First Week

Ava is a big girl now and just started sleeping in her toddler bed.

We are in the middle of our first week of classes and it is only orientation so far, but we are encouraged and just excited to be here.

Some highlights for us have been getting all moved in, and settled into our apartment, starting class, Ava doing great in child care, and Penny doing great in class with me. Something that has been fun to watch is Ava’s love for the outside, I’m pretty sure she would live outside if she could. This is such a good environment for her, she loves to play in the streams, in the grass, by the lake, fishing with daddy, on the 15 playgrounds around campus, I love that there are hardly any mosquitoes, and it’s not smoldering hot outside. We are living in close vicinity with a lot of people (which is fun, we can just go outside to visit with friends after the girls go to bed), we have a bathroom, but no shower, so we go to the wash house to do our laundry and take showers… Ava and Penny take their baths in the sink, which works out fine :).

Ava has been talking so much lately she can pretty much say anything, but the words won’t always be in the correct order in the sentence. Like she will say “need towel paper daddy” So we just restate what we think she’s trying to say in a sentence so she will continue to learn. We are working on the “No daddy” “No mommy” “stop it!” “Mine!” She is VERY 2 right now, she really likes to be independent, never really wants to hold our hands, she says ” I do it!” or “I do it sef”… at the same time we’re glad she’s taking initiative to learn things on her own. She also started sleeping in her new toddler bed this past Sunday night, we woke up at 2 in the morning to Ava sitting on the bed starring at us, and proceeded to sleep with us, then I brought her back to bed, and she got up every hour after that, so I was concerned she was going to be doing this every night after, but No, she has gone to bed and stayed in bed pretty much every night, and I’m so grateful!

When Cherie and Kyle were here for a couple of days, Cherie left me with some sourdough starter she had brought, and I have been having a blast with it, I have been making lots of sourdough bread, english muffins, sourdough banana bread, and tonight we had pizza on a sourdough crust, tomorrow I think I”m gonna try cinnamon rolls, it has been a fun easy highlight for me… so thanks Cherie!

TJ and I are so excited to be here, and to actually get involved here in what they have for us, a lot of it we really need to initiate ourselves, and that’s sort of the point of it, but we are looking forward to seeing how things fall into place in the next few weeks here, we’ll keep you updated on what we’re doing. We are reminded of why we are here, and the the true need for workers to bring the gospel to these un-reached people, our desire to do this really been reaffirmed and we have been encouraged.

TJ has started his work detail which he will be doing a few hours a few days a week, he was put in the mechanic shop, so he’s pretty excited about that, because I’m a mother I will not have work detail (cuz I already have it ;).

Thank you for praying for us and please continue to pray for God to lead us to the right church here, and to be apart of the right ministries in our community, and that we can be ready to be used here in Camdenton Missouri.