love your toddler as yourself: a "normal" day

Today, loving the Lord my God with all my heart and soul and strength, and loving my neighbour as myself, here in rural Tanzania, looked like answering an emergency phone call at seven am; getting up and changing diapers instead of the hoped-for sleeping in; making a care package of blankets, clothes, bottles, formula and supplements for a friend struggling to feed her newborn twins; hanging long lines of laundry in the hot sun; answering questions like “what happens to spiders after they run away” and “if I get in the bath, will my hair melt?” while answering the door and answering emails; scouring books and websites and messaging friends for ways to help a neighbour who has chronic stomach troubles; paying school fees for clusters of shy and bashful students who come to our door hoping for help; reading through the Psalms on the couch, bible in my lap, while my boys sit next to me and watch a video about cows (and another about gravity); tying Kai to my back while standing over the stove and stirring caramel; problem-solving for Visible Grace from the small screen of my iPhone; fielding requests from maintenance workers on the back porch while Abram meets with a fellow teacher on the front porch; practicing David’s memory verse with him over a lunch of chicken and sweet potatoes; nursing consecutive babies while chatting with two of our college students; filling water bottles and charging phones for neighbours and workers without electricity; sending Kai to the clinic with our nanny to be tested for malaria, and sending David, James, and James’s baby doll along as well, because they want to "go bye bye"; laughing with joy when Mary reports that, at James’s request, the nurse gave his doll a malaria test, too; talking to our lawyer and social work about potentially adopting Kai; planning a certain four year old’s birthday party and inviting our neighbours; planning backup childcare for tomorrow because Abram is preaching and I cannot handle four young children by myself for four hours; and lying in my hammock with David during naptime. 

(I wrote this a couple weeks ago on a particularly busy day- so busy I didn't even have time to post it. Today, everything looks similar, but different.) 

PS- David turned four!

PPS- I have a few pictures that won't upload, and I am running out of time, and if I don't post this now, I never will, so here it is. I'll try to post pictures another time. Grr. 

Sundays

In contrast to my previous post, Sundays can actually be very quiet. Here's a quick picture of what our day looks like today:

Both of our boys are not feeling well, so we stayed home from church today. Only two people have knocked on our door. David is sitting at the table eating a snack, James is in his Johnny jump up (or jolly jumper, for our Canadian delegates), Abram is making sauerkraut, and I'm drinking coffee and ranting to him about politics. :) Oh, and I hoarded leftovers for a few days, so that we wouldn't have to cook.

Okay, actually, that all happened a few minutes ago- right at this exact moment, I'm nursing James and typing one handed, because if I don't get this down now, I never will!

Just wanted to get this in writing in the hopes that I can look back on this hectic season and remember the few peaceful moments. (When we do go to church, it's a very different story. I'll try to blog about that another day...)

Happy sabbath, friends.

Catching up- November

The school term ended in the third week of November, leaving us with a six week winter break. Just before that, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving! We had several Americans, a Canadian, a Tanzanian-American, a German, and a Kenyan born, Canadian-American toddler who lives in Tanzania. : )

One of the Americans in our village told me that Thanksgiving was her favourite holiday, so I thought it would be nice to make it as festive and special as possible. We are able to get a lot of traditional Thanksgiving foods in our village, and I even found cranberry sauce at the imported-foods supermarket in Mwanza! We opted on chicken instead of turkey, because turkey would have been over $100, but it was still delicious and thanksgivingy! We also held the dinner almost two weeks before Thanksgiving in America (and a good month late for Canada), because that was when we were all available, but that doesn't matter!

We ended up having a really lovely evening with wonderful people and wonderful food. Everyone pitched in and brought something. I made gluten free dressing and gluten free pumpkin pie, so that Abram, David and I would be sure to get some. (The pie was completely gone by the end of the evening- everyone had some!) And I roasted the chickens. I also set the table, and took care to make it look simple and elegant. I cut leaves out of coloured paper and had fun trying to come up with fall/harvest decorations. (Meaning, I cut leaves out of coloured paper. And then put a candle and some fresh flowers in the centre of the table.) I was pleased with how it turned out, though. I don't know if anyone cares but me- but I was happy with it.

We fit ten people plus David's high chair around our enormous dining room table! 

Thanksgiving isn't my favourite holiday, but this was my first time hosting it, and I found myself looking forward to it all week, searching for perfect chicken roasting recipes on my phone instead of getting work done, and mentally changing the table layout in my head. I really enjoyed the entire thing, and can't wait to celebrate next year!

Chickens here are really small, so we roasted three!

The lineup

Chatting over pie and tea.

On the actual date of (American) Thanksgiving, Abram lit a fire in our fireplace for the first time (rainy season is cold...ish, especially when you have louver windows that never close), and I made gingerbread cookies. We sat on the couch, listening to Christmas music and staring at the fire. It was a really lovely way to kick off the Christmas season.