Emmaus wears his heart on his face. You never have to wonder how he is feeling… he shows you every fleeting thought and emotion with his face. He is so incredibly expressive. Sometimes his faces are so quick and changing that you don’t notice them. But when you are taking pictures of him we find some of the funniest faces! Here are a few recent shots of Emmaus showing us how he feels. Some of them are super cute, some hilarious and some down right scary! =)

Emmaus turned two on Thanksgiving day! Its hard to believe he is already 2! His birthday was on Thanksgiving day, which was a full day of classes, studying and then a potluck dinner. So we decided to celebrate the day before. When the boys got home from school, we had Emmaus’ presents out waiting for him and a few balloons we had blown up. He didn’t even notice the presents because he was so excited about the balloons. =) We bought him a traditional Senegalese drum, a tam tam. He LOVES it. He is very much into music.  After we ate lunch we took the kids to a little restaurant for ice cream and to play in their little play yard. We ended up staying there and having dinner. The next day we didn’t do much, but I did make a bunch of cupcakes and 4 little cakes for all those having birthdays the week of Thanksgiving, who were going to be at the potluck.  Here are a few pictures of our two days of celebration.

Please pray for our new friends at the “Rock Beach” as Canaan calls it. We pray that through our love and friendship they would get a glimpse of the love from the one true God!

What a difference!

Wednesday, Norm and I went out looking for a geocache. Our first here in Dakar! =) We hike to the top of a big hill  to a lighthouse and we had such a great view! Check it out!

As always check out the rest of the pictures at flickr.com/norm_debra.

I love it when cameras catch funny faces! We laughed over this one for a long time!

We put up 52 pictures of the kids eating watermelon. Mostly for the grandmas… but you are welcome to check them out. We got a lot of silly faces!!

Here is a video of Emmaus picking out seeds, slurping on his watermelon and also enjoying the music! Enjoy!

Today is our day off from class, so we decided to go to a somewhat nearby grocery store and get a few things and try out a little sandwich place, too.  Our car is getting its headlights fixed so we had to take a taxi. We found one easily and headed off. We arrived at the grocery store no problem. We went to a pretty touristy area of town and the grocery store is in a little mall. They have a dry cleaners and two Guess stores and a City Sport and a few other places.  It was nice… we did not find everything we were looking for but no worries. We then sit down at this little sandwich place and order paninis. Turns out the paninis were great except their flavor… they were curry chicken apparently… Oh well! While we are sitting there eating we notice it really starts to rain… like REALLY RAIN! We were a little bit worried since we had not expected rain at all…. We left our windows in our house wide open! I always leave our windows open since its so hot and humid. We have to have the air flow!

We sat and ate and tried to wait out the rain… but after a while we figured we should just go for it and get home. We waited at the door and tried to flag down a taxi. There was one sitting across the street and one of the mall workers flagged it over. We quickly hop in… getting soaked in the process. Normally we stand outside the taxi and discuss the price and where we are going. But this time we had no choice we hopped right in! To our surprise the driver was a woman. I have never seen or heard of a female taxi driver. Turns out she pretty much only works the touristy areas and drives people from hotels to touristy spots. But it worked out anyway. We payed about twice as we normally would… but she earned every penny!

This is where the adventures really start! We immediately noticed the roads were totally flooded every where we looked and went. The first thing we see is a HUGE truck fell off the side of the road… looked as if the road had given way on the edge and it was tilted over.  I have NO IDEA how they will get the truck out.

We continue on… we try route after route after route and every way we go we end up at a point that is not passable because of flooding. She, like most Senegalese taxi drivers, was being very creative and driving all over the place… driving over mediens and sidewalks, going down the wrong way on one way roads with huge buses driving straight for us. Not to mention, we could hardly see out the windows because of the moisture on the windows. We kept wiping them down so she could see out.

