Overdue Update :D

Wow...blogger is going to actually let me post tonight? I don't know what it is, but I have been having so much trouble with blogger lately. I haven't been able to post anything the past couple of days. Every time I try to log in or create a new post, I get an error 500. The last time it was an error 400...I guess I should look for the big 600 next time. Anyway, sit back, grab a coffee or a soft drink. This is gonna be a long one! haha!

First of all I 've decided to give up on my 365 project. I'm just going to enjoy keeping track of life via my blog. I have a daily record (or almost daily) of events up until about the beginning of Sept. That isn't too bad. And I'll definitely keep you up to date, I'm just not going to go crazy trying to get a picture everyday, and dealing with the guilt feelings of not having taken any photos etc... I'm just going to blog, at my own convenience, and I know I will enjoy it more. Not to say that I didn't enjoy the 365 project...I did. But, now I'm done.

Another thing I'm considering is changing the name of my blog. Which I think means my followers will have to rejoin etc... Unless anyone knows of a way to change names without doing that?? Any advice would be appreciated. I wasn't really thinking when I created my blog...obviously. Why I would create a blog name with the year in there was really dumb. So, help me out...what should I name my blog? Provided that name is available of course...but leave me a comment with some ideas.

Thanks for the help with the kitty names btw. The kids decided on cuddles. My opinions don't count too much anymore in this house. At least when it comes to naming pets anyway. They love that cat, and she is getting to be pretty cuddly. She loves to purr and gets her motor running as soon as we pick her up. I have kept her pretty confined to the laundry room. She has a litter box in there and we keep the door shut. I'm afraid of her getting brave and venturing out in the yard and getting eaten by the neighbor dogs like our last cat. And I'm a little afraid of how Penny will treat her. I try to put them together a little bit everyday for some supervised play time. Penny is all puppy though, and just wants to rough house with her. I was watching them today and laughing at them. Then things turned a little scary, as Penny muckled onto the back of the cats neck and picked her up. She looked right at me and I was sternly saying her name, "Penny, no!" But I think she thought it was a big game of catch. As soon as I started towards her she took off running right out of the courtyard gate with the cat still in her mouth. Ahhh! I took off through the house to meet her in the front, since it appeared that was the direction she was heading. Well, she never came around so I went back into the courtyard and she sauntered right in, and then little Cuddles came walking in after her. So...thankfully Penny didn't kill her. I just don't know what to think. I don't think Penny would ever intentionally kill her...but she is SO rough! She LOVES to play and she sees that cat as a live playtoy I guess. She bats at her and nips and jumps. Poor kitty.

We thought we'd lost Rex this week too. We have this plant in our house, and the kids will put Rex on the leaves for whatever reason. Well, Drew evidently put Rex there and forgot about him. I noticed him looking the plant over very closely at bedtime and asked him about it. He told me he'd left Rex...and now he was gone. Sure enough, he was gone. Which means that he fell off the plant, and onto the table, and then fell off the table and onto the floor. That little guy is tough, let me tell ya! So, all during devotions, while Ben was reading, I was walking around the parlour with my eyes open. It is a chameleon for crying out loud! They are hard to find! Sometimes we will all be searching in our window and be staring straight at him, and not even see him! I thought for sure we'd never see him again. I never did find him that night and cautioned the kids to be very careful where they stepped, b/c I figured he probably made his way down the hallway and was hiding in a bedroom somewhere. Well, the next morning (yesterday), Drew found him. He was in our bedroom and was crawling on the base of our oscillating fan. Of all people to find him, too. Drew, with his terrible eye sight, spotted him! haha!

We found a new restaurant for our family day. The Hamburger Place, as the kids like to call it, had some trouble with their employees. Evidently the cook left and ran off with a bunch of their kitchen supplies. Now, we are in Africa after all, so all the kitchen supplies probably didn't amount to much. Their kitchen is about the size of two of my closets...but they couldn't serve anyone without those supplies or without a cook for that matter. So we went in search of another restaurant. I'm always skeptical. You just never know what you will get here. You might order rice and it be full of rocks or dirt b/c they didn't clean it. You might get an organ or a piece of meat on your plate that you didn't really want. So, restaurant eating is done with caution, and when you find a good one...you stick with it. Well, this restaurant (I don't even know the name of it!) was a winner. It was in a very nice, fancy-ish dining room, and it was all clean. They had a big flat screen tv on the wall, and handed us the remote when we sat down. So while we waited for our food (which is usually a long time...another African thing) we were able to watch The National Geographic channel.
It was so nice! We watched some show on animals in Russia...and it kept the kids content while we waited. We got really yummy chicken, and french fries, and Ben and Emma got fried plantains. The kids love it and even Drew strayed from his normal order of plain spaghetti, and got chicken this week! So, we definitely found a winner. You can take a gander at their menu too, if you'd like. If you click the image it will make it bigger. On Sunday the kids sang a special in church. Kate came to me and said she'd like to sing, so I picked out a song that she could sing for a special. I decided to see if Drew could handle carrying the alto part, and if Kate could carry the soprano part while Drew carried the alto part. haha! They did great! Drew has an amazing ear for music. I don't know if all kids his age begin to harmonize. I remember wanting to sing alto SO bad. I used to sit next to Mrs. Russell in church because she always had such a strong alto voice. She must have cringed every Sunday as I slid in the pew next to her because I couldn't carry that alto part at first and sounded awful! I was in junior high I think, when I was determined to learn that part. It seems to come naturally for Drew. So, he picked it up in no time, and with some work, Kate did a great job staying on the melody line...and my fingers managed to find all of the keys so I didn't mess them up with my piano playing either!

