Rain.

Today has been one of the best days in the last month. We went to church this morning. Church in many places in Africa is a long affair. And, true to form today's service was over two hours long and all but 15 minutes of it was in Shona, the local language. We can say "good morning, good afternoon, and good evening" in Shona, but that's about it. The whole thing reminded me a little of the all German Christmas services we had when we were kids. At least I knew the tunes to those songs.

We came home from church and cleaned up the house, which was great. I love cleaning up and finding out where the heck all the stuff I lost went. Meanwhile, the sun was shining outside. So, we did something we'd been wanting to do for awhile. We filled two big wash tubs from the laundry room up with water and the kids went "swimming" in the guest house courtyard (as you can see above). The two are great friends and I can't imagine Abbi not having Beau around. Basking in the sun, the kids playing in the "pool" with a cool breeze blowing felt like we were on vacation. I could just close my eyes and pretend that we were on a vacation on a beach in Florida somewhere- that we had just grown tired of playing in the salty surf and were hanging around a hotel pool.

With perfect timing, after the kids were done swimming the sky turned gray and torrential downpour ensued. It has been a day full of joy and thanksgiving. The power and water have been on for a full 24 hours...seems like a record!