We then get to one point where we are at a stand still. We then notice in front of us a ways we see a HUGE pile of stacked bins of soda. Another huge truck had lost his back wheel. So they were unloading all of the soda that was in the truck… right onto the road. So the two lane road turned into a one lane road…. VERY normal for life in Dakar.  We continue on.

We finally get with in several blocks of our house. We knew she would not be able to get us past the market just down the road from us. So we get to the market and we said that there was no way she would be able to get us any further. So, much to her protest, we get out into the pouring rain… with kids and groceries in hand!

(The upper left hand corner of this picture is where we started walking.)

We are immediately soaked and in ankle deep waters. We call this water Caca water. Because the sewage pipes all over flow into the roads when it floods. Poor Canaan is instantly bawling… because he knows the water is dirty… we have been telling him for months not to get into the water because is its nasty! I was carrying all the groceries while Norm had Emmaus…. so Norm told me to give him the groceries and then I could carry Canaan. So now Norm has 5 bags of groceries and Emmaus, I have my bag packed with stuff and groceries and am holding Canaan who is sobbing. We trudge on! Through the water and rain! We got many looks of understanding and also looks of… wow… look… these white people are like us! They live in this too! It was  a good feeling to be locals!

(A view from our balcony)

We then get down to our building. This is the lowest part of the neighborhood! Its CHEST deep with water! We start carefully balancing ourselves around the edges of the waters so we didn’t fall in…. we would climb up on the steps of peoples homes and businesses and did our best to stay out of the water. We finally get to this point of deep waters or inching along a slopped piece of cement. We started for it… stuggling with the kids. A woman comes out screaming at us… no don’t go that way… we tried to explain we lived that way… finally we realize she wants us to go through her house to the ally way. What a sweet woman. She led us through to the ally and that way we got right next to our building. But the worst part was still to come! Our local metal worker, who works right in front of our apartment saw us and came wading across the water to help us! HOW SWEET! Thats what you get for taking the time to make friends! He took the groceries and stuck them in the little shack for their tools. Then he came and grabbed Canaan from me and let me inch along a 2 inch piece of cement. Then it was Norm’s turn… he had Emmaus and was holding on to a metal thing that holds bottles of gas. The door swung open and Norm fell into the water a little bit and got right back up.  Then we get to our building… but for some reason they have a fence along the middle of the fence (its always there… like it marks the change of property or something…) … making the steps impassable unless we go around the fence. So our friend Mali passes the kids over the fence and then shows us where to step in the water so we don’t fall! How nice of them to help us! Then we get past the fence and we are home free! We are soaked from head to toe… and a lot of  ”Caca water” all over! At least we didn’t have to get chest deep! While we were trying to get past the fence we noticed that there was a big truck in the middle of the water and there were about 15 men in there, chest deep, pushing the truck out! Incredible!

(Lots of water!!)

(This is a picture of our friend, Mali, cleaning up after a past flood)

We finally get up to our house to find water coming out our front door! Haha!

We had water in the living room, two bedrooms and the office. The clean up when smoothly and our neighbor came over to help us clean it up!

We can only laugh! This is so typical for life in Senegal! The flooding is slowly going away… we hope it will be gone by morning so we can get out if need be!

Thanks for reading about our crazy day! We hope some of you can someday come visit us and experience some of these fun adventures first hand!

Life goes on here in the flooded Parcelles Unite 14!

Here are a couple pics of what it looks like with no flooding:

Its finally here!! After 9 months its finally with us. Its pretty funny looking at some of the expiration dates on all the food… Most of it so far has been great still… Some of the chips have lost their crispiness… but other than that, everything seems pretty good. We had lots of pepperoni in there too. It all looks great still! Praise Jesus! There was also a bar of Velveta cheese (it was supposed to be an experiment to see if it would last the trip) Well after 9 months its still great! There was also a Boboli pizza crust… It expired last October. It tasted great! Haha!

Here are some pics of it coming, being opened, carried up to the fourth floor and enjoyed! There was stuff in there for two other families. But the majority in the big crate was ours. (at least 60%)

THANK YOU EVERYONE! YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!!!!!

