MORE thank yous

We could not have had a wedding like this without our very generous friends offering their house and land to us for the wedding. A HUGE thank you to Mr. Bob and Mrs. Roi!!

And I am so thankful to and very touched by George Mixon coming to officiate the wedding. He is a good friend of the family and came from Nairobi, Kenya a few days before.

This picture is from 2009 when I got to visit him and his family in Nairobi. They took me out to Massai land where they lived when he was a vet with Christi*n Veterinary Missi*n. Here is George working on his land rover. He taught a few lessons while we were there. Told the basic stories from the Bib/e.

His family is so cool. Seriously. I've wondered for a long time now how he and Martha got their kids to be so cool. I want to learn. I wanted to be a vet because of George and homeschool my kids because of Martha.

When I was in college, they came back to the US and George went to seminary. Now he trains pastors in Kenya. Here he is working on the land rover again.

They are an amazing family and are in Kenya with http://www.whm.org/.
And if you want to support them, you can donate to the Mixons on that website, or you can specify 'Mixon Vehicle Fund.' They need a new land rover...

We wish the whole family could have been over here for the wedding! Francois just has his default face on here; I completely understand because I have one too

I just wish I knew what he was saying to me here.

Kris Carlson and Erin Rodriguez bought tons and tons of sparklers on their way down from Michigan and North Carolina. They got them out and played with the kids, then they gave them out to everyone when it was time for us to leave.It was AMAZING!

And my older brother Trey bought vuvuzelas for the bridal party-MONTHS before, just to be prepared. That was seriously cool, and was really special that he thought to do that. Francois (was so cute) heard them and said, "Vuvuzelas!" Then he turned to me and smiled and said, "...They planned that."Here, Francois is telling my dad to blow harder in the vuvuzela to make a noise and my dad is handing it to him saying, "You do it."
And of all these, we can't decide which one we like the best:

A Few Thanks

There are way too many people who helped to mention them all, but here's just a few of the details that made our wedding extra special to me:

Tara and I wrapped about 97 vases and beer bottles with yarn and twine. I really liked it- being able to be creative and new with every one. Cara came out and helped one day too, and folded invitations with us.

My aunt Sally worked her rear off tying (gosh, is that how you spell that?) the raffia on those baby food jars. And trimming the tealights. And ironing and folding napkins. AND much more. Also, a big thanks to Tori for eating all that baby food so we could use those jars.

Did you notice the flowers in the last picture too? Beautiful! Thanks to Katie Newman, Wendy Hall, Jennifer Galloway, Lynne Colbert, Tara Jones, and Cindy Baynham (and probably more, I was busy and probably missed some stuff). And a friend of Aunt Sally's gave us about 30 stems of huge sunflowers.

Again, my bouquet was perfect. It was so colorful that it made me decide to wear a necklace that I bought in Hội An, Vietnam. (The blue bracelet--my something blue-- was given to me by my student Selena) Thankyou Cindy Baynham for putting together a stunning bouquet!!
And Cindy's daughter, and childhood best friend, Kate designed the programs and the font for them! Although I printed them out with the song lyrics on the front (not her idea)(tryin to be green folks), her design was fantastic. And I was very touched that she made the font especially for us, with a little African touch for Francois. No one else has ever used this font. Pretty cool.

Laura and Steph glued the sticks in there and we all got a little giggly from the rubber cement.

Francois used the router to carve the words in all of the little signs you see. I love them.

I know this table was touched with many hands. I love it so much!

If anyone ever needs to borrow a water dispenser...

Granddaddy's lady friend, Mrs. Patsy, helped us get a bunch of September peaches from her family's farm.I had some ideas and just barely mentioned them and Tara and others just made everything happen. Everything looked great.

My lovely cousin MC made this chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing. Yum yum! Beautiful too. MC and I learned to knit together when I visited her in Montreat when she was going to school there (and 4 years later I copied her). She's very crafty and you can see on her website: http://www.nu-trio.com/

My cousin Suzanne decorated our little fisher price farmhouse people to be the bride and groom (see the little vest?). And I found out later that Brian (MC's husband) so expertly re-hotglued those sticks together. Well done all around.

That's still not all, but I'll post again soon. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED!!

(again, pictures by Cindy Stansberry Photography)

Some pictures from the wedding!

For those of you who haven't seen pictures from our wedding, here are some more, taken by my friend Cindy (http://www.facebook.com/#!/cindystansberryphotography). The wedding was September 10th, 2001 and the weather was a perfect miracle.

