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The biggest news of the month is that Johnny’s adoption was officially finalized on July 27th!  He is pictured here with his faithful social worker, who deserves our heartfelt appreciation.  I doubt we would have a fourth child right now if it was not for him. 

Johnny had no idea why “going to court” was such a big deal, since he had already decided that he wanted to stay with us, so as far as he was concerned, it was already a done deal.  Instead, his biggest accomplishment was completing his first 100 piece puzzle all by himself.  I know, I know, we need to find some non-princess puzzles.  

Since everyone was out of school this month (except for Gil, who was still preparing and teaching some training sessions), the three older siblings decided that Johnny needed some pre-school.  So they created an entire curriculum, complete with recess, ICT (computer class), report cards, and a very detailed teaching schedule.  Poor Johnny didn’t know what hit him.  
We had some excitement when a friend, who is a student in our program, asked us to take his wife to the hospital when she went into labor.  The call came on a Sunday morning, just as we were leaving for church, so we picked them up, dropped them off at the hospital, and went to church.  The baby was born at 1:30 pm, and then we got the call that mama and baby would be discharged at 4:00 pm.  Ummm….okay!  Our kids got the crazy (but awesome!) experience of riding in the car with a woman in labor, and then taking her back home with the baby only six hours later. 
Just in case this all seems a bit too idyllic, know that there was also a lot of this going on this month.
Spending time with one of our favorite-ever families, who go back as far as 2002 and our first term in Tanzania.
Spending time with the “Moja Mission” team who have an incredible ministry to Tanzanian teenagers, and also all happen to be studying in our program.
My latest post over at A Life Overseas is about the balancing act of educating kids overseas.  If MK education is a part of your life, or you know someone who would benefit from this discussion, please head them over to this post!  

As of August 1st, our whole family is now ten hours away from home, at a Swahili language school.  We are here for three weeks, all of us working intensely to improve our Swahili skills.  Since we’re gone from 8 till 5 every day, and have homework on top of that, my posts will be sparse this month.  That is, unless you want lessons on conjugating Swahili verbs….since that’s pretty much all that’s on my mind right now.  But don’t worry….I’ll be back!    

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