Hundreds of screws removed by hand!

8 month expired! Still good!

Enjoying some new toys!

The old TP holder!

The new TP holder!!

Organizing!!!

Check out the rest of the pics at flickr.com/n0rm_debra.

Last night was so very productive. We spent the entire day packing and organizing. Then after dinner and after the kids were in bed, we brought all our suit cases to the living room and told my sisters and dad that I needed them to pack them in for me in an organized fashion and to really watch the weight. It was the most incredible thing they could have done for me. I got everything ready to go and to be packed and they packed it in for us. It was so amazing. Thank you so much. You have no idea how amazing that was! =)

Then this morning, my sisters and Canaan and Emmaus and I went our for a morning/afternoon of adventuring! It was a much needed time of just having fun, spending time together and spoiling the boys. First we went to Bright Child (a huge indoor playground). We stayed there for a few hours. The kids had a blast. It was a perfect morning to go. There were hardly any people there. Which was an amazing blessing, Emmaus get very overwhelmed in any situation with lots of people. It was so fun! Here are some pictures from our time at Bright Child:

All of us!

Our little builder!

Emmaus is loving it!

Next we went to lunch at Panera Bread! I love Panera Bread and will miss it so much! After lunch we went to Old Navy, it was right next door. =) Kathleen and Gregg and Christy  have sponsored some Senegalese children. Kathleen and Gregg sponsored a little 3 year old boy and Christy sponsored a 5 year old girl. We picked up some clothes for them. We figured we would take the gifts over with us and either drop it off at the World Vision headquarters in Dakar or mail it to them. After Old Navy, we went to the little play place right outside of Old Navy. The kids really enjoyed that. I have no idea what is so fun about those mall play places, but the kids loved it! Here are some pics!

My sweet boys!

Emmaus having fun!

Happy!

After the play place we headed to our car and spotted the water fountain thing. Of course we had to top off a fun day with some water play. This was super fun. Both the kids and the aunties ended up pretty wet! Luckily we had extra clothes for the kids in the car. Fun was definitely had by all!

Canaan

The water is about to come out of there!

Now for the rest of the day we are going to try to finish up all the loose ends, finish laundry, packing up the stuff we haven’t been able to pack yet, because we are using it! Tomorrow morning we are going to have a nice little brunch as a family. Having brunch as a family brings back so many memories of holidays and fun times. We will be headed to the airport sometime after lunch. We want to be there really early since the airlines are all still trying to get back to normal from the Volcano. We plan on getting there and doing an official weigh in on our bags, do any shifting that needs to be done and then seal them up.  We will have a 12 hour flight from LAX to Paris. Then a too short 2 hour layover in Paris and then a 6 hour flight down to Dakar. Please pray especially for Emmaus. This is going to be tough with him, he is at the age that we can’t explain to him why we have to stay in our seat for 12 hours and why he can’t go running down the aisle anytime he wants or why he can’t move around much because of the person sitting in front of us. He does NOT sleep well on planes. Not at all! Please pray he will sleep and that he will be calm during the long flights. We only have 3 actual paid for seats. And with the volcano… we are assuming the flights will be booked solid. I don’t have much hope for an extra seat… but we serve the God of miracles… so PLEASE pray for a MIRACLE! =)

We covet your prayers during this time of transition and leaving our families. You can pray for the kids! What a tough thing to go through at such a young age. And you can pray for me (Debra). I am emotionally really struggling with going back. Our three months in Guinea were a real whirlwind trip for us. We went through culture shock, malaria, parasites, civil unrest, loneliness from being under house arrest and ultimately having to leave everything behind and come home.  I know things wont be quite as crazy this time around. But its still a tough thing to go back. Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. We are so so blessed to be serving such an incredible loving GOD! What a privilege it is!

We can’t wait to update you all from the other side of the world. We are hoping to get internet up and running soon! It could be a couple days to a couple weeks! You just never know is Africa!!

We love you so much!