photo album online

I have published a photo album to the web…I’m going to try adding pictures there when I get a chance and as the internet allows. Since I’ll only be posting a few pictures here on the blog every now and then, this will allow you to see more. So check there whenever to view all my pictures. http://emptyhandedbutalive.shutterfly.com Right now, all I have up is a few pictures of minha casa (my house…or really minha quarto…my room, but it’s not as fun!)

2 more things and a connection

I found 2 more things that I'm super thankful for:

1. Sunday night worship @ Jimmy & Linda's. The assistant directors hold it in thier living room every weekend for any of the missionaries that want to come. Linda plays the keyboard and Jimmy, the guitar. We just have a really amazing time of worship. You all know how much I love music and it's especially special cause it's all in English so I know all the words. Last night we had 2 hrs of just worship. There's never a sermon or scripture, just worship. It was really amazing and rejuvenating. And I am thankful for the time!

2. This juice: Ceres. I found it the last time I was here and then suprisingly in Nashville one day when I was really missing Mozambique. It's PURE fruit juice straight from South Africa. No sugars or anything else. I have never tasted anything quite like it. They have all kinds and all fruit and it's absolutely wonderful. I'm sure whole foods or the like might have something comparable...but that's not ever really in my budget. So, you should march right down to your closest Publix and look for it in the juice isle (I found it in the Brentwood Old Hickory Blvd Publix)....and if they do not have it....find the nearest manager and demand they stock it. Cause if you didn't know.....if you ask for it and the item is obtainable Publix has to carry it on their shelves for something like 2 or 3 months...and if it does well they will keep stocking it. But you can always just request it again when they stop :) I miss Publix. Shoprite here should change it's name or something. Perhaps I still haven't adjusted to Mozambican grocery stores....and I should be thankful I have a grocery store. Anyway, shop for it, drink it, and be happy and healthy. Then we will have an amazing connection...drinking the same juice halfway around the world. Fun huh??

Things I'm thankful for:

Today I'm thankful for quite a few very simple things.....

• The mosquito net that keeps the mosquitos from biting me while I'm defenseless and sleeping


• The rug because it allows all the sand to fall between the reeds and keeps it off my floor where I step and out of my bed. You can only sweep so many times a day. Now I need one for outside my front door to keep it from being tracked in.


• The hot water bottle that the director, Ros, gave me as a house warming gift cause it keeps me warm when I sleep at night


• The electric water boiler because my kitchen is shared by 9 people and i have to walk to it in the cold through the sand to get there...it's nice to just heat up water in my room for tea, coffee, or hot chocolate (or the water for my hot water bottle)...and it's tons faster than boiling the water (no running hot water in our kitchen).

• A washing machine...while very small and shared by 9 people, it would take me even longer to do all the mounds of laundry I accumulate by being with grubby handed babies all day if I had to wash by hand.


• Amazing sunsets I can watch from my bedroom window and from the baby house window when I'm in there making meds for the morning


• Hotwater showers in my very own room (when the gas isn't out as it is this wkend) cause it's too cold right now for cold ones and who wants to walk through the sand after you've gotten all clean?


• The internet so I can stay conncected with all of you


• Finding American drugs in the pharmacy/clinic on occasion....cause practically everything over here is European drugs and i have to look them up to figure out what it is and how to use it....plus i can read the label when it's in English which is oh so helpful when I'm in a hurry....especially since everyone that works in the clinic only speaks portuguese.


• The small fridge that Anna Lee thought to buy a few yrs ago for the baby house medical director so that when we have sick babies that have to bunk over night with us we can have all the supplies at hand in our room for them (meds, bottles, ect)....but when not in use doubles as my personal drink fridge since 9 people share 2 fridges in our small kitchen.


• My chair I bought on the beach, handmade by local Mozambicans for a mere $35 American dollars so I can sit and read or think or relax without having to deal with my mosquito net on my bed


• Jannie for taking my Tuesday am meds shift this wk just because she can....I hate mornings and 7:30 is coming really early for me...plus i'm on all this wkend at the baby house and it gets to be really long hrs


• That the babies go to sleep at 7pm everyday....which means that as much as I love them what's left of my evenings everyday are free cause they are asleep (all the other missionaries get to hang out or bring special treats, or watch movies with, ect because their dorms are older and have a much later bedtime)...unless there's one that's sick or an emergency.


