Christmas

The annual picture on the stairs before opening stockings bears the face of one precious addition to the family and four veteran stocking openers!

Christmas at our house this year seemed to sneak up on us for a few reasons. The obvious reason is that we were in Rwanda and Ethiopia for over two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then, as we were gearing up for our "normal" Christmas routine, we received weather forecasts that caused major changes in travel plans. We expedited our family Christmas and left for Gram and Papa Spore's house well ahead of schedule. While our schedule was different than planned, we had a wonderful time with our families. Introducing Cooper to some of his aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins for the first time was such a special time.

We are in awe of God's blessing on our lives as we trace His hand this year. What a blessing to see his faithfulness to our family in brand new ways! May we continue to lean on Him in good times as well as hard times.

Merry Christmas to you from the Spore Seven!

It is 5:30 am, and, for the first time since arriving home, I think I could have possibly slept an hour longer. Jet lag has affected me much more than Chad (who is out running and doing kettle bells at the gym). With Cooper being really sick the first few days, he would wake up in the wee hours of the morning. We would finally get his itching under control and get him back to sleep, and my body would tell me it was time to get up. It's amazing all one can accomplish from the hours of 4am-6:30am...and how little after 7pm....ZZZZZZ!

Speaking of Cooper, I feel remiss in not having posted more pictures by now. The above pic was taken in Ethiopia. I actually have taken very few since getting home. Until yesterday, there hasn't been much laughter or many smiles. Chicken pox have a way of doing that to a kid, I think. Two nights ago, Chad and I were at our wits end trying to make him comfortable. We have never seen a person writhe in pain and itchiness the way he was. He was exhausted but could not sleep, trying to scratch all the places that itched like a crazy person. We resorted to an oatmeal bath in the kitchen sink. Mind you, Cooper screams when we bathe him. This was obviously our last ditch effort in helping him. True to form, he screamed for the first seven minutes of the bath. Then he learned how to splash...and seemed much happier. We covered every square inch of him in calamine lotion, and he slept fitfully for a few hours. I am so happy to say he has slept through the night IN HIS CRIB two nights in a row! He is now one big scab.:) In other news, C girl turned six on Monday! We had a birthday party Sunday afternoon here at our house. It was a wonderful day to spend with family (who all had chicken pox as children).
H and C had their Christmas concert last night at school. H was chosen to play Santa Claus and did a spectacular job. She even made her voice really low...I think she had some people fooled about her identity! C did a great job of singing enthusiastically, as seen in the picture below.
We are so happy these days, looking forward to all the fun the next couple weeks will bring, enjoying the fun today brings.

Home!

Home is really, truly, the best place on earth. We arrived here last night after way too many hours of travel.

Our airport reunion was such a happy time! Chad's sister, Heather, took lots of photos of our airport saga, but I don't have access to them at the moment. I'll leave the details to your imaginations, but there were a lot of wet eyes! The kids were all standing at the edge of the security area, and when H saw us, he took off running across the line, right into my arms. Many embraces and photos later, we went with both sets of our parents, Meg and TJ, and Grandmas Spore and Machovec to a restaurant along I-80. With threats of freezing rain and very droopy eyelids, I drove the two hours to our home. It is wonderful to be here!

Cooper woke up in the night with some crazy bumps all over his body. Upon further examination, our diagnosis is chicken pox. He is really doing well, though....not scratching, no fever.....maybe a light case? He looks like a little polka-dotted guy because of all the calamine lotion I have dabbed on his sores. Please pray with me that Chad doesn't get chicken pox. He's never had them and has not had the vaccine. I think Cooper will be on the mend soon. It was a bummer to head to church without him and Chad this morning.

There is so much to be said about our trip that I haven't had a chance to say. My eyelids are totally drooping as we speak, so more details will have to wait. BTW, have I mentioned we are so happy to be HOME?!

Update from Ethiopia

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. We have had a lot of trouble loading our blog here in Ethiopia, so we probably won't be posting any more pictures until we get home.

