John and Sarah at a restaurant in Addis before flying out.

Last week, Paul’s brother, John and his wife, Sarah, came for a visit.  It was so much fun to see them and it was like being at home with them.  We spent all day Sunday making brunch, delicous crepes and fillings, playing Wii Tiger Woods golf, and BBQ’d pork for dinner.  John loves to cook, so we had fun discovering how to make fancy things out of the ingredients we have.  He taught me how to make beef into a breakfast sausage (yummy!) and how to make crepes.  Sarah and I laid around in the afternoon and thought this would really be like home, if we had a golf game on in the background…so the boys continued to play Tiger Woods.

They loved seeing where we live.  John spent a few days with Paul in the Operating Room, which he loved.  The first case John went in on was CRAZY!  It was a 3 year old boy with a coffee bean stuck in his throat for over a month!  By the time Paul stuck a scope down there and grabbed the bean the boy stopped breathing and had to be urgently trached, and then went into cardiac arrest.  The boy did fine after a few days, praise to GOD! Also, we have a urologist here who Paul has been learning from and one case was this urthreal stricture repair, including a bucccal mucosal graft (scraping tissue from the inside of the mouth and grafting it into the ureter).  So John watched in on this case too.  The next day Sarah and I were going to visit the local orphanage and asked John if he was going to go to the OR again and he said, “Nah, they are doing that same case I saw yesterday.”  Been there. Done that.  We laughed.

Sarah and I took some trips into town in which her favorite sight was the silly donkey’s with huge barrells of hay on them (see below).  We also found a deal on a shirt I bought, and bought a traditional coffee pot from my favorite pottery vender, Mekdes.  They were also there when I tried to pick up the pillows that were being covered for our re-painted patio.  The guy totally messed them up and they saw me say in Amharic, “I am a little bit mad.  Will you do good work and I can come back tomorrow?”  Alem, the head of the tailor shop I always go to, said…”Yes, we will do good work, come back tomorrow.”  So, we went back the next day and he was right, the pillows were perfect.  Alem said, “Yesterday you were a little mad.  Will you still bring us the next thing you need sewed.” Me, “Yes, of course you know I will bring it to you!”

We had so much fun with John and Sarah and it was a huge encouragement to have them come and just love on us and the kids.  Come back again soon.

This was Sarah's favorite Soddo site! The funny donkeys carrying a huge load of hay. Every time Nathan sees one he says, "Mommy, that's funny."

The newly redecorated patio and above mentioned pillows. And 2 little munchkins jumping into the scene as always.

The shoe rack that has been a work in progress for over 2 months. Not to mention I had 6 different people help me from start to finish. Angie and I designed it, she used the power tools to cut the right length. I painted the pieces. John, our surgeon friend and apparent carpenter, cut the notches out. John and Sarah, tied them together with twine and Paul put the nails in and hung it on the wall! So now I think of all of them with love when we hang up our shoes!

a painting from Kenya to finish off our Design star challenge

Us at the local roof top restaurant. The sign in the back says, "Juice only 5 birr" or 35 cents. The mango juice is so good right now.