it has taken far too long for me to post this on my blog :)

As you may have already heard via Facebook or our June newsletter, I am expecting our second child!  We are very excited about this addition to our family.  In the Lord's merciful providence, the timing of this pregnancy couldn't be more perfect.  The baby is due on the 22nd of December, which is right in the middle of the end-of-term break, when we already planned to be in the UK and the States for furlough.

What this means is that I am planning to give birth in the States, specifically in the Philadelphia area where we will be staying with David's family.  It will be nice to have the support and help of family during this time.  And I already have a midwife lined up and ready to go -- the same one who just assisted my sister-in-law in the birth of her baby boy!  It's amazing how the Lord provides in all these details.

The term ends on the 30th of September and we plan to travel back to the UK on the 17th of October, to spend time with our sending church.  I will only spend a couple of weeks there before traveling on to the US, due to restrictions on how late in pregnancy one can fly!  So at the beginning of November, Elijah and I will travel directly to my parents' house to spend a few weeks with them.  David plans to stay on in the UK for a further 3 weeks or so to fulfill his responsibilities to the church before joining us in the States to await the birth of our baby.

We appreciate your prayers that this pregnancy will continue to be healthy and uncomplicated.  I have access to prenatal care and routine scans when we travel to Lusaka, which we are thankful for, and I am already in contact with my midwife in the States via email so that she can monitor my pregnancy long-distance. I've been doing fine for the most part, other than suffering from fatigue, but please pray specifically that I would have relief from the pain I'm experiencing in my pelvis and hips which severely limits my ability to walk or stand for long periods of time.  I had the same problem at the very end of my pregnancy with Elijah, but this time the pain has come so early that I'm worried -- I'm not even halfway through my pregnancy!

Here's the big-brother-to-be: (photo taken during our camping trip in June)

my love-hate relationship with baking.

Dear Baked Goods (of many varieties),

I think we need to talk. 

I find myself living in a location where shopping is not convenient, where the supermarkets are not "super" nor are they "24-hour" nor do they have a "bakery" section where I can pick up a pack of bagels or something for my unexpected guests.  I find myself living in a situation where if I want snack foods, or breakfast bread, or dinner rolls, or pizza crust, or crackers, or just about any baked goods you can think of.... I have to make them myself.  So, I spend a lot of time carefully researching recipes, stocking up on ingredients like flour and yeast, and planning ahead to make sure I allow space in my schedule to bake what I need ahead of time.

You know, Chocolate Cupcakes, I got the recipe for you from a good friend of mine who runs a bakery (get that?  a bakery, darn you!) and bakes hundreds of you each WEEK, for goodness' sake.  I thought a tested-tried-and-true recipe like you wouldn't fail to be a simple but enjoyable birthday treat for my son.  But no, you couldn't be bothered to cooperate.  And I couldn't even scrape you out of the muffin cups!  We had to eat you with a spoon.

And you.... french bread.... you looked promising, and everyone kindly said you tasted nice.  But do you realize that french bread is supposed to be light and airy and crunchy?  Not dense.  Not flat.  Yeah.

I'm not even going to begin addressing things with YOU, cheesecakes, you scum of the earth.  We're not going there again!

As for you, cinnamon raisin bagels... I don't even know what to say.  You rose nicely and so did my hopes.  And then you went flat.  And then you disintegrated when I tried to boil you as the recipe said.  And then you turned into still-slightly-soggy messes even after baking.  Do you realize that all I wanted was some nice breakfast bread that could also double as a healthy and filling snack?

I'm not sure that any of you are aware of the amount of time and mental, emotional and physical energy I expend on you guys.  But believe me... I could find WAY better things to do with my time.  And I bet I would feel better for it, instead of constantly being devastated by the failure of my latest attempt which took me 6 hours from start to finish.

I'm sick and tired of my baking attempts being labeled as "well, they were edible..."  Recipes are supposed to yield a specific product, guys!  Get your act together.  Baking around here is necessary.  I don't always enjoy it, but I always give it a go anyway.  To be honest, I'm getting a bit discouraged.

Sincerely,

A Very Disgruntled Baker

back to work...

Our holiday was over weeks ago, and now we are fully back into our work-week routine.  The new term started on Tuesday, so the College is lively and full of people once more.  The students all traveled from near and far, having finished the maize harvest.  It is nice to have things bustling around here once again.

