The first week in January brought a new volunteer to help us with the guest house. We were so glad to welcome him and much of the first week of this month was spent orienting him to the job as well as the city. He's been a big help and is now handling most all of the day to day tasks that come with that responsibility. While I still have some work involved, I'm back to focusing primarily on homeschooling our children. He is only here for 90 days, but it's a blessing. We are very, very hopeful that we have a couple coming for an ENTIRE YEAR after he leaves, which would be fabulous!
About the time we got our volunteer launched, my supervisor came from another country to visit those of us who work in my city. It was good to see him and get his thoughts and vision regarding our work here. His visit has triggered a good amount of wrestling and prayer concerning my language study. Language is so tricky here in our current city, where English is so widely spoken and there are so many local languages. As it comes to mind, I welcome your prayers for wisdom concerning my language work.
Ryan made a trip to our former country. He was gone for about 9 days, which was a tad too long for me! He had much to do during his time there, because he hadn't been since my mom got sick. The immigration office here had been processing our passports for several months, which meant he couldn't travel. Fortunately, that's all done now and we're hoping that with more frequent visits again, he can keep his work a bit more manageable, and his visits a bit shorter. I can say that I am so proud of the work he's putting in. The job that he's doing can be pretty thankless and it's pretty much guaranteed that someone won't be happy with whatever decision he makes concerning whatever issue he's facing. It's just the nature of what he does. It's also not something that many people would be eager to do. But, he has really rolled up his sleeves and tackled it to the best of his ability. It's a bit like eating an elephant, but he's been faithfully taking bites, even on the days when he'd rather have a nice juicy steak instead!
In addition to his "job," Ryan has been working to build some relationships among the deaf people in our city. When we were in college, Ryan had a big heart for deaf ministry and had many deaf friends. However, as we invested more and more in the local church, that took a bit of a backseat to our work with children and their families. Now it seems that God is opening up doors for him to share Christ with that people group again. He has been going once a week to spend time in an area of town where he has found a high concentration of deaf people. While he is there, he works to build friendships and shares stories from God's word with any who will listen. Here in West Africa, people with any sort of disability tend to be overlooked, even more than they would in America. So, the fact that an obroni (white man) would give of his time to learn their language and sit with them allows him some instant friendships. He is really enjoying it and is excited to see what God will do in and through that adventure.
Lily celebrated her 10th birthday on January 19th. She requested chicken alfredo, Olive Garden style breadsticks, and a big chocolate chip cookie for her birthday dinner. We also spent the afternoon watching movies together complete with some Dr. Pepper we found around town (only $1.75 a can!) and some theater candy that Pa sent us in a package with some incoming volunteers. It was a treat for everyone.
We all had a bit of a "moment" when Lily opened the card from my dad and found a sweet note explaining that it was a card my mom purchased. My mom and Lily shared a birthday and they always have had a special bond. We had to assure her multiple times that celebrating was still in order, though it was also okay to feel sad too. It was a bit of a slippery slope to help her navigate.
Our kitten has settled in well and for the most part, she is a good fit for our family. When we got her, the plan was to keep her inside until she got big enough to protect herself and be a good hunter, then she was going to be relocated to the yard. The last couple of days, we've tried putting her out for small amounts of time to acclimate her to the idea of being a mouser. So far, it's been an epic fail as she has done nothing but stand at the door and cry until someone lets her back in. Of course, if someone was custom-building me a magna tile castle, I might not want to move either!
Here's Joy, enjoying her castle.
The children and I are making steady progress with school. The bottom line is, homeschooling 5 children well, especially with an age range from 1st grade through high school, takes a lot of time and energy. I sometimes get overwhelmed with all of the things that clamor for my attention, but God has been reminding me that my primary ministry and focus for this season has to be educating and discipling my children. Sometimes that means that I have to say no to some really, really good opportunities or at least give them less energy than I might if I weren't homeschooling. But, I know that the time I have to invest in my children is simply flying by. Too soon I'll have many hours every day that can be dedicated to other ministries and interests.
Abe and I rowed the book, Very Last First Time, about an Inuit girl. We did lots of activities, but Abe's favorite was trying to build an igloo out of ice cubes and salt. As you can imagine, the ice didn't last long in our hot sun, but he had a great time anyway and actually had some success at stacking them together.
Looking forward, we are beginning to think about the time that we will be spending in the States starting around Christmas time. It looks like we're going to be there for about 5 months and we know that the time will absolutely fly. We both feel as if our time there this past fall helped us to learn a very few ins and outs of how to do a visit to the States. We're certainly not pros, but we better understand that there is a delicate balance required between some sort of normal and "let's experience all we can while we're here." We're trying to begin choosing our priorities for how we spend our limited time and money, so that we don't get to the end of it with regrets.
That's about it from our corner of the world. I do have a variety of other things rolling around in my head and I do hope to update more regularly moving forward. It tends to be good for my mental health. But, don't hear me making any promises, as life on the ground can be pretty consuming.
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