A short but blessed stay in Ethiopia

With all the excitement about Ethiopian Airplanes 🛩, how could we miss the opportunity to stay for a few extra days in Ethiopia, the country where Denise began her long term work as a missionary!

We arranged to stay 3 nights at the SIM Guesthouse in Addis Ababa,  Ethiopia. It had been 13 years since Denise had been in Ethiopia and it was the first time the rest of our family had visited. Oh what fun it was to see all the new developments in the city and also see old friends and introduce my family to them! Abby asked, Mommy, are you Ethiopian? 😆  

The guesthouse was a very nice set up. There was a garden with a nice slide and monkey bars, and a swing set. The kids had separate beds in their own room. It was the first time in 3 years that Roy had climbed into a cold bed, and it was thrilling! 

We first met Yeminashu, the guest house manager. She was so happy to see Denise: She told me that she had prayed for me when I was there young and single and she was so happy to see me "big" and grown up with a family! (Note that I was 28 when I came to Ethiopia and 35 when I left, but I was still viewed somewhat as a child since I wasn't yet married!)

The next day we had lunch with Laura, one of my American colleagues. She came as a single nurse a year after Denise. While we never served on a team at the same time together she joined me on several ministry adventures. One memorable trip was a three hour mule ride to visit a family where Denise had done mobile vet clinics. It was during Ramadan, so we spent the night and broke the fast (a late supper) with the family. We spent time drinking the salted coffee and sharing the gospel in the back of the hut with the ladies while the men listened in the front. Laura had a extroverted passion to share the Gospel with Denise jumping in and adding a word when necessary. It was fun to see Laura now serving in a very different role with her family. Abby and Josh had a grand time playing with Laura's youngest in their club house and on the zip line!

Denise was completed overwelmed with tears of happiness as we were soon joined by other friends! We connected with Esther, one of Denise's former teammates. Her family is still serving the Borana people. (Her husband had just left on a ministry trip there.) It was great news to hear that the church is continuing to grow where Denise ministered the majority of her time! 

We also connected with a neighboring Ethiopian, Indalish. She housed Denise for a month while she studied language. That month provided valuable insight into their culture and home. Indalish invited us to their home that evening for an evening with injera bu wut and coffee ☕️. She even provided lots of child friendly options like chips, fruit, and eggs, and the kids loved their cats. It rained while we visited, and the cats were trying to get inside. When the family shooed the cats out, Abby and Josh always laughed and laughed! Denise was thrilled to hear and see how God had taken care of the family in the years she had been away!! 

The next day we went out shopping for coffee so we could share with friends. For lunch we stopped at Kaldis, an Ethiopian coffee house. Denise remembered when it first opened as one location, and now it has many locations throughout the city!  The kids enjoyed seeing cement trucks, tractors, and dump trucks while we waited for our meal.

At night we went to Bingham Academy and had a supper with friends we met during our SIM Prefield training. We got a quick tour of the school but the highlight for Abby was definitely the playground and seeing the first grade classroom.

The next day we were back on the "Ethiopia Airplane" and headed back to our home in West Africa. 

CVM African Retreat

We had the opportunity to get together as a CVM Africa team (plus a couple other locations) at the beginning of April. It was set at a location on a beach in Kenya. We had been hoping to have this retreat for a couple years and happy that it could finally happen. It was a nice getaway for everyone! The kids especially loved playing (jumping) in the pools and playing in the sand on the beach! 

Traveling with a family is always an adventure. We rode airplanes, buses, taxis, and even a ferry!! Josh and Abby especially liked the Ethiopian Airplanes. Now every plane Josh sees he has to shout out "Ethiopian Airplane!!"

We stayed overnight in a fancy hotel in Ethiopia while we waited for our connecting flight. The airline provided us visas for the night, and this hotel with 2 buffet meals. And the kids found a nice little play area to burn the last of their energy. 

Getting to Kenya seemed exhausting. We had to wait for 90 minutes to get through passport control, and 2 hours for the ferry. We arrived at our beach resort hot, tired, but glad to have landed. 

The resort was amazing!! There were several swimming pools we could use. The beach was lovely with perfect soft, white sand and warm water. We had a private hotel room, albeit a good walking distance from the main lobby and dinner area.

The kids enjoyed finding a fish pond on the site. We had to make time to see the fish anytime we passed by. And there were lots of monkeys! And camels on the beach if anyone wanted to ride camels. Denise found an 18 inch monitor lizard. And we found a few other large centipedes and small geckos. And Abby found a crab! We found lots of sand crabs on the beach one night as well.

Our mornings were spent in meetings with our colleagues. And we had free time each afternoon to spend with family and each other. We loved being able to connect and pray together with others on our team. We talked about things like strengthening our marriages and families, staying safe on the field, preventing burnout and depression. We worshipped to beautiful worship songs and studied God's Word together. We spent time to hear each others' blessings and burdens.

