Changes, Changes, and More Changes

A lot of CHANGES are happening at our house!!! They all seem like such happy gifts from Jesus, but when they all come at once...they seem a bit overwhelming too to be honest! 

One of our greatest JOYS in the past month is the INCLUSION of Scott, Meg, Timothy and Benjamin Rambo to our team here in Arua!!! 

It is safe to say that team meetings will never be the same. Our first attempt at having a "real" team meeting with notes taken and everything was a VICTORY!!! But looked a bit different in reality than all those notes may have recorded. This is about 3/4 of the way through our two hour meeting when Joanna (pregnant with TWO) had three on her lap reading a book and one at her feet!!!  This was about the time she was giving a report on preparations for an upcoming team of volunteers from Asbury! HELP US JESUS!!!

With the imminent arrival of TWO NEW SISTERS, Elsie Jayne and Lucy have enjoyed more and more their weekly DATE with daddy while mama attends an ex-pat ladies Bible study here in town. This week they went for juice boxes at the corner duka (our neighbors little store in her compound wall).  Then they set to work making boats and put them sailing in their bath tub before a quick dip themselves.  Now the question is...how will we sail with FOUR!  Jesus knows!

With the arrival of our new American friends Timothy and Benjamin, we have brought out some treats from our stash of American treats.  This night, Joanna's friend Eva joined us for dinner while the girls tried their first (at least in their memories) taste of JELL-O!!!  A definite success for them and a happy familiarity to Timothy. What a sweet change!

Scott and Meg have the change of culture and diet along with a change in year's married! We got to host the boys one afternoon while they celebrated 5 years of marriage!!!!  Jane helped us all decorate cupcakes with lots of happy sprinkles to celebrate what Elsie Jayne calls, the "wedding had a birthday!!!"  We love when weddings have birthdays!!! Praise Jesus with us for the Rambo's 5 years and pray with us for the next 5 as they learn to adjust and make home a new cultural reality!

A family snap of the Rambos!...welcome to Arua!

Lucy is learning what it means to be a big sister...sometimes that means she can't be tied on Mama's back so much and has to walk more. Sometimes that means moving from her baby cot to a big girl bed (we are trying to get some changes out of the way to not be so disruptive all at once). She is doing great with the changes, but sometimes needs a mama snuggle...which we LOVE and sometimes she likes to love on the new babies...whom she lovingly refers to as the "tinnies" or "twinnies" as Elsie Jayne pronounces it.

In our upcoming (less than a month now) change to being in America for a bit, we had a family hair cut afternoon last week. Lucy's first ever. We love hair cut days, because the act of being still for so long almost always warrents a homemade popscicle!

This is a picture of Billy with some of our friends in Panyamore last weekend. I put it here just to encourage you to pray for him this weekend again!!!  He flew this morning to Mundri, Sudan and tomorrow will be going into Lui for the new bishop's enthronement!

We did get word that they reached safely!!!  Such a happy thing and a big change to actually get to communicate when he heads that way (the networks for phones are improving). This is the airfield that crosses the main road in the district, so we are grateful for a safe landing! 

The men head back this way on Monday!

Thanks for your prayers for them and us while we are apart.

And all of us as we go through so many EXCITING NEW CHANGES!