A Party Niger style!

Last week we had the privilege of taking part in a party celebrating the engagement of one of our SIM Niger missionaries. After losing his wife to cancer, Chris recently met and fell in love with another lovely lady, who had lost her husband. Between them they have 5 delightful children. We are all so happy for them, and the Niamey area missionaries showed it! About 80 people showed up for the party. Most of us were really hoping to meet Nancy, as she was just on a short visit to Niger before the wedding!


As if to welcome Nancy and her sons to the joys of Nigerien weather, we started the evening here outside near the river at an outdoor restaurant. See the beautiful tables and the nice view?
About the time the food was ready to be served, in came a dust storm! Though typical of this time of year, we sure didn't plan on one that night! Ten minutes after the previous photo, below is another looking in the same direction, towards the river. Like all those flecks of dust? We all grabbed plates and food, and over 80 of us crowded into a little room. Unfortunately the power was out inside, so it was quite a dark little room! We could only laugh at how much this showed Niger's weather to Nancy- unpredictable and dusty. Thankfully they don't usually last long, and we were able to spread out again, though the tables never did get set. =) It was still a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed the time together, celebrating Chris and Nancy's joy at God bringing them together!

Tea Parties

One of the many things we love about our new house is our big front porch. This picture shows about half of it, with the other part being out past the SIMAIR van to the right. There is plenty of room for the kids to ride their bikes, and play. It's a nice shaded spot to sit and enjoy the rain, or watch the kids play. Another fun thing we did was set up a table and have a little tea party.

Sweet Brynnie always loves "girly" things.
Silas was enjoying drinking out of a big boy cup like his sisters!
Laney's favorite part was the cookies that went along with the tea. That and the sugar she was able to stir into her tea. =)
Even Daddy got in on the tea party, taking a break from the work you can see evidence of in the background.
Kira was around, but missed being in any of the tea party pictures. We'll show you her smiling face soon. It looks different every time we show it on here, as front teeth keep disappearing one by one.

"Settlers of Niger"

For all those gamers out there...there's a new expansion to the game "Settlers of Catan!" It's entitled "Settlers of Niger." Unfortunately it doesn't last very long because all the tiles but one are desert. The only thing produced is sweat. But hey, it's still a lot of fun, and we like playing it!

OK, so maybe that game wouldn't be a great deal of fun. But we don't need the game, we ARE the Settlers of Niger. And despite the heat and sand, we do have fun being here! We've been back over a month now, and things are starting to feel settled in our new house. As I type Kevin is just finishing up varnishing our new closet that he's been working on in recent days. After enjoying a few cooler days due to some rain, we are back to hot and humid. Thankfully the power outages of the last few days seem to have stopped. The kids don't seem to mind either way. Mom and Dad are more willing to drop everything and go to the pool when the power has been out for several hours and the temperatures are in the 100's! Silas has learned a couple of new phrases. If he walks into a room and the lights aren't on he says "uh-oh, power out!"

He is very delighted to be back in Niger! All the things a boy could want surround him- lizards, dirt, and most importantly, his dog! Silas has really been enjoying having Oreo here at the house. He loves to help feed her, and plays with her whenever he can sneak out the door. And for those wondering, I realize he is not clothed. It's hot. He's two. And do you see him sitting in the dirt? Diapers and underwear wash SO much better than other clothes. So when we go out he gets clothed. Otherwise, he's more comfortable this way. =)



While we are on the subject of Silas, he has had some other excitement. Notice anything unusual in this picture? Silas had some sort of allergic reaction, and ended up with these giant ears. They were followed by an itchy day of hives. Though we still don't know what caused it, he's feeling back to normal now.
So those are the recent adventures of the "Settlers of Niger." Come on over and play with us soon!