Because what could be cuter than a toddler in footie jammies?

Caught her looking a little suspicious, just standing in Baba and Mama's closet.

Side note: Yes, we are aware she has outgrown her pack and play, but we're missing a few pieces to her crib, so are awaiting those in the mail. In the meantime, it doesn't seem to bother her.

Cousins Day in St. Louis

One little highlight during our very long trip across America was spending a day in St. Louis. It was the first time I'd been to visit my sister Alyssa there, although she has been living there for several years (I'd give you the exact number of years, except that I'm not quite sure when they moved there from Seattle). It was very fun for us to see our little girls together, although I'm not sure if the little girls themselves really noticed or cared much about it. They are a bit young to get the difference of "cousin" versus "random kid you are going to play with today."

It was also a good opportunity to do a case study in the difficulties of getting a five-year-old and two one-year-olds to all pose together in a picture. Above are the best of the lot for you to enjoy - just think about how many horrid ones I had to sort through in order to find a few in which at least two children were looking vaguely in the direction of the camera simultaneously! Zarya was the worst of the lot - she ruined quite a few cute pictures of her cousins.

The location of the pictures is the botanical gardens in St. Louis. Get this - you can go to a beautiful, warm greenhouse (there are non-greenhouse parts, but we were interested in staying warm on a freezing cold March day, so stuck to the tropical areas) year-round for free. Yes, free. St. Louis is all about the free stuff - the zoo, the botanical gardens, everything in the city is totally free. Residents have to pay city tax, however, so it's not really free for them, but it's a great place to visit (kind of like Washingtonians who drive over the border to Oregon to do their shopping in a state where there is no sales tax, yet don't have to pay state tax since they don't live there).

An intense weekend near Musoma

If you are interested in reading a story about some events that happened this past weekend, the links below will take you to two articles on another person's blog. I don't know the family, but it seems that they are missionaries in Mwanza, the big city several hours south of Musoma. The wonderful Australians they mention are friends of ours, and they most certainly are great folks, so it was fun to see them in a starring role.

A harrowing tale of God's grace in the midst of tragedy on the road traveling from Musoma:
http://themongers.blogspot.com/2014/04/even-when-i-walk-through-darkest-valley.html

And the tale of some very near and dear friends of ours, who happened to be having a harrowing experience of their own in the same little town at the same time:
http://themongers.blogspot.com/2014/04/beauty-woven-in-knots-and-tangles.html

These stories nearly brought me to tears, as I can easily picture these scenes and know that this could have been us on any one of our many trips on that road. We have traveled that route by both our own car, like in the first link, and by bus, as in the second one. Please pray for the Mongers and Walkers, as neither has fully come out of these dark valleys. Praise God that the Archers were in town that weekend and available and willing to serve!

Niece look alike

Well, the fact that Zarya looks about 90% like Andrew and a mere 10% like me has been firmly established. However, a family friend recently pointed out that my wee niece Cosette looks a lot like me! It's kind of exciting to know that Cosette is going to grow up to be a really beautiful woman. (That's a joke, although I'm sure she will, even if she doesn't resemble me quite as much in her later years.)

So while it's clear that we're not identical twins, there are some definite resemblances between me and Cosette in our pictures taken when we're the same age (just under 2). What do you think?

Cosette

Cosette (what kid at this age actually poses and smiles for the camera?!)

I'm the smiley one, Cosette's mother is the grouchy older sister

I'm the little one on the big bike, Cosette's mother is the big one on the little bike

Checking Acts 21:3

So, let's say you were a Tanzanian Bible translator working on Acts 21:3, and you wanted to describe Paul and co.'s journey from Turkey to Syria in terms of how they passed Cyprus. You check some English translations to see what they say. The first you see is NIV, which says they passed it on the south. Then you check NLT, which says they passed it on their left. Since these two differed, you look at another, NET, which says they left it behind on their port side.

Since now you're pretty confused as to what is correct (not to mention you're not entirely sure what "port side" means, being as you're from a land-locked people group), you figure you'd better check the Greek to see how things were in the original. "Left," it is written there. Well, that might work. The people in your tribe certainly refer to left and right hands and use those words. However, you think it sounds kind of funny to talk about a big island as being on someone's left hand side. North and south are a lot more common when it comes to talking about journeys.

In conclusion, you write "left" in your translation draft, because that's what the original has and you want to start with that option. But you also write a note to test this with some villagers to see what they think. If they all think it sounds pretty odd for people sailing through the sea to say they passed an island on their left, you can then test whether saying the island was to their north or saying they went south of it sounds better. Since there is not a word for "port side" in your language, you can leave that one off your list of options, at least!

And there you have it - an average day's problem in Bible translation. I'm checking Acts 21:3 in Ikizu right now and thought you might be interested in what kind of issues pop up in verses. Sometimes there are deep theological issues to check, and sometimes it's a matter of checking to see what natural phrasing is. In this instance, the Ikizu have written that they passed on the east side, so I know what is in their draft is wrong, but there are a lot of options for what might be right. Now my job is to explain all of that in a brief, clear note in Swahili!

Small town America

Indiana, PA map

Our apartment is on the top floor, far right

I've never lived somewhere like Indiana, PA, before. I kind of like it, but it certainly is different than Olympia, Holland, Langley, or Musoma. A few things I've noticed over the past few days:

• People seem very surprised to hear that we intentionally moved here from far away. They like their town, but nobody can fathom why we'd choose it. The only real claim to fame in Indiana, PA, is that it's Jimmy Stewart's hometown. Other places I've been have a greater self-image - residents like their town and imagine everyone else does, too. In Indiana, they are like, "Why here?!"
• It has the friendliest Social Security office I could imagine. When I was there today, everyone was making friends, catching up with old friends, and having a social time of it in the waiting room, and even back in the offices people were introducing themselves to each other very informally.
• There are Amish people around town. I know better than to stare, but honestly, I've never seen anyone Amish before, much less one pushing a shopping cart in front of me at the grocery story. Zarya probably categorizes the women as Muslims or Catholic nuns - women with big, dark clothes from head to foot.
• You can have a year's worth of weather in one week. In the past few days we've had snow, 77 degree sunshine, pouring rain, and 55 degree sun with a little breeze.
• The stores are all different (well, there is always Walmart). I've never been to NE USA before, and sure enough, just like they were different in the Midwest than in the West, and in Canada than in the US, they're different here, too. You'd think that eventually I could even live the same region twice to save myself some on the learning curve for shopping!

The longest move ever

I'm sure there are others out there whose moves have spanned years, but ours sure feels like the longest one ever to us! Today was the big box-loading day. We rented a big box from U-Haul, which we pulled to the house (my parents' house, I mean), and loaded up with all of our worldly possessions. We thought we were going to need two of this giant boxes, but almost everything fit into one, so we decided to leave out just a few pieces of furniture in lieu of having one nearly empty (or doing some mad shopping in two hours or something). It was well-packed, shall we say. (Interpretation: I dare anyone to fit more in there than we squeezed in.)

To those of you who donated some wonderful stuff to us - THANK YOU.

In a way, it's a little scary and stressful to drop nearly everything you own off at a U-Haul place and hope they ship it across the country without destroying it in the process. It's also really nice to have that stage of the move done! It's like when we were finally able to check in our baggage at the Nairobi airport and didn't have to haul our suitcases around anymore - good-bye, huge and heavy stuff, see you later.

So, one more stage of the move done, only like eight more to go. We're over halfway there physically - we've gotten ourselves around the world, now we just have to go across the country. We've done almost all of the packing, and unpacking is easier than packing by far. We WILL make it!