In the Meantime....

As eventful a month as it's been healthwise, life has mostly gone on as usual. Power cuts continue almost daily (as I write this we are four hours into what I hope will be a shortish cut), the kids are finishing up the school year, we continue to prepare to homeschool, and ministry opportunities abound everywhere.

Also of note this month, Ruby's best pal Happiness celebrated her birthday at Dar's theme park, Fantasy Land. This is extremely nice for Dar; there are five inflatable games, two trampolines, a small electric train and a place for parents to sit. It has become party central for the Kindergarten crowd, and the girls had a great time together celebrating this delightful child.

Ruby also took part in her first protest. We are so proud!

That's NO RAIN. She was assigned the role of Ahab in the Kindergarten assembly and shouted out her lines like a true Baal-worshipper. Fortunately, she realizes she is not a Baal-worshipper.

(A note on the protesting front: Len did ask me to back off on telling the kids about some of the things I'm passionate about, after Ruby lectured him that cow milk is for cows, not people, as he ate his milk-drenched cereal one morning. Thank goodness she didn't bring up genetic modification!)

This was one of the more involved assemblies. We were proud of our girl's hard work!

Yesterday, the kids got a lesson in waste management when the sewage removal guys came to clean out our waste wells in the back. They were pretty interested to learn what happens when we flush the toilet.

Don't look too closely, kids!

The men with the pump truck were pleased to be sewer heroes for a day. You can almost hear Chariots of Fire in the background.

We also found one of these huge beetles that had died in a drain, and Henry has been checking its demise several times a day. Pretty interesting forensic stuff going on there. It is about five inches long.

One morning we found a baby bird on the ground; I went into the house to get a box for it but when I came out, another bird was eating it. Circle of life, kids, circle of life. It keeps going on, and this month has been a good reminder to each of us just how small we are in God's big picture.