The Hills with HOPE for the Congo: June 2012

Hey everyone, Yes, we realize it has been since March since we have posted! Yikes We are failures at blogging, but are going to try to do better! Well since March a lot has happened. In April, we had the youth from the Nazarene church over to eat and play games at our place. We had around 20 people in our tiny one bedroom apartment, but they didn't seem to mind. We made Mexican food for them. Nate had to demonstrate how to eat a taco once we realized they were eating the taco with a fork! haha They really liked the tacos and guacamole. The youth pastor gave a short devotional and then we went outside to play a few games with them. Nate and I had to brainstorm about our old youth group days to think of some games. The kids loved it.
Allie has begun working on the Kiva stuff at the HOPE office. Kiva is a partner organization with HOPE that fundraises for microfinance institutions around the world. Allie and an intern, Merveille, interview groups of clients and post their loans to the Kiva website for people around the world to donate the money for the loan. It is a great partnership that helps provide more funding for HOPE Congo to give more loans. Kiva audited HOPE Congo at the end of April. Allie was very busy in April readying the office for the office. HOPE Congo failed the audit a few months back and really needed to pass this audit to be eligible to receive more funding from Kiva. HOPE Congo ended up passing the audit! Before we were able to receive $25,000 a month from Kiva, now we can receive $80,000 a month! This was truly a blessing from God.
In May we got to visit the US! HOPE had their annual Leadership Summit in Lancaster, PA. It was great to spend time with HOPE staff from the corporate office as well as from all over the world. This week was very encouraging and refreshing for us. It reinforced God's call and reenergized us to go back Brazzaville. Since we were already back we took 2 and half weeks of vacation. We spent a few days in Greenwood to visit Allie's grandma and to go to doctor/dentist appointments. We then went on a week long Disney cruise with Nate's family. Needless to say, It was MAGICAL! We had 4 stops. The first was GrandCayman where we swam with the sting rays. Next was Cozumel where Jim, Nate, and Allie scuba dived and Patty, Johnna, and Jamie horsebacked. Then Costa Maya where we were supposed to visit the Mayan ruins, but it ended up pouring rain. We saw one ruin right before the rain started, but it was all good when Disney got our tour totally refunded! Finally the last day we visited Disney's private island called Castaway Cay. There we just laid on the beach and ate an amazing barbecue dinner by the beach. After that week we then went and spent a week with Allie's family in St. Augustine. The Pineda's were able to come a few days. We really loved getting to see them and the kids! Our baby, Miley, also came and spent the week with us! She loved the beach and sat out with us all day under the umbrella. The week in St. Augustine we got a lot of lovely beach time. The family went into St. Augustine for dinner and walked around the scenic downtown one evening. We also celebrated our 2nd anniversary that week! The 2 weeks of vacation were full of family, AC, good food, and great memories. We were very said to say goodbye at the end of it all.
We had a bit of an adventure getting back to Brazzaville. We were flying out of Charlotte to DC to connect with our international flight. Well we ended up missing our flight in Charlotte and had to reschedule our international flight for the next day! We were so stressed, but thankfully it was all worked out. We ended up spending the night in DC and leaving the next morning. We also were missing 2 of the 4 suitcases we checked when we arrived in Brazzaville. They were found and arrived the next day. When we returned home the Sparlings had a warm dinner prepared for us that night. We were warmly welcomed by everyone and have enjoyed catching up with all of our friends. The weather here is awesome! These are the winter months right now and it is always in the 70s or 80s. It really cools down at night. We actually use our covers! Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. We really cherish all of the messages and emails you send to us. Enjoy some of our pictures from the last few months!