Our three days here so far have been eventful. We really thought we would not be able to fly home this Friday, and we were pretty disappointed. C's 6th birthday is Monday, and it looked like we were not going to get home until one week from today! God moved a major mountain yesterday, and we found out we could book our tickets for Friday night!!! Our travel agent had tickets on hold for us until last night, and we found out in the early evening we should be able to get Cooper's visa on Friday! We are soooooo thankful!!!!!

We are headed to lunch, a lion zoo, and shopping this afternoon. T, our guide, is an exceptional English speaker and Christian man. He has done such a great job showing us around all the places we have needed to go.

Sounds like everyone at home is getting lots of snow. I never thought I'd say this, but I sure am ready to don my winter coat! Home sounds like paradise right now. I'll try to update again when the connection allows.
Love,
Heidi

Addis Ababa

We are now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! Through a series of flight change attempts for our whole travel group, somehow we were the only family that got confirmed for last night's flight from Kigali. Our dear traveling buddies, the Bowers and Smiths, will be coming tonight. We miss them!

We are safe, and we will write more later!

3 o'clock

It is now 3am in Kigali, Rwanda, and I am officially SICK.....sick of being in this hotel room and particularly in this bed. However, praise God, I am officially feeling much better. My stomach is growling, but now with hunger. Thank you so much for praying for me. I'm not sure why I got so sick, but I am now really going to limit my diet to bananas and toast.....and Rice Krispy bars, if we had any left.:)

Cooper is doing so well. He sleeps between Chad and me every night, and he usually wants a bottle sometime in the wee hours of the morning. When he whimpered a little this morning, Chad got up to get him a bottle. I just pulled him close to me, and he snuggled right in and went back to sleep. Such a cuddler. Can't wait for you to meet him!

I guess I am going to have to climb back in bed for a couple hours. Thanks again for your continued prayers!

Rwandan Safari

Since all our paperwork is done we got the opportunity to enjoy a safari at the Akagera National Park. The experience was bittersweet because while Cooper and I were experiencing all the animals and incredible scenery, Heidi was back at the hotel feeling rather sick.

The early morning 2 hr drive to the park was beautiful. At one point we had climbed in elevation enough that the clouds were below us in the valleys. When we arrived at the park, a group of three Rwandans that grew up in Canada were having car troubles. Since we were short three (due to illness) we offered them to come with us. We got to observe giraffes, impalas, zebras, oribi, Nile monitor lizards, water buffalos, hippos, and various species of birds. Unforunately, we did not see any cebu. We learned that the lions at the park were killed during the genocide but that if you come for the night safari you can see leopards, spotted hyenas, and other preditors. We had a great view of Lake Ihema. The park borders Tanzania, which we could see across the lake.
After spending the morning on the safari, we returned to Kigali. On our way we got the opportunity to meet the President of Rwanda...at about 80 MPH. Our driver pulled off the road as a Range Rover with flashing lights came speeding past. To our surprise he continued to wait on the side of the road for a few minutes until several more Range Rovers surrounding the president's car came flying past us at around 70-80 MPH. Pretty impressive.

We ended the day with a celebration at Nyanja's home. Unforunately, Heidi was still too sick to come. It was be an fun evening of food, fellowship, and dancing. Nyanja had a Rwandan dance group in her backyard doing traditional Rwandese dances. Nyanja's mother showed all the ladies how to wrap their kids on their back. Since Heidi was not there Nyanja's mother wrapped Cooper on her back, which he actually enjoyed!
Please continue to pray for flight changes for us and the families with whom we are traveling. We are trying to secure flights out of Kigali tomorrow and earlier flights out of Addis to DC next week (Thursday). Some of the families have been confirmed for different portions of the trip and are on waitlists for the others. We have a great travel agent working on Saturday to help us but prayers would definitely help.


