6 years 11 months 2 days

Day 2527. It was our second night in the hot house. I had gone to bed at 2 am, and Emmy was up first before my alarm went off at 9 am (7 am in our last time zone). Of course he woke me up, and then he woke up Sammy. Tammy is harder to wake up. After my alarm went off, I got up, and we went downstairs for breakfast. I toasted a bagel and made my tea. After a while Randy came as well and started making eggs with bacon but I didn't have time to wait for those. I grabbed my computer and went into the other room where there were desks and turned my computer on and got ready for my 10 am student. I actually had two students, teaching until noon. Emmy was having a particularly terrible morning behavior-wise that was making this morning hell and was quite straining.

At noon our good friends came over with food to have lunch with us. We had a great time eating together. At 1 pm it was time to get going. We drove just over half an hour to Hershey, the chocolate capital of America. We had two hours of free parking. Emmy continued his bad behavior in the car but not once our friends were with us. We met up with them right inside.

First we went to the ticket counter as I had told the kids I would take them to the 4D-ride. As one had just started, we decided to do the free ride through the chocolate factory first. They took us through the entrance for wheelchairs, and Sammy got a cart made for wheelchairs. He sat in the first row, and Randy, Tammy and I behind him. Emmy was in the car behind us, together with our friends. We had a great time riding through the factory. 

After we had gotten off, the workers there gave us two chocolate bars each, then we were taken back outside again. It was nearly 2:30 pm, so we quickly went to the ticket counter to buy the tickets for the 4D theater ride. As Emmy's behavior had been so terrible, he had to sit it out. And so it was Tammy, Sammy and I who went inside the theater, while the others stayed outside and looked at all the chocolate in the store, including huge Hershey kisses.

They led us to the first row in the theater where there were spots for wheelchairs. Sammy was most excited about the buttons on the armrest - he loves buttons. After a few minutes the show started. It was a wild ride through a candy world, and both kids had great fun. It was hard for me to not let Emmy join in in the fun.

After the show was over, we found Emmy waiting for us at the exit, and we shared some of the chocolate we had been given with him. When we had last been here three years ago, we had taken a picture with the huge KiKat; Sammy still loves KitKat a lot and eats it regularly so we went to find it and took a picture again.

Then we went to where they had a Meet & Greet with a Hershey chocolate bar and waited in line for it to start at 3:15 pm. We took the pictures, then it was time to leave so we could get out before the free 2 hours of parking were up. On the way to the exit I heard some Austrians speak and said something about it in German to the kids. They heard me, and we ended up talking for a few minutes.

After a bathroom break we made our way to our parked car and made it out before the 2 hours were up. It was 40 minutes to drive back to the house where we arrived at 4:30 pm. We were standing by the door to the house waiting for Randy to come with the key but he could not find it in his pocket and wondered whether he had lost it. Oh no! We only had one hour at home before leaving again. What were we going to do? All the knocking on the door didn't lead anywhere. Even though we thought someone was inside, no one could hear us. I called the missions guy at the church who had set the lodging up for us, and he called the owner of the house who then called the residents of the house to find out who was there and could open the door for us. Thankfully someone soon came to the door and opened it for us. We then went to our room and found the key in the pocket of my pants from yesterday. I had taken the key from Randy to open the door and put it into my pocket without giving it back to Randy later.

I then used the remaining time we had to pull some pictures out of my testimony to show them at the meeting tonight. That's about all the time I had. Then I put my Malian clothes on, and Randy did the same. I only had one kid's shirt, and Emmy wanted to put it on. At 5:30 pm we left the house again - with the key.

After a whole day of causing me pain on purpose, Emmy wanted to put things right. While Randy was putting the other kids in, Emmy came to talk to me. We talked, I cried and forgave him. Then we drove the 10 minutes to the restaurant where we had a gathering. My friend had been so kind to organize it. And she was the only one there when we arrived. We had a whole room to ourselves. On short notice she had pulled off this gathering, and good number of people was arriving. I set up the Mali stuff on one table while Randy and the kids sat down at another table. I was really hungry and happy when they brought some pizza for us to eat. We all ate, then I got my computer out and asked whether I could connect it to the TV that was on the wall. I was really happy when that worked.

Even though people were still eating, it was time for me to start. It must have been around  90 minutes that I actually talked. I had the time of my life, sharing lots of stories of what God has done in Mali and showing the pictures that went with them. People were very attentive and enjoyed the stories and asked questions.

After I was done speaking, my friend who had organized the meeting suggested everyone prayed for us, and they did. It was really precious. Then I talked to some people and sold a few books, and people were going home. We had to leave the room by 8:30 pm. We continued talking by our car with our two friends. I was so thankful my friend had set the meeting up and had had a great time. In fact, the vision and dream Paul and Yacouba had had in Mali might have been fulfilled tonight. I was feeling great.

We drove the 10 minutes back to the house where we arrived after 9 pm. We had some dessert, then went to our rooms and got the kids ready for bed. Tammy was so tired that she had a fit over something trivial and cried for a long time before I could calm her down. It was 10 pm before she and Emmy fell asleep; Sammy had fallen asleep pretty much right away. I then sat down at the desk and turned my computer on to work on the pictures and write my report. Now it's 1 am, and I have yet to work on all the pictures.