I thought I'd give you all a little taste of exactly what I did in Spain. Now that I've been home a little while and had time to actually think about the trip, I'm ready to share it with you!
This is "Isaiah" (name changed) - the only one-year-old we had during the pre-Forum over the weekend of Nov. 16-18. I felt bad for him since he came with a cold that he still hadn't totally shaken by the end of the week. :( But he was still really well-behaved and a lot of fun to have extra-long. I'll probably get to see him, his sister (who was with the preschoolers), and his parents when I go to Mali next month - they live the city of Segou, which is about halfway between Bamako (the capital, where our plane lands) and Koutiala (the location of the hospital)!
One of my favorite parts of this whole trip was meeting "Andrew". (I don't have a picture of him yet - I should hopefully be getting one from one of my teammates soon.) He and his parents only stayed for the pre-Forum orality training (specialized training for Western missionaries to oral-learning cultures). They aren't deployed yet - they leave next month for 6 months of language training in Paris before starting their first term in Niger. They live in Holland, so Andrew speaks very little English. Since we had 4 adults to 11 children during the pre-Forum- a very healthy ratio! - I was able to be Andrew's buddy much of the time. He's very smart and super-sweet; I only wish I could've understood what he was saying in his extremely articulate Dutch. ;) I had a lot of fun learning a couple of *very necessary* Dutch words from his parents and am so excited for them as they begin their overseas ministry.
Meet "Jack", who joined us during the week of the regular Forum! He loooooves people and wants to be held as much as possible. If you can't hold him he uses you as a jungle gym! He's almost ready to start walking and laughs a lot. :)
This handsome redhead is "Pierre". He's not quite walking yet either, but he's still very busy! He's pretty squirmy, and when he can't walk while holding your hands he scoots around in this adorable one-legged crawl. Too sweet!
Hello, "Caleb"! Caleb was fairly quiet and self-entertained. When not playing with a book or studying a toy he was very happy watching the antics of the other children. For the most part he was quite easy to care for.
And this is "Joseph" (also seen in the background of Caleb's picture above). Here he's sitting in Nicole's lap (Nicole joined Gloria and me in the baby room once the Forum officially began on Monday evening, Nov. 18.). We jokingly nicknamed him Nicole's "jealous boyfriend". He loved her to death, and if she started playing with one of the other children, he was right there wanting to know what she was doing! He cracked us up with his drooly smile and deep belly laugh. :)
I don't yet have pictures of our other two babies, "Natasha" (our only girl!) and "Adam", but I'll be sure to share once I get them. :)
So, besides taking care of kids, what else did I do? Being sick unfortunately put a damper on some of my ability to do extra activities. However, I was able to go to the beach a couple of times (as you can see on my post "From Spain"). We also did some shopping, where we saw street scenes like this one:
Annie and I were also able to go out for lunch one day. This is our delicious Spanish pizza, which we ate at a little restaurant on the beach!
Other than that, all my time was spent with this guy:
Yes, this is the latte machine. Enough said. :D
If you're interested in seeing more Spain pictures, check out this link: https://www.facebook.com/monica.wacker.1/media_set?set=a.690095524343013.1073741828.100000277140840&type=3. I posted an entire album to my Facebook profile, but you don't need a Facebook account to see these pics.
Now for Mali matters: I got my last shot on Friday. Woot! "Uncle" Erv, "Aunt" Barb, and I will probably buy plane tickets this week - we'll tentatively leave January 12 and get home either February 28 or March 6. Things are coming together really well - thankfully Aunt Barb got me going on my visa and other preparations early so all I really have to focus on now is shopping for the last few things I need. I'm definitely praising the Lord for being able to enjoy a relaxing few weeks at home, tying up a few loose ends and enjoying the Christmas season with my family. I hope you can do the same! Much love to you all! :)
Ahh . . . my own bed, my own bedroom, my own house :) I didn't really realize just how much I missed them until I came home! Yet it feels as though I'm just setting down my bags (again), since I'm only here a month and a half before I leave (again!).
