Having my cake and eating it too

Our final week in East Africa was so good. Though we spent a few days running around working on travel documents and logistics we were able to get away for a couple of days to celebrate our good news together. We jumped on a bus heading out of town and spent a couple of nights at a nice hotel on a nearby lake. Bryan was very excited to see hippos for the first time (outside of the zoo) and we both enjoyed biking through herds of giraffe, zebra, gazelle and warthogs in a neighboring national park.

But perhaps my favorite part of our time out was at a hospital back in the city where we got to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. The doctor says "our little orange seed" as we have taken to calling him or her (though apparently he/she is the size of a big raspberry this week) is growing perfectly so far and, with God's grace, will be arriving sometime around April 24th. We are so very thankful and happy.




And now, one hop, skip and several long jumps later we are home again. And as much as I enjoyed the luxuries of East Africa, it is so good to be back. We fell asleep in our own bed last night listening to the whirling, chirping, buzzing cacophany in the moonlight outside our big screen windows. We woke up to our ridiculous rooster and the twanging of stringed instruments floating across the morning from our guard's radio. Eid is just around the corner and town seems bursting at its seams with people buying food and gifts from shops overflowing with nice things.

I like being in a world with indoor plumbing, broccoli, public transport, hospitals and ice cream for a while but I love this world of donkey carts, bucket baths, open air markets and head scarves too. I feel so blessed to occaionally enjoy some of the finer things in life with more appreciation than I might have before, and then return with fresh eyes to simplicity and what often feels to me like a good bit of adventure. Sometimes I think my life is a like helping myself to a huge slice of rich chocolate cake and then looking in the the refridgerator to find the cake still perfectly whole.