To Rwanda ... we're going and telling about it.: A little back story

Another Rwanda connection occurred at Martin Park Nature Center in Oklahoma City one day. The kids and I had met up with Keli Shreck and her girls, Kassidy and Natalie, for one of our usual adventures of hiking, playing barefoot in the creek, watching Giles catch fish barehanded and writing poetry about the sounds we heard. Home educating at its absolute finest, especially when muddy toes were involved!

Fab Three. Nat, Lyd and Kass at Martin Park. 2008?

I mentioned that our minister's family was pursuing adopting two children in Rwanda after visiting an orphanage in Kigali when they visited missionaries Dave & Jana Jenkins.

The next thing we knew (well, this post can't go on forever), the Shrecks welcomed two new sons into their lives ... from the orphanage with the blue door.

N and Lyd at Martin Park.

And then the next thing we knew, the Shrecks announced they were moving there. To Rwanda. In Africa. (Use your imagination here to envision my selfish reaction to this "shocking" news. It's not pleasant so I won't go on about it.)

Keli had been my support system and rock for home educating. When I first tentatively emailed her eight years ago asking, "we're thinking about this (yanking our kinds out of public school to do this weird homeschool thing that I know nothing positive about) ... what do you think?"

BAM! I got instant, positive feedback with how-tos and promises of help. I guess I soon figured out home educating IS weird but we loved it, thoroughly. We would NOT have made it without her (and many others who loved on us and kept me calm-ish).

So, yes, I was a brat about her leaving me. But God's plans are greater, so I attitude adjusted to a low simmer. BTW, watching a family sell it all, raise the money and splitso to a new country to work as full-time missionaries is not for the queasy. That turned my simmering to swooning.

I'm quick to overcommit, so I told her we would come to Kigali. Just like I had told Alain.

Dreams come true, eventually.