Another busy week!!

Don’t have much time but thought I’d send a quick update.

I cut my last letter short on Sunday because I thought we were going to have the boys back here but it turned out they stayed at their new place after all. We’ve been without guests now for a few days! We’ll probably have the first grade teacher with his wife and 1 year old stay with us next week for a few days until we can get them into permanent housing. Guess God knew we needed a big house!

Speaking of the house, we skyped for 45 minutes with the family whose house we’re staying in. They had been planning on returning in January but due to medical complications they’ve decided to stay in Canada for recuperation and to let their boys have a full year in the same school. So, that means we can stay in this house until June if we want!

The work at school is continuing – things are kind of a blur. We are still incredibly busy trying to get teachers settled and everything ready for the first day, 1 September. Now we have to just ask – “Is this required for the 1st day?” Not everything will get done. Crazy thing is, we still have applications coming in from new families! We have just about reached our limit of students that we can handle for this year. Some classes are bursting at the seams to be sure!! God is blessing!

Last night Mark, Emily and I went to an Indian restaurant for dinner to celebrate Mark’s birthday (a bit early but Emily’s classes begin on his birthday). The food was good, service great, atmosphere fun, prices a little steep but okay for a celebration. The highlight was that Emily had heard that this place would sing happy birthday so we told them, without Mark knowing, that we were celebrating. After the meal was cleared away, the lights went out (there were candles on the tables) and we heard some banging in the distance. Soon there were about 10 employees banging on trays like drums and singing “Happy Birthday” – first in English, then in French. Then they sang the “Jambo” welcome song in Swahili and a little bit in English. It carried on for quite awhile as they all danced around the table making a lot of noise and having Mark stand up and be thoroughly embarrassed! Great fun! He said it wasn’t as bad as Johnny Rebs or Joe’s Crab Shack, though! They brought out some ice cream topped with bananas and apples. I wish I had remembered to grab my camera.

We are taking the staff to Lake Muhazi today for their staff meeting just to have new venue. Kind of sick of being around the school! Hopefully we’ll be able to have lunch out there – we’ve had a hard time getting ahold of the restaurant to ask about it. Also, we wanted to take Emily out there so she is coming with us.

Emily leaves tomorrow morning for RVA. Won’t see her again until Thanksgiving Day! She’ll have a new dorm, new dorm mom, new roommate, and most of the same dorm mates. Some of her old friends are coming this year who she hasn’t seen since 3rd grade! Some of them were kids I taught in Kindergarten! How did they all grow up so fast?? My baby is going into 11th grade!!!

Gotta go get breakfast and ready to head out!