Videos

For some reason, my youtube videos aren't showing up in the most recent order on that video sidebar.  I'm going to try to link directly to them here, so you can actually see the most recent ones of Will.

Enjoying life in Central Asia

At 18 months, Will is doing really well settling in to life in Central Asia.  We are entering our 4th week of staying with our friends who have 3 kids (ages 7, 5, and 2 1/2), while we finalize our rental contract and get our house ready to move into.  We have so appreciated their wonderful hospitality and long-suffering; this is their 9th year in country, so they have lots of experience with how long everything takes.... good thing, too!

Will isn't always quite sure what he thinks of the program...

...but the kids are all enjoying playing together, although it does get a bit intense at times!

He's figured out how to ride their little scooter-- balancing with one foot and pushing himself along with the other-- which I think is pretty impressive and coordinated for an 18-month-old (I'm not biased or anything).

The kiddie pool made it's first appearance of the summer a few days ago, so I dug out Will's "swimming togs" (NZ) and slathered on the sunscreen.  It took him a full 10 minutes of standing next to the pool and sticking a hand in once in a while, before he would let me help him get in-- he's a "warm up slowly" sort of a kid.

   

But once in... it was splash city.  Think he's having fun?

And you should have seen the size of his diaper when he got out... I had already put my camera back in the house, or I would have captured the Good Year Blimp for posterity.  Who knew Huggies were that absorbent?

The current highlight is their 4 adorable Beagle/German Shepherd (they think) puppies, now just over a month old and getting cuter every day.  Will says "pup" and loves to sit down and drag one into his lap for a cuddle.  He also loves to give the mommy dog lots of hugs, too.  We're debating whether to take one with us to our new house (everyone has a dog here, mostly for security reasons), and I'm trying to decide how many new things I can actually cope with at once...

  

 

(this is the one I would choose if we take one-- she's adorable)

Will's other new words are "up" "down" "nack" (snack) "juice" and "muk" (milk).  He's also learned "no" and "top" (stop) from his new friend Jo-Jo, which he's started to use with alarming frequency and at alarming decibel levels.  He and Jo-Jo by tacit agreement have decided to use preemptive tactics: they both start yelling "STOP!" simultaneously at the top of their lungs as soon as they see each other.  We have definitely entered a new phase of self-assertion-- so much for our pliable little introvert!  

He's also started bowing his head and closing his eyes when we're praying-- I'm not sure he knows what we're doing, but he copies us, and then peeks his head up and looks around to see if we're done yet.  It's really cute.  Lord willing, one day soon he'll pray because he actually loves Jesus. 

Thank you for praying for Will!  He's loving life, and we're loving watching him love it.  Please continue to ask for friends for him in our new village, and thank you for being so interested in his little life!

A House AND a Kreesha

So... there's been so much that's happened since my last post, I'll have to do this in stages.  First and most importantly, God found us a house!  It's a nice roomy three-bedroom house with a bathroom already installed, tiled floor to ceiling, which is really rare around here.  There's a big backyard with tall trees, a stream, a raspberry patch and room for a garden, as well as a little summer house we can use for guests, with a beautiful grapevined porch and a full kitchen!  It has a diesel furnace AND a coal furnace already installed with a THERMOSTAT (unheard of), so the heat should be strong and consistent during the freezing winter-- another big answer to prayer.  Also, there's space to install a huge water tank so we can have continual running water, instead of just a couple hours a day.  And our landlords said they would pay to install a hot water heater for us!  We only have to pay $150 a month for all this, and we can sign an initial contract for 2 years with the offer of longer if we want, exactly what we've been praying for.  

The best part of all of this, though, is that the house belongs to the former mayor of our village, who isn't living there anymore because he was promoted to second-in-command of the entire region, and therefore moved to the bigger town nearby.  He and his wife (both the minority group we're reaching-- another answer to prayer) came out personally to show us around the house, and they were so friendly and down-to-earth, easy to talk to.  He told us how they built the house themselves in '83, and they loved living there but it just doesn't work anymore with his job.  They're happy for us to rent it because they know foreigners are reliable, and they're glad to have someone trustworthy living there to keep an eye on things.  This connection is a huge answer to prayer, because our company has been specifically praying for high-level government contacts to be our "kreesha" or covering in this place, and this is a perfect open door.  

Thanks so much for praying!  We will keep you posted and I'll put up pictures as soon as we have some.