Rainy season for our yard means lots of water flowing from downpours, draining from the street, and draining from off the roofs into our yard. The water flows from the front yard into the backyard. Depending on the strength and length of the downpour, our yard is a mess. Of course, this provides lots of opportunities for mud fights and mud play! I’m thankful we have rain barrels for the kids to rinse off from.

Last week some neighbor kids and Isaiah worked on a huge mud hole. Everyone enjoyed the project! Only half the mud ended up in our bathroom.

The Khmer kids continue to come up to our house everyday from 3-5. A few weeks ago the three brothers on the left started coming. Their family is up on Oyadao working in other people’s farms. I found out this week, after they hadn’t come around for two weeks, that our neighbors suspect the oldest boy of stealing money from several people and doing & selling drugs. We don’t know if these rumors are true, but it is a good reminder that we interact with several different class groups around our home. An opportunity to show the love of Christ to people of every race and class.

These pictures are of a 30 piece puzzle we did. The kids have been interested in puzzles lately and I pulled out this one (I’ve had to teach them how to do puzzles and they still don’t completely get it). After doing the boarder and a few other pieces of this terribly hard Where’s Waldo puzzle, the two boys gave up. I worked on it for several days until earlier this week when I finished enough for the boys to finish it up without frustration.

Please pray for me as I seek to manage both our own kids and the Khmer kids during the late afternoons. Though everyone gets along, the two groups only play together about 25% of the time. The other 75% I’m managing both groups. Many times our older kids are playing outside while I supervising the Khmer kids playing upstairs on our porch, and our younger girls are experiencing after-naptime blues. I need a lot of grace, energy, and patience. God is good!