sized inflatable baby pool. (see the Christmas tree in the background?? LOL) Blessings to you all this Christmas season, we hope you are able to celebrate with family and friends! We are planning a day of yummy food, friends, and some fun too!

Once again we thank you for your prayers- the new truck is driving wonderfully and we have been using it alot lately to drive into town and try and get Tendai's paperwork done. As of now we are waiting for two last documents to arrive and then the social workers have said they can write their recomendation letter to the judge!  Please pray the documents will arrive quickly and that we can also get travel documents for Tendai very soon. We are hoping to make a trip to south africa in Late January so we will need the documents very quickly!

Rick has been working on a number of proposals, including blueprints for our house (the cottage we are in currently is not big enough for a family, and is intended for short termers, not for long term use), a blueprint for a satellite base camp up north and continuing to develop our orphan ministry and childrens ministry training seminars! Between planning parties, answering emails, and organising a ton of finance paperwork (although not nearly as much as poor Dwight has been stuck with) Ive been busy watching Tendai. She is growing like crazy and just took her first steps yesterday! A big moment for sure!

Blessings to everyone.. we sure miss family and friends at this time of year and would love to hear from you- leave a comment or email us and let us know how things are going for you!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai