Sleepover!

Friday night, Wayne & Anna's family were at Safari, and Peter & Lisa were also gone, so I went down to Lisa's house and spent the night with Carol and Maria. It worked out well so that none of us had to be alone. We didn't do anything particularly exciting, but sometimes I enjoy those times the most, just living life together. Eating, talking, watching the news...

Yesterday Carol had to work in the kitchen with Livingstone up at the guesthouse (here), so Maria hung out with me in the apartment; she is 5 and doesn't speak much English. This made for a bit of an interesting morning. My main hope is that she had fun and didn't just do things because she is obedient and options were set before her. I could really tell that she enjoyed a Where's Waldo book that we had though; she spent a lot of time doing this over and over until she had memorized where he was on each page. We colored and drew pictures, did searching books, and also watched a little Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island on the portable DVD player. I really enjoyed spending some more time with Maria the past two days, because the other couple times I had been around her, she was very stand offish, but last night, she actually wanted to share my bed. I just have like a sense of victory and excitement when a child begins to warm up to me that has formerly been very reserved.

I have really enjoyed getting to know Carol the past two weeks as well. She has invited me to a Bible study that has allowed for some good connections, and I am actually learning some things as well. For example, the study is on the Names of God; this week the little thing I took away was mainly that in the Bible when it says "Lord" that = Adonai (My Lord and My God). If it says "LORD", that means Jehovah. This was a quiet question from Bible reading that I had never had answered, so it was cool to be like- that's why they are different. But yeah, Carol has been a great friend to talk to, pray with, and enjoy learning from one another.

[I had previously written this post but it failed, so this is the shorter and water-downed version, sorry]

ok, so after the first of these pictures, I was like, oh yeah, forgot you don't normally smile in pictures, just laughing about it...so then she said we could take a smiling one, but then we were both laughing so much and still trying to hold smiles, that it turned out like this! Not the most flattering but fun and funny so it's ok haha.