I came back to the States last Sunday, Nov. 24, and spent the last week with my family in a rented house in Myrtle Beach. On vacation we did precisely nothing, which felt soooo good. We got home at 12:30 yesterday morning and have very eagerly resumed our respective routines.
When I last posted, I asked you to pray for the health of our team. Each of the fifteen of us ended up experiencing sickness in some form or another by the time we left for home. I spent all day Friday (Nov. 22) in bed (save the 2 hours I tried to work in the morning, after which my teammates very graciously allowed me to return to bed, as well as the couple more hours I spent Skyping my family and packing up for the return trip the next day). Needless to say, I did not end up being able to use the long afternoon off to go on any excursions outside Torremolinos as I had originally planned. But I was very glad I took the time to rest (a major thing for me to admit - I hate sleeping!! ;) ). I don't think I could have made it through our *very* full day of travel on Saturday without it!
Our trip from Malaga to Paris, beginning at 7 a.m., was uneventful. We boarded an enormous double-decker plane in Paris and waited to take off for JFK in New York.
And waited.
And waited.
Then the captain came over the PA and asked all the passengers to please have their passports and boarding passes out so the flight crew could check them. When the stewardess came to me, I asked if everything was okay. She said *insert heavy French accent*, "No it is not! Someone checked baggage onto the plane but he's not here. We have to check everyone to see who he is."
By this time we had been on the plane about 45 minutes. We were scheduled to be in New York 2 hours before leaving for Columbus, during which time we would have to clear customs, recheck our bags, and get through security before boarding our next plane. We were getting pretty nervous and started praying that the airport wouldn't be too busy so that we could breeze through the red tape in time.
Then the flight crew came through the cabins again and counted us - all 516 of us.
Then they counted again.
And they counted again.
The captain came over the system: "Would Monsieur [So-and-So] please make himself known to the flight crew?"
About 15 minutes later the captain announced that we were finally on our way to New York. Our entire 2-hour layover was nearly gone - we would land with minutes to spare. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to miss our flight home.
As we stood in line at customs in New York we heard that this man had nearly boarded the plane, decided he just couldn't take the 8-hour flight, and left without telling anyone. Whether this is the truth, someone's guess, or just hearsay I'm not sure. But that's the closest we've come to knowing why exactly we were still waiting to get through immigration when our 6:15 p.m. Columbus-bound plane took off without us.
Our next stop was the airline desk to find a new flight to get us home. The trouble was, the next plane to Columbus didn't leave until 3:50 p.m. the next day. But my family was at a hotel in Columbus waiting to pick me up at 8:30 that evening so that we could leave for Myrtle Beach, SC, the following day. They couldn't just wait that long! So after some back-and-forth with the man at the desk I arranged to leave on a flight bound for Charlotte, NC (on the way to Myrtle Beach), at 6:15 the next morning. Until then the airline put us up at a hotel nearby, which we reached by a shuttle that ran regularly between the airport and the hotel.
I was somewhat frustrated by all this, as I'm sure you can imagine. We had flown all the way to Spain and most of the way home without any mishaps. Why on Earth should we start having problems now?! Yet I was thankful all this was happening after I'd had some flight experience under my belt; otherwise I would NOT have felt as comfortable making the last leg of the trip on my own. And we were also grateful to deal with this on American soil, where we could deal with things much more easily, with people who spoke English, whom we could understand without any translation (hallelujah!).
I took the shuttle to the hotel with the rest of the team. There I pretended to sleep for a few hours (I was somewhat nervous, as you can no doubt conceive) before getting up at 3:30 a.m. to catch the 4:00 shuttle to the airport. I rechecked my bags and cleared security all by myself (woot!), making it safely to Charlotte and my family by 8:15 Sunday morning.
All in all, it's been a crazy-wonderful 2 1/2 weeks. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat - I seriously want to find some reason to go back to Spain sometime! Now we're putting Mali plans into motion . . . it won't be long now before I pack my suitcase again!
But for now, it sure is good to be home. :)
