Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year-

The last missive seems to have gone off alright, though we found out we can only post five pictures at one time. One eagle-eyed reader noticed that the text talked about more photos than were present (Thanks, Grandpa Z); the rest of you need to stop racing for the delete key when you see our messages.

We noted last time that we had two guests for Christmas and we were hoping for good things. Unfortunately, it became clear pretty quickly that Daniel was having big problems integrating here. The promise to him had been to stay with us for Christmas, so he hadn’t been told anything about adoption possibilities. When it got rough, Annette consulted with the orphanage director as well as a colleague of mine for whom we have a lot of respect, and made the very difficult decision that Daniel needed to go back after Christmas. Not a fun decision, to say the absolute least, but one we realize we had to make in the interests of Mark, Jr. Luke and Chris (to whom we had committed and are anxiously waiting for paperwork to come through).

In spite of things not turning out how we had planned, Christmas was a blast. Right after they went to bed on Christmas Eve, the kids heard bells outside – Santa’s reindeer and sleigh, apparently. However, Mark, Jr was the only one who knew what it was; Chris and Dan didn’t have any idea about Christmas. The next morning, all the kids came down to find the stockings stuffed and a note from Santa in the Christmas tree. Again, Chris and Dan were more interested in eating chocolate before noon (never before allowed) than in Santa’s arrival. Presents were the same – Chris and Dan each took the first gift bag we gave them and walked around the house for a couple of hours without looking inside the bags. In the midst of all this, I found Luke sitting under the tree halfway through eating the Toblerone I got in my stocking; I had seen him looking at it, but hadn’t counted on him being able to open the box, remove the foil and start eating.

There’s a photo here of Annette making cookies with a pile of kids; we invited the maid and gardener and their families for a Christmas dinner the weekend before Christmas. Annette sat them down to frost and decorate cookies, and it quickly became a battle to keep them from eating the frosting and cookies. Eventually they all just went after anything edible on the table.

Little Mark, Chris and Dan were all shepherds in the Christmas pageant at church. Annette chopped up one of our bed sheets to make their costumes, so whoever is coming to visit can plan on a sleeping bag. Deuce, the Georgia-born one, was sitting on a bale of hay in front of the altar after they processed up the aisle and the older kids were doing the talking parts. Suddenly, we looked over and realized Mark had plucked a piece of hay out of the bail and was sitting at the front of the church chewing on a piece of straw in front of the whole congregation.

We enjoyed New Year’s, as well, though not one of us made it to midnight. We told the kids we’d do a toast before they went to bed. We thought they’d be impressed, so we did a tray with apple cider and real glasses, sat outside, popped the cork, said Happy New Year, and touched our glasses together. After a few minutes, Little Mark says, “So, where’s the toast?” I guess he was looking for some bread product. There’s a photo here of the cider.

As you’ve no doubt seen on TV, the aftermath of the elections here has been a bad scene. I went out to Western Province to observe the voting, and really enjoyed the experience. In spite of some small problems, the voting was peaceful. The counting, however, went badly and that’s when the rioting started. The town I flew into to meet my driver for observation has been gutted, from what I hear. We’ve been safe here in the house, but food and fuel have gotten to be limited even in the area where we are. The Embassy was closed for an extra day before New Years, but I’ve been working otherwise. Annette has gotten out for shopping and a meeting at the Embassy. Our maid and night guard, however, have both had looting and violence problems in their areas. I’ve been the Embassy duty officer since January 2, so I’ve been up for several nights answering calls. Annette has suffered through my duty stint, as the phone wakes her up, too.

We’re well here, though. Luke still refuses to walk, but he’s great at swinging bats at people. Mark is looking forward to school re-starting next week, though that might get delayed if the political situation doesn’t settle. Chris seems to be thriving; his face is filling out and he seems really comfortable. Annette is doing yeoman’s work in keeping the ship afloat, as always.

Best wishes for 2008,
Mark