David has a much heavier lecturing schedule this term than he did last term, now that Cees has left and there are only two men -- David and Heinrich -- to do the bulk of the lecturing for 30 students.  (There are also two part-time lecturers from the local area who each teach one class to help with the load.)  David is teaching two classes: Homiletics (preaching) and Church History.

My days are filled to the brim with cooking, baking, washing dishes, washing laundry, and chasing a toddler and a puppy around the house trying to prevent total mayhem and destruction.  Jacomien and I have also been taking language classes once a week, learning to speak Nyanja (the local language).  It's difficult, but I am seeing progress and during a sermon or something I can pick out words that I know!  I made french bread loaves for the first time this week and will probably attempt them again sometime.  They didn't rise as high as I hoped (the yeast available in Petauke seems to be essentially worthless) and they were a bit dense for my liking, but the flavor was nice and that night my dinner guests all gave the bread a definite thumbs-up.  We always seem to have dinner guests at least once a week, and there are more to come!

This past week there was a team from South Africa visiting the College.  Heinrich's brother Dinant who is also a minister, was leading the team and brought a group of young people from his church.  They helped Phil at the Farm, visited schools with Marjanne, did a HUGE amount of work fixing up our run-down and very dirty library, set up a "computer room" for the students, taught computer classes so that the students could learn how to use Microsoft Word,  and basically helped out in every way they possibly could while they were here. Dinant opened the term as a guest lecturer, teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit.  It was nice to meet them and enjoy fellowship during their stay.

Elijah is walking and talking up a storm (but we can't understand what he's saying - the only recognizable words are "da" which he applies to everything including his daddy, and "mum yum" for food), and make us laugh every day.  His antics in the bathtub are especially funny. We think he is a bit confused about whether or not he is a puppy, since he likes to mimic our puppy Merry's actions -- if he sees Merry eating food, he eats Merry's food; if he sees Merry licking the floor, he licks the floor; if he sees Merry with a ball in his mouth, he puts a ball in his mouth, and the list goes on.  We daily remind Elijah, "You are not a puppy!  Merry is a puppy, but you are a little boy!"  Elijah has transitioned very smoothly into sleeping in his own room -- we are glad to have our room to ourselves for the first time since he was born!

A lot of exciting things have been happening with our families back in the States, which makes us miss them all the more and really feel the distance that separates us.  One of my brothers got married two weeks ago, and of course we couldn't be at the wedding.  Another of my brothers just finished school and graduated last weekend. He is heading off for further training hoping to seek a career in law enforcement.  David's sister and brother-in-law just welcomed their first child on Wednesday -- Elijah's first boy cousin!  We are so excited for them!  It is really difficult to be away from family during these times, but we are thankful for email and Skype and Facebook so that we can even see photos of our new nephew!

This week I managed to get lettuce and broccoli planted -- the very humble beginnings of my vegetable garden.  I will plant more after we return to the College in February, but right now it doesn't make sense to plant a huge plot of vegetables which won't be ready to eat until after we've already left on our end-of-the-year furlough.  The lettuce and broccoli should be ready to eat in 6 weeks!  I'm looking forward to having more leafy greens to enjoy.  :-)  We can't get them here in Petauke.  We also have a plot of strawberries which are just beginning to produce a few ripe berries here and there... so I'm keeping a close eye on them.  They were planted by the M family who lived here before us, and I'm grateful that we get to reap the rewards!  We also have several papaya trees with ripening fruit.  I'm investigating ideas for using fresh papayas, since I think we will be overwhelmed with more than we can eat if they all ripen at once!  I think I'm going to try making papaya smoothies (with strawberries, that will be especially nice!).

David and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on the 11th, and had the opportunity to enjoy a dinner date at Chimwemwe Lodge in the town!  The Z's kindly babysat Elijah for us so it was the first time we were able to go out without Elijah... we love our boy, but it was a real treat!  :)

in which I share too much information.

Yes, the blog has been silent.  Why?

On the 26th of June, we brought home two German Shepherd brothers, whom we have named Merry and Pippin.  They are so much fun to have around!  Adorable personalities and already learning fast. 