(Ghost Blogger - Chad)

Please Pray for Me

Hey friends,
Just a quick note to ask you to pray for me. I am feeling so sick right now. I sent Chad and Cooper with the safari group, but I stayed back at the hotel to try to feel better. Well, I feel better after every time I hug the porcelain. Then my stomach starts to hurt bad again a little later. Please pray I'll be able to keep some fluids down and feel better soon.
Thank you so much!
Heidi

A Successful Day

We are praising the Lord tonight that all our appointments today were successful and productive! We received Cooper's Rwandan passport just in time to ride quickly down the street to the US Embassy to get all the visa filing complete. We are so excited to be done with stressful stuff and really take it easy our last two days in Rwanda! We are going on a safari tomorrow morning very early, so I will not take time to post any pics tonight. God's faithfulness to us has been great.

Thursday

Today was another great day in Rwanda! When we wake up each morning we have an idea of what we will be doing, but it often changes as the day goes on. TIA, after all. (This Is Africa....picked this up from the Bowers family).

We started our day with breakfast at the hotel. Then we drove out of Kigali and into the beautiful countyside of Rwanda. To call this country the Land of A Thousand Hills is definitely not an understatement. The landscape was dotted with small mud houses and shacks, women and children carrying all kinds of things on their heads with babies on their backs, and many people carrying water jugs for miles just to get clean water for their families. Banana trees abound, with sugar cane and other crops also very important to the people who live there.

We made a couple of stops. One of them was along the Akegera River. It was in a beautiful valley, and its water flowed quickly. There we met several young girls carrying sugar cane on their heads and a boy on his bicycle. They were shy at first, but our POA was quick to win them over with her Kinyarwanda and contagious smile. We had some chewing gum and suckers we gave to them, and they were pleased enough to let us take their picture.

Our second stop was along a very bumpy road (on our way to a place we never did locate ....TIA). Our POA asked some ladies along the road if we could see their home. They said we could, so we all got out of the van and went to see the mud home of this family. They were cautious at first, but they too warmed up after awhile. There were some beautiful children there who enjoyed the rest of our gum, suckers, and Rice Krispy bars. One boy whom Chad gave a Rice Krispy bar said, "Thank you. I will remember this day and you giving me this good treat. Please come back and visit us again." So sweet.

We then decided to head back to Kigali since everyone was getting hungry and tired. We made it back in time for Cooper to have a good nap before visiting a grocery store and going out for supper. We went to a really pretty restaurant and ate outside on a veranda. We had tilapia kabobs that were delicious.

Finally we arrived back at our hotel where we gave Cooper his second bath. It's still his very least favorite thing we've attempted so far. He is clean, jammied, read books with Daddy, and is sound asleep on the bed.

Tomorrow we will take the kids to the pediatrician, pick up their Rwandan passports, and hopefully finish everything up at the U.S. Embassy. If all this happens, we should be able to leave Rwanda Sunday night. We still have a few fun things on our "to do" list, including delivering a lot of groceries to the orphanage, visiting our POAs home, and going on a mini safari. Signing off for tonight.

Heidi

The New Cooper

Today we saw the new Cooper. Yesterday he was relatively unresponsive to our attempts at making him laugh, smile, or even look at us. Today he has smiled, laughed, babbled, and played! We have had a wonderful day in Rwanda, due in large part to the improvement we have seen in our son.

Today we also saw glimpses of what Cooper's life could have been. We visited the place he was abandoned at around 10 days of age. It was a nice neighborhood whose people obviously have more than many in Rwanda. What would his life have been like if someone had not left him there? Would his life have been a happy one, riding on his mother's back while she went about her daily tasks? Would she have struggled to keep him well? Would he have gone hungry? We believe his mother made quite a sacrifice when she abandoned him there, knowing she was leaving him in a place someone would find and help him. Without this sacrifice, we would have never met our sweet little boy. We would never have had the privilege to raise him to know about God's great love for him, about Jesus's ultimate sacrifice for each of us. Yes, his life and ours would be much different.

Homemade Pizza

While we are on another continent, our kids back home were making homemade pizzas with their Aunt. They are doing well while their little brother and parents are busy in Rwanda.

We had another busy day in Kigali which included a trip to the US Embassy. We also got the opportunity to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre this afternoon. Heidi and I are both processing all that we saw and read there and will try to put it into words in the future. To say the least, we will never know how that event impacted so many lives including our son's.

(Guest Blogger - Chad)