WHEN THE DOG BITES

Last year I randomly found a song on Itunes that I decided to download.  It is a techno version of 'My Favorite Things' and I LOVE it.  I think it is meant to be a Christmas time song but who cares about that?  I listen to it regularly.  Yesterday Ivey was upset about something so I taught her some of the words to the song.
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I think of a few of my favorite things
and then I don't feeeeeeeeel sooo bad...

That has to be the anthom for this month of our lives.  Ivey really did get bit by a dog today.  It didn't break the skin and she is fine but I had to laugh at the timing and we just sang the song together.

Tonight we took Albert to celebrate his ever changing birthday.  Who knows when it really is but the 'official' date for now is January.  We won't be here then so we celebrated now.  In case you didn't know it -I love Albert.  He is a joy to me.

Last night our family got to do one of my favorite things since we've been here.  TRS opened it's doors four years ago and we watched as each child entered the center.  Andrew was on the very first team that arrived to visit TRS at it's first facility and I was on the second.  We have both been on two other trips besides that before moving here.  So we have watched these kids grow up for the last four years of their lives.  I came across some albums of those trips and decided that we had to have a night where we went up there with our projector and flipped through all the photo's with the kids.  It was so awesome.  In unison they would all say 'eeeeeeehhhhh' to each photo.  All 100 (babies were in bed) kids and aunties would all laugh at the funny faces and hook a photographie's neck with their arm commenting on how small they were.   I loved how they stayed quiet on some.  Like the photo of a team visiting Auntie Geraldine in the hospital after she was hit by a car and one of the Aunties who passed away a few years ago. There were some intake photo's where a child is being brought to the center from another orphanage where a current resident of the center had also lived in the past.  When she saw him, because she knew what he had just been rescued from, she swooped him up in her arms and held his head to hers and sobbed.  The photo is so sweet.  The kids were so excited recounting visits from aunties and uncles over the last few years.  They shouted the names of each, 'eeeeeehhhhh Auntie Carrie', 'eeeeeeeeehhhhh Auntie Jessie',  'eeeeeeeeehhhhhhh Uncle Mark'.    Baptisms, dinners, parties, beach days, school days, life, family.  And I am so blessed that God has given us this time here.  I have a love deep in my heart for the children of the Covering.  They are so special to me.  It stings deeply to leave these people and we feel sad.
Our time here was supposed to be for 2 years which would have meant staying until January 18th.  Since TRS office hours slow down  quite a bit through the Christmas holiday we decided that we would go ahead and move before Christmas so that we could catch up with our families in the US while everyone was together for holidays.  So we booked flights for Dec.  11th.  However,  two weeks ago I broke a tooth and now we have changed the flights to November the 8th.  That means we will arrive in the US in just 4 days- this Saturday.
It is difficult to describe ourselves right now.  We are tired, we are sad, we are a little nervous, we are so many things.    But, when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when we feel so sad.  We think of a few of our favorite things and then we don't feel so bad.
We look forward to seeing our family.  There have been two additions to it since we left and we are VERY excited to meet them.  We look forward to seeing the AMAZING friends we have and thanking them continually for all the AMAZING things they have done for us.  We really are such a blessed family.
We wanted to make it known that we will probably not be 'ourselves' for a while as we re-adjust back to American culture.  It will be quite the adjustment-especially since we are coming back during the peak commercial/holiday season of the year.  We may find ourselves hermiting if we feel overwhelmed but please understand that it is not at all personal.  We are very excited to see everyone.  We just need some time and space to adjust.  We have been the center of attention for 2 years and we are very ready to not be in the lime light for an undecided amount of time.   Our family will need some time to recoup from some stresses that we have faced here in SL but hope to be back to normal soon.  We are mourning the loss of our adoption and are heartbroken over the lack of three people accompanying us home.  That will also play a role in our reactions to some things when we get back.  Just please do not take any strange behavior personally.  Please do not mistake a need for space as a lack of desire to see you if we are elusive for a while.  
On that note.  At TRS each child is financially funded by sponsors.  The money that is given covers their food, school, medical needs, clothing, personal items, housing, staff at the center, etc.  Each childs sponsorship is broken down into different allotments for different area's but the total is approximately $350-400 per child per month.  Andrew and I have covered what our kids needed through December but after that it will not be possible for us to cover their entire sponsorships permanently.  We will sponsor each of them partially and they have some other sponsors lined up but there is still a need for sponsors to cover them fully.  So, as much as it pains me to type the words...if you would be interested in sponsoring John, Isatu, or Albert (three of the best kids in the whole wide world) you can go here to find out how to do that:

sponsorship@therainingseason.org


Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you again to all of you who have been a source of encouragement and help to us during our stay here.  We appreciate you so much more than you know.  There was not a day that we had a need that was not met quickly and generously.  We have been so amazed at the outpouring of love towards us.  Thank you again.

And now for some photo's.

Family celebrates Albert's birthday

Ice cream becoming a milkshake.

Latest funny label.  Hmmmm so sweet.

TRS watching a photo slideshow from the last 4 years.

This one is so funny to me.  This is our mechanic who came over to do some work on our generator.  While he was waiting Ivey decided to tell him a not-so-few things.  Here is the first shot;

And....20 minutes later;

Is this not priceless!

About my marriage to Andrew

This is a photo of Andrew and me in 2001.

We lived at one of our universities' satellite locations in Florence, Italy and this was one of his attempts at pursuing me.  I don't remember who was taking this photo because I was too busy trying to figure out what it was going to take to get him to go away.  I knew good and well he really liked someone else back home and I wasn't about to be the 'other' girl.  I did, however, give in once and go to a little grocery store in Scandicci with him.  He bought me a Ritter bar that was delicious.  Four years later I was signing papers and promising my life.  I have a chocolate Achilles heal I guess. 

Actually, when the semester was over we almost never saw each other for two years and then kind of out of nowhere he resurfaced back and stronger than ever.  The pursuit began again and I just wasn't prepared for the strength and tenacity which was Andrew Sisco.  Those very strengths it took to gain his wife would be exactly the ones it would take to keep his wife.  I am not the easiest person to live with.  I am really quite difficult.  You may not know that I am one of those people that has a certain way that they like to do things and only that way will do.  But I am, and that is annoying for others.  You may not know that I like it to be 80 degrees fahrenheit at all times and that Andrew likes for it to be 60 or that I am quite the talkative night owl and Andrew is a singing morning person.  We almost got in a fist fight the first time he woke me up by singing in my face.  We really did get in miniature fights the many times in the first year that he jumped out at me from some hidden location.  I am not a runner/shrinker so I am by default a striker/fighter.  You can only be one or the other.  He would jump out and I would shout and strike.  Then there would have to be a few extra blows, once I realized it wasn't the latest Memphian burglar, to let him know not to do it again.  He'd laugh and go find his next assault location.  There have been many a messed up dinner as I learned to cook.  He was patient with that.  There have been many a time when I have glance over at a certain socket/wrench set that has NEVER been opened that Andrew swore he needed but I was patient with that (He will scoff at that comment but he uses the term 'nagging' to loosely).  Really though he is so super patient and that has certainly served him will in dealing with me.  Marriage is just so hard.  You have to be forgiving of so many things.  You have to overlook the daily irritations and upsets as well as the sky high expectations that you start to realize won't be met.  You have to learn that love is not a feeling but an action. The fact that he is kind and calm when I am not gives me reason to be thankful for him.  I am learning to curb what is an unfortunate temperament.  I have, on several occasions, referenced Johnny Depp's interpretation of the mad hatter in the movie Alice in Wonderand when describing my own little freak outs.  I know that all wives of the world will be shocked but as wonderful as he is, I find some of Andrew's ways difficult to handle with a kind, respectful tone. I am coming to believe that God may give you not what is easy but instead what you need to refine you.  Andrew does that for me and I mean that in the best of ways.  

