Turtles, Pirate Ships, Modesty and Bro's!

We have arrived! After 9 months of work, we are finally moved into our house! We are so excited and thankful for what God has provided for us.

Home sweet Home

While my brother was visiting us in Shikarpur he turned 21! Happy Birthday bro!

Just for fun..

The month of July would not be the same without home made Ice Cream.  I found the Ice Cream maker in the market and, with the help of Aus, we made so much happiness!

We went to visit the Bhutto Mazaar.  It was fun to show Aus around the Sindh

The Uncle of the year made an awesome pirate ship for Hudson and his friends.

More Ice Cream!!!

NOTICE:  When wearing a Dupatta, do not stand next to a pedestal fan.  This scarf is a sign of modesty here, and in front of all of our guests (Austins Birthday party), it was ripped from her shoulders like a bandaid from a wound!  All of a sudden three men rush to block everyone's view of Steph with no scarf, while other women are scurrying around trying to find a spare scarf.  Myself, I am laughing so hard while trying to untangle what is left of her scarf from the fan.  Funniest Austin's Birthday ever.

Leonardo made is debut at Hudson's 5th Birthday party.  We were in Lahore, where some of Hudsons best buds live, on his birthday.  

We had an awesome TMNT themed party.  It was so fun to remember my own 5th birthday and its theme in 1990...it was also TMNT! Every fathers dream.

After the party, Uncle Aussie's magic touch put Gianna to sleep and she was so sound asleep that she didn't wake up through the entire rickshaw ride.

So many fun things happened this last month and a half.  But the best thing about the last month and a half has been the fact that we have had a good time of rest, routine, and meaningful fellowship.  

...now on to the fun stuff!

From may until now, we have been focusing on three things:  Good Sleep, Routine, and Meaningful Fellowship.  We went up to the mountains to decompress and get out of the heat for the month of June.  It was beautiful!  Almost like a Pakistani Washington State!

YES! Mountains and Trees!!!

Little miss THANG walking around in the grass, picking flowers, etc..

Family picture take 1....nope

The first Camel that Bo has ever ridden...and no one took a picture of Bo actually on the camel.  Go figure.

The newest addition to our family! Thor!

Having meaningful fellowship and Hudson singing "Aint no Rock!"

Bo was in heaven! He was able to go on a 2 day trek.  In the woods...in the mountains...Two of Bo's most favorite things..

And the goof also managed to get his mountain bike up to the mountains as well.  

Go on a "date"  Whats a "date"?  It was so relaxing and such a blessing that our friends were able to watch the kiddos so that we could spend some time together.  Not to mention there was a Fro Yo place in Murree!

Family Picture take 2...yeah still not getting it right.

Our time in the mountains was a time of true rest and a time to get our strength back after the stressful month of may.  We are so thankful to all of our fiends and family who prayed for us and supported us through this time or refreshening.  

"All That I Am For All That You Are"

The month of may was a tough month for the White family in Pak.  At the beginning of may I was listening to an new album by Rend Collective that had songs with titles like; "All That I Am"  and "Joy" and "My Lighthouse".  Each song spoke to what it means to be completely surrendered to Jesus and CHOOSING Joy.  God gave me those songs for the month of may.  Because if there was ever a month we needed to CHOOSE Joy, that was it.

Gianna had gotten sick.  She was very lethargic and unresponsive.  She was throwing up everywhere, but did not have a fever.  She was pounding at her head like something was bothering her.  After a couple of days of this, one evening she was laying in my arms and she began to seize.  Immediately we rushed her to the hospital building.  Thank God we were living on the Hospital Compound at the time.  As I got up to take her to the Hospital, she stopped breathing.  I don't remember exactly how long it was, but she wasn't breathing and she turned blue.  The Doctor and nurses (her Aunties) worked hard and were able to stabilize her.  Then they began to diagnose the problem.  They found that she had Meningitis. We were in the dark about which kind of Meningitis, but the Doctor chose to treat her for Bacterial Meningitis.  The treatment worked and after over a week in the hospital we were able to get her home and start the recuperating process.

There is so much that goes into this chapter in our lives.  But the main thing that hit us was the reality of our situation.  We live very very far away from quality medical care.  Thoughts like "why did you bring your children here?" and "You are about to lose your daughter, was it worth it?" were going through our minds.  There were a lot of mixed feelings.

But God spoke to our hearts...

Our call to this service overseas was actually confirmed, not retracted.  Those songs and scriptures that I had been thinking about came to mind in those times.  "Its only in surrender that I'm free..."  "We choose Joy..."  "Oh God you are my God, and I will ever praise you.."

We are here.  We live in Shikarpur and stand firm in our call and in what we are here to do.  We know others before us have gone through much worse, but the whole situation hit us hard.  It shook us.  But there is power in prayer and God is sovereign.

She spent most of her time in the hospital in this position.  She grew very weak and had a little trouble walking after we went home.  Eventually she her strength came back to her.

Hudson = best big brother ever.  Never wanting to be out of the loop or separated from his sister, he would "read" her stories, hold her hand while she was getting a shot, and try to sing her to sleep.  When told to stay out of the hospital (in the beginning of it all), he snuck in like a ninja (literally) twice.

