Fast Food Anyone?

Here is a ceeb (rice and sauce) restaurant. They are all around - you must bring your own container and you order per person. Here is our former team mate Patty waiting for our rice.



Here is our favorite "fast food" restaurant - not your McD's, Burger King or Hardees, but delicious nonetheless. We order a "meat" sandwich and it costs around $2. It is mutton with onions, spicy mustard, spices on a baguette. This is him preparing the sheep - they use everything. Not sure who eats the rest of it, but we do enjoy the meat part - not the organs, intestines, head or other choice parts!

Video of our day at Accrobaobob

Here is a simple video of our day shot by one of the guys - he was at the back of the line with Ron and I, so you see a lot of us.

Outreach - Accrobaobob

It has been an exciting time since school started in January. Ron went to Turkey to finally finish his classes for his Masters of Divinity degree. He is 1 paper away from completing all graduation requirements. While he was gone, a team from Northwest Baptist Church came in to go on outreach and serve here with us for a week. A huge surprise was that his Mom came and surprised us. She has never flown and didn't even have a passport before this trip. After seeing her walk out of the airport, I looked up to the sky and said I was looking for all of the pigs!! She did great here - we were so proud of her. The team - Bob, Charley and Mark worked really hard on outreach and then after observed and helped with our Spiritual Emphasis Week (SEW). They are praying that a team from NWBC will come next January and do the same trip.

After they left we had some time to recuperate, but then we had our weekend that is reserved for the dorm students. We went to Accrobaobob - which is a high ropes course through the baobob trees. It was pretty terrifying for an old girl like me. The guys just whipped through and I tentatively made each step. We were so proud of our kids - all of them went through the big course. Zach is not a big fan of things that are scary, and Faith is little still, but both tackled this with no problem. You do the whole course attached to wires and carabiners and several zip lines. When you walk through one area, you unclip each carabiner and attach it to the next wire. Stepping off of the platform for each zip line is a pretty intense feeling. It did get easier with each one and by the end of the course I started to relax, even letting go of my death grip. It was a great day! Below are some pics from January:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Here are some pictures of our time at the dunes:






We are currently on break and enjoying our free time hanging out and relaxing in the dorm. We have done our annual (okay it is only the second one) trip to the Dunes the day after Christmas and had an awesome time. Our dorm is currently being painted so that has put a little damper on things, but it will look nice when they are done! I am a little loopy as I am typing this!

We will celebrate New Year's Eve with friends and fireworks! New Year's Eve or trente - un is a big deal here with lots of fireworks and festivities. Last year we went to the beach and had a chili potluck - this year it will be in our neighborhood with a soup potluck.

In January, we are looking forward to some folks from Northwest Baptist Church coming over to go on outreach with the school. They will come in a day before outreach and then stay the following week to observe our Spiritual Emphasis Week. We are so excited to have them and show them our country and have them meet the guys and see the work around Senegal.

We hope your New Year is filled with family, friends and the blessings of the Lord - we miss you all! I hope that in the New Year I will be more consistent with blogging!!

Outreach

Last weekend we went on outreach with 130 other kids and adults to a village about 3 hours from Dakar called Tattenguine. Those 130 people built benches, poured a foundation for a church, harvested peanuts, pounded millet, performed VBS in 10 villages, did drama for 13 villages, did a medical clinic and did 6 evening services. It was a crazy weekend, but was it worth it. The gospel was shared with over 3,000 people and over 700 people responded to the gospel. The pastors in that area have a huge job ahead of them! Zach and I (Chris) were on the VBS (Vacation Bible school) team. We traveled to over 10 villages and performed skits, sang, played with the kids and handed out cookies! We were deep in the bush of Africa. It was really great to be able to see Zach with the kids and doing skits in French. It is neat to see how he has blossomed. Ron was on the peanut harvesting team. Wow was that hard work. He basically had 2 sticks - 1 to lift up the peanuts and 1 to beat the peanuts off the vine. Many blisters were formed in those 2 days. We basically camped - slept in a tent and showered out of a bucket. It was a grueling 2 days but so awesome to see our youth really shine for the Lord! We have another outreach 21-23 January. We have some folks coming from our home church in Maryland and we are really excited to have them join us and see our work. Please pray for their preparations and travel. I have lots more pictures on Facebook if you are interested!

Tabaski Fun

Tabaski is on Wednesday which means that there are sheep everywhere! You see them in the back of taxis, on top of buses, walking down the street, and being carried. Tabaski is a holiday where the Muslims celebrate God providing a sheep in place of sacrificing Ishmael (Bible says it is Isaac, but they believe it was Ishmael). On Wednesday these sheep will be "sacrificed" in remembrance of what God provided. It is a day full of festive outfits and celebration. School is closed for us so that our Muslim workers can be with their families. Pray for our national workers that one day they will know the truth!

Other tidbits:

Luke and Faith won the movie contest! They were very excited and awarded a fun trophy!

Here is a picture of us with our dorm guys on our latest outing to the beach:




Also, pray for my Dad who is having bladder surgery to remove 2 cancerous tumors on the 23rd of November. Pray that they will be able to save his bladder and that there will be no other signs of cancer! We continue to be thankful for your ministry and support of our family!

Cinderella

Luke and Faith with some of their friends made a video for a contest here at school. It is called a sweded video - where you recreate another video in a short format. They had 3 minutes to do Cinderella. Except for the editing, they did the whole video themselves!