Happy Birthday Liam!

[We have pictures but internet is tricky now, we'll try to upload them later.]

Today Liam turned ONE! I can not believe it has been a year since he was born. How far we have come and how much we have gone through! Liam is such a joy. We are really happy with how his little personality is turning out. He is a pretty laid back, happy kid. So independent! He has been walking since 9 months. He signs about 10 words and says about 20. Now, some of those 20 are not perfect. Such as "dut" for "duck". But I know what he is saying, and he does too. Just a few of his spoken words are duck, dog, juice, cup, ball, mama, dada, bye, night-night, more, and of course, no-no. He knows that one very well!

He had a great day today. He wore a new pair of 12 month jammies and looked adorable. I am waiting to have a party with our missionary friends when Luke and Riley are here. That will be fun to celebrate with family, but of course I had to make today special!

We invited Nancy and Alfred back over to our house for lunch today. I was feeling a little homesick, so I made the most Southern meal I could! Cornmeal oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and sweet tea! Alfred said he liked our sweet tea, but Nancy would not even try it. It is so strange to them that tea would ever be served cold. They "take tea" literally boiling hot! It is scalding almost. So, the whole idea that chai would ever be cold is very foreign to them.

I baked two chocolate cakes with coconut icing. Basically I just made regular icing, but where it called for milk I substituted coconut milk. Speaking of milk... We are now using fresh cow's milk. As in it was milked from the cow fresh this morning! We boil it and scrape the cream off the top. I am feeling more Kenyan these days! This cake (made with fresh milk) was Liam's first "sweet" so I wanted it to be chocolate, which is my fav! I think he liked it. He managed to get it all over his face and hands. He seemed more interested in figuring out what was all over his hands than what was on his plate! That is the Banks in him coming out. Those men do not like anything sticky on their hands! Maybe he will be a doctor after all.

After our lunch, he took a long 1 1/2 hour nap, which is longer than usual. He partied till he dropped! But that was only the beginning of his celebrations!

With Nancy's help, this evening we invited all the kids who live in the tin roof "village" near us to come to a little party for Liam. There were about 15 kids. As they walked up the hill to our house, we quickly noticed that they had dressed up for the party. They all had their best dresses and sweaters on. They looked like they were dressed for church. At first, they stood shyly in front of us, not sure what we had in mind for the "party." Then they sang "Happy Birthday" to Liam , multiple times, one of which was in Swahili. It was so fun listening to them sing, we asked if they had any other songs. There was about a two second pause, and then one girl, Sharon, boldly led them in about 3 or 4 more Swahili songs for us. Liam clapped and cheered right along with their singing.

Then we moved on to the real reason they came: BIRTHDAY CAKE! I cut the cake into small bite-sized pieces and put one chocolate chip on each little piece. Chocolate chips are a delicacy here, even for the American missionaries, so I know it would be a treat for these kids. They ate right out of their hands, as I do not have that many plates, and no paper goods. There was enough for everyone to have two pieces. To get the first piece of cake, they came up to me one by one very politely and patiently. But by the time the second piece of cake was being handed out, I found myself swarmed by little palms outstretched ready to get one more bite! We finished the evening by taking pictures and video of the kids. They were camera-shy at first, but quickly warmed up to the idea of being photographed!

It was a fun way to reach out to our neighbors and share this special day with them. Liam was wide-eyed the whole time. Seeing Liam in the middle of his Kenyan friends reminds Logan and I of the Sesame Street song "one of these things is not like the other." If you would like to see pictures of Liam's birthday, feel free to check out our Picasa web almbum at www.picassaweb.google.com/loganandjulie

We have gotten many loving emails for Liam today. My sister made me bawl with her amazing blog post on her sweet.and.sowers blog. Please check it out. She had family members from Oregon to Florida and many states in between send in a picture of their birthday wishes for Liam. They all held up a #1 to show Liam how old he is. So, we had all the Kenyan kids do them same right back at them.

Thank you to all of our family who is thinking of us today. It is difficult to be away for Liam's first birthday, but we know God has us here for a reason. In fact, we were reminded of that even today. Logan was late for Liam's birth celebration because he was in the hospital with a baby who was born today, but unfortunately did not make it. Logan is now doing a Pediatric rotation and witnessing firsthand signs of malnutrition, abuse, neglect, severe burns, and many diseases kids in the States may not ever have to worry about.

Please continue to pray for Logan and his ministry in the hospital and for Liam and I at home. May we show God's love in all we do and say. Speaking of showing God's love, Liam will put his little hands together sitting in his highchair while we pray for our meals. We did not even prompt him, or teach him to do that! Logan and I "peeked" one day recently during our prayer, only to see our small son watching us with his hands pressed tightly together. We were almost brought to tears! Now when Logan says, "Liam, let's pray," he looks up at us and puts his hands together. How sweet. He is watching and learning from us, even when we do not know we are teaching. May we be able to honestly say to him, "Follow me, Liam, as I follow Christ."