I hate my cat

I must preface this posting by saying I really do enjoy felines. With the exception of the years I was in college, I have always had a cat/cats in my life and I really do like them. I like their soft fur, playing games with them, having them sleep on me while I am watching movies or having a quiet time. They bring lots of joy into my life...until recently.

We own two cats here in Africa and their names are Pepsi and Cheeto. We named them after food we miss from the states, but lucky for us Pepsi (the soft drink) is now really easy to find. We still miss cheetos, esp the crunchy ones. They have the puffy cheetos here, but I swear to you when you open a bag, the smell is way too similar to a litter box smell. I promise, it is true. It isn't just my pregnancy nose. Dan totally agrees. GROSS.

All day today I have been comforting myself with all the different ways I could creatively kill my cat, Pepsi. Until this week, he has been my favorite cat I have ever owned in my life, but not anymore. He picked the wrong week to pick on me.

As most of you know, this pregnancy has been rough on me. I have been sick off and on and REALLY REALLY tired. Dan mentioned that he doesn't understand how someone can sleep so much and still be tired. Even though I am solidly in my 2nd trimester now, it still hasn't eased up much and I have to have at least one (if not two!) naps or serious caffine in order to make it through the day. I also sleep anywhere between 10-11 hrs a night. Making this little grapefruit sized person is wearing me out. I think part of it is my interrupted sleep: Miesha still gets up once a night for a bottle. (we are working on that going away soon!) Because of that, I still have "mommy ears" and wake up pretty easily with little noises, especially if it is her.

This week, the cats officially have fleas. It is bad, but we Frontlined them and they aren't scratching as much. We know they are uncomfortable, but we seriously have done all we can to help them there and they just have to tough it out now. Also, they have made it abundantly clear that they don't like the current (cheaper) food we have been buying for them by barely eating it and by taking every opportunity to regurgitate hairballs on my bath mats.

The icing on the cake is that Pepsi has started yowling and scratching on our bathroom door off and on throughout the night all week. Last night that blasted cat's scratching woke me up 7x. When my alarm went off this morning, I felt already that I was overdue for a nap.

If he is lucky, I won't kill him, but I might lock him outside for a few weeks or I might drop him off 6 weeks early to the family's house who is watching him while we are in the states. I might give him a swimming lesson in the deep end of our bath tub. I might drug him. hee!

Any other ideas?? (we don't have any guns here...)

Here is a photo of the two flea transporters sleeping (where they shouldn't be) on Miesha's changing table.


And here is a pic of the little cutie who I don't mind waking up at night for.

SO Tired

I think that if you looked up the definition of "Exhausted" in the dictionary today, you'd find my name under the definition. I seriously have never been this tired in my entire life. My first trimester is totally kicking my butt. Dan said that he has never seen someone sleep so much and still be so tired! That is why I have been ignoring my blog and only posting stuff that I wrote already for something else. Hee!

Poor guy. He has really stepped up to help around the house, with Miesha, basically with everything I usually do. He might actually write the prayer letter for me this month! Lol.

I have a Dr's appointment tomorrow. It is too soon yet to tell the sex, but we definitely will want to know as soon as we can. I am betting this one is a boy! Only a boy could wear me down this much and just be the size of a lime.

We will probably have another ultrasound tomorrow and I love seeing the little person grow and hearing the heartbeat.

If you are a praying friend of mine, please ask the Lord to give me an extra dose of energy in these next couple days. I really need it. There are a zillion things we need to do before we fly back to the states in less than 2 months.

I read somewhere that lions sleep 20 hours a day...that sounds pretty good right now!

a normal week...

Hey everyone, hope you are all well. I have made this week a quick easy read for you!

Dan was gone traveling 4 days this past week and Miesha and I are happy to have him back with us now. He was in Bloemfountein all day Mon helping to prepare for a youth conference we are assisting with in another month. Then, he was in Swaziland at Hope House Orphanage from Thursday-Saturday laying carpet and installing tile. The boys are SO pleased! I’ll have some pictures up here someday.

