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New Blog



For those of you that did not receive an e-mail, Nick and I have begun to collaborate our blogging efforts into one location. You can now keep up on all things "Derington" at http://deringtonfamily.wordpress.com/
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Coming Up To Speed: January



We rolled up to our new home at the start of January. After some final touch-ups, we were able to move in and begin to get settled. It's been a crazy few weeks. Nick and I have never lived on our own before, so this is really our first chance to furnish, decorate, and accessorize our space as we desire. Of course, there are limitations to that, but I have really enjoyed finally making this house OUR home.

Thanks to the wedding gifts and start-up money from you all, we were able to begin functioning smoothly, and rather quickly. I have been cooking up a storm almost every day, and absolutely loving it. It is really awesome to be able to build our home together. I  Thank you for all of your prayers for us in these beginning months. It certainly has not been the easiest thing either of us have done, but incredibly rewarding already. We know God had a huge plan when He put both of us together.

As for me individually, I attended a women's study with a few other wives from the community. It was only a four-week stint to discuss some Mark Driscoll sermons regarding women and their roles. It was incredibly humbling, challenging, encouraging, agonizing, exciting, and every other intense emotion, but man am I glad I went. I learned so much, not only about what it means to be a wife, but just about myself in general--my stubbornness, individualistic attitude, and selfishness, and on the flip-side, my gifts, desires, needs, etc. It was awesome, and I am really grateful that I could be a part of that time.

During the week I have been doing a lot around the house--the cleaning never seems to end. Hah! I have also been applying for job after job. Shortly after we arrived here, Nick started working for our friends' companies--Epipheo and Marketplace Earth. I, on the other hand, cannot seem to find a job at all. I know the Lord has something for me, and things to learn in the meantime, but if you could please be in prayer with me regarding this,  I would really appreciate that.

Pray for us as we grow in our marriage more and more each day. Please pray that the things I have begun to learn, regarding my role as a wife, would stick! Pray for our ministry here in the US--whatever that looks like--and our plans for the near and distant future.
    
 
*Here are the sermons in case you were interested
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Coming Up To Speed: December



After our wedding, Nick and I hung around Kentucky for a few more days, and made the decision that we would live there for this year. We even managed to find a house in that time.

After that we took off to DC to spend a bit of time with the family Nick had been living with before the race. Nick flew out from there a few days later, bound for Minnesota, where he helped one of his machinist friends cut our wedding bands--we had used temporaries for the wedding. Meanwhile, I drove up to be with my family in Eastern Pennsylvania for a few days before he flew back to meet me there.

We spent Christmas with my family, and were able to celebrate my nephew's fourth birthday with some family and friends. It was a great time to relax and begin to acclimate to married life.

At the end of the month, we loaded up an Explorer and trailer piled with my stuff, then drove down to DC to load up Nick's belongings. Then, off to Kentucky we drove. It was a long trip, but we were so excited to move into our new home...more on that in January.
 
*In the spirit of "two-becoming-one," Nick and I tried on a pair of pants together. Not actually going to work out after all, though.*
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Coming Up To Speed: November



I know many of you may feel like I've dropped off the face of the earth, but I promise you I have not. In fact, there have been so many things that have taken place since I have left Swaziland. With that said, I have fallen three months behind in blogging, and I ask you to bear with me as I catch you up and try to return to a normal blogging rhythm. To make it easier, I'll just take you month by month.

November:
I left Swaziland on Saturday, Nov 6th, bound for the US for an indefinite amount of time. My flight out of Swaziland [to South Africa] was delayed almost an hour because the runway had to be cleared for the king of Swaziland to arrive. He came, with all the pomp and circumstance to accompany his status. I was struck by how the people practically worshiped him, and I must say a level of rebellion rose up within me.

Anyway, nine others and I arrived in South Africa with only fifteen minutes to make our flight to the US. We were met by an airport attendant, and literally ran through the terminals to make our flight. Unfortunately, our bags didn't get the opportunity to run. We landed in DC eighteen hours later with our luggage still comfortably in the South African airport. It was by far one of my more eventful flights.

I spent the first few days home lounging around my house lazily, and talking with Nick (who was still overseas) whenever he was available. Much of our conversation was regarding our future wedding, and by that Wednesday, the 11th, we realized the traditional engagement was not for us. We strongly believed God had greater plans for us, that involved us moving the wedding date up significantly. So we settled on Nov 29th and began making plans immediately.

The next two and a half weeks are still a bit of a blur in my memory. I flew out to Cincinnati that Saturday (the 14th) to meet up with some of Nick's community of friends. Having never met any of them was a bit intimidating, but Nick was pretty confident we would get along well. I was only there four days, but we were able to put together ninety-percent of the wedding plans--the venue, decorations, linens, place settings, the food, a cake, etc. I still look back and am amazed.