Christmas party chez Thagard

Each Christmas our family looks forward to celebrating with our immediate neighbors. We invite all our immediate  neighbors and friends over for a meal, to watch the Jesus film, and we share the story of Jesus' birth. 

I rent chairs from a nearby family for our celebrations. It is always fun to see the kids help carry chairs. 

This year we had over 120 neighbors and friends join us! Many of our friends from outside the immediate neighborhood surprised us by coming. What a joy it was to talk to them before the party started. This is a great way to share personal friendships in this culture, to have someone over to our house and talk with them during the celebration. 

After hearing of the birth of Jesus, our neighbors are invited to hear more of the story of Jesus. We hope they will be open to join our small groups when we meet in the evenings during the week. 

Thank you for praying for us.

Hard goodbye

Pets are special creatures in our lives. I have had the privilege to own many pets over the years. Lots of fish, 2 turtles, chickens, honeybees, caterpillars, frogs, snails, ants, rabbits, and lizards. But by far my favorite pets have been dogs.

 I adopted Rue as a pup. She was less than 12 weeks old when I found her and rescued her from a local shelter in February 2013. Denise went with me and encouraged me to get my own dog. She fell in love immediately with Rue. After 2 minutes, I did, too.

I named Rue after a character in Hunger Games book that Denise and I listened to as we traveled across the US together. 

I was able to train Rue to be house broken. I taught her to sit, stay, roll over, lay down and play fetch. She taught me way more than I taught her, as I learned responsibility and patience from her. I am happy that I was her main provider.

Rue loved chasing small animals that wandered into the yard. Birds were her favorite, she also loved deer, cats, and squirrels. I always thought she would have made a natural bird dog.

I sometimes made silly sounds to Rue, and she would always tilt her head, trying to figure out what that sound was. She always walked with her tail curled up. 

I remember going on many walks with Rue. The first few times we went on walks she refused to go far from the house. I realized as a rescue, she didn't want to leave the comfort of her home. But day by day she would walk a little further. After a week she learned to trust me. She learned to love walks. Any time I grabbed the leash she leapt to the door to walk. We often walked 3 times or more each night around the 1/3 mile circle of my community. Sometimes we strayed farther. These were special times for me, just a boy and his dog.

Rue was not a lap dog but loved when I sat near her or lay beside her.

We did many adventures together. We hiked in the mountains. We visited towns. We visited Iowa where Denise's family lives. We went to dog parks. We visited Granny (my mom).

As our family left to pursue missions, we had to say goodbye to Rue being a part of our daily lives. My mom agreed to keep her while we were out of the country. We still spent lots of time with Rue when we were home. Our kids knew Rue and played well with her. 

Sadly the time came to say goodbye to Rue for forever. She was diagnosed to have a mass somewhere between her spleen and stomach this past week. She wasn't eating and had lost all of her energy. It was time to say goodbye. It was time to put her down.

She lived a happy life for nearly 10 years. I have had many dogs as pets but because Rue was the first pet I cared for as my very own she will always hold a very special place in my heart. 

Goodbye Rue. Enjoy the prairies and the birds on the other side. 

The animals

As we settled at home again after our vacation in the states, we have adopted a new pet, and are sitting for another. We wanted to introduce to you our animals!

Remember our turtles, Rosie and Rambo. They are growing! We need to build them a new cage as they have learned they are big enough to escape their current pen. We let them walk around the house for a few hours each day so they are less likely to escape when we don't realize it.

Meet Toby. He is an 8 yo bunny with a gimpy hind leg. But he loves to hop around anyway. He eats millet and some compost. Abby helped make a list of can eat and can't eat.

This is Karamel, the friendliest 5yo dog you would ever want to meet. We are watching her while her family is away on vacation. Josh lives for the moment we ask him to feed Karamel. His 21 month old legs carry him as fast as they can and he grabs as many dry dog food pieces as he can, then runs to the porch to place in her bowl. It's pretty cute. 😍 

The kids are enjoying the extra chores and the extra love they can give to the animals. We have found them all to be a great addition to our home.

Thanks for praying for us.

Vacation the the US part 3

As you can tell from the previous posts, we had a big time at home with family. And our vacation was not over! Another tradition we have had recently has been a beach trip to a water park! 

For 3 days we had the best of times. We played at the beach in the mornings. We swam at the pool. We played in the lazy river where there were sea monsters who attacked us! And oh the water tunnel slides! The water was freezing but was still fun. We played mini golf indoors in a neon glow in the dark building. Roy got to see another baseball game with more fireworks! So much fun! Sorry that with water there aren't as many pictures to share.

It was hard to say goodbye to family. Our month passed by quickly as we knew it would. We can't thank you enough for loving on us during our trip. All our needs were provided for so well. We felt blessed and very appreciated during our stay. Thank you to all for many special memories. 

vacation to the US part 2

Here are a few pictures from our time in NC while visiting family