Video of Ashlyn

Here's a short video of Ashlyn saying "hi" and "ut-oh".

The World Race

Today we went to Granada to meet with a missionary couple who are working with the mission organization Adventures in Missions. They are going to be moving here to help run “The World Race”.
The World Race is an eleven month mission trip for people in their twenties to early thirties. They divide into eight different teams and travel around the world ministering to the poor.

The great news is they are going to be using Campo Alegría as a debriefing base! Potentially we will be hosting them four or five times a year for week long debriefs. They have already come once before and think the camp is a great place for them. We are very excited to be involved in such a wonderful ministry!
I love mission organizations that take young people overseas for extended periods of time. I know they are changing lives doing ministry, but also everyone who is on the trip will never be the same.

Another neat thing is the missionary couple moving here are relatives of some friends of ours who went to Bethany College with us. It really is a small world!

If you're interested in learning more about The World Race, here's a link with more info. http://www.theworldrace.org/

Creepy Critters

One night I was walking out to our truck and noticed that little bits of leaves were marching past my feet. These ants faithfully come out every night making a line across our driveway. They haul away the leaves and flowers that have fallen from one of our bushes.

This guy is just weird looking (I’m assuming it’s a guy…could be a lady). He or she was found crawling around on our back porch. It seemed to be eating something off the tile, but the only thing that I saw was dirt and dust. If they eat dirt, I’d like a few more of them around. Ashlyn was thrilled by this creature and learned a new word. “Bug!”

My little Ashlyn

Lots of you have asked for some pictures and update of Ashlyn, so here it is!

These past two months have been especially fun watching her grow and learn.
She has started crawling, a stage I was really looking forward to. It is so fun watching her crawl around after her toys, the dogs and I. I just love having her crawl after me when I go into the kitchen. I hear her chubby little hands smacking the tile floor, and then chairs start to move under the table (she just loves playing with chairs, and usually gets rather distracted from her goal of finding me at this point). Finally I see my little cutie appear around the corner with a big smile on her face.

Ashlyn is now talking a little bit. Her first word was “hi” and now she has added “bye” and “uh-ohh” to her vocabulary. She is working on perfecting "da-da,” "ma-ma" and “book”. Everything else she calls "abee" for some reason.
We are starting to teach her "Baby Signs". So far she knows how to sign Dog and ask how to ask for More.
She is also waving to people now. Adam and I never taught her to wave, she picked it up all on her own. I was at the checkout line of the grocery store and she was sitting in the cart. I was busy paying, when I noticed that some Nicaraguan women where waving at Ashlyn and she was happily waving back. For about a week after that when we went out she would wave and said "hi" to everyone.

One thing she has learned is what the word "no" means. It has been fascinating to watch the internal struggle she has. To obey or not to obey? She only has three main rules so far; no playing with shoes, the dog dishes, and no flipping her plate of food upside down. She usually is really good at obeying, but the one rule she has the hardest time with is not touching our shoes. For some reason she has just got to touch mommy’s sandals.

My favorite time with her is in the morning. She never cries in the morning to get up, she just waits for me to come get her. When I come in she sits up as fast as she can, gives me the biggest smile and says "hi!” Her smile is what captures me; it is of pure love, like she hasn’t seen me in days.
Then its breakfast time, her usual is banana and egg. She is crazy about bananas, every morning it’s squeals of delight as I cut up the banana.
After breakfast we read books together on the couch, she loves reading books. She turns the pages as I read a long. She’s a really fast page turner though, so I have to speed read through.

Ashlyn adjusted to life in Nicaragua faster than we did. She loves going into town and seeing all the people, especially the horse and buggies go by.
People come up to me all the time because of Ashlyn. They love holding her and interacting with her. It is fun to see her engage them with smiles and waves.

If you would like to see more pictures of Ashlyn, you can visit our photo ablum of her at this link: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/thetoddz/Ashlyn

Chicken Run

There is a certain event that takes place in my backyard on a weekly basis. I look forward to this event very much and always hurry to get my shoes on and grab Ashlyn so we can go watch. I think only the dogs trump my enjoyment of this fiasco.
It starts off with some clucking and bucking that sounds a little closer than usual. Then the dog’s ears go up and they are off like rockets. As I scramble to get ready, I here the clucking turn into squawking and flapping; the “event” is in full swing.

Once again one of the neighbor’s chickens has flown over our wall and is now being tormented by our dogs. It never takes long for our neighbors hear the squawking and appear above the wall. I then proceeded to capture the chicken and hand it back over the wall.
A few times the neighbors have not appeared; at that point I don’t quite know what to do with the chicken. I have considered just letting our dogs have a free lunch, but I would feel bad for the neighbors. I also though of trying to throw the chicken back over the wall. But the wall is about nine feet high and has barbed wire circling the top. I know I would end up throwing the chicken straight into the wire. So I finally decided to place the chickens on our water tank until the neighbors come.

Since this happens on such a frequent basis I can’t help but think of the movie “Chicken Run”; where the chickens are trying to escape from the farm yard to start a better life for themselves? I’m pretty sure these chickens are trying to escape from our neighbor’s yard.
And I understand why, they see their buddies get behead, plucked and thrown in a pot. They know what’s coming and they want out. Flying over the wall is their only chance.

This morning a chicken was perched on the barbed wire above the wall peering down into our yard. I’m sure she was trying to come up with a plan of how to get across the yard and over our outside wall to freedom. So far only one chicken succeeded in this, she ran across our yard, flew up on our truck, then onto our other neighbor’s roof where freedom awaited her on the street below. Perhaps this has given the others hope.

I’m not sure how long this will go on, but one thing is for sure, eventually we are going to come home to a yard full of chicken feathers and two very happy dogs.
P.S. A special thanks to my Grandma and Grandpa Moore for letting me chase their chickens when I was a kid. Knowing how to catch one has been very useful!

Church

Today we went to church in a city called Granada, which is about an hour from our home. The road we take is full and I mean full of pot holes. It's so riddled with potholes the local kids fill them in with dirt and then stand at the side of the road with their shovels and beg for money. Rumor has it these kids have been known to create their own "toll booth". By holding a rope across the road to stop your car and ask for money. What entrepreneurs!
I personally love this road, it is an action packed ride of consent swerving, braking and bouncing. I enjoy watching Adam maneuver around cars, animals, people and potholes all at once.
Adam on the other hand is not a big fan of the road; his face has a constant look of pain as we bounce along. I'm sure he's imagining what kind of damage the holes are doing to our poor truck.
Ok, enough about the road I got a little side tracked there...back to the church.
The "church" we went to was a gathering of about 10 people, mostly Americans. It was held in someone’s home and was the first meeting they’ve had. It was started by a missionary couple here who wanted to be able to worship in English and have fellowship with other missionaries. So, they started their own church and will be meeting the first week of every month.

It was fun, refreshing and encouraging to go. I loved their vision for missionaries to be able to connect, support each other and worship in our own language.
Yet, at the same time they are only meeting once a month so we all have an opportunity to get involved with a local church too. I think it is a great balance and I’m excited to be a part of it.
Next month we are meeting again and afterwards we are going out for breakfast and then on a boat ride!