I flew out to DC to pick up Nick's car and drive that back to Pennsylvania where he would arrive at the start of the following week. My brother and I celebrated our 27th and 25th birthdays, respectively, on the 19th, and it was great to spend a few more days with my family before Nick arrived home.

On the 23rd, Nick finally arrived back in the states after his eleven-month World Race trip. I picked him up at the JFK airport in New York, and we headed directly to Cincinnati to celebrate Thanksgiving with some of his family and friends, and finalize any last minute items for the wedding.

Our wedding took place on Sunday, November 29th, and I can honestly say that it was the happiest day of my life. We were legally wed at a Starbucks (cue the laughter) in Kentucky, just inside the Ohio border. We had to do it that way because of our officiant and license issues. We had our ceremony in Cincinnati, Ohio later that day, though. It was amazing, and we were so grateful for all of the hands that helped make it such an incredible day for us.
      
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Yet Another Passes On



In the midst of everything else going on--the clinic, foster boys, vision trip, and relocating--the woman I wrote about a few weeks ago passed away. It was the woman who's one-year-old we threw the birthday party for. Please pray for her family and friends, as well as the team that was pouring into her daily.
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Timbali Crafts



Back in the city before I fly out this Friday morning. Scary, soon! I went out for the afternoon with one of the ladies in charge of Timbali Crafts.  This is an amazing ministry, where the gogos (grandmothers) from the Care Points are able to make an income by making purses. They are then sold to the teams out here, and shipped back to the states to be sold as well. She was showing me where they meet to cut the fabrics for the purses. Check out the website and order a few for your lady-friends!
   

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Worship in Community



It has been really amazing to spend time with this Real Life team. I keep telling them, if I had known they would be so cool, maybe I would have stayed longer. Given the fact that I am going home, and will see Nick shortly thereafter, I doubt that would have been an option, though. In any case...I have sincerely the way they have adopted me into their team, and allowed me to participate in so many things with them. Community worship is one of my favorite things!
 
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Vision Trip Art Project



What a joy it is to reconnect with friends. I love, even more, when God lines up the unexpected. One of my friends and a huge orphan advocate was a part of the recent vision trip to Swaziland. The Real Life team and myself helped facilitate an art project with her and her husband. The children drew photos of whatever their hearts desired. The photos will then go to the CEO of a well-known airline, and one winning drawing will be chosen to be auctioned off on eBay--proceeds being returned to the Nsoko Project. Here are a few photos of the day.
   
  
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A Day with the D-Team



In the midst of all the chaos of Nsoko, I took a few days to go back to the city to get some more footage of the D-Team (Discipleship Team) in action. I was able to see two more care points that they work with outside of Manzini. There was a bit of a swine flu scare in the area, and really caused me to think about what happens when something like that breaks out in an impoverished area. For many of them, there are no finances or transport means to get to a clinic. So do the people just die?

It really brought perspective to what it means for the D-team to be present in these rural communities. They provide not only food and discipleship, but also basic health-care, and in serious cases, are able to transport and pay for hospital fees.

Thank you for the prayers as I work on these videos. It's been a lot of work, but continue to pray that it pays off for the ministries out here.
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The Clinic Opens



While everything was taking place with the foster project, and I was knee deep in videos, another task fell on my lap. There are fifty orphan children that will receive free medical care from the clinic located here on the Nsoko Center property. In preparation to open the clinic, they wanted to make ID cards for each of these children. And in order to make the ID cards, they needed photos of each of them.

As I'm sure you've all gathered by now, I love to be behind the lens, and had no problem accepting the job of photographing all fifty kids. We wanted to make it as fair as possible, and limited each of the eight care points to six children. The remaining two were chosen by Pastor Gift.

I had visions of all fifty kids converging at the Nsoko Center at the same time; forming a single-file line. Then, with the help of a few of the girls from the Real Life team, we would snap their photo, and record their age (that they would know off-hand) and respective care point. The whole ordeal would take two hours, tops. Oh, my skewed, western thinking.

It took more than a week just to track down each kid. We'd show up at the care point, and rather than having a list of six orphans, they'd have a list of six sick children. So then we would wait for the gogos to compile the correct list of kids. Then, half of the kids weren't at the care points, but in school. Though we tried to head it off and get all the kids from school at once, we ended up returning to the schools multiple times.

Then, many of the children didn't know their birthday, and we sat around the care points waiting for them to run home to get their dingy birth-card, or waiting on teachers to nonchalantly show up half an hour later with their class records. Some of the children didn't even have a birth-card, and resulted in the gogos (grandmothers) at the care points just guessing their year of birth. It took hours, and hours, and many times, yielded very little results.

It was definitely a reality check of the difference in cultures. But...it all paid off. A few days after finishing with the photos, the clinic opened. So now, we have a functional clinic right on the property of the Center, and these precious fifty children will be able to come for free at any point. Praise the Lord!
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