What We've Been Up To

The problem with blogging is that when there's not much going on, there's plenty of time to post, then when there's a lot going on, there's no time to post. That's where we find ourselves this month. Busy busy busy...but in a good way.

The kids and I finished up school on July 11th. That was a relief! Now I'm frantically getting lesson plans ready for the 2008-2009 school year starting at the end of August. We're bound and determined to get started on time this year and finish on time. Check with me in a few months and ask how well we're doing. Ü

Our teammates, the Bledsoe's hosted 5 summer interns this year and we spent some time with Casey, Amber, Scott, Teresa and Melissa. We enjoyed having them around, especially for our annual Jones 4th of July complete with tug of war, 3 legged and sack races and all the fixin's of an American picnic. It was great fun. We had them over for dinners on occasion and movie nights and got used to seeing them at the clinic, or on our couch in the afternoon playing with our kids. They all left this week, and we were sad to see them go.

We also hosted a team from Springfield MO through Extend Global. Erin, Debbie, Nicole and Jeff spent two weeks with us and were such an easy team to have around, we wonder if they really "got their money's worth". They helped us visit our Djoula Muslim friends and invite them to Tess' baby naming ceremony on the 20th, then they helped us prepare for the great event. I use the word "prepare" loosely, as we invited 25, "prepared" for 40, and ended up hosting between 60 and 75 people. Talk about making a meal stretch!

Tess received the Djoula name "Rokia" rhymes with "Nokia" and although i'm not really keen on the name, we were able to host our Djoula friends, share in one of their traditions, and at the same time share the gospel with them, as one of our church leaders shared a message from the Bible before the ceremony began.

While the Extend Global team was here, they did a LOT of praying. Everywhere we drove, everywhere they walked, every courtyard we visited, they prayed. We were able to see some amazing fruit to their prayers, one of which has to do with the Bible storytelling sessions with Salifou and Sansan at the car wash. I'll let him tell you more about that later, but God is working and it's amazing to be a part of it.

If you're interested in reading about the team's trip, their blog and photos can be found at http://www.web.mac.com/john_erin. It was great to have them and we hope they went away touched blessed from this part of the world.