The FIRST Team Birthday in Angola!

We all thought or said last year, “my next birthday will be in Angola…” In February of this year, we said, “surely we will be able to celebrate our birthdays in Angola.” Then we celebrated 8 Angola Team birthdays in 8 weeks (there is a high birthday concentration in April and early May) in…Portugal…again in Portugal! Then we started telling Efesson he would be the first one to have a birthday in Angola, and finally we were right!

We celebrated Efesson’s birthday on July 19th.

In the morning, Tio Nathan took Efesson and Biruk to the Porsche dealer in Luanda to “see the race cars.” Then he took them to walk on the beach for a little bit and then to Bob’s Burgers, a local fast food chain, where they got lunch, their faces painted, balloons and some time on the play place. Here are the before and after pictures, you can see the pictures of their outing with Nathan here. What a great tio!

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In the evening we celebrated with Reese’s Pieces Brownies, a candle in the shape of the number 6, friends, and presents!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The candle sparked a little while I was lighting it (notice the faces) and the flame was huge! Yes – we bought it in Angola.

 

  

 

     

 

 

We got to skype with the Campbells!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s official, Efesson is a Benfiquista!

Fun story: When Robert and I were in Portugal in 2009, Robert decided he would be for the Braga football team (who was in the lead at the time, but wasn’t one of the larger, more popular football clubs). He decided this mainly to create friendly banter (also useful for Portuguese practice) between him and the men at Church, especially because Braga kept beating their larger, more popular clubs (allowing for more friendly banter). Robert bought a Braga T-shirt and everything. The Reeses (A Benfica football club family) gave this cachecol (scarf) to Efesson, who is a self-proclaimed Benfiquista, for his birthday. Knowing that story, Robert’s face is priceless in this picture!

Saying Goodbye to Portugal

 

First, an Angola Update: Temporary Living

We’ve been in Angola for over three weeks now. We will be living life here in a temporary way for a quite a while. Right now we are living with the Evanson family. When we arrive in Huambo, in the next week, we will be staying in a home and riding in a car that is not our own. After Robert gets back from his trip to Namibia (to send off the temporary visa and get a permanent one) on Wednesday, we will head to Huambo for about 10 days before (at least) Robert turns around and comes back to Luanda for a conference for the church group that we work with here, Igrejas de Cristo em Angola (ICA). After that we should be free to start settling in a bit more. I am looking forward to the day when we can begin to settle in, but right now I am happy and thankful to have friends who are willing to let us share their homes, allowing us to take this process more slowly.

Next, Saying Goodbye to Portugal

Our last days in Portugal were well spent. The goodbyes were hard, and, yes, I cried, but they were done well. Our last Sunday, the team provided a breakfast for the church and the church sent us off with a prayer and a song from the kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were able to celebrate the 4th of July at the home of our friends, the Mullins, with our team and the Neves family.

 
Saying goodbye to Kevin and Angelina Mullins

We even got everything packed a day early and were able relax and enjoy our last day in Portugal! On our last day in Portugal we drove two hours to Coimbra, Portugal to experience a little of rural Portugal life and say goodbye to our friends Carlos and Ana and their baby, Salomé. That evening we took the boys to see Cars II in Portuguese, which was a fun movie to see in that environment because of all of the poking fun that was made at Americans in foreign lands (we definitely know something about that)!

Saying goodbye to Carlos, Ana, and Salomé.

On the morning of our flight, we got up, got ready, and then a caravan of friends took us, and all of our stuff to the Airport! Our friends from IBP - Gary and Terri Camlin, the boys teachers and Classmates - Nuno, Marta, Sara, and Fifi Fonseca, the Campbell family, and many friends from Church joined us at the Airport to send us off.

Terri Camlin, the boys English Teacher, and the boys before leaving IBP.

The boys and the Fonseca girls at the Airport (note the abundance of baggage).

Efesson and Alex Campbell saying goodbye.

Family Angola Email Update - July 23 2011

I am going to start posting a link to our family email updates here on this blog.

Here it is!

Update – July 23, 2011

The Blessing of Family Away from Family - Part 2

We lived at the Instituto Biblico Português in Santo Antão do Tojal, Portugal (about a 40 minute bus ride to Lisbon). Here is a link to a photo gallery of the campus. It was a great temporary home for our family. When we first moved there Nathan and Jordan lived there with us and all of us shared a kitchen. Over the 14 months that we have lived here we have watched many people of many different nationalities come and go. There have been many whom we thought we would leave behind one day who ended up leaving before us! Each person that we met is part of the kingdom of God and God has brought each one to Portugal for a unique reason.

Linda Jordan (pictured in purple in the picture on the right) is an American going to Huambo, Angola (the same town as us) with Wycliffe bible translators. She previously spent 6 years in Ethiopia with the same organization. God knew what he was doing when he brought Linda into our lives, don't you think? She has been such a special person for the boys to talk with about Ethiopia. She patiently answers ALL of the questions that Efesson throws at her! We can’t wait to see her again in Huambo!

Regina Dos Anjos (pictured in blue at our Thanksgiving dinner ) is a Brazilian with a heart for missions. She was in Portugal to study at the University. She was always smiling even though she was tired from all the hard work she put into school and church. We were so thankful to have her at the team retreat in November to help by watching over the team kids.

Marques Mente, a student while we were there, (far right) is now a graduate of IBP and he works with one of the local churches. He is always very busy working for the Kingdom of God in Portugal.

