TAKE A WILD GUESS.....

at what we're up to.

if you guessed : took in a family of 7 African refugees whose duplex burned down 2 weeks ago...you guessed correctly!

to make a long story short -years ago my brother in law worked with a man named Augustine. He is from Burundi, Africa and is an amazing man of God. Slowly, 1 by 1, the rest of his family (brothers, sisters, and even parents) have been able to come here as refugees.

**side note** for those who know nothing about Burundi....think Rwanda, only not publicized. The exact same things that happen (and IS happening) in Rwanda has/is happened in Burundi. If you haven't already -you NEED to watch Hotel Rwanda.


Last week, upon returning home from our little vacation, we heard that one of Augustine's brothers' house burned down and they had nowhere to go. Their landlord paid for a few nights in a hotel but if they couldn't find anything by the time the hotel $$ ran out, they'd have to go to a homeless shelter.

This family has 5 children -ages 3months to 8 years old.


no brainer for us -there was no way we could be "OK" with letting them go to a shelter.

so we offered up our house.


last weekend we hurriedly moved Andrew out of his room and into the girls' and shuffled things around so we could free up 2 of our bedrooms and an entire bathroom for them.


They moved in this past Monday.


and life is crazier than I ever dreamed it could be.

There is ALOT of:

food to make

toys to pick up

messes to clean up

sign language and pointing to communicate

phone calls to make for them (to help them find a place)

praying

stress (for everyone involved)

sacrificing

sharing

noise! -oh my!! LOTS of noise!!

most of all...there is a lot of laughter going on. :)


This is quite possibly the most sacrificial/uncomfortable thing we've done....let's face it -going from a family of 5 to a family of 12 in 1 day isn't easy. Having 8 children running around isn't easy. Sharing our house and everything in it isn't easy....making call after call after call to find them safe and affordable housing isn't easy....spending HOURS with them filling out applications isn't easy......

and yet, somehow, in this midst of this chaos-we've been stretched, and grown, and have had ALOT of fun.

*The mom has made African food for us every day to go along with our American food ~and most of it is amazingly yummy!
*They're teaching me to speak Kirundi and Swahili!
*They've told us stories about how they escaped Burundi for refugee camps in Tanzania.
*They've shared their hopes and dreams for better jobs and an actual HOUSE to raise their family in instead of a 2 bedroom apartment.

We do ask for you to cover this situation in your prayers. As I've already mentioned, this isn't easy.....on any of us. The husband works nights and sleeps much of the day so the mom is really on her own to care for all of the kids (the 2 oldest go to school). From 8:30pm to 6:30am she and all 5 of her kids are in Andrew's old bedroom. This cannot be easy on her either. And yet she doesn't complain AT ALL!


Please pray that we are able to find them safe and affordable housing quickly. We have a few leads on places right now, but nothing is nailed down yet.


Most of all, please pray that we ALL keep our eyes on Him and not on ourselves.