Happy Birthday Sisi!!

Sisi celebrated her first birthday at New Day today as she turned 8 years old! She is incredibly shy but has been looking forward to her party all month long! Lots of water, even though it was cold and her party was late in the day!

This was the biggest smile we could get out of her!

She loved her new Bible!

The kids are getting the hang of these "American" birthday celebrations! :)

Oklahoma Team Pics

P.E. time is SO fun, especially when Staci & Madison are the teachers! :)

Cambree adores Mackenzie :)

Since Mackenzie is going to major in preveterinary medicine, we put her to work in our chicken coop ;)

Mackenzie & Christina

We also put her to work in the bean field! :)

Axer loves Madison!!

So does Cason :) He says he will pay 100 cows to marry her!

Staci & Muchoni

The ENTIRE New Day family!

Purcell, Oklahoma Team

Madison & Mackenzie taught the kids a mini VBS during the holiday last week!

The team also led in some team building activities for our New Day staff - here is the New Day Train!

Madison with Axer

Mackenzie with Christina

This team of 4 (Lance, Staci, Madison, & Mackenzie) are doing survey work in a new area. They have visited a lot of villages and are seeing a great response to the Gospel! They are laying the foundation for what we hope will one day be a church in this area. They are also helping out around New Day with the above mentioned activities, along with helping us out in the school!

Goodbye Lubbock Team!

Annie and our newest girl, Christina

The New Day girls

The New Day boys

Jennie's Play Station - the playground built by the Lubbock team in 5 days! It is built in honor of John's 90 year old mother, Jennie Valentine!

The Lubbock team with the New Day kids on the bridge!

The team is now in Livingstone, and we have the Purcell, Oklahoma team now at New Day, so I'll post pictures of them in the coming days! Volunteer season is a blast!

Working Hard!

Debbie had some little helpers today!

Little Laurie was glad to see Chris again! (his 3rd trip to New Day!)

Beth has also helped out a lot during tutorials!

The playground bridge is up!

Bible story time to the Stars and Sunshine Classes

John getting some reading time in!

The Stars class working on their letters in the sand

Arkansas and Lubbock Teams!

We were so blessed to have the McDaniel family - pastor at Grace Point Church in Arkansas and former missionaries to Zambia come and visit New Day for a day! They were doing a massive camping/road trip through Southern Zambia but wanted to see the orphanage. So great to see them!

Yes - you do know this face! Johnny Boy is back at New Day with his team from Lubbock! This makes his 4th trip to New Day in 2 years! His team is building a playground/fort for our kids. John has been working hard with Brandon planing boards.

Brandon and Mulenga getting boards ready for the fort

Brandon's wife Annie got to make the trip this year! She's been a big help in tutorials - here she is playing Uno with our Rainbow class!

60 things I love about my Dad :)

1.Rubbing his head after he gets a crew cut 2.His freshly shaven cheeks

3.The alliteration he uses in his sermons 4.His sermons are less than 20 minutes

5.His calves 6.How he cries at movies, birthday cards, etc. :) 7.How he loved his mama 8.How he loves my mama 9.How he kept a little index card with all of my basketball stats at every game 10.How he came to EVERY game 11.His dog/lawn mower joke 12.His chuckle laugh 13.How he talks incessantly while playing 42 14.How he always knows the right thing to say in difficult situations, like deaths

15.His bright orange sweater 16.His bright orange sweater with his bright blue shorts 17.His bright orange sweater with his bright blue shorts and his black dress socks 18.Our shared love of Survivor 19.How he has read the Bible completely through for the last 20+ years 20.How he taught me to stand up for what is right 21.How he taught me G-O-M (God - Others - Me) 22.How fast he can watch a football game with his DVR 23.How he always has chapstick and breathmints in his pocket 24.How he smells after he shaves 25.How he has an amazing green thumb and can grow anything 26.How he falls asleep with his mouth wide open 27.How he jumps out of his chair when I scare him when he's asleep 28.How he’s ticklish and pretends it makes him mad when I tickle him 29.His half-court hook shot 30.How he hides chocolate and thinks I can’t find it 31.How he packages up all of the leftovers into TINY servings after every meal 32.How he picks his clothes out every night 33.How he gets irritated when mama makes a comment about the clothes he picks out 34.How he says it’s 7 when it’s 6:05

35.How he honks the horn to scare mama when she gets near the car 36.How he took us on family vacations 37.How he loves my husband 38.How he loves my children 39.How he’s good with troubled teenagers 40.How he loved me even when I was a troubled teenager :) 41.How he cut up toast into tiny pieces for me every time I was sick 42.How HE writes random THINGS in his emails in ALL CAPS 43.How he can tell you what happened 17 years ago today in your life 44.How my son Caedmon looks just like him 45.How he drives 10 miles under the speed limit (and denies it) 46.How he can get Jesus into a conversation with someone within 5 minutes 47.How he loves to volunteer at CTLC food/clothes pantry 48.How he brags on me to everyone he knows 49.How he saved up enough to buy me and my sister bicycles from a pawn shop when we were dirt poor in seminary 50.How we never knew we were dirt poor in seminary 51.How he sat on the edge of the bathtub with me in the middle of the night when I was five and my stomach hurt 52.How he always killed spiders for me 53.How he loves getting older 54.How he makes awesome cinnamon bread and pancakes 55.How he’s one of the few men who can pull off a sweater vest 56.How he baptized me and was the preacher at my wedding 57.How he always had $1 in his pocket for me (and still does) 58.How he's the best ever grocery shopper (way better than Mom!)

59.How he sings loud and usually has the right note 60. How he loves me I could have come up with 60 more. I love you Daddy - Happy 60th Birthday!! :)

Church :)

Carolyn is 50!!

Ms. Carolyn is 50 today! We had a small party for her & Wes last night. Carolyn didn't know that her home church, Ocker Brethren in Temple, had sent her FIVE boxes of goodies for her birthday, and they miraculously arrived in time! At the party, we pretended the first box was for Wes - then when he read her name, she was so confused! She proceeded to open the remaining boxes with such joy!

This was her face when she saw the big poster all the kids in the church had signed :)

The Texas table center piece thingy (sorry mom - I forget what it's called!) my mom made her!

We told her that she probably never in her wildest dreams thought she would be so excited to receive grape jelly on her 50th birthday!

Or Crisco... ;)

Team Pics!

Me and my honey :)

This is what we do when teams are here...and when they're not here.. :)

The guys did everything on our project list! Here are shelves for the kitchen pantry.

Jodi with some cute New Day kids :)

Jodi handing out gifts to the kids. Here she is with Phillip. We let her, Reed, and Trevor give Mukuwa an English name, and they chose Phillip!

Kelitah has glasses!! Thank you Dr. Epp from Sayre, Oklahoma!

Margaret teaching the kids how to shuck maize

Reed and Blu with the kitchen accordion shutters they built

Jodi's mom made cute skirts that our staffers loved!

Reed needs a bigger lap!

Wheelbarrow!

Love that New Day sunset!!

Trevor and Kalenga doing some musician bonding!

Trevor and Mulenga built a ceiling for our school bathrooms in hopes to keep the snakes out!

Tire swings are fun for big people too!

Love this boy :)

Cambree & Axer :)

Christina working on a puzzle during Tutorials time at school

Pretty Cynthia

He's almost too big for this!

Debbie and her agriculture helper, Noah, planting strawberry plants!

Elizabeth

Shy Francis :)