 

Urs and Esther Buff (left) are Swiss-German and have spent their lives as missionaries in South Africa. They came to Portugal to study with Eunice so that they could communicate better when in Mozambique, teaching people about children's ministry.

 

 

Carlos and Ana Freitas (right) are students at IBP, a young Portuguese couple who is fluent in English. They were some of our best language teachers. They even began reserving one day a week to speak to us ONLY in Portuguese. Carlos is an expert in making Portuguese deserts and he had the desire to learn to make pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and cheese cake, so, of course, we traded recipes. He also spent a lot of time with Efesson on the campo (field) helping him to work on his football skills. Carlos and Ana moved back to Coimbra, Portugal and had their baby girl, Salomé, in May. We were able to meet her a couple of times before we left for Angola.  

Christian (German) and Marlise (Swiss) Schlötterer (the couple on the left at our shared kitchen table) are also student's of Eunice's. They left about a week before us to go back to Germany and Switzerland before heading to Mozambique in September. They are a very sweet couple and we have enjoyed having them around to talk to and laugh with. Fun fact: Christian makes cakes from scratch with no recipe and when one is gone it is time to make another!

Senhor Pestana and his wife, Dona Fernanda, (both pictured with the boys below) are the nearly retired caretakers of IBP. Efesson and Biruk love spending time with Them around campus. They are Efesson and Biruk’s Portuguese grandparents. Donna Fernanda even shed some tears when she said goodbye to the boys last Friday.
 
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are the residents that we spent the most time with, but there are plenty of others who were around from anywhere from one day to two months, not to mention the IBP staff and students that we spent time with day to day. We have so many memories of IBP. Even though we sacrificed some privacy by living in a small apartment with only two rooms and a bathroom and sharing a kitchen with other residents, we have been greatly blessed by the relationships and the huge yard for the boys to run and play in!

5 Days in Angola

We are staying with the Evanson family in Luanda, Angola. They are an American embassy family of six. Efesson and Biruk are having a blast playing with their youngest two girls, Jesse (age 7) and Grace (age 10).

Robert has been out with the guys and Jordan accomplishing items on the “to-do-before-moving-to-Huambo list” and researching options for things like cell phones, internet, bank accounts, container shipping, vehicles, etc. Tomorrow they will meet with church leaders.

I stay at home with Katie and the kids. We have also been out of the house walking and riding in the “candongueiros” (blue and white public transportation vans) to go to church, visit the grocery stores, and to visit the embassy, but mostly we stay home doing laundry, cooking meals, caring for children, and apparently, blogging (more than 2 posts in a week is practically unheard of on this blog). I am going to complete the “Thankful for” posts that I started in Portugal and keep you updated on what is going on in Angola…at least until the reliable internet is gone!

We are in Angola!

We arrived in Angola on July 9th at 4:30am with every single one of our bags, a place to stay, and a ride for us and all of our bags! We have had so much come together for us in the three days we’ve been here, including a call today that Robert has his residency visa ready for him in Houston, TX! We are thankful to God for the smooth transition that we have had so far.

Here we are about to board the 8.5 hour flight from London, England to Luanda, Angola.

The Blessing of Ireland

In July 2010, we had a good reason to leave Portugal after being there for three months (Don't know what I am talking about? Just ask me about it), so we went to Ireland for a long weekend.

It was rainy while we were there, but we walked all over the place (my feet haven't hurt like that in a long time!) and saw a good part of Dublin.

Ducking out of the pouring rain at Dublin Castle.


Efesson doesn't know it yet, but he is keeping a list of all the famous places where he has run. Here he is running at Dublin Castle.


Having a good time at the playground at St. Stephen's Green.


Efesson celebrated his 5th birthday in Ireland (note the button pinned to his shirt), so we took him to jail on his birthday.

Also, while we were there we visited the Ranelagh Christian Church that some new friends in Portugal (who once lived in Ireland and ministered at that church) told us about. While we were there we met Scott and Denise Karnes who are a part of a mission team in Dublin, Ireland. Scott just happens to have been a campus minister and the University of Arkansas (I feel like I should say something like "Go Hogs!" here even though I am not actually from Arkansas and I can't recall that I've ever watched even a single down of a Hogs game) while some of our dear friends were going to school there and participating in the campus ministry. Talking to Scott and Denise about the mutual friends that we have brought tears to my eyes, it was the next best thing to actually seeing those friends!

Denise, being the amazingly hospitable person that she is, invited us to stay with them the next time we came to Ireland. So, naturally, we became facebook friends, and when I knew that we would need to take another trip (3 months later) to Ireland, I messaged her. Isn't that just how it works these days?

Our second trip to Ireland was in September 2010. We stayed with the Karnes family and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly! I went to Ireland planning on taking a picture of our family with the Karnes family or with them and their teammates in Dublin, but I was having such a good time that I didn't.

This time our family explored the town of Howth, just outside of Dublin, two stops away from the Karnes house on the DART. Here we are hiking there.

Later that week we took a train and a bus to the Cliffs of Moher. On the way we stopped at Bunratty Castle (eh...it was ok).

Efesson was able to get some running in at the Cliffs.

Also that weekend we all had colds with sneezing, runny nose, and coughing. Here Robert catches Biruk in the act (of a sneeze that is). As you can see I wasn't expecting to be sneezed on while posing for this picture.

Check out those cliffs!


The Burren lunar landscape a little ways away from the cliffs (Efesson was asleep on the bus).

Sunday we went to church with the Karnes and that evening we had dinner with their team. We love the Dublin team! They have a beautiful story of how God brought their team together and they are truly showing their northern Dublin community the love of Christ.