We have had many an adventure together.  

He makes me laugh all the time. It's one of my favorite qualities about him- unless it happens to be in the middle of an argument.  That happened two weeks ago and I threw a loaf of bread. 

He was right there by my side dry heaving and grinning ear to ear at the birth of our first child.  And again with our second(which means even more since he knew what he was getting into). 

We have relocated cities and we have moved to the African continent.  

We have attempted to adopt 3 more children. 

I have seen him go without lights and water for weeks.  I have seen his response to starving people. I have seen him deal with people whom we have never met before at our gate asking that we take their children because they cannot afford them while the child looks on wondering about their fate.  Of our personalities he is the slow and steady type and I am the flash-decision dominate type.  Sometimes people mistakenly think that men have to be dominate type A personalities to lead a family well.  But make no mistake that I respect who he is.  Even when I give him the hardest of times I really do appreciate his wisdom and slowness to action.  He is well thought out.  More importantly he loves people.  

When our plumber found out we were moving he just kept saying over and over to Andrew, "oh Mr. Andrew, I am gonna miss you, I am going to miss you."  and then he followed it up with a question and an answer, "You know why?  Because you love mortal man.  And I am going to miss you!"

When the subject of Andrew came up recently one of the teachers at the center immediately commented, "Oh he loves people.  He loves the kids and all mortal man."  I agreed. 

I have heard it several times from several people.  He is a gentle person.  But make no mistake that that means weak.  He has a plethora of strength and endurance.  I have only seen him get angry 3 times ever.  Two of the three times it has been at injustices to those in need.  I would not have wanted to be in his way on those occasions.   

He is probably still going to hang his sweaty shirts on the closet door even though he has agreed not to.  He will probably leave one of the measuring spoons in the red pepper dish and I will probably know to look there now.  He is likely to keep on smiling in my face and call me sleepyhead first thing in the morning.  It is likely to still make me mad.  It is unlikely that he will ever empty his pocket before putting his pants in the wash and his hearing is never going to get better so long as I use certain tones. But he also makes me egg sandwiches, complements me regularly, fills the generator with gas before he leaves every morning, chauffeurs me around where ever I need to go, reminds me to drink water, and supports our family. 

I walked down the aisle to a song Josh Groban and Charlotte Church sing so beautifully called 'The Prayer' and it still applies;

  

I pray you'll be our eyes
And watch us where we go
And help us to be wise
In times when we don't know

Let this be our prayer
As we go our way
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your Grace
To a place where we'll be safe
La luce che tu dai

I pray we'll find your light
Nel cuore restera
And hold it in our hearts
A ricordarci che
When stars go out each night
L'eterna stella sei
Nella mia preghiera
Let this be our prayer
Quanta fede c'e
When shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace 

Give us faith so we'll be safe. 
Sogniamo un mondo senza piu violenza 

Un mondo di giustizia e di speranza
Ognuno dia la mano al suo vicino
Simbolo di pace e di fraternita

La forza che ci dai
We ask that life be kind
E'il desiderio che
And watch us from above
Ognuno trovi amore
We hope each soul will find
Intorno e dentro a se
Another soul to love

Let this be our prayer
Let this be our prayer
Just like every child
Just like every child

Needs to find a place,
Guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe

 

 Mr. Sisco, I am dedicating this blog to you to say publicly(which I am usually very much NOT apt to do) that I appreciate you pursuing me then and now, I like living this life with you most of the time, I respect your leadership of our family, and I love your heart for people and God.  While it may take all the strength I've got, I will do my best to follow you to the ends of the earth, so long as you choose to lead me Sir.  I hope that when I am 80+ I get to sit on my front porch somewhere and eat a Ritter bar with you.

