Conference, projects, struggles, and a haircut

It's been about a month since the last update, so it's probably about time for another one. In the last update I was still preparing for the women's conference, which went quite well. My presentations on education were very well attended and seemed to be well received. I haven't had a chance to follow up with very many people yet to see if it had much impact, but I do want to start regular sessions at the church on the same topic very soon. The kids did great showing off their stuff, Jariel sang her ABC's and showed that she could recognize them too, Kyran read and pointed out countries on a map and did some math. Overall they did well!

Mozambican women *love* their matching capulanas, and this was the conference capulana that many of them had. I sewed mine into a skirt and had enough left over for a dress for Jariel.

I love this shot of Jariel showing off her stuff!

And this is what a conference at our church looks like. Actually, this is about what every Sunday and most Fridays and Wednesdays nights look like. Amazes me how packed out the stadium is every single week!

After the conference we were able to redouble our efforts on the house. We fired the lazy painters who were stealing our stuff (long story, but we got the stuff back!), and hired friends instead. A lot more got done for a while, but then even they disappeared and quit coming. Not really sure what we're doing wrong, (we paid double what the work was worth and fed them well...) but we've had to finish up the rest on our own. Janie was super happy to cover up the Disney murals in her room:

And once most of the painting was done, we had to redo some of the floors:

You can see the old finish (covered in paint splotches), the sanded version, and a bit of the mountain of sawdust that the sander created. This was me after a day of sanding:

Only you can't see how COVERED I was in said sawdust. In my ears, nose (in spite of the mask), everywhere. At least it gave me many hours to finally get around to listening to the audio book of "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson. I'm about a quarter into "Words of Radiance" now.  

So now all but our bedroom has been painted, the floors are done, we've started buying furniture, and I'm working on curtains. Except when I take a break from curtains to make Jariel a dress instead. She likes it when that happens.

Some struggles we've been having lately... our beloved cat, Methuselah, passed away the week we did the most painting. Not sure if it was related to that, or what, but he is definitely missed. Tonight Kyran drew a picture of him, stripes and all, with a big M for "Methuselah" and a big D for "dead". It made me sad. Unfortunately, after he died our house was completely infested with fleas. The kids look like they have chicken pox. We got rid of the rug in their room, have been washing their sheets frequently and giving them baths daily, and that seems to have gotten rid of the buggers. Knock on wood. Once we make sure we're flea free we'll look into the possibility of getting another cat. And giving it a flea bath before introducing it to the house.

Another struggle has been our fridge stopped working a few weeks ago. The freezer part is still fine, but the lower part is barely colder than room temperature. All of our food was going bad, and we've been doing everything we can think of to get it fixed (the store, two technicians, and many Google searches), and nothing's worked yet. That's been mildly frustrating. Fortunately we're house sitting for a missionary who's out of town, so we've been able to store a few things in her fridge. It's just... not accessible when I need to cook...    

In other news, I realized I hadn't cut Kyran's hair since December...

So he was a little shaggy. He isn't anymore:

There's a Nigerian couple from church who run an English preschool/primary school, and we're talking and praying about sending Kyran (and maybe Jariel) there. He waffles on interest, some days he says he wants to, and other days not. He really needs some more friends and chances to learn the language, sometimes it feels like the kids hardly ever get out of the house except for church. And even there they sometimes just fall asleep:

(See Kyran slumped over in far left chair while Jon runs the media equipment for the church).

So please pray with us as we consider this option, I think it'd be best for him, but I'd like his willingness on it.