3 cups of tea

Not the book...
but it is 11:20 am here currently, and I'm on my 3rd cup of tea. I've always wanted to be a tea drinker, and now I am. Chai is what gets us through the days haha. We don't always have good drinking water, so we boil water and drink it in tea to keep us hydrated. pretty fancy.
Things are going well here in Goma. Yesterday was National Women's Day in Congo!!! Wahooo. A whole day dedicated to the ladies. Pretty shocking coming from the rape capital of the world. But we celebrated by attending our Ndosho schools first ever assembly! It was a lot of fun. We watched traditional dances, as well as some not so traditional dances; there were skits, dramas, poems, singing, games, and a fashion show. Over all, very successful. And all the children were dressed up in their nicest outfits. One little boy had a 3 piece suit on; all of us were commenting on how wonderful he looked... until he bent over, and a HUGE rip revealed a little too much backside. haha. That kind of describes how a lot of the children looked. None the less, they all were beautiful.
Today is the first day we're not going to Ndosho to teach the children and teachers; with Bethel coming this week (hooray) we have a lot of preparations to take care of. However, today will be Kyle and I's first trip to the military barracks. So that's very exciting, and we'll let everyone know how that goes.
Sunday we went to Pastor Euclede's church. He is one of the pastor's our team works with a lot, he is a wonderful man; so welcoming and encouraging, and great at english. wahooo. The church was AMAZING. So different from the church we went to last week, and much more traditionally African. The dance and worship was incredible! We were all working up a sweat dancing to the drums and singing. Kyle and I introduced ourselves to the church, and Kyle was Pastor Kyle for the day and gave the sermon! He spoke wonderfully and really encouraged the people. It was great.
Funny story: After church we were all starving, (church was over 3 hours long) so we went to our favorite restaurant for lunch. (All the restaurants in Goma serve the exact same thing... beans and rice, beans and potatoes, beans and bananas, beans and chipati. Those are your choices.) So we sit down and order what we want, and after much confusion with the language he brings out not what we ordered. And not at all what the food normally looks like. Again, it always looks exactly the same no matter where you order it from. But we didn't bother trying to explain the wrong order so we ate the food. Tried to at least... it was BAD. We joked that it looked like somebody ate the real food, spit it back out, and then let it sit for a day. hahaha (nice I know). So we poked at our food for a bit, swallowed as much as we could, and then decided we were going to have to eat again back home. We got up to leave, and our server said, "Sorry, I could tell you weren't satisfied with the food. It's only because it is Sunday. The cooks didn't want to work today, and I didn't want to turn you away, so I gave you yesterday's food." hahah. so we DID eat yesterday's food. (mind you, there are no fridges) haha. I thought it was hilarious. Only in Goma.
We have quickly learned here... don't think about it too much, just eat it. haha.

So... overall life is good. We have to start out each day in prayer and worship because ... it's hard. haha. We have to constantly see the good in things and in people, and we enjoy the little things. For example, we recently bought a family size bottle of Nutella. Which drastically increased the quality of our breakfasts. haha. Plus, it's about hope. Whenever we leave Ndosho after a lesson, we feel good. Whether it's because of an answer a student gave showing that he understood what we were sharing with them, or if we see a teacher use one of the tactics we taught them, we know we are making a difference. It's small things, but they matter.

Thank you for your prayers and your encouragement! Kyle and I sure do need and appreciate them!
Prayer requests:
health for me... my allergies have gone haywire. haha. I have never had so much snot flow from my nose before. (Too Much Info i'm sure)
Complete peace and trust with protection.