H E double hockey sticks

A lot has happened since I last blogged.   Here's the run down:

1 beach trip

He may have inherited the dreaded

'Maybe I can make something with this' gene.

2nd quarter of the year birthday party

 with lots of glow sticks

1 successful prank.  I love this kid and it is fun that I can tease him.  At the beach he gave me an old gross shoe that he found on the beach thinking that I wouldn't touch it.  I re-gifted it to him the next day at the birthday party.  He knew it was a joke from the beginning and was very cautious opening the box fearing a lizard.  All the other boys were shouting guesses as to what it might be. 

2 basketball games(current game tally= 1 win for SL and 1 win for USA)

Two extremes-barefoot or dress shoes and socks.  RED socks.

We been infested by plenty of weird things lately-a giant moth, a mega-caterpillar, and at least 4 orb spiders that make impressive 3-4 foot webs, besides 100s of mosquitoes.  Apparently, the mosquitoes fly past the current of our fan at night and die hitting the blades.   I counted the dead on our floor one morning just out of curiosity and I counted 30 plus 12 on the top of our net and 2 alive inside it. 

These gorgeous trees and plenty of flowers have bloomed and I have enjoyed all the color lately.  

Teaching Levi and Ivey:

Learning about the ancient Egyptians and mummification. Practicing on Barbie.  

Learning math.  Shopping at 'Sisco foods'.  

We also had a field trip to TRS for firefighter and dentist class.  The TRS kids and our two loved it!

(didn't have time for this photo to load so I will do it later)

We had a visitor last week which we really enjoyed.  He, Andrew, Pastor D and Uncle D ran a workshop where they taught 2 days of Freedom in Christ and 2 days of discipling children.  

Ivey and Chad playing Barbies!  I think here they are discussing whose hair needs to be brushed.  

Out on a mountain overlooking Freetown. 

Also, this week I began a new endeavor.  I am teaching the Prep one class at TRS for the holiday school.  It is quite an experience.  Today I attempted to show the class a leapfrog letter factory movie.  I had to use an an extension cord that ran under the divider and through Mr. Dixon's Prep 2 class where it connected to the step down.  Apparently, the step down wasn't strong enough for the projector and 10 minutes into the movie Mr. Dixon came over to tell me something was wrong.  It had started smoking and stunk up his whole class.  I apologized and moved onto reading 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom'.  Levi and Ivey seem to be enjoying the added people to their routine.  It was getting pretty boring over at our compound.  

Also, I get on kicks about things and last weeks kick is that I have really wanted a fuzzy, cuddly pet.  I like our chickens but they are not cuddly and I don't think I will want them at our house in the US.  We hate dogs of any kind and I love cats but Levi and Andrew are allergic to them, so I need a rabbit.  But, since I am on a kick I need a certain rabbit.   And this rabbit is precisely the one I will be looking for in about 7-8 months;

A mini lionhead rabbit.  It looks like an ewok.  Can you just imagine the possibilities with all that hair.  I am thinking of shaving it to look like a mustache. Andrew said that we then could name him Wilford Brimley and feed him quaker oats.  That really got me laughing because he followed it up with 'you know the quaker oats guy who talks about beating diabetes(pronouncing the end with es instead of E's).  

This one is also a consideration-a mini lop eared rabbit. Just so cute.  

 Two weeks ago I was on a dollhouse kick and surely if I were in the US I would have high tailed it down to Hobby Lobby and Home Depot to begin on a project to build a whole town of these fantastic little imagination builders.  I am hopeful that I can do it for Ivey for a birthday or christmas present sometime next year.  We will see.  

You can tell by the randomness of these blogs that I really miss my friends.  If I were able to do my usual phone calls I would tell them every thought I had for the day for approximately 2 hours and then hang up forgetting the thing I actually called about.  This week I would go on about plenty of things.  I'd probably say how I hate microfiber.  I have decided that material is completely worthless.  It just pushes water around all over the place instead of soaking it up.  

