an update and pics! :)

Yes we eat on the floor.... no table :)

Lindsay with two of the girls from here house. Yes, the one on the left is smiling

Lindsey and one of her boys.

More kids from Lindsey's house

Some of the neighbor boys posing for a pic!

From LindsAy:

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been over a week since the last blog update. Apparently we are not very good at this.

Another week went by very smoothly. On Monday, the social worker received a phone call from the Lesotho adoption representative stating that two families from the Netherlands are on their way to Beautiful Gate to pick up their children. whoa! The social worker was not too thrilled about this phone call. Usually the representative calls at least a day in advance. So around 10:00 both parents arrived to pick up their boys!!

I think the boys were around 4 years old. Lindsey and I did not know them very well because they were not in our house. One of the boys has been longing for a family; most of his friends have already been placed, and when he finally met his parents he looked so happy. It was beautiful. Both families returned on Friday for an adoption celebration which was fun to see. Both boys were very excited (as were their parents). A few of the Beautiful Gate workers spoke and presented the families with a quilt. The parents signed the adoption papers and everyone prayed over them. When the celebration was finished one of the boys ran up to Lindsey and I and gave us both a hug. We were obviously very touched since he didn't really know us :) He hugged a few more BG workers and walked around the BG property with his mother and father before they left.

There will be another adoption next week and he is from Lindsey's house. There are many other children in the process of adoption currently and we were told that more could be adopted soon with short notice (hopefully not a short as 2 hours like last time :)).

I have been fighting a bad cold for over a week now and it has been quite annoying. I sound like a dying cow, it's rather attractive ;). If you could all keep me in your thoughts/prayers it would be greatly appreciated. I would like to spend my last three weeks here healthy!

~Lindsay

From LindsEy

Okay so we are just horrible at updating our blog, our scatterbrained, usually unorganized personalities probably have nothing to do with it :) Anyways, we are over 2 weeks into our time here in Africa and we can't believe we are going home in less than 3 weeks! Sad day :( Thank you all for the prayers and thoughts and words of encouragement, we appreciate it and cannot not tell you enough how thankful we are to have such amazing people in our lives :)
well, these few pictures will give you a snap shot of what its like for us, but we can't upload more for the computer is slow, so we will have to show you all in person when we get home!
God is good and we are proven that everyday we have been here! in our new friendships built with roommates, in our daily en-devours and keeping us safe going into town and on little adventures, in the smiles of the kids we see, the hardworking house mothers and support staff, oh God is good! even in the rain He is good and his power is seen! And rain is a reminder, that after the rain, there is sunshine, and that is true in much of life. there is always a storm or a pouring rain, but afterwords there is sunshine. It has been storming for the last few days, like REALLY storming. raining and cloudy all day, thundering and lightning at night, and it was the first we have seen of anything but sunshine since we got here! But we woke up this morning, and it was like the rain never existed. Clear, bright blue skies with the sun shining down, oh how i love it!
I also see the sunshine goodness in the support staff ladies in my house and lindsay's house. our houses share a kitchen, and after breakfast is over and the kids are sent off to school/playgroup, we get to help them do whatever they need help with being feeding the little babies, cooking, cleaning, laundry out on the line, ect. Sweeping is a big one, i have swept everyday i have worked, and it felt all worth it on friday when my support staff lady says to me "you get a sweeping certificate for doing such good sweeping!" how she makes us laugh, everyday without fail. The world cup is big here, but for her every 10 minutes she will scream wherever she is "FEEL IT: IT IS HEREEEE!" They seem to like us okay too, at least we hope! My support staff lady and Lindsay's gave us our Sesotho names, and my lady named me Impo and says to me " It means gift from God. you are a gift to me, my sister from America. you are a gift from God to Khosto 2 (our house)" and then says a few days later "you must stay in Lesotho and at BG, i will e-mail your parents and tell them you are staying." They named Lindsay "Lineo" (pronounced Dineo) which also means "gift from God" (this is what they tell us and we believe them, if they mean something else we don't know haha), and she told her that "you must stay in Lesotho because I have brother that you should marry, i will email your parents and tell them"...:)

The world cup is here for sure!! we feel it!! :) :) and it has been so fun so far! we here the horns all over, and all the games are on TV and we have watched about 3-4 so far, and it is all anyone around here talks about! We rooted for South Africa on Friday... they tied, and we rooted for USA last night (even though our English roommate rooted for her country... grrr :) ) and they also tied.. what is the deal??? ohhh we shall see, but it's fun!

Last weekend we went to Malelala to go horseback riding in the mountains of Lesotho with our roommates. It was incredible, like nothing we have ever seen or done before. no words can describe! It was real horseback riding too, we were going up and down mountains on skinny little rocky paths, going through bushes down the sides of the mountains, through streams and valleys, it was so beautiful, pictures will never do justice!!!!! i have never seen any view like that before, and i don't know if i will ever have a view of that again!! I kept saying I felt like I was Dr. Quinn or at least in that show, and i will keep saying it because it was THAT fun and amazing, we had a great time, and God showed me again how amazing He is because of the beauty her created in His creation, it was great to just be among it and be in awe of it, truly amazing!!

okay well that is going to be all, a late dinner calls us! thank you again for all the prayers, keep them up! we will hopefully update you all again soon!

~LindsEy