Hello there, I will apologize in advance for any rambling that I will do. I will try to keep this at least somewhat coherent. I am SOOO tired today, mentally, physically and physiologically as well. On the field, we talk about hitting the wall, and there are several walls we hit. The first and biggest is the one that everyone hits 6 months after arriving on the field. Of course I hit that last year, 3 months after my father's funeral, while living in the village. While last year had MANY struggles for us/me, through the prayers and support of our family & friends, I made it through. Now we have been in the city for all this year and have been able to focus in on our new assignment, and had our first volunteer team from FL. Come out. Those things have been a BIG blessing for us and has helped to give us a strong sense of purpose out here.
But lately, the last week or so has been a little tiring. After the team left, we were set-up to hold some English classes at the church that we worked with, for the neighborhood students. Lisa and I prepared for a few days and went up to the church on Monday the 8th, only to have no one show up, no even from the church. We went back each morning for 3 days, just in case, and STILL no one. So we decided to scrap the teaching for the first 2 weeks. Now I was able to meet the director of a local community center and make plans to use the center for the next set of 2 weeks. I can't help but wander if the church has done some of the follow up that they were supposed to do. Several of the youth from the church are supposed to be doing some follow up from after the camp and while doing so, many said that they would remind people about the classes. Oh, well, pray for the next round, which starts on the 22nd and runs through the 2nd of Sept.
A large part of my tiredness has more to do with just life here. On Thursday last week, they started to build on a new room to the studio that is below us. While working, they hit the water line and had to turn off the water. Now we have a LARGE water tank on our roof, for our house only, we used all of that by the end of the day with laundry and other uses. Then on Fri, we found out that the water pressure was so low that our tank was not re-filled, and was bad enough that we had just a trickle, from one faucet all day. Then, that afternoon, we found out that the city was planning on shutting off the water to ALL the city, to work on some pipes. So now we spend the rest of the evening trying to fill up a barrel with water, so that we can have something. I woke up EARLY both Fri. and Saturday to make sure that we had at least some water to wash with, flush the toilet and bath with. After spending most of the evening on Friday and all morning on Saturday, by 3pm, we had about 1 barrel filled.
We did have a good evening though. The President, and his wife (Jerry and Bobbie Rankin), of the IMB came out for a visit. Several of us from our office, Senegal wide, came together to have a dinner and fellowship. As it turns out, we ate Senegalize style, from a common platter, and the wife of the president, Bobbie, ended up sharing our platter with us. I do have to say that I am VERY impressed with them both. They are just normal people that actually would love to be on the field again. They are VERY personable and friendly.
Sunday, yesterday, was a LONG day for me though. Lisa, and the other ladies, met with Bobbie for a time of prayer and worship. So I had another missionary father of 2 small children, friends of Pape, come over for time together. As it turns out, we had a "typical" Sunday here, electricity wise. On top of little to no water pressure, at about 9 am the power went out. It normally does this each Sunday lately, fortunately last week it was out all day, until about 4pm. I say fortunately because that helped me have an idea of how long we would be without power. Well, I spent the morning with 3 children, under the age of 2 1/2 years, playing and helping make sure they share. Since the power situation was what it was, when Lisa came home, at about noon, we went to a restaurant to eat. While waiting on the food, I went outside and played with Pape on the play area, in the heat again. After returning home, we all laid down for our afternoon nap, in a slightly hot house, there was a slight breeze. Lisa had her baby shower that afternoon, and left before Pape woke up. I played with him though for about an hour, reading and wrestling around, getting hot and sweaty, after he woke up. We then went to where Lisa was, to help get the stuff home, but also because I figured they had electricity, which meant fans!!! We stayed there for a while and all returned home at @ 5:15pm, and PTL, the power had returned!!!!
We did have a chance to talk to Lisa's mother that night on Yahoo, which we try to do every Sunday. She seemed a little tired as well though, we seemed to have audio issues from time to time and Pape did not always want to stay in the living room. Since it was Lisa's mom, I tried to keep up with him and try to keep him in the room with us, so Grandma could see him, and to save the rest of the house. We also were able to do what we try to do every Sunday night as well. After Pape goes to sleep, I make a big bowl of popcorn and we watch a movie, we call it "date night."
So after dealing with the water issue on top of the power issue on top of chasing after a 2 year old all weekend, I am tired. There were other issues as well, but this post has become quite long!
But a BIG PRAISE; PAPE TURNS 2 TODAY!!!!! We will be having a party at my Senegalize mother's home. Her daughters, my sisters, are here now helping get things made.