Aunty Joanna (the head nurse) helped Gianna escape for a real meal toward the end of her hospital stay.  She was getting very restless

Hudson was very good about staying clean around the baby.  He would often scrub up like a Doctor before entering her room.

Thanks to the power of God, our baby girl is happy and healthy.  She has slight hearing loss (nothing significant.  She still responds to everything we say), but we will continue to get that tested and trust God.

A blog-tastic voyage: a photo-journey through the last 6 months....

Since our last update, we have moved and began our work in our new country. 

It has been a really busy past 6 months and a lot has happened, but we are going to attempt a quick recap of what has been going on with us since our relocation.

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Happy Family on the ride over. 

The start of a new chapter in our Overseas Adventure.

When we arrived,  things looked and felt a lot different.  We are in a more rural setting and so life took a little getting used to. 

Typical Fruit and Veggie "WallA" (one who sells veggies)

Business here is done in an open-market type setting. The best way to describe it is to think of the movie Aladdin---- when Princess Jasmine goes out into the marketplace on her own and all the vender's are trying to get her to by their goods----that is what it is like for us every time we go to buy our daily provisions.

There are also a lot less cars on the roads here- also most of the roads in our area are unpaved. So Donkey-carts and Camel-carts are a common means of transporting goods and people.  Usually, the biggest traffic jam you see is caused by water buffalo.

Where we live closely resembles Tatooine from Star Wars, but we have some trees and farms...but no droids.  It is a dry heat, but it is definitely HOT! and getting hotter.  

Shortly after our arrival, we encountered the Holiday Season. It was a busy first couple of months celebrating Thanksgiving and the great many things we had to be thankful for (like finally being IN COUNTRY!! YAY).   

Than shortly after we celebrated the Birth of our Savior during Christmas. 

Christmas looked a lot different for us as well. We had a little "Charley Brown" looking tree & the season was more focused on the true meaning of Christmas. We didn't experience any of the usual commercialism here, because Christmas is a holiday that is celebrated only by a few minority people groups. There weren't any big "holiday blow-out sales" & all the stores and government offices were all opened and conducting business as usually on Christmas day. 

Also, there was no snow to be found. So we improvised and threw tiny, white, confetti all around to resemble snow. Hudson really enjoyed it!  He made snow "tri-angles"...

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Upon our arrival, we encountered a housing problem. The place we are currently staying isn't available for long-term use, so we had to search for other long-term housing options.  However, due to our rural environment, the 'pickings are slim'. Our best option was to undertake a renovation project of a 100+ year old building and bring it up "to code".   It used to be an old Hindu wedding hall, as far as we know.

Bo and others from the Hospital are overseeing this project most days because, due to our rural location,  a foreman for the project could was very difficult to obtaine.  

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Baby G's  celebrated her First Birthday not to long ago!

Hard to believe our little Girl is already ONE!!! She had a great little party with friends and neighbors as well some very special visitors from out of town.

Opening presents. Her favorite thing about the gifts, was the wrapping paper that they came in. 

Grandma and Papa came out to visit during Birthday month!

We really cherished our time with the family. We especially enjoyed introducing them to our new home---they definitely got some great insight into how life operates out here :)  (when your son lets you get Malaria on your first trip to Pakistan, you tend to get a better feel for life in the country...)

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We celebrated Easter not long ago and started the day with a traditional Easter Egg Hunt.

The kiddo's loved searching for eggs and right afterwards we attended our local churches' Sunday Easter Service. 

There you have it.  Our last 5/6 months in total recap.  It has felt like a rush, but it is only the beginning.  We are so excited to live here and get to work!  

Requests

We are so thankful for all the experiences we have had and friendships we have already made in our new location. 

We ask that you would continue to Lift Us Up as we continue "Doing Life" in a culture that is not our own & that we would continue to have opportunities to Share with our friends and neighbors.

Big Move!

So this week has been crazy busy with packing and getting all of our affairs in order before we head out this weekend for our final BIG MOVE! We are super excited to be doing this move because we will finally be where we have been longing to be! Its hard to believe that we have been on this journey for the last several years and yet, everything has literally just all come together in a matter of weeks. It just goes to show us (once again) that it is All on His timing and Not our own.

Please be Lifting Us Up as we will be spending the next few weeks traveling and transitioning. 

Ask that everyone would remain healthy and in good spirits as we go through this transition :)

Pumpkin Party

We had our second annual Pumpkin Party the other night for the "little guys" :) We played some party games, including pin-the-face-on-the-pumpkin, hunt for candy & Bobbing for Apples :) To actually carve a pumpkin proved to be a challenge, so we got creative and did Sticker-face-the-pumpkin instead ;) The kids still had fun and it was WAY LESS messy ;)

 The kido's costumes: Seashawks football player & cheerleader :) Baby G stole a candy (her first one ;) but don't worry, it was still wrapped, she couldn't figure out how to get it opened.

the apple bucket

even the Daddy's took a turn to play

pumpkin sticker craft