Kapsowar beginnings

Kristen here….

We are settling in and the house is coming together. It is nice to have it start to feel more like home.  I am really thankful that before we left people suggested I pack pictures from home and picture frames.  It seemed like an extravagant unnecessary thing to do when we were packing, but it has really made a difference to have a few familiar keepsakes around the house. 

One of the best things about our new home, however, is not the inside, but the outside. The views from our yard are amazing. We have a little back patio that overlooks the rift valley and Dan and I have been enjoying sitting out there at lunch time.  The weather has been wonderful during the day with heavy rains at night leaving everything fresh in the morning.  The sunshine is one of God’s blessings on us as we adjust to life here.

Views from our front yard

View from our backyard

One of the things that has been different here is that we lose power almost daily.  Last night we had homemade nachos for dinner by candlelight J Not normally the meal you would chose for a candlelight dinner, but it worked for us.  I am going to have to figure out how to brown meat by candle light.  It is hard to tell when it is done when the light is so dim. I even turned on the little battery operated lantern we brought, but it is just not the same.  I might have over cooked the meat a little J  Oh well, live and learn. I am thankful for a patient husband.

We have also learned that our house is the last in the row for the water pipeline here on the missionary station.  This means that everyone else’s water tanks for their homes get filled first before the water reaches us.  We ran out of water yesterday which certainly can make life interesting.  I am learning how to flush toilets with water brought up in buckets from the river, how to heat water on the stove to use for a shower and how to wash dishes without using the sink.  In all of this I just have to smile.  The water for our homes gets pumped up from the river.  We were all running low on water yesterday and had someone out looking into the problem.  It was explained to us that there is a very small pipe that pumps the water up the hill to us from the river.  If a cow steps on the pipe in the forest it can pinch off the water supply until it is fixed.  Only in Africa.  We are learning the expression TIA (this is Africa) when things like this happen.  I just chuckle.  Welp, it just forces us to get a little bit more creative.  The water situation has now been fixed and we are starting to have some coming through our pipes again.  It is nice to have water pumped directly into your home. I appreciate this convenience.

Tonight I am going to give it my first try at entertaining in our new home.  I invited one of the other missionary families over for dessert and games.  There is no such thing as restaurants, movie theaters, bowling allies or any other form of entertainment in Kapsowar.  This just means we have to make our own fun.  The way for social entertainment usually comes in the form of game nights or movie nights which entails watching a movie someone has brought over on their computer.  It is more just the act of getting together and having fun that we are all excited about than the actual activity itself.  I am trying my hand at making a cake and frosting from scratch.  Wish me luck! Back home I loved to cook and entertain and really thought nothing of the work that got put into it.  Here, everything is just a little bit more complicated, a little bit more uncertain.  I didn’t realize that vanilla is a hard item to come by here.  I wish I had brought some from home.  I am really thankful that the other missionaries never think twice about sharing.  I hope my cake turns out ok!  Our oven is a gas oven and it actually has a temperature gage on the nob you use to turn it on, but the temperature reads in Celsius.  Not really sure how to cook that way so I sort of just set it in the middle and then cooked by smell, opening the oven to check if it was done when the smells in the kitchen seemed right.  So far so good.  I will have to let you know how it turns out.

I officially start work at the hospital on Friday.  Yesterday, I was walking through the wards and got called to come see a patient that has been readmitted several times. She delivered her first baby in October and has not done well since.  I am afraid that a hysterectomy is in her future.  Such a sad outcome for this momma of one.  We are trying a few other things first, but I have a feeling this might be my first major surgical case here in Kapsowar.  I would definitely appreciate prayer for wisdom as we treat this patient.  I want to avoid surgery if at all possible.

Well, that is all of the updates for now.  Thank you so much for following along on this adventure.  It is so encouraging to hear from everyone back home and know that we are not alone on this journey.