This week we anticipate things being a little slower and will catch up with some office things and pack a few more boxes.

For our teammates – John and Jay are once again heading up to Zimbabwe to provide some much needed water purification tablets and food to the pastors we partner with and to do some planning for the year. Please pray for safety for their travels and that they will be a blessing and encouragement to the people they meet with up there. Most of all, they’d really like an easy, straightforward border crossing. The last couple times at the border it has taken them 3-5 hours to get through and the customs officials keep changing the laws and trying to get bribes. It is always a really frustrating experience. (One time John was in line for 4 hours in 106F temp and had to stand so close to other people that they were actually dripping sweat onto his feet! And, if you think the dripping sweat is bad, imagine the smell! How is that for a cultural experience??) Please also remember their families as they are often hit with unexpected challenges while the husbands/dads are away. The border crossing will be our Tuesday morning, your Monday night if you’d like to pray at the exact time they’ll be at the Beitbridge Border.

The best news of this week:

Miesha officially started walking! Before now she would take up to 5 steps if we forced her, but now it is her own idea and she is all over the place. It will be a fun new season for us!

this week's adventures

This week we had fun being missionaries and for those of you who read our weekly prayer updates, you are aware that a week away was just what we needed! Our time traveling with the Canadian short term team this week was certainly full of adventure.

Our power kept going out as we were preparing to leave our house to begin the journey so we left a little later than we wanted to. Dan actually had to start our generator to get the garage doors to close securely! Then we traveled approx 5 hours to the Bulembu border crossing. The last hour of the drive was an extremely rugged dirt road with a lot of cows, hairpin turns, and sharp shale on it. It is one of the prettiest roads in South Africa with incredible views of the mountains and waterfalls. Our trailer was full of tiles and carpet for the orphan home and Dan estimated we were pulling around 2,000 lbs at a pretty fast clip since we were trying to get to the border before they closed. Our truck can handle it, but apparently our tires couldn’t and we popped two tires 2 minutes before we reached the border post. One had 3 small holes in it, and the other had a slash and almost came completely off the rim by the time we made it to the border. Also, Miesha’s little tummy had trouble with the bumps and turns and we had some eruptive vomit about 10 minutes before the border. We couldn’t stop because we were so pressed for time. Poor little girl - she was pretty miserable. We made it fine through the South African side, but we were two minutes late reaching the Swaziland side and Dan and Craig actually had to wander around the buildings looking for someone to help us. At first they told us we’d have to sleep in no man’s land, but then finally agreed to help us when a beautiful Canadian calendar, a first aid kit, and some stickers appeared. We hate bribing, but I feel much more comfortable bribing with stickers than with money! We were quite the sorry group of travelers: Miesha and Heather were covered in vomit (pink vomit no less!) and Dan had donated his shirt to help clean up the mess in the back seat so he was wearing Heather’s sweatshirt rather than go shirtless to customs… We finally made it through the Swazi border and then changed the destroyed tire by the side of the road.


We limped down the hill into Bulembu around supper time, happy to have finally arrived! We spent the evening with Jasmine (the American teacher we took up to Bulembu in early January) and had a lot of fun catching up with her and encouraging her. What a day!



The next morning we patched up the other tire then visited Jasmine’s school, met the kids she is teaching, and Principle Skinner showed us around. It is amazing! The school where she is teaching is the same school our short term team cleaned out 18 months ago. At that time the school had been abandoned for quite some time and everywhere you went there was approx 2 feet of paper, books, sawdust, or cow poop.


Now it is sparkling white, they have carpet and desks, and it actually looks like a proper school.



The transformation is absolutely unbelievable! About half the 150 children at the school are orphaned children who are in Christian foster homes in Bulembu, and the others are Bulembu Ministry Staff kids or from the community. Jasmine has 12 kids in her class and they range from age 6-11. Her goal is to teach them all to read in the next six months. Since some of the kids have never been to school and some struggle with English, this is going to be a challenge for her. She does have an assistant who is fluent in SiSwati which will help her a great deal in communicating early on.