We left our service in Bambili and headed to church in Bamenda. We saw this interesting sight along the way:Those are not birds...they are bats. Weird, huh? The sky was just FULL of them!

As we were pulling into our church lot, Ben got a call from Emmanuel's caretaker, Andrew, who informed him that Emmanuel had just died five minutes ago. It was a sweet, but somber service in Bamenda on Sunday. We had a time of prayer for Emmanuel's family, who still doesn't know Christ. He mentioned them in prayer regularly - he was really burdened for his family. He has a neat testimony actually. Matt and Susan Yeiter had regular mechanical problems with their washing machine when they first got one here. It was a used model, and the lady they bought it from promised to send a mechanic out to repair it. Well, Emmanuel was the tech guy. He came out and repaired it, and before he left that day Matt shared the gospel with him. Emmanuel didn't make a decision though. Shortly after that, the Yeiter's washer broke down again. Guess who came back to fix it...and guess who heard the gospel again? I think their washer broke down three times, and after hearing the gospel several times, Emmanuel finally trusted Christ. Sometimes God takes us through frustrating circumstances for an ultimate purpose. Emmanuel was a different person from that day on, and a faithful member of our church in Bamenda. He was a true servant...always working behind the scenes at the church doing a lot of maintenance. If Matt and Susan hadn't gone through the frustration of being without a washer...and had they not taken advantage of that situation by sharing the gospel with their technician...Emmanuel would be in hell today. I'm so thankful that Matt took that opportunity and was able to lead Emmanuel to Christ. For the last couple of months, he'd been in SO much pain. Through our tears we were rejoicing on Sunday, that Emmanuel was suffering pain no longer! Here is a picture of him on the day of his baptism. So, this next week will be a busy one for Ben. I think on Friday he will spend the night out in the village with people from our church for the wake keeping.

As you can see I'm kinda working my way backwards. :D On Saturday the kids played hard outside. They also went to visit our neighbor, to deliver thank you notes for the kitten that she gave us. I cracked up at Kate's note and had to share it: In case you can't actually read it, it says, "Thank you for the kittin - you are the best - she is soooooo cute - I love her sooooo much - why would you give that kittin - why, why, why - oh well - thank you for it enyway." LOL! No punctuation, or anything. She just finished her first chapter in English on writing...so I guess we have some more work to do. But it sure made me laugh!

Kate went to town with Ben on Friday. He is starting to take the kids every once in a while. She loves one-on-one time, so it is very good for her.

I got this cute shot of Emma and Penny on Thursday. Penny is gettin' big!

On Wednesday, Ben came home from church and the power went out. We were all amazed that even though it was dark we could still see to walk around our house! Usually when the power is out here, you can barely see your hand in front of your face! It is SO dark. But the moon was SO full and so bright. The sky was so clear too, that Ben said you could see one of the planets. I didn't get a shot of that, but we tried to get a good shot of the moon. There was one bright star that really shone underneath it too. It was too beautiful to describe and obviously the picture doesn't do it justice. We were all outside as a family staring at the sky! Our nightwatchman must have thought we were crazy! Well, I could share more, but I'm afraid I've bored you as it is. 4 more weeks until my Mom comes and we are getting excited and counting down the days. I'm also so excited about Bernadette, a girl that I just hired to help me in the kitchen! Woot! Today she came and washed all my dishes, cleaned my stove, washed my kitchen windows and I taught her how to make coffee cake! So, having her help out with stuff like that will help me stay on top of the kids and their school work. It just gives me a little breather a few days out of the week. She comes from about 9-12:30. She and her hubby are serving in a church about 15 minutes from here. They are newlyweds and are really struggling financially. They have been begging for work. They came this past week actually to tell us that they only had 100 francs in their pocket (500 francs is 1 dollar) and that was the last of their money. They wondered if we had any work that day for them to earn some money. So, this job really helps them, and it really helps me too. She will learn to bake and I will have help with our breakfasts. And...the dishes!! I hate dishes!! That alone would be worth it!!!

Ok...I'm done! Have a great day!!