Africa Trip Post #2...Life With The Whitfields

One of the best parts of this trip was just being able to do life for 10 day with my best friend! Elise and I met when I was her nurse when she delivered her 2nd baby, Emma. And it just happened to be on my birthday! At that time she was attending a different church, but shortly thereafter started coming to the church I where her hubby's family attended, which is my church home. They were invited to come to a small group Bible study we were apart of and we became fast friends. Over the years we became inseparable. You can imagine what emotions I went through when she first told me they were praying about being missionaries in Africa! I kept telling her the Lord was telling me that she wasn't supposed to go! Totally untrue and selfish, but I was desperate! I'll never forget the night before she left. I had taken her kids to my house so they could get some last minute packing done without three kids underfoot. I brought them back at bedtime and Elise walked me out to my car and we hugged and bawled. I drove home and walked in the house and collapsed into a weeping pile on the couch. Brian said, "Kori, she didn't die!" While he was right, she was alive and well, I was really was grieving her leaving, and it was several days before I wasn't having multiple breakdowns a day! Well over the 4 years she has been gone I slowly weaned myself off my Elise dependency which allowed me to open myself up to many other wonderful women that were right in front of me, and I have been SO thankful for the friendships that bless me on a regular basis. When Elise was in the states, we did life together. That has been one of the hardest things in her absence, is not knowing what life looks like for her on a daily basis. That's why getting to live with Luke and Elise and the kids in their home, and do life with them for 10 days was such a huge treat! I'll share more about the day to day soon, but I wanted to post this video of just a snippet of our 10 days with them. Here's just a couple things you'll need to know before you watch the video...

1. Those of you who dont know the Whitfields... They are Luke and Elise, Macie (10), Emma (8), Payton (6), ChiChi (5~adopted since they have been there) and Marley Ann Taziona (3) who goes by Tazi, but we called her Emily because she reminded us SO much of our Emily. By the end of the trip, if you called her Tazi, she would look at you and say "I'm not Tazi, I'm Emily!"

2. Gifts from the USA. Brian and I were allowed 3 checked bags each. We brought 1 suitcase for the two of us and 3 additional suitcases and a 45 pound box full of gifts from family and friends. The first words out of Tazi's mouth were "did you bring candy??" The kids were so patient! They just kept eying the suitcases on the side of the living room. Finally one of them blurted out "Can we please open the presents now????!!!!!" It was so fun to watch their excitement!!

3. Our authentic meal. Vincavulla (caterpillars), Nshima (a cream of wheat type dish, and a staple food), ifisashi (pumpkin leaf with ground nuts), Rape (kinda like swiss chard), and chicken. You take some of the nshima in your hand and squish it around a bit then you use it to scoop up the chicken or greens. Here's my take on the meal. The Nshima had basically no flavor but with the chicken in ifisashi was good. The caterpillars were NASTY and the rape was bitter. We also had another staple food called a chapate (cha-potty) which is essentially a tortilla and was DELICIOUS!