We then went down the mountain into Motjane, Swaziland and had tea with the Chomba family. It was wonderful to see them again and we enjoyed meeting the newest member to the family – Takazane. He is approximately 15 years old and is now the 35th child this family supports!

We also spent time with Pastor Solomon and Grace Fasamati who run Christian school in the same area. Our visit was timely since their son is in the hospital in extreme pain and Grace hadn’t slept in 2 days trying to care for him. (Based on the symptoms, it sure sounded like a kidney stone to us. Hopefully the Drs will be able to sort it out soon and help him.) It was good to spend time with them and encourage them. There are so few people building into the lives of those who are in leadership here.

The next day, the Canadian guys taught on coaching, transitions, and church health to the Swazi pastors at a conference and several enjoyed it so much that they are now coming to the longer conference this coming week in Johannesburg to learn more. Dan wanted to try to finish the rooms in the orphan house while the other guys were training, but it just didn’t work out. The weather was rainy and it was super muddy. We are also going to have to do something about the ants before the carpet is laid. He decided to leave the supplies and head up again in a week or two to finish everything.

We then took the guys to Kruger Park for a day and a half, saw some incredible wildlife up close, then headed back to Johannesburg last night.


So finally, after 35 hours of driving, 2 flat tires, pink baby vomit, cranky border guards, fun with Jasmine, encouraging Chombas, Fasamatis, and 40 Swazi pastors, seeing animals in their natural habitat and way more meals on the road then we wanted (imagine ground beef with mushroom pancakes - blech!) we are now VERY happily at home!

For those of you who were praying for my morning sickness – it worked!! I didn’t feel sick the whole week and this morning (Sunday) it is back. I certainly don’t mind battling this in my home, but having a reprieve on the road was wonderful. Thank you for all your prayers for us.

This coming week, Dan and I will begin co-leading a new Community Group for our local church. We are looking forward to impacting the lives of more Africans on a weekly basis. This starts Wed. The Canadian team is doing another conference from Tues – Friday this week. Please pray for great attendance, open hearts, clear communication and for the info to be relevant to impact African churches for eternity!

Janell

A Challenging Season

Dan had a conversation with a friend the other day just after his house had been robbed. He was saying that it was so hard to be sold out for God because it immediately makes you a target and he was getting tired of all these hard things that kept happening to him and his family. He thought it would be easier to live a mediocre life because there was still a bit of blessing, but then you were left alone because you were not a threat to the enemy. It got me thinking…he certainly has a point. These last couple months and weeks have been super challenging for us Hartleys and our missionary teammates. We feel like we are living with targets on our backs currently!

We are in need of prayer support more than ever.

Here are a few of the things that have happened recently:

As you know, we Hartleys took a couple of health hits a couple months ago with chicken pox, a kidney stone, an infected appendix getting cut out, and recently I had a severe allergic reaction to 2 shrimp I ate and was itchy and had a unsightly rash for 2 days. Currently my “morning/afternoon/all day” sickness from the pregnancy is making life really challenging right now. The nausea is awful and so far the prescription I have isn’t helping much. I know it is just for a season, but ugh! One of my sisters had a miscarriage a couple weeks ago and as you can imagine, there is nothing that makes you want to jump on a plane more than family who is hurting. I wish we were able to be there in person to support them.

Our teammates, the Siakis, have been planting a church and they have had some really challenging issues because their worship leader is sleeping with his girlfriend and his parents (who are in leadership at the church also) didn’t have any issues with it and invited her to live in their home. She moved right into the worship leader’s bedroom! The whole church found out about it and took sides – pastor vs. worship leader. (In Africa, it is common in many cultures for the future wife to prove she is fertile by getting pregnant before they get engaged. NOT good for believers!) Obviously this has been super stressful for the Siakis! Then, shortly after this came to light, the assistant pastor dropped dead with no warning. It was a huge loss for their church as well as personally as Pastor Keith had helped with counseling the wayward couple and the family as well as firmly supported Paul Siaki in his stance against sex before marriage.