• Celia for making me feel so welcome and inviting me over lots for really yummy meals, tea, conversations, and chocolate in the evenings


• All the tots in the babyhouse that think it's fun to take medicine which makes my job even easier cause this wkend (Fri-Sun) I will have given out over 150 meds with over half of which I had to cut, crush, mix, ect before administering. Everyone go out right now and hug a pharmacist (ok you can finish reading the blog first). We can't get peds meds here and nothing comes in oral forms so we get yucky tablets that we cut into the right dosage, crush, and mix with a little sugar water to make the medicine go down just like Mary Poppins....and it works. Sometimes when i call the child's name (cause i still haven't learned all 40 names) and then pray the kids not just wanting to take meds but actually is the right child...the kids all point to the right one, jump up and down, and chant the other kids name till they take the med....oh how easily they are amused. I have never seen so many kids liking to take disgusting tasting multivitamins....yuck!


• Portuguese lessons....for the very obvious reason!

I promise I'll take pictures soon....especially of all the cute little tots. I just never find a moment currently...but at least you have a few (of my room)! Praise God for getting to sleep in this morning, this coming Monday and on Tuesday. YES!!!

Not quite home yet

Today I just wanted to share a few snapshots of moments that I've experienced this week. It's the reason I'm here:

• several children under the age of twelve coming foward and kneeling before the Lord at the front of church during worship Sunday singing with all their hearts, arms outstretched, some with faces to the ground as they soak in His glory completely unaware of how it looks or what people think
• being greeted by all the tots in the baby house everytime I walk in the doors with lots of screams, smiles, giggles, baby babble, portuguese I can't understand, but mostly outstretched hands, waves, and hugs
• the youngest baby room of 8 learning that their favorite word of the week is hola and uh oh this week......so now they all say it to me and wave whenever I come in their room (5 months-17 months). probably cause it's what I say all the time. But they think it's a fun game and that I should respond ALL the time. Today I was really trying to get work done in my "office" that happens to be the closet in their room...the twins are on either side of the door and can swing it back and forth to each other. They kept saying hola over and over getting louder in unison till I stopped and answered back. So I decided I would shut the door and they would forget I was in there. Not so fast. One of the twins started saying uh oh and screaming really loudly till he could get the door back open then started back up with the holas. A few minutes later my counterpart Erin 1 walked in the door and had to take a phone call. She decided she couldn't hear over all the baby babble so she shut the door completely. Well after about a minute of hearing the door knob jiggle, Francisco figured out he wasn't going to be able to open it and he started screaming and crying and the rest joined in. Finally I opened the door bak up and immediately all their tears dried up and they started right back in with "Hola!" and waving. They are a mess but I love them! Did I mention if I don't come right in and give them a hug when they are in their cribs they start saying hola and wiggling their fingers at me to get me to come over and when I do they wrap their tiny fingers around me and start hugging and smiling. It's incredibly precious. And to think most of these tots came in to us within the last 6 months malnourished, very sick, and near death at times!
• A new intake of a 6 year old girl that has been left at home alone all day while her caretaker 16 yr old brother is away at school. She was being sexually abused during those times she was alone. She immediately adapted to being placed in our center. In just an hour she was all smiles, playing with the other kids in her house, laughing, and immediately taking to mana Tracey as her new mom, provider, and protector.
• starting building plans on a new nursery for 8 more babies under 6 months since we are over capacity in our current casa dos bebes (baby house)! It will hopefully be up and running in just a few short months (oh and yes, they will fall under my care as well)

I've been reading a devotion provided by one of my good friends (thanks Andrea) and last night's chapter really encouraged me for the moments when things here get hard (as they easily can when you work and LIVE with over 300 children fulltime). They were scriptures all referring to walking with our Lord and His ways. I am here because His paths have directed me here. They may not always be the ones I would choose or the smoothest, but they are His and I am trusting and resting in my faith that He will provide and protect. Here were some that really spoke to me:

"Your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth."- Psalm 26:3

"The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them." -Hosea 14:9

"Let us walk in the light of the Lord" -Isaiah 2:5

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voic behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it." -Isaiah 30:21

"Love the LORD your God...walk in all his ways...hold fast to him."-Deuteronomy 11:22

"The Lord will establish you...if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways." -Deuteronomy 28:9