The first week that they were here, we spent constantly supervising them.  Why?  Two reasons: first of all, the resident dominant female German Shepherd, Lassy, who has lived here for 5 years and whom we are taking care of until the M family can come back and get her (probably the beginning of September).  Lassy was not too happy about her new "nephews" and was quite aggressive towards them for several days, so whenever we had to let the puppies outside (which was frequent) we had to chain Lassy up so that she wouldn't terrify them.  Otherwise the puppies wouldn't do their business outside because they were too frightened!  The other reason we had to constantly supervise the puppies was of course house-training them.  They were just not getting the idea of going outside to do their business.  So I spent the first week constantly cleaning up piles and puddles all day long.  What made it worse was that, because Lassy hadn't accepted them yet, the puppies had to sleep inside.  We confined them to an empty bedroom so that they wouldn't be roaming the house making messes, but that meant all the mess was. . . inside.  So every morning at 6:30 I was scrubbing the floors and removing more piles and puddles from their night's stay.  For a week!!

At last, Lassy and the puppies (after days of constant hard work by David and myself to teach them to coexist happily and play together) decided that they could be friends.  The situation changed for the better.  We could let the puppies sleep outside, and they housetrained themselves after a few days! 

But then, week two arrived. . . and Pippin got sick. He started vomiting one day.  The next day he was still vomiting, and stopped eating.  The next day the vomiting stopped.  When he hadn't eaten for almost two days, we got him to eat a little bit but the vomiting started again.  By this time he had lost a huge amount of weight and was growing weaker and more unresponsive by the day.  Realizing that his condition was worsening instead of getting better, we decided to contact the local vet (in the town) and take Pippin to see him.  Yesterday (Thursday of this week) David took Pippin to the vet, who diagnosed him with tick bite fever (it's quite common here and the vet described it as the animal's equivalent of malaria).  The vet gave him an injection of antidote for the disease as well as injections of vitamins and pain medication, and said that he fully expected him to recover.  After the visit to the vet, Pippin grew worse and worse.  He had no strength, and though his vomiting diminished (didn't stop completely) he was suffering from severe diarrhea.  We kept him in our room at night to keep an eye on him, so I spent the nights cleaning up vomit and diarrhea.  He still refused to eat.  Since last night I force-fed him soft foods, as well as giving him liquids (chicken broth and rehydrating drink) using a syringe. He was becoming more and more unresponsive and acting confused (probably because of the drugs in his system) and could hardly stand.  He resisted me when I tried to feed him and wouldn't even swallow.  This morning we were getting more and more worried about him but the vet said "he'll be fine!"  Even my efforts to give him something to drink using the syringe were hopeless.  He was immediately gagging and vomiting everything back up.  After 10am he never sat up again.  He was so weak that he soiled himself with diarrhea because he couldn't get up.  There was blood in his stool.  I was checking on him every ten minutes, trying to coax him to eat and drink once every half an hour, but all my efforts were fruitless.  When I checked him at 12:30, he was dead.

I share this because it's been a hard week.  I feel like I've done nothing but clean up vomit and diarrhea for days and frantically try to get a dying puppy to accept food and drink.  I'm worn out and emotionally cut up about having nursed our new puppy (whom we only had for 12 days) night and day and still couldn't save his life.  I did everything I could to keep him alive, but there was obviously something seriously wrong.  Whether or not it was actually tick bite fever we will never know. 

And of course so far I've only written about the puppies.  During the past two weeks, I've also spent time baking and preparing to have friends over for Elijah's first birthday; gone to a kitchen party (bridal shower) for the bride of a local chief; and hosted an Independence Day barbecue for our colleagues.  And kept up with my weekly Nyanja language lessons, which are really difficult.  And caught up on all the laundry and unpacking from our trip.  And moved Elijah into his own room, and rearranged our bedroom and his new room.  And I've missed my brother's wedding, knowing that so many of my relatives were gathering there and I was so far away and haven't even seen more than two photos of the occasion yet even though it happened a week ago!  These things all pile up.  And that's why I haven't posted again.  Plus, I didn't want to use up too much of our limited bandwidth at once, so I've been waiting to put up more photos.  I will do it at some point, when I have a chance to catch my breath.  Now that I'm no longer nursing a dying puppy, maybe next week I will have a chance.  Then again, next week I need to put in my vegetable garden. . .