Mark and Jessica Spangler

Someone emailed us this picture of him flying today. This flight was very awkward and took a lot of prep work from the guys. I thought I’d share it with you! He is super happy to be flying in this beautiful country. I’m sure we will be posting many pictures and such of the landscape here.

Why are my girls feet blue after a shower? Well, we figured out they stepped out onto a blue mat. Hmmm, rethinking our arrangement.

I had to take a picture of the pile of clean produce from the market. It was just so beautiful! It won’t last long around here.

I am always amazed by the new things I learn about in this country. I was talking to a new friend yesterday about a problem he is having in advertising. Hahaha, the word advertising or advertisement never came up but in my mind the word etsy did. Let me explain. We live in a town that happens to have electricity and running water if you can afford it. So, often people have TV’s turned on in their small clay brick homes. Interestingly enough the floors are unfinished and the living conditions are much less than desirable but there is a tv going! I am truly all over the place with so many thoughts running through my still processing brain. Ok, back to the new friend. This man makes carvings. Wooden carvings of all different size and magnitude. He is really talented! He brought us to his home to show us his carvings and hobby, as he calls it. Now, in the bigger cities you might pay twice as much or more for these carvings rather than just buying them from the carver himself. You know the deal, transport, middle man, inventory. It all costs money. So, he was explaining how he wished people knew they could buy from him instead of going to big towns. So, immediately I thought, the Internet, etsy, eBay! Then, before I opened my mouth I remembered where I was standing. The mud, the unfinished houses, the outhouses, the curtain doors, the dirty clothes ect. But, then I remembered the strange existence of technology here. The electricity is so bad and inconsistent but yet nearly everyone has a cell phone. Hmmm. The roads are so bad that sometimes people can’t make it to a hospital to save their lives but Mark and Eric can fly them in a helicopter. Hmmm, there aren’t a lot of CDs but yet there are mp3s. Technology is so helpful here despite being so far behind the curve on things such as clean public water and the availability of electricity for all. So, this brings me to one way information is shared here. People often share mp3s and other files on their phones. It is amazing really! On this small card we have put the bible in pidgin and also the Jesus film. We can give it or loan it to someone and they can pass it around from family to family and watch and listen to it. It blows my mind really! Well, this was a lot of talk to explain this picture. I still don’t know how to help my friend with his advertising problem except to say, I know a great wood carver and he can make amazing things at a great price if you are interested :).

It gets us where we need to go! It often doesn’t look this clean. We have two car seats and a booster in the back and a kid sits in the middle in front. I, Jess don’t enjoy the bumpy, slippery, crazy roads but no one else seems to mind except our bums and backs from all the bouncing 🙂

There are small things that make such a big difference in our lives. We usually sit in the dark in the evenings because there isn’t enough power to turn on our overhead lights or because there is no power at all. But!!!! Today Mark and our friend Eric upgraded some key lights to be more efficient. As we sit here and the power goes on and off it is okay because our lights come back on with the power! Yay! Our lives have changed and our evenings will be a bit brighter. Here is the difference from one night to tonight.

This is Mark reading to the light of candles and a solar lamp.

Here is Mark reading tonight!

Tonight we are happy to have good lights!

Location:Kumbo

This morning we went on a little hike from our house with some friends and our new dog Shadow.

Location:Kumbo

The man we were staying with was very generous and he seemed to get behind progress. He had donated a big piece of land for a local grade school and another piece for a health center that was used to unite and bring peace to two people groups who had a history of war and unsettlement between them. Here are some pictures of the school.

The building on the left is new and finished. There are two classrooms in it. The one on the right is not yet finished. There is a soccer field with some make shift goals and a big pit where they dug up the clay to build the new structures. There was another structure that was made out of sticks where the younger grades meet for now.

The chalk board was just a piece of wood.

This is Mark with our host. He was 89 years old and strong enough to carry Caleb on his shoulder as he walked around on this mountain he lived on.

This is a world map that was painted by a short term missions trip over a year ago. It was the only colorful thing at the entire school.

This girl was and new friend was a daughter of the old man and she spoke a little bit of English. The children are taught in English but it is wrote and they don’t always know what they are learning, it is just all memorized but often means nothing to them. But, it isn’t all a loss. The world that they live in is so different than any world I have ever seen. When a girl here may be destined to not read or write in any language it is great to see a father send his daughters to school and even donate land to have one.

We really enjoyed our time in this village. It was a true challenge for our American world views and standards. Hygiene, housing, and family relationships was a small sampling of the major differences between how the people in this village lived in comparison to Americans or westerners in general.

Here is the truck that dropped us off at our compound. The driver and her friend helped us get settled before leaving. We could not communicate with our hosts so I was thankful for the brief introduction from our new friends.

We brought a ball and the kids in the compound and our boys played most of the day even in the rain and mud. I don’t think our kids have ever gotten so dirty. And there is no running water or bathtub!

Much of our days was spent looking at each other as there isn’t much to do when it is raining.

Ok, that is a phonetic spelling of the village we stayed at for five nights. I have no idea how to actually spell it. This is our van all loaded up with people and stuff.

A friend decided to drive his truck it and say hi to the nice people of this village and so a few of us rode with him. This is a picture from his truck to the van.

Some of us rode on top. Don’t tell the grandparents. I was freaking out like a mother hen. After about ten minutes someone yelled to the driver, “stop looking for all the bumps!”. Now this is our favorite thing to say when we are all sick and tired of driving on a long bumpy road. It gives us a good laugh and breaks the tension a bit.

This was a narrow and super muddy bridge. I was worried that the van would slide off into the water under the bridge. Even though the van was slipping and sliding before and after the bridge it made it across without slipping off.