Where in the World are They?

 June? Where has the time gone? I am sure you are all wondering what has become of our long lost travelers. It has been exactly 4 months and 21 days since Katie went back to India, and 1 year and 11 months since we have last seen David. I thought that it was about time to do a post on their adventures and travels...

Katie arrived in India January 24th, after settling back into a routine and getting back into the swing of Indian lifestyle she was able to start working on the projects that Sandra (her boss and the founder of Families For Children, FFC) had been saving for her. After the children at the orphanage got out of school for the summer they were all begging Katie to do a summer camp with them. So for the next few weeks Katie and 8 of her little friends planted gardens, fixed up the orphanage grounds, took care of the FFC goats, and many other similar work projects. Katie also taught some English classes. When she gets back I am sure that she will have many more pictures and stories to share!

Katie and her crew working in the garden. 

They not only got a lot of work projects done they also played a lot of games. This one was called Chopped. Each team was given a basket of "mystery items" that they had to cook with. Then each team had 30 minutes to make a complete dish using all of the food items. Then the judges (the ones sitting down) would judge their food. Whatever team did not pass would be "chopped" from the game. Sound fun? Our family played this game over the Christmas holidays last year and thought it was a blast.  It is a fantastic game to play when you have lots of time and are ready to clean up a huge mess in the kitchen! 

The secret food items in this plate are bananas, brown sugar, noodles, and an egg. 

The reward for working hard, and being good during their summer camp was that they would get to go on a field trip. So this summer Katie took them to a resort in the neighboring province of Karala and had a great time. They got to swim in the ocean, stay at a five star resort, try "western" food, and have many new exciting experiences. Here are some of the pictures that she sent us about their trip.

Say Cheese...

Here is Katie and her crew! 

You've done it again Katie!

We can't wait to see you again... only 19 days 

Now where in the world has David been... In the spring of 2010 David received a mission call to spend the next two year of his life serving the Lord in the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil mission. He was ecstatic because exactly 40 years earlier our Dad was in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. David left our home in Nebraska in July of 2010 and spent several weeks at a missionary training center (MTC) taking a crash course in Portuguese. Because the process to get a visa to Brazil was so slow, he was sent to Texas to begin his mission there. Several months later this visa finally came through and he was able to head down to beautiful Brazil. Since then he has had many great learning experiences and has loved getting to know and serve the Brazilian people, as well as have the opportunity to teach the people about Jesus Christ. 

Here are some pictures that should have been posted a long time ago... oh well its never too late for an update!

He says that Brazil is very beautiful.

If he ever goes back I am going too!

David and a fellow missionary...

Here is David and some more of his friends. 

Washing Windows? 

I guess cleanliness is next to Godliness!

That looks like a taste of Home!

(Anyone in our family who has travelled knows that Mom sends the BEST care packages)

Well that is the update. I hope you have all enjoyed it. We are all excited to see our travelers again very soon! I'm sure there will be many more stories and pictures on their different adventures. We are so grateful that each has been able to serve the Lord around the world. Whether it is a formal church mission or a service trip it is so wonderful to know that each is based on the same basic foundation, LOVE! 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself."

Luke 10:27

This was at a program we had today in Eustis. It was really a wonderful experience. They asked us to do the worship meeting for their community. Dad prepared a well versed and scripted lesson about liberty. Good job Dad!! We all felt deeply grateful for the way God has extended his hand in helping this great country. 

Clever pose...

We went to a new nursing home in Aurora. We did a beach party theme. It was a lot of fun, especially when we tried doing the limbo with a hula hoop. 

There is Marilee again always doing her job as PR(pet relations)

Mom said when she was growing up she had to take a spoonful of cod liver oil everyday. Knowing that it had a odious taste, we had to try it out for ourselves and it looks like Betsy was so excited to try some.

When we see a lot of tables and chairs like this we really get nervous. I think we did okay. We are more used to smaller group where we can have more one on one with the audience. 

Again we were doing our patriotic program. 

As I was trying to find pictures to put on this blog post, I found 5-10 pictures of our feet like this one above. I am not sure why we have so many pictures of our feet. I guess someone felt bad that our feet were not given enough attention. 

We got a little hail. 

They were good size hail stones I am surprised the flower survived. 

April Update

Like our new ties?? I think it was at this program we put together a song right before the program. It was amazing how it all worked out. God was very kind to us. 

Corn is coming up fast!

Mothers Day program practicing.

We love how we have this large space to practice. The picture below shows us all practicing in our living room at home. This is what we did for about a year. It really make a big difference. 

We had a wonderful time playing at the duck run. 

Marilee of course did her job well. She found some animals to be with. 

Playing background music at the Y for the duck run. Luckily we got a corner next to the building where we had shade. 

After playing a hour and a half we got out the soccer ball out and enjoyed the rest of the evening kicking the ball around with most of the kids. 

Happy Birthday Betsy!!

We went to Omaha early in the morning so we had the inside of the van all decorated. I think Graham even made a birthday booby-trap card. His birthday note was reeled up in the seat belt so when she pulled out her seat belt the birthday note came out. Clever Graham!   

 This was Dad's idea. 

 19 years old!! 

 Homemade ice-cream made with raw milk. For any of you who have never tasted raw milk ice cream, it is absolutely to die for!! It is amazingly creamy!!

For one of Betsy's projects in college she had to write he own song. It was very well done! 

Survived Boot Camp!!

For the past 7 weeks Betsy, Joseph, Seth, Graham, and John have been going every morning to an exercise program (BOOT CAMP). It has been a challenging 7 weeks for them all. The first and most challenging thing was for them to wake up at 5:30 in the morning:)

On the last day of boot camp they made up a fun parody for warm ups.  We had Kimball video record it upstairs:

All together in front of our big red van. The Lord has blessed us immensely. 

After one of our programs we stopped to visit and tour an organic farm. It was very educational. It never really crossed our minds that raw milk can be healthy and safe to drink. If you think about it that is all they used to use for thousands of years. Pasteurization is not necessarily needful if you raise and feed your cows the right things. It all about going back to the basics.

Marilee was in heaven helping out with the animals. 

 

 

We've made a lot of progress the past two weeks on the building. 

 Five minute rest!

John tiling the bathroom.

Good job tiling crew!!