The Witherow family had a really close call last weekend. They were invited to the Allen’s house (another American missionary family – she is in my Beth Moore study) for lunch and while they were ringing the gate bell to be let in, the Allens were actually in process of being robbed at gunpoint. The robbers had jumped the fence, came in through the sliding glass doors, tied the family up, beat the dad on the head and took a bunch of their stuff. The Witherows were still in the driveway trying to figure out what was going on when the Joe Allan ran out of the house all bloody and asked them to call the cops. John Witherow sent his wife and kids home and stayed to help. The Allens ended up moving in with the Witherows this week until they can sort out increased security and/or a new place to live. Then after listening and listening and listening to the Allen family process their trauma, on Thursday night, Witherows took another hit. Heather’s mom called to say that her sister (Heather’s Aunt) had been found dead and the initial reports indicate that it may have been suicide. Talk about a tough week!

Two close friends from church were also robbed recently. One family was robbed while on a mission trip and the other family was robbed during the day when the house was locked. They broke through a window and locked the nanny in the closet while they took things. Their 18mo old daughter was standing in her crib watching the robbers run through the house. Wow.

A good friend of mine had her purse stolen at knife point and it happened just a few weeks after she miscarried. I had the privilege of processing the events with her.

I don’t write these things to scare you or to glamorize what we face over here, but it has been a challenging, stressful, difficult season for us and people close to us and we really need your prayers. More than ever, we need God’s protection over our homes and families; we need peace and trust in God so that we won’t live in fear. God has been doing some amazing things and we obviously are threats for the enemy!

On Sunday evening, a small short term team from Canada is arriving to do some training at some conferences here for two weeks. This team is lead by our former teammates Craig and Heather Kraft who moved back to Canada last May. Dan and I aren’t in charge of this one, but we will be assisting on multiple levels. Craig and Heather will be staying at our house for two weeks and we are really looking forward to time with them. We’ll be driving to Swaziland with the team from Tues – Friday to help them with a conference and Dan will install carpet and tile at the Chomba’s Hope House Orphanage. This will be the final touch on the room and the orphan guys will be able to begin using it! This is a major milestone and we are really excited about it! I’ll send pictures next week.

Will you take a moment to pray for us as you read this?

- Pray for PEACE and COMFORT for the Allen family who are all pretty traumatized by the armed robbery

- Pray for Heather Witherow for REST and for COMFORT for her, her parents, her Aunt’s son, and that they will be able to connect with family through the time zones to encourage and support each other.

- Pray for the Siakis, that God will soften their worship leader’s heart to receive correction and to be turned back to the Lord. Pray that God will bring a wonderful, godly man to come alongside them to support them to replace their asst pastor.

- Pray for the Days, Janse Van Vuurens, and the Robberts who were burglarized recently – for PEACE and the ability to SLEEP WITHOUT FEAR.

- It seems almost silly for me to ask you to pray about my nausea after the severity of the above requests, but our upcoming week is filled with company and travel and it would be wonderful to have a respite from feeling so sick in order to do ministry.

- Pray for the Canadians as they do ministry in Swaziland this week for a successful conference and be an encouragement and blessing to the Swazis.

We couldn’t do all God has called us to do here without your prayers and support of us.

THANK YOU!

Janell for us 4

PS. Just for fun, I have attached a picture of the security measures of a house that is right across the street from our church. They have the highest level of security we have seen here so far! They have 28 electrified wires, spotlight sensors, video monitoring, and razor wire fencing on their fence and gate. While most houses aren’t quite that extreme, the majority in our neighborhood have electric wire and/or razor wire around their property. As far as we know, it isn’t anybody famous. This is just part of life here. I bet these owners added another layer of electric fencing after they saw me taking a bunch of pictures of their fence!