Birthdays!!!

Summer for us, is time for birthdays! Luke turned three a few weeks ago and has struggled to decide if he wants to be a big boy.  He often says he wants to be a baby and does not like being expected to grow up, although other days he wishes he could go to school this coming year with his brothers.  Keziah turned one year old  last week and thinks she is already three. Caleb and Eli will be five on Monday and the three of them shared a cake and a party yesterday.  For lunch we had the neighborhood kids into our compound for some american chicken nuggets and fries and in the evening we had a family over from church with two "big boys" (9 and 11), who they adore.  Keziah got her first bite of cake and Caleb and Eli got some new sports equipment and some legos so they were in heaven.

The big news this week is that Caleb and Eli start Kindergarten on Tuesday, after orientation Monday!  Full time. Yes I am going against most of the recommendations I have gotten and starting both boys five days a week, right after they turn five, in different classrooms all day without ever going to preschool!  We may do kindergarten twice but they are bright and excited to be around kids their own age and I think it will be a great way to form connections here with other English speaking families.  It will be a shock to all of our systems to have them gone all day, I am halving my kids in the house during the day!  I did not totally plan this, it is just what makes sense for our family right now.  It is a miracle we found a good international school they can attend, and they just seem ready in a way that I never felt they were ready for preschool.  The kindergartners have a whole corner of the school to themselves with three playgrounds, an art building and three huge kindergarten classrooms.  Each classroom has 16-17 students, a teacher, and a teacher's assistant.  Please pray for their teachers (Caleb has Miss Sara and Eli has Miss Vicky) and me as we transition to this new phase.  There will be so many new things they are exposed to this year, on top of moving to a new country two months ago.

The decision to send them this year also goes along with the theme that I feel God has been teaching me here so far, and was stated nicely by Sarah Young in the Jesus Calling book today...to trust God and stop trying to figure things out in order to gain a sense of mastery over my life.  I've had to trust that we will not have a major incident while Sean is out of the country and we know so few people, trust that the kids will be okay in a new environment at school, trust that we won't get malaria when I forgot to bring malaria medicine to the Lake outside of Addis, trust that God will show me what he has for me here, trust that He will continue to work things out moment by moment.  He has guided us each day to get us here over the past almost two years and since we've gotten here we've had everything we need.  Contentment is not based on what you have, it is based on trust because the Lord himself promises to continually grant us peace in every circumstance (2 Thessalonians 3:16).   So a new chapter begins next week with the start of school!

I also wanted to give you an update on Sean's work, the reason we are here with World Vision.  As most of you know, Sean is the Senior Director for World Vision's WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) program. God continues to be blessing this program, and more and more people seem to be joining the effort to bring clean water and sanitation to the poorest communities throughout the globe.  As usual Sean is right in the middle of this exciting work.  I am continually amazed watching the Lord work through Him, forming connections, inspiring leaders, and building a team of hundreds to allow this massive effort to take place.  Since Sean took the position three years ago, WV has increased their capacity 4-5 times to provide clean water in the developing world.  Now bringing clean water every 30 seconds to someone who did not have it before.  Its hard to get an exact figure from Sean, because he's always pushing to increase the numbers, but at the end of this five year campaign they will have raised at least 400 million dollars and reached 7 million people.  At the same time he seems to be able to manage close relationships with all of us and be a rock of stability when sometimes the rest of us are falling apart:)  He has started traveling again, but these trips are shorter and he is in the same time zone as the rest of us so that is very nice.  Please continue to pray for all of us to be safe and stay connected while he is gone. In past two weeks he has traveled to Malawi and Rwanda to meet with world presidents (current and former) and team members who are working so hard.   Please continue to pray for this effort to bring clean water to people, and that World Vision continues to be a light for the kingdom in all they do.  http://www.worldvision.org/our-work/clean-water/