Happy Ten Years

I would marry you all over again! Those were our words to each other :) We had a wonderful anniversary and celebrated by going to Kumbali Country Lodge for the night. We can hardly believe we've been married for ten years. God has been so faithful and gracious towards us. I love my gorgeous Bied!

Happy Thanksgiving

Malawians do not celebrate Thanksgiving. We however, did enjoy a delicious turkey feast together with our friends here on campus.

Bradley's class got to see a live turkey today-it belongs to a family here on campus.

I was looking back at past Thanksgiving photos- check this one out. Bottom left-Franklin with the glasses was oneof Brian's first friends when he moved to South Africa. Virl and Nike Tait-he is the pastor at Grace Christian Church (RSA) where Brian was for eight years. In the white shirt is Matt Floreen-who is in Malawi serving with us. In the green shirt is David Spencer whose parents have been in Malawi for 20 years. Kerry Drew and Beth Mack are there too and also the Proudfoots. Bottom right- Tony and Santie McCracken!

International Day

The Academy where our children go to school have an International Day every year where children and parents alike get to enjoy foods and cultural traditions from various lands. It was a most interesting and fun day!

Bradley went as an American football player and Ami as a pioneer.

Go Bokke! The South African Okes.

The Malawian Group was the largest.

Vocalists from Mingoli Band singing the Malawian National Anthem.

Dancers from Burundi joined in on the morning. They came from the Burundi Refugee Camp in Dowa.

A friend in Ami's class. She is from Japan.

Where's Wilbur?

He's still in the pig pen behind the water tower, getting rather large I might add. So much so that we've had to board up his cage a little more. He has attempted to escape twice-I expect the flower beds are more appealing than the mushy food we give him :(

Twenty-one sleeps!

We haven't spent a Christmas together with everyone from my family (dad, mom and siblings) in seven years! The last Christmas altogether was in South Africa in 2002. Last year my dad started making plans to get us altogether. My sister, brother-in-law and their two children will fly here to Lilongwe from London. My dad, mom and brother will fly up from South Africa. We are SO excited! Not too many people would be jumping over the moon with joy if they knew they were headed to Malawi for Christmas. But of course, it doesn't matter where you are, it's who you get to spend it with that makes you jump for joy! Our kids are counting down the sleeps. A true blessing and we're thankful to the Lord for providing for us all to be able to do this.

My brother-in-law and my dad. Grant got a teeny weeny present.

Biedebachs and Kelders at the lunch table - no kiddos!

OK not a good pic of my sister, but yes, she was there in 02! Texas Biedebachs-we look so forward to putting up our tree and stars!

Home sweet home

We are happy to be home and what a party of hugs and kisses with our babies we had! Our flight went well, but of course we're tired and are trying to get back onto Africa time. The children did well with their respective caregivers. Ben told me yesterday that he wanted to go back to uncle Kev and auntie Judy. Allison was calling for nanny in her bed in the morning and pointing to opa in a picture. Ami and Brad had a ball with Kellen and Becca too-pancakes, ice cream, movie night and the pool were just some of the things they raved about! It was a real blessing and comfort for us to have these dear folks who willingly took on the job of caring for our kids.
Even though our trip was very quick, it was great to spend time together. I think B and I picked up about 10 pounds each! We enjoyed yummy food and doing spontaneous things we normally wouldn't, because of the kids.

Brian's uncle and aunt took us out to this great French Restaurant in Culver City. We celebrated Bied's birthday- The food was so delicious and we tried things we'd never before.
We spent just a little time with Kwacha. Brian was able though to have a meeting with guys from The Master's Seminary to express his desires for deeper Biblical training here in Malawi. Lord willing, Kwacha and some other seminarians will join us in 2012 to start a seminary.

None other than our LAX greeter. He sent us home with a 6 pound box of See's candy!

Test

I passed the English, Civics and History parts of the test today! However, because ours is not a familiar case they have to send our file to a superior officer for further processing. I was not able to take the oath today as we had hoped, but we trust the Lord in this all. His timing is always perfect. We are doing everything as best as we can to make the processing of our file smooth. We handed in final documents the USCIS officer required, this afternoon and Lord willing, we'll receive information regarding our case's state soon. We'll keep you posted and many thanks to those who have prayed for us.

Bied is busy packing our bags right now and tomorrow we head home to meet up with our precious kiddos who we miss very much!

LA again?

We've been so busy during our 4-day whirlwind trip in LA. We arrived here on Friday 5th and are leaving on Tuesday 9th. The children are all in Africa so Bied and I are on our second -rather exhausting- honeymoon. People who have seen us here continue to ask what we're doing in LA. "Aren't you guys missionaries in Africa? You were just out here, weren't you?" Yes, we are missionaries in Africa and yes we were in CA in August. I received a notice about three weeks ago from USCIS stating that I need to be in LA to be interviewed and tested for US citizenship. Ah ha, the reason for the trip.

Painting

This year I am helping to put on the Christmas program at our church here in Lilongwe. The day is approaching very quickly. Today some young girls came to paint the background for our Bethlehem landscape backdrop. I don't have an inch of artistic ability-these girls do and so it'll be fun to see what they come up with. Speaking of those with artistic ability, my aunt painted this gorgeous canvas for our living room. It looks fantastic and it's even more fun to know the artist who did it.