P.D. came to Tanzania!

This is for my PDS boys....

PD came to visit just as he said he would! He came to the school where I have been teaching this morning! The children in Africa had never met anyone like PD and they loved him just as you love him! Check out the picture of PD teaching the ABC's me! The children here don't speak English, they speak Swahili, but they are working hard to learn the ABC's and how to count in English, too! He told me to tell you that he will come back to Memphis, though, for next year. You will have to come by our classroom to talk to him about his big adventure to Africa! (PD was a huge hit. The kids were cracking up for minutes when they first saw him. They love puppets! I will be sure to have him "visit" a lot and train up the next puppeteer before my time here is over.)

P.D. and me teaching the ABC's.

P.D. and Jenny and some of the little ones.
They love P.D.!

We said we wouldn't do it. We really meant it. But, it happened. Jenny and I have fallen in love with two African men. They are really sweet, smile a lot and love to be hugged. We don't even know how to properly pronounce their names, haven't met their family....but we are totally head over heels for these two fellows. We think we might take them back with us.

(Riann and Anna, you wouldn't mind if we had an extra two roommates, would you?)

Last night we went to have dinner with Diane and Steve Larmey, Jenny's US friends who moved to Addis, Ethiopia 5 years ago, then moved to Dar last year. We had dinner with them and another US couple who have been living in Malawi for 3 years. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, refreshingly positive and mature conversation about the ways we can effectively help Africans develop their land and people and just fun to be in a "home". They are amazing people who moved to Africa with three young children and their first day here, met a young poor child when he came knocking on their door for some clean water. As Diane went in to fetch the water, he began to play with her children in the yard. Every day after that for 2 years, he came to their house and became "a part of their family". They developed a relationship with his Mom (his father passed away) and helped her to get a job, send her kids to school and just really support them in every way. After 4 years in Ethiopia, they decided to move to Tanzania and faced a problem- what would they do with Tessfaye, the little boy to whom they had become so attached? His mother ended up asking them to adopt him and take him with them so he could have a better life. They did. He is with them now and, although they are far away from his mother and two siblings, they maintain close and wonderful relationships with each of them and visit often. I have always wanted to adopt a child internationally, but hearing their story really confirmed what a beautiful thing that is. Another friend of mine, Karen Eddins, is now in China adopting a little girl to add to her 3 children in Birmingham. I hope to join them in the amazing process of foreign adoption one day.