Some of the flowers I ordered didn't come in; apparently it was a bad time for cornflowers. The proteas did come though and I had a little bit of South Africa in my bouquet, which made me really happy. As for the rest of the flowers, friends and family pulled together and cut hedges, scoured flower shops, and cut out of their gardens, and came up with the PERFECT FLOWERS. Everything was better than I could have imagined. So many little details that came together right at the last minute.

These are only a few of them, some of my favorites actually. I'll put up more from the ceremony later. These take forever to load, so it's a process...

If you see 'the kiss' (it's on youtube too)... I'm so glad Cindy caught that on camera. Francois said that he hadn't planned it, but he just decided a few seconds before George said, "You may kiss your bride." Probably took a lot of people off guard who don't know Francois very well. I was shocked too because that could have gone very wrong, especially with how nervous we both were!

Ahhh, what a great day...

A big THANK-YOU to Cindy for our wonderful pictures!!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/cindystansberryphotography

#6

More from Yogi and Boo-Boo in CITY, Vietnam.

"Hello! I hope that you had a great weekend! Mine started out well. We went to Danang to observe teaching and visit the new teachers there. We really had a fun time hanging out with the teachers, and the food wasn’t bad either! We loved eating pasta and cheesecake, things that we can’t get at restaurants in OUR CITY.

I’ve had a sinus infection, or something like that, for the past two weeks. I’ve taken two types of antibiotics, neither of which seem to be helping. On Saturday night, I really started getting sick. I’ve been sleeping almost all day the past two days. I was so sad to miss chrch and Hannah’s son’s birthday party, but I just didn’t feel nearly well enough to go.

Tonight I have my first class of the week, and I’m hoping that it goes well. I have almost no voice left, but since they are university students, it should be okay. If it were a kids class, I could never do it. I hope that the students are very talkative since I am not!

We’ve been trying a lot of new recipes in our rice cooker and toaster oven, which has been really fun. There are no stores in OUR CITY that sell butter or cream, so that cut out a lot of things that we could make. Thankfully, Danang had plenty, so we bought a big supply there. I’m excited to try more desserts! I baked brownies on Friday and took them to my students. They were thrilled, but thought that they were really sweet. Vietnamese people can go through an entire meal without anything to drink, but could hardly eat a small brownie before begging to go out and get a drink of water.

I really enjoyed volunteering in the Vietnamese teacher’s classroom this week. When I walked in, the students clapped, and then they clapped again when I left. I truly didn’t deserve that at all, as I didn’t even have to prepare anything. I just showed up, helped them with their pronunciation, and talked with them. It was fun to meet more students and build rapport with the Vietnamese professor.

I went out for coffee with that professor later in the week, and she told me that she had wanted to invite me out for coffee before, but that the professors have to get permission from our boss before inviting us anywhere. I had often wondered why the professors didn’t ever invite us anywhere. I guess that’s the reason!

I also found out that in OUR CITY, after a foreigner visits anyone, the p*lice come to their home or office and ask them questions about their time with the foreigner. I was so surprised, and questioned the student who told me. She is a gov*rnment employee, though, so I guess that she would know. I am just thankful that people still want to spend time with us.

David’s girlfriend had a birthday last week, so I invited them out for dinner. We went to a hot pot restaurant that is supposedly the cheapest in town. I should have known, when David described it that way, that it wasn’t going to be great. I didn’t eat too much because, as you have probably guessed already, the food wasn’t too good. The worst part was the crab. The crab meat itself was delicious, but David insisted that I eat the shell and entire legs. I’ve had soft shell crab in the States, and this was definitely the hard shell kind. He kept insisting that it was good for me and that I needed to eat it to get the calcium. I tried, but just couldn’t do it. I think that next time I invite someone out for dinner, I will chose the restaurant.

"Boo-Boo"'s all male class of g*vernment officials invited us out for coffee this week. We walked to the university to meet them, and could tell right away that at least some of them were really drunk. It was an interesting evening to say the least. I was just glad that we were both there together. They kept telling us how much Vietnamese men like American women, and insisted that they would introduce us to some nice Vietnamese men for us to date. Thanks, but NO! I was really relieved when we made it back home that evening!

On Saturday, I am supposed to fly to Hanoi to visit Holly and her new baby. Please pr*y that if it is supposed to happen that I will be completely well by then. Also, please pr*y that I get my voice back so that I can continue teaching. Please continue to pr*y for our friends here as well.

I appreciate all of your thoughts and pr*yers. I know that they make a HUGE difference!! I hope that you have a blessed week! "

Love,
"Yogi"

New Post #5

This is Carolyn again, but I'm not writing. The rest will be from my very good friends:
here they are: ROOMMATE and Friend Jane Doe.

Though I've decided to rename them: Boo Boo and Yogi. So, again, now and hereafter, Roommate will now be referred to as Boo-B00, and Friend Jane Doe will be Yogi.