"I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble." -Proverbs 4:11-12

"The LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." -Psalm 84:11

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• for me settling in here and transitioning into a healthy schedule of rest, God time, and time to study Portuguese along with the rest of my responsibilities.
• language acquisition (I'm taking 4 hours a week from a private tutor with three other new girls, plus one of the other Brazilian missionaries whose fluent in English as her third language offered to help me one-on-one if we can find a weekly timeslot)
• for health and strength (most all the kids and missionaries are getting sick since the temperature swings almost 40 degrees daily)
• for the new Mozambican nurse that is starting on Monday (and speaks not a word of English) to be knowledgeable, teachable, dedicated, and patient as I will be training her. Ha Ha.
• for all the 40 children under my care and wisdom for me as I care for them. I'm acting as pediatric nurse practicioner, pharmacist, physical therapist, case worker, nurse, mom, nutritionalist, and medical director.
• Praise! Everyone has been amazing to me here. So patient, encouraging, and loving. They have opened their homes to me, cooked for me, loved on me, and just in general invited me into their lives. For this I am thankful and grateful!
• Tino died 1 week ago. He quietly took his last breath at the dinner table. He jumped lovingly into our makers hands without pain or the seizures he had been having throughout the past months. He was a 4 year old quite a few of you heard about earlier in the year who had a lot of chronic conditions before he got very very sick and was realeased back from the hospital with a feeding tube in a vegetative state back to us at the center to love on. He can now see perfectly, run without limps, is strong and healthy, has no pains, can stand tall and is dancing with Our Father!

I'm here and jumping in!

Well, I'm safe and sound here in Maputo and trying to get all settled in. All the other missionaries have been so great. Really warm and welcoming. Two of the girls made me dinner the first night and it was just a good chance to get to know them better. Tues night myself and 2 of the other newer missionaries (one just arrived last week) and I went over to the director's homes to have dinner and chat! Yesterday I started getting my feet wet in the baby house as well as going out into the city with 2 of the girls to get some of the things I would need for my place. So now I have a comforter, sheets, bath towels, a lamp, a nice wicker chair to sit in, and lots of other stock things you always have to get when you first moved into a place...plus FOOD! Today I dove into the baby house pretty much all day and then tried to rearrange things the way I like them so my room feels homey. One day, I'll find a nice rug for the floor and get around to painting one of the walls with an accent colors and find some decent material to make curtains from.....but for now at least it's starting to feel like more of it's mine.

There's tons to do cause we just lost our Mozambican nurse and we're looking for another COMPETENT one that can help me in the baby house. There's a lot of changes myself and the director (Ros-a nurse from Australia) want to make in there as far as medical care and how everything's run/kept up with ect. Even as simple as immunization schedules and keeping on top of 40 kids. We're trying to get it done before we get another nurse hired so that we won't be too confusing for her. And I can't understand the children or the tias (aunt in portuguese..the caregivers for the babies) and to make matters worse the other nurse (mana Erin 1) went to Portugal for 2 months before coming here and is really good so now everyone's getting us confused and keeps thinking I speak portuguese...ha ha (did i mention we are practically the same hieght, same build, same hair color, and similar features?? besides the fact that we are both Erin W). Mana Erin 2 does not speak portuguese(that's what the kids call us actually, except it's un and dos instead of 1 and 2. We're trying to work out private tutoring lessons here on the base for myself and 3 of the other newer missionaries to help jump start us.

The internet's been down the last few days so don't feel bad if I haven't responded quickly enough...it'll prob. be the norm anyway. I'm way behind on season finales so no one tell me about htem. I'll probably get around to that too. But it seems like there's never enough time. Time moves really fast here and I can't believe it's already thursday night as I'm writing this. Wish I had something amazing to say, but really...I'm just glad my luggage came the next day and NOTHING was taken from it. Also that I have yet to be bitten by any strange bug..and only 1 or two mosquitos (pesky critters). I know this is right where I am meant to be and can't wait for everything He has planned to unfold. I know that many challenges and hurdles are going to arise. I already have much to learn. But, I'm excited and can't wait to share the amazing things happening her. As for me, right now I gotta go check on a rash, another kid we think might have come down with dysentery(which is what ended up making all those babies sick for 2 months earlier part of the year)and start him on antibiotics if he does, give another round of meds, and cook/eat dinner all in less than an hour before church starts. Argh! Ok gotta run. Prayers for quick language acquisition please!!!!