Random Pictures

Here is us driving off of the ferry - it was crazy, there were so many people.

This is a picture from the ferry.

Faith and Melodie on the ferry - they were inseparable while in the Gambia!

Don't see this in the States do you?

A guy named Siddie - we shared stories with him many times. Pray for his eyes to be opened and that he would read the Bible we left with him. Praise the Lord for the 8 people that were baptized while we were in the Gambia. Pray that all of those that were shared with will continue to search and find the true God!

A cat strolling around the restaurant we ate in.

The trip home was much smoother than the trip to the Gambia. When we got to the ferry there was nobody in line, so we only had to wait an hour. The border stops were a little interesting - a funny thing that happened was that while we were at the second of 3 buildings where Ron had to get something signed. The kids and I were in the car and there were a group of kids asking for everything they saw in the car. A lady walks up and a girl asks for the bibiron - I didn't know what that was - so after clarifying it was a baby bottle I said no, it was a toy for Faith's baby. They couldn't understand that Faith had a baby. I said to the lady that she didn't need a bottle to feed and she then proceeded to lift up her shirt and squirt me with breast milk, and then she fell out laughing. After I picked up my jaw, I told her she still couldn't have the bottle. She asked if she could "look" at it - stupid me - said sure. She then told me sorry and walked away. She did throw back some "free" cashews. I didn't want to cause a scene at the border crossing, crazy white woman trying to enter the country might not go over to well. We survived, but it might be a while before we go back.

We are now home in our new apartment. We are about 90% moved. We slept here for the first time since moving. Faith has a bad infection in her ear, face and eye. She is on major antibiotics and will go back to the dr. on Thursday. She is miserable and on 24 hour pain meds. We are praying that the antibiotics kick in today. She has had 1 day of them and so hopefully she will turn the corner today.

We have jumped back into language - we weren't ready after speaking english for 3 weeks. We want to be able to communicate better so we will continue to do 2-3 days a week for the summer before school starts. Pray that our language will stick.

Off for now - thanks for all of your prayers. Pray that we will get everything done in this next month before the boys arrive!

Quick Update

We arrived home safe from our crazy travels on Wednesday and began the arduous task of moving and packing. Ugh! We will post some pictures from our trip soon - our internet is not cooperating to load pictures.

We haven't been able to move into the dorm yet. They have ripped up the kitchen and in the process turned off the cold water. Hopefully they will finish up this week. So in the meantime we have moved, cleaned, and organized during the day and then come home and shower and fall in the bed!

We hope everyone had a happy 4th of July. We missed celebrating in the US! We did have hot dogs, hamburgers, beans and mac and cheese and we heard some fireworks!

Our trip to Banjul, Gambia

Well this was certainly an adventure - here are some pictures from our trip. The above tree was our rest stop where we ate, used the "facilities" and rested. When we stopped here there was only 1 African watching us, when we left there were 3. I am sure they haven't seen many toubabs peeing out in the bush before. The picture below is a where they do the salt mining - they pull it from the water.

This is what the road looked like much of the trip - and to top it off our air conditioner stopped working as we started the second half of the trip and we had to have our windows down! This is their attempt to help the dust - make it mud!
Here is a mosque we saw on the way. The picture below is while I was waiting at the border. Two men praying for the mid-day prayers. Crossing the border was interesting as well. We have never crossed a border in the car. We had to stop at 4 offices and get a multitude of stamps. It took forever!

Here are some of the "few" kids we had around our car while we waited to get on the ferry. We got to the ferry at 3:00 and finally got on the ferry at 11:15. We really haven't seen corruption while we have been in Africa, aside from one police officer wanting tea money. But this was terrible. Many people came up to our car and asked us if we were wanting to go to the front of the line for a fee for the captain. We politely said no. So what they were doing was, those that paid went to a special line and those that didn't waited in the regular line. So when each ferry came they let a few cars from the regular line and all of the bribe paying line. This went on all day, so that we got on the last ferry across to Banjul. So we sat and waited for 8+ hours. During that time we saw many sellers, kids, animals, beggars, etc. Here are a few pics.

We were stopped in front of a Koranic school and here is a boy with his tablet of arabic.

Here is Faith after we finally made it on to the ferry - she was riding in our friends car - this says it all! We finally made it to the hotel around 1:30 and we fell into bed (after washing away the grime from the trip that was literally caked on our necks).

The hotel we are staying at is gorgeous and I will post some pictures tomorrow - right now I am in the internet room and I am being bit up by mosquito's!

Pictures

We went to a wedding for a daughter of our supervisors - it was right on the beach!

This is a little girl that was watching the ceremony.

It was so funny - during the ceremony all these vendors walked down the beach!

Here are some pictures from Luke's birthday!


His class enjoying some cupcakes.

These are some pictures of the vendors on the road! I am sure that you thought I was exaggerating!

The kids finished up school last week and we now have an eighth grader, sixth grader and third grader. They all did very well in school - although Zach had the hardest transition. We have been told next year it will be easier as they won't be the new kids and they know what to expect.