Here I am with Boo-Boo and Yogi in CITY, Vietnam-- the name of their city has been changed for the protection of the friends they have made and are continuing to make over there. Thank you for your pryers!

"Hello again!

It feels like awhile since I’ve written. We went to Ho Chi Minh City last weekend to visit and observe the classes of the two teachers who are teaching near there. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to the trip. It means that we essentially don’t get a weekend. It’s tough to fly out right after we finish teaching for the week and arrive only a few hours before our evening classes on Monday.

I shouldn’t have dreaded it. It went beautifully! I’m so amazed and thankful to see the girls flourishing there. They are on fire for G*d, and He sure is doing incredible things through them. This is when I absolutely love being Field Director. It makes me to happy to see the teachers flourishing and growing in their walks with Him.

Great news! Holly had her baby! His name is Joseph San Beaumont. She only went through eight minutes of intense labor. I’m sure all of you women who have children are feeling envious! He is absolutely adorable, and looks just like her. I’ll be flying to Hanoi to see her at the end of this month.

Because of the wet rainy season, and to be more economical, we started cooking most all of our meals ourselves instead of going out for Vietnamese food. The market, which is like a farmer’s market in the States, is just a 10 minute walk from our room. We’ve been buying vegetables there for our lunches each day. We buy tomatoes, potatoes, onions, green beans, eggplant, and okra and boil it all in our rice cooker with a little bit of beef bullion. It’s been really good, and probably much healthier than the other food we eat.

David took me to the market this morning and suggested that I buy some shrimp to put in the veggie mix. It sounded like a good idea. It even looked good when it was finished cooking. The problem was that it tasted bad. Susan tried to comfort me, and even ate some of it. In the end, though, we threw most of it in the garbage and happily settled for a lunch of chocolate.

While we were at the market choosing the food that went into our disastrous lunch, David told me that I was speaking Vietnamese with too much of the local accent and insisted that I speak “correctly”. I just smiled and nodded, but kept thinking that I would rather be understood than correct. I don’t plan to move anywhere else in Vietnam, so I think my local accent is okay. I’m just thrilled to be understood here at all!

David, his girlfriend, and I went out for fried bananas last night. They make them by taking black (overly ripe) bananas, mashing them into patties, dipping them into some kind of milky substance with shredded potato, and then deep frying them. They are really delicious!

We then went out for coffee and practiced my Vietnamese and their English. I thought by then that the evening was over, but they really wanted to go out for snails. I actually have grown accustomed to them, so I really don’t mind eating them. The are kind of slimy and crunchy, but do taste better than they sound like they would be. We went to a cheap restaurant which sets itself up every evening on the sidewalk outside the guest house. They just put little plastic chairs and tables up and cook on a small gas burner.

Well, at this particular place, the snails were super spicy. I was already having trouble getting them out of their shells, and had to ask for a toothpick, which caused a lot of laughter with my friends and also the cook. Then, the snails were so spicy, that my eyes and nose started running like a faucet. It really looked like I was crying. That, of course, caused even more laughter. I had to laugh at myself imagining how strange I must look to them. I’m glad that at least we all have fun together.

A few weeks ago, the head of the English department asked me to meet with her. She wanted me to start an English Club where students could come and practice their English. I really didn’t want to do it, and politely told her no. I am busy enough and didn’t think that I wanted to take on that big of a project. Since then, the L*rd kept putting it on my heart. I lifted it up, and knew that it was the right thing to do.

I met with her again, and thankfully, she had an even better idea than an English Club. She wants me to come once a week and help the Vietnamese teachers teach pronunciation and just talk with their students. She said that the teachers and students are excited to meet a foreigner. She said that no major planning is involved. I’ll just meet with a different professor every Monday for coffee and discuss what we want to do for the class. Then, I’ll come to one of their classes later in the week. This really sounds like something I will enjoy. It’s also something that I can get out of if my own class schedule increases or I feel too much stress. I’m hoping that it opens many doors!

My kids’ class continues to be a good challenge for me. I enjoy it, but it tries my patience for sure. This week, they were doing a music activity in their seats while I was turned around writing on the board for the next activity. When I turned back around, one of the boys had lots of blood running down his arm. I have no idea how this could have happened during a calm activity that they were doing in their seats, but it did.

Another night, during a game similar to Scrabble, they used the word “reproduction”. I think these things must only happen in classes full of 13 year old boys! Thanks for your continued pr*yers for us and our friends! It is so vital to our work here!

(I included a picture of how we cook in our bathroom and what our concoction looks like.)

I hope that you have a great day!

Love,

Yogi