Visits, Valentine's and Victims

We had a month full of activity and it is a good thing I take pictures to keep track, otherwise I would forget all that happens. 

We had a great visit from our bosses (here is M with her daughter J) They came all the way from Ghana and it was great to hang out with them

Here is R with Rog...I am not sure what they were doing here!

We had a great visit from people from Morden, Manitoba! They had brought LOTS of goodies for us and here are the girls displaying some of the treats they received

Here are our kids being very silly with their friends

Jaelyn had an igloo project at school. I thought of my sister, Suzzy, so many times as I helped with this project! Suzzy is extremely gifted at doing crafts. I, on the other hand, am not. Our language tutor asked if it was a pyramid :( Oh well, we had fun making it! (Parents WERE allowed to help for those that are wondering whose project it really was!) 

I had to snap this picture of goats in the garbage pile right by our house. They really do eat paper (if you look carefully, there are 2 of them with paper hanging out of their mouths!)

Nathan with his buddy. Mr Saidu is the guard at the kids' school and always has a smile on his face for us. 

We got to go to a baby naming ceremony with the kids. This little guy was only 8 days old in this picture. What a cutie!

Rog and I had an opportunity to take a course on how to learn Arabic script. It was lots of fun and all the squiggles ended up making some sense by the end of the course.  

Kids made some Valentine's Day baskets for their classmates and we filled them with candies

I had to add this picture for my mom...I made red bean buns! These baked buns were so much easier than the steamed ones. For those of you who think we can get red bean locally, no we cannot. A very nice Korean lady gave me a can last year before she left to go home for a while. I just needed an excuse to use it and Chinese New Year was the perfect time! We had a great celebration with our teammates. Gung hay fat choy!

 Spirit Week!!
So the kids have a week each year where they get to dress up. Each day has a different theme. I challenge you to try to guess what the theme was before you read the caption (um...I do not blame you for not getting any of them right...not only am I not crafty, I am not creative!)

Toy day! I know, I know...J was a "doll" and N...yep, you guessed it...a light saber! 

Injury day! (this is why the title of the post includes "victims"...I know...it is a stretch...did I mention that I am not very creative?!)

Old people day! (Dress up like an old person...it took 2 or 3 days for N's mustache to wash off!)

Superhero day! N is obviously batman. J decided to make one up....Valentine's superhero (as it was on V-day!) 

I got the privilege of seeing some patients! I am going to try to hold some clinic hours and fortunately, I was able to help all the patients with donated glasses that we have stowed away in our storage room. 

Overall, things are going well here. There are the daily annoyances (Rog is constantly fixing toilets, lights, and is working on our fridge as I write this!), the weather is starting to climb (although I think it only got up to 37C today), I have yet to have a conversation in Fulfulde that I can totally understand and there is poverty around us beyond anything we can imagine, but we serve a God that is in control and has a great plan. I am not always aware of what that plan may be, but I don't have to know. I pray that HE can be recognized through me and that I would always strive to know HIM and not His plan.