A Month of Thanksgiving!

What can we say about the month of November?  We were blessed with so much love that it is hard to express all the joy that we felt!  On the 3^rd, my mom and aunt arrived here in Mada to be our very first visitors from the states.  We enjoyed getting to show them our lives here in the big city, to show them Eli’s school, the marketplace and to see Madagascar again through their eyes.   

We had a blast visiting Andasibe (Lemur Island) where we played with and fed the lemurs.  The lemurs liked jumping all over Eli and he adored every minute of it!  We had to somewhat keep Alleluia at bay from the lemurs (at least in the beginning) because she was so excited to see them that she was growling at them.  It seems that the first lemur that we met took it as a challenge and seemed a little on edge.  (To those who have seen The Croods, we sometimes call Allie, ‘Sandy’ the baby…yeah, she is cray cray).  I also enjoyed catching up with my mom & aunt and playing ‘Sequence’ after the kids went to bed.  A few days before we said goodbye, we celebrated Christmas early (before Thanksgiving) by setting up our tree,opening gifts, and making cookies together!

 It was even harder to say goodbye this time, but we are so grateful for the time we had and the memories that we made together!

             A day & a half after my mom & aunt left, we welcomed our first (and quite possibly most amazing) team from the Mill, our home church!  They came for a vision trip to meet the Antambahoaka, a small Malagasy PG along the eastern coast of the island, to strategize ways to reach these people with the gospel (more details on this trip in the next blog post).  They also showered us with so much love & many gifts!

This is our amazing team!  So we had a serious shot too, but this is way better. :)

            While the team left for the bush right away, my close friend, Tracey and I, stayed behind with the kids.  My friend Tracey felt strongly that God was calling her to go on this trip and specifically to stay with me—I am so thankful that she was obedient.  She was such a huge encouragement and help to me!  Again, I was able to show a bit of our lives here in Mada and she was a tremendous help with home-school
and the kids.  

For the end of the team’s time here, they spent time loving on us and our family.  Eli loved playing light sabers with everyone on the team (each separately of course); Zoey loved playing princess, getting tickled and read to often and Alleluia loved having a big audience all the time and getting extra hugs. :)  We made some great memories that we won’t soon forget!  A big thank you goes out to the team for coming, another huge thank you to everyone who gave things that were brought with the team, and thank you to everyone who prayed, gave financially or helped the team members in some way to be able to come!  We are so thankful.
          

Friends!

  Finally, we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Emeish family (who are part of our missionary family here on the island).  They were gracious enough to invite us to their house for a wonderful meal, a family game of guesstures and all around fun!