May and June pictures (previous two blogs tell some of the stories)

Sorry for the long delay, finally here are some pictures of Luke's birthday (May 29) and other day-in-and-day-out life happenings.  See two previous posts for some stories of what life has held these past couple of months.

Playing 'cheval, cheval, zèbre' (horse, horse, zebra instead of duck, duck, goose!), at Luke's birthday party.  The kids loved it!  Luke got up and ran every time, no matter who was chosen :).

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Since mid-May we've been feasting on mangos.  If Luke doesn't have a mango in his hand, he's looking for one!  Miriam and Luke eat 4-8 mangos a day :).  Our back yard has 4 mango trees.  

Luke's birthday party was so much fun! The whole x-pat community showed up as well as all of Luke's close Congolese friends.  We made peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate chip and banana chocolate.  Luke had been asking for ice cream at his birthday for the last 5 months.  Ice cream is gold here!  Our sweet friends (seated on the eft) made a Congolese meal and brought it for us to feast on after the ice cream and cake.

Luke after the water balloon toss!  Still our super silly boy.

Pastor Timothy is the grandfather of Luke's closest friends (see mango picture).  We asked if he'd pray for Luke and before we knew it he had decided to pray, preach, teach a song and pray again.  Despite my fears that it would go forever, it actually was perfect!  He is a local seminary student, graduating on Friday.  We'll be there to celebrate with him and to say a sad goodbye to Luke's friends who will be moving away :(.  

Our counter a couple of days ago: pumpkins, coconut, squash, onions, potatoes, garlic, palm nuts, bananas, soursop, carrots, mangos, okra, radishes, green beans, avocados, guavas...

Kitchen after a 'baking spree'.  Banana bread cooling on rack and two loaves of bread cooling.  

Patrick has tried his hand at a few projects here and they have been wildly successful!  This sand box gets played in multiple hours a day.  Who knew that even 12 year old boys would like sand so much?!  He's worked on making a plywood box from our shipment into a play cabin.  He also recently fixed our fridge!