Somewhere in the conversation I would say how I also am realizing that I hate to brush my teeth in front of people.  I guess I never realized it before because I didn't really ever have the opportunity to know that.  Since being here Andrew and I share a sink and he tends to comes in and try to brush his teeth at the same time.  That is terrible to me.  There is just something about spitting foam that isn't ladylike and seems like bad manners.  It also evokes memories from that opening scene in 'Mad about You' where Helen Hunt accidentally spits on her husbands head.  I certainly don't want that to happen.  

While I was on a roll about things I hate I would say that I really wish that the Hasbro people played their own games.  Surely if they did they would realize what annoyances they are putting parents through.  Memory cards should be perfect squares because lining up or putting slightly rectangular ones away in that tiny tray is ridiculously tedious.  Milton Bradley is not excluded and I think that all Candy Land sales should be put to a stop immediately.   it is going to send all adults who play it to a funny farm.  I just can't handle it when you finally get to the end after what feels like hours of it dragging on and then you draw that stupid gingerbread man.  I want to scream H, E, double hockey sticks NO!  and refuse to go back.  Do these people not have children?  

Then, I would go on about how much I really love saltine crackers.  We don't buy them here because they are expensive and stale.  We got a box recently in a bag my mom brought and it is amazing how much our family enjoyed those.  Such a simple thing.  I always think of vomit when I think of saltines though because that is what I have always eaten when I am sick to my stomach.  This was no exception because while I had no stomach bug, I ate enough of them to make me vomit.  Saltines = vomit experiences.  But, on the opposite end of the spectrum there is Sunny D.  I don't know what brought on a conversation about that recently but Andrew and I agree that junk is the most vomit inducing non alcoholic drink.  It makes your throat burn and taste like orange flavored chalk.  Who is drinking that enough for them to stay in business?  

Of course I would have to tell my latest funny Levi story.  Our family has a running non-funny joke that anytime someone drops something or bangs something accidentally we ask if they hate that thing.  So Andrew asked Levi if he would go switch off the generator.  He was playing his nintendo and didn't want to so he said he responded that he would just let Andrew do it himself.  Andrew then told him to do it.  He begrudgingly got up dropping his nintendo. In our usual manner Andrew says, 'whoa, you hate your nintendo?!?' to which Levi replied,'well,you hate generators'.  

I also had a little reality check the other day when Levi asked me what the word nag meant. I explained and he said to me 'that's what you do to me!'.  Uhg. 

I know my friends surely miss this endless nonsense interrupting thier productive days.  Well, good news-I'll be back in 5 months with two years worth of random information collected and mostly unprocessed.  

Random photo's:

Waiting patiently for the nintendo.

Becoming a brit and having her morning tea.

 

dy no might

John and Levi wanted to have their party together this year so we came up with a dinosaur/excavation theme.  It was rained out yesterday so we moved it to today and had to go out in between sprinkles.  We all enjoyed it anyway. And, I really really love chocolate cake!

The goods

Even Barbie went on a safari

the birthday paleontologist 

Monty Rex and his buddies

The first sighting on the tour.

The tour guide explaining the dangers of getting too close to an apatosaurus.

And another one.

The dig for a suspected two dinosaurs.  Our mento's in coke volcanos were unfortunately not a sucess.

Some of the remains.  Thank you Todd and Jodi Harmon for this gift a year ago.  It gave me the idea for this party.  

A little excavationist delicately sweeping her dino bone.

the full collection

The fully assembled bones.  The volcano cake with molten hot lava(ie red hots and hot tomalies), and a sweet little head hold.

The very excited owner of a new nintendoDS.  I really love e-bay!  It was so fun to give him something he was so excited about. 

Again, I so appreciate e-bay!  And, Levi loves the outcome of e-bay. 

Surely our kids think we're cool.   

And the after effects.