Tuesday we leave for the Gambia. Pray for safe travels, as we are told that the roads are horrendous. Pray also for the ferry ride - we have been told that it could take up to 10 or more hours to get a ride on the ferry (unless you pay to get to the front of the line). We are hoping to get there early enough to beat the rush, but it is still a long day. In the training we will be learning how to share a story of Jesus' life - from creation to the cross. It is an English speaking country so that helps, we are also told there are a fare amount of Wolof speakers too. So we are hoping that we won't digress in our language. We not sure of our internet availability while we are there, but will post whenever possible.

In the dorm

A while back we were asked to take care of the dorm while the current dorm parents take their 3 day weekend off. So this is the weekend. We approached it with reserved excitement and a little bit of apprehension. We got here Saturday morning and will stay until lights out on Monday - around 10 pm.

We were a little nervous, because what if we hated it or what if they hated us? Here we have committed to 3 years of time and what if we found out that it was going to be torture? But, praise the Lord, it has been awesome. We have been basically hanging out in the living room area, which is a little awkward because we don’t have a space of our in the dorm. It also has been a busy weekend with a Junior/Senior Banquet, Senior receptions and other things going on, but it has really solidified our call to this job and this school. It has been really neat to be able to get to know the boys before next year!

So it has increased our excitement for the school year and has made us so thankful to be here!

Life goes on

It has been a while since we have posted. We have settled into a routine here in Senegal. We continue to have 3 days of language and the kids continue to really enjoy school. With our crate arriving, we have had a few additional forms of entertainment. We dug out the Wii and have enjoyed playing with that! For the most part we left all of the boxes taped up, but definitely wanted to dig out the Wii! The kids love school and are very anxious to get on campus. There is always something going on at the school and they can't wait to be in the mix!

To catch up: Zach played the trumpet again and once again did very well. He continues to enjoy baseball and playing soccer. He has struggled a little bit with the social aspect and having to deal with a bully. He has made some good friends, but unfortunately his closest friend is going on furlough next year. Thus the life of a missionary kid! Luke likes baseball and has enjoyed being involved with floor hockey too! He loves playing in the woods at school, building forts and creating clubs. Not real crazy about schoolwork, but loves the atmosphere at school. Faith loves everything about DA - her teacher, friends, play ground!

Ron and I are still working on language. It still continues to be a struggle. We understand so much while in the class room and then walk out and depending on who is talking - don't understand a word! It is very frustrating. But we continue to progress and learn more vocabulary and can carry on conversations. Our house helper continues to encourage - they other day I was talking with her in French and she looked at me and said - say it again but in Wolof this time. I am thankful for that! It is much easier at times for me to think in French, so I quickly go to that instead of plugging along in the Wolof.

Life continues to be fun here - seeing funny new things each time we head out of our doors! We haven't taken many pictures while driving, but it is interesting what you see while driving. We can do all of our Christmas shopping inside of our car. There are people selling everything imaginable and some not so imaginable things on the road. So far while in our car stopped in traffic we have bought - sun glasses, drinking glasses, a knife, fruit, nuts, cookies, grater, eggs, water, gum, phone cards, and a watch. So far we have turned down - mirrors, clocks, bras, underwear, undershirts, kleenex (personal or full box), toys, posters of various marabouts (Muslim leaders), rugs, hangers, muslim books, muslim beads, french DVDs, books, stickers, remote controls, every cell phone gadget, ball/strike counters, steering wheel covers, flares, cans of fix a flat, key chains, string art, magnifying glasses, razors, hair clipper sets, water boilers, skillet, tupperware, plates, table cloths, clothes pins, and the list will I am sure continue to grow. It is like Walmart each time we get on the road.

The kids only have around 7 days of school left - then we are off to the Gambia for training. We will hopefully put some pictures on soon. Pray for the kids finishing up school and pray for the Seniors as they complete their finals and prepare to head off to colleges.

Our crate arrived!

Let's open it up and see what we got.....

Where are your books? That is all they were concerned about. Unfortunately the books were near the back of the crate. So, piece by piece they started unloading the crate.



This is Ron talking with the customs officer. Praise the Lord after about 15-20 things were pulled out Ron found a box with some books in it and thankfully the books were a writers' manual and a Rosetta Stone book and not the many, many evangelism books or books on Islam. God was good! The customs officer seemed satisfied and signed off of the crate. We think it helped that we talked a good bit of Wolof with him and he was very impressed (amused) with our attempt to speak with him. So they starting putting all of the things that they took out back in. Only 2 things didn't fit and had to be held off separately. It was fun to see their faces reacting to some of the items they had never seen before. The nerf dart gun, kites, candle warmer, Christmas tree topper - we did a lot of charades! It was delivered the next morning. They had a machine that dropped the whole crate over our gate. We hadn't told the kids that it was here - so they had a huge surprise when they got home from school! There was much shouts of glee and excitement.

Before we left the States, we read a book about a boy who collected his most prized possessions in a special box. So we stole the idea and had each of them collect their most favorite things and put them in a box - it was neat to see them pull each item out and reminisce about the memory or love on a stuffed animal. We gave away a lot of their toys when we left, but these special items helped them forget what they left behind and allowed them to appreciate what they chose to keep!