Fox Family of Four

Welp, I am pregnant! We are so excited to announce that we are going to have another baby! Baby Fox #2 will come sometime early April, a few weeks before Obadiah turns two. Obie likes to look at the pictures of baby and give him or her kisses, without being prompted, it is adorable. We are so excited to see Obie love this little baby and see our family grow to four!

Obie is not sure if he is ready for his world to change... He is going to have to get better at sharing and being gentle and not wanting mommy and daddy's full attention all the time. We are glad he has some time for this to settle in. 

I can't help but think of you who may be reading this who are waiting for the Lord to allow you to have a child or something else that you have been waiting for. I can't help but think of you and pray for you that the Lord would grant you the desires that you have and that in the waiting time He reveals more of who He is and reminds you that He is near you. 

Puddle Jumping

This last week the rainy season has returned with a vengeance. Most days we will get an afternoon rain that will cool things down for a bit but we have had a few days where it was a real downpour and I had get out a sweater! 

A few days ago we headed outside to play for a bit after the rain stopped. Knowing full well that there were puddles in our driveway, we knew Obie would be tempted to jump and run through them. What I did not anticipate was that innocent puddle jumping would turn into this cute mess:

Of course we were not alone in getting messy, Obie was joined with his favorite partner in crime, Zion. 

I was a bit late in getting out the camera so I wasn't able to capture to progression that took place. First the boys were just running and jumping in the puddles, which led to slipping and falling and eventually splashing until the parents decided enough was finally enough! 

Sunday Afternoon

A few weeks ago we had the Lamas over for lunch after church. If you have been following our blog I am sure you have seen/read about Emanuel, Dorcus and their kids before.  I had to bust out the camera to capture the cuteness of the kids. 

Obadiah really enjoys wearing our shoes around the house. Because shoes are always left at the door, this is a regular activity for him. 

Ariella is so stinking adorable, although she is quite afraid of Uncle Kyle. She was born in January and already shows so much personality. 

We tried to get all three kids to sit nicely together but I think this is the best one we got before Obie decided to run away. Jezreel and Ariella were very well behaved and enjoyed the picture taking.

Sorry I failed to get a picture of Dorcus and me, but these two men are both great dads and great friends. We are so blessed to have friends like the Lamas in our lives, over the last two and a half years they have become family. We spent the afternoon laughing, eating and talking about our lives and ministry at UCF.  We love them.

Bonus: We recently took a trip to the zoo with the Allens. I forgot my camera but Erin captured some cute pictures, check out their blog to see them. 

Soup

If you take your Somali neighbors some chocolate to celebrate Eid (the end of Ramadan), they might bring you some green pepper with goat soup and crepes. 

The other day we finally got a much needed rain. I was so excited for a bit of coolness I decided to make chicken tortilla soup for dinner. While I was fixing dinner these two cuties sat and watched the rain together. The little one did not stay seated for long before wanting to more fully experience the water falling from the sky. 

Friends

We are so thankful that Obie always has his buddy Zion to play with. The other day we decided to bring out the shaving cream again so that Zion could join us in this fun time. There was so much cuteness we did not know what to do. Below the boys are doing one of their favorite activities, "the belly bump." This is a skill that was first encouraged by one of the parents but both know how to do it well and will now initiate on their own.  

Zion is such a nice friend that Obie gets to play with basically every day. Erin and I are trying to figure out how to get them to share, or just learn that we need to have two of the same thing all the time. 

Living in a different culture means that some of the things we do are different than the culture around us. So two, nearly naked, pale boys attracts a good amount of attention form the kids that live in our compound and outside the gate. Obie is the youngest of these neighborhood kids but gets to run around with them and hopefully soon share his ball with them, a mom can hope right?  

Wednesday Night Update

One of the main things we are developing is the Wednesday Night Service at UCF.  And by we, I mean me (Kyle), Trey, Ben and Patrick (pastors at UCF).  

For this summer series, we have a guy named Rogers (pictured below) teaching apologetics to our congregation. Trey met him through a connection with AIM and brought him to come help people understand what they believe and why they believe.  We were already planning on something similar, but when he met Rogers, we thought, "Hey, here is a Ugandan guy that's already doing it, and far better than we could, so let's bring him in." Its been a fantastic time of teaching our people how to think critically about the teachings they hear around Kampala. Many distortions of our gospel exist here and it can be very tricky to determine the difference between true and false teachers.  Many are led astray.  Most recently, a teaching called the "Grace Gospel" (a religious group teaching that since God is gracious, we can sin all we want) swept through Makerere's campus, leading even some of our own members away from the truth. It is becoming increasingly important to develop a culture of discernment among our church members.

We are really starting to gain some good momentum with this midweek service.  Our focus right now is the training of more small group leaders. With more people coming, we need more groups! Pray for this recruitment and training as we make more disciples of the truth!

Long Overdue

In the last two months I have failed to keep you updated. I haven't given up blogging; I intend to get back into sharing with you what is happening in our lives. Thanks for your patience. 

Two weeks ago we moved. Our current house is about a 50 yard walk from our old house. We are no longer living with the Allens (they stayed in the other house,) so we have become neighbors instead of housemates. When we first moved to Uganda, we were able to share one house because there were only four of us, since our number has grown to seven we decided it was time to separate. We are  thankful that the Lord provided this house for us so that we can be neighbors and still enjoy sharing much of life with our dear friends. 

Three weeks ago Kyle's cousin, Kristin, her husband, Mark, and their daughter, Laney, stayed with us. It was so wonderful to visit with them and have them in our home. I failed to take any pictures of their time with us and I am so sorry about that. But we enjoyed having family here!

So, between hosting and moving and the busyness of ministry I have gotten out of the habit of blogging. Despite that, we are alive and well here in Kampala, and we are enjoying this life that the Lord has given us. Much of the "day-to-day" is the same as it always has been: Kyle staying busy at church and with leadership roles there, Obadiah and I enjoying being home most days and entertaining some visitors, or going down to church for some discipleship meetings. 

After today we are all officially unpacked. We enjoyed the afternoon out in the sun and I forced myself to bring the camera in order to show you how adorable our little boy is. 

Obadiah loves making messes so we decided to give him full reign of a bunch of shaving cream. In typical Obie fashion, he started out a bit apprehensive...

but it did not take long for him to dive right in!

Thing quickly escalated and this boy really enjoyed himself! Especially when daddy would throw some cream at him. 

Obie has started to say Zion (more like "I -on"), and we can easily walk down to their house. At this time Zion was taking a nap but maybe next time we can get both boys all messy together. 

Cleaning up was just as fun as getting messy. 

I just couldn't help it, that butt is too cute. 

Obie has an entire set of play tools, that are definitely his favorite toys. He is extremely partial to the hammer, does that sound like anyone you know?