Our New Ministry Center

As of this month, we have begun renting a facility to use for a variety of ministries and outreach-oriented activities.  To begin with, we are moving our Fulbe believer meetings there since the location is more easily accessible to everyone.  I also plan to begin teaching on various topics there, such as discipleship and leadership.

Our Round Hut for Believer Meetings

Another major use for the facility is English classes.  Once I get tables, chairs, and ESL materials, such as textbooks, I will begin teaching a number of English as a Second Language classes and seminars.  Many people here have a strong desire to learn English.  Through these classes, I will be able to meet many new people.

The future may reveal yet more uses for the ministry facility.  One long-standing prayer of ours has been that God would send more workers to share Christ here in Guinea.  If more workers come to our town, our ministry facility is also a house that they could move right into.  Please pray with us for God’s blessing upon this new ministry center.

My happiest daydreams and intentions don’t come until the end of a second or third cup of coffee, and no earlier than 10 am. I am not now, and never have been a morning person.

About two years ago I received the most wonderful email from a new mom and dear friend. She wrote, “I am feeling fairly well, but without a doubt best after my coffee… I’m curious if anyone else finds their happiest daydreams and intentions and cleaning energy floating in at about the half-cup-empty (or full) mark.”

Here is my favorite cold coffee recipe:

{Using Guinea Ingredients}
7 tablespoons of powdered milk
1 heaping tablespoon white sugar
1 scant tablespoon Nescafe instant coffee
1½ cups water
Just a note: I never really measure ingredients here. I just toss them into a glass and stir. You might have to work at it to find the proportions you like best. For this recipe, David likes almost twice as much milk.

{Using Western Ingredients}
25 ounces coffee
1/2 cup sugar
6 cups milk

This CD is currently in the CD drive and its music fills the house near daily:

After almost a year, apples recently reappeared in the market. I really like dipping them in caramel made from pressure cooked sweetened condensed milk. Here’s how:

Remove the label from the sweetened condensed milk can. Place the unopened can in a pressure cooker with water half way up the side of the can. See that?

Next, boil the can in the pressure cooker for a half an hour after the pressure gauge starts to rock. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, put the can in a regular cooking pot, cover with water and boil for 2½  hours. Let sit until completely cool.

The caramel will last for years, and (trust me) we’ll use it before it expires, but I like to label and date the cans:

For cream cheese lovers, you can layer the caramel with cream cheese for optimal apple dipping.

My favorite children’s book as of late is a birthday present the girls received from Grammy:

I just finished Sword and Scalpel by Lorry Lutz. What an inspiring read from a modern day hero of the faith. Do you read? If so, what’s in your nightstand stack?

I am a planner, a list maker, a project-kind-of-gal. Our current project is the kitchen. After years of living with no cupboards, a local cabