A recap and update on our family:
Innocent – The house is so quiet! Innocent returned to spend Christmas with his
great-grandmother (Fred’s grandmother, called “Dani”), and on the way back,
Fred took him for an admissions interview for the boarding school we are
planning to send him to. We didn’t
realize how competitive the admissions process is, but Innocent impressed the
school officials and they offered him a place!
Although I’m sure it seems strange to Americans to send a six-year-old
to boarding school, it’s really the best educational option here, and Innocent
is so excited. He was also really
excited to go home and tell all his stories about life in our house, but he
made sure that Fred knew that he was planning on coming back to our house
before he reports to school on 4th January. We now have the list of school supplies he
needs, so I’ve been embroidering his name on his sheets and underwear while
Fred collects pencils, notebooks and soap.
It’s kind of fun being the “parents” for back-to-school time! We’re both planning to go on the 4th
to deliver Innocent to school and make sure he’s settled in.
Christmas – I got some really kind comments and emails after
my last blog post about celebrating Christmas, including an especially helpful
and encouraging email from a friend who is a retired missionary to Southern
Sudan and Uganda. I made peanut butter
fudge for Fred’s family’s Christmas celebration and lemon hand scrub for
Dani. With Innocent’s “help” I made
homemade lemonade-flavored pixie stix (including sealing plastic straws closed
over a candle…no joke) for the boy to give to his family. All things considered, I think I went through
an entire kilo of sugar (roughly 2 pounds), but everything turned out quite
well. I spent several days leading up to
Christmas alone as Fred traveled with Innocent, so I made myself some Christmas
decorations using scissors, crayons and recycled paper from the office. I don’t have enough internet credit to post
photos, but I made a little red-and-green paper chain, some snowflakes, a Merry
Christmas banner and…drum roll please…a Christmas tree! It’s my pride and joy, consuming 11 pieces of
paper, complete with a star, ornaments and garlands. Fred made it home Christmas morning, and we
spent the day resting and listening to Christmas music, then I got a fantastic
Christmas gift…a restaurant opened in Shirati!
I’m not joking that there were NO restaurants in this town, only a
couple of bars that served nasty chips and meat. We had chicken masala and pilau, and Fred
shared a bottle of champagne with some friends while I drank non-alcoholic
cider. It was nothing glamorous, but a
really nice way to spend Christmas.
Baby – I’m getting more and more inquiries about baby names,
but it’s still not settled. I read
somewhere that the Luo tribe (Fred’s tribe) tends to believe that the name just
comes with the baby. This goes totally
against my hyper-planner nature, so I have spent considerable time thinking
about names, but we’re not locked in to anything except a first name for a boy,
which I’ve wanted for years. No spoilers
here, but if you’re really interested, just email me. Today marks week 34 of the pregnancy, about
six weeks to go. I’m not too
uncomfortable, except always hot, and not growing as noticeably rounder. The baby is still very active, but I can tell
it’s getting a little tighter in there.
I’m really not very nervous about the birth, but I really am getting
nervous about being prepared for the baby.
We got our crib, which is beautiful, and while Fred was traveling I
finished the crib sheets (white, blue, green, orange and pink stripes). Now I’m working on the matching bumpers, all
by hand. My mom and grandma are sending
me some supplies to help with all these sewing projects, as well as a few
essentials, and hopefully the boxes will arrive soon to ease my mind that the
baby won’t be wearing a tea towel for a diaper.
Me myself – This Christmas season reinforced my
sense of isolation here in Shirati, but along with that sense of isolation came
a lot of peace. I have come to be
grateful for this season, which has pushed me toward greater reliance on God
for my strength and growth. I’ve also
had a great opportunity to learn about being a wife, and, although there have
been a few ugly, emotional episodes which I wish I could blame entirely on
pregnancy hormones, I have learned so much about praying for, loving and
submitting to my husband. I know I’ll
look back on this time as a gift given to Fred and me to enjoy settling into
married life with very minimal distraction from outside. I’ve also been given the opportunity to
really dream about the life God has for us, and my role in that as a
mother. I’m reading a couple of
parenting books, including The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson,
which is challenging me to invest myself wholly in the children God gives
us. Everything I’m learning in that area
is a whole blog post in and of itself, so I’ll save it for the future. All this to say that isolation is not always
a curse, and although I’ve been tempted to view it as such from time to time,
today I’m reminding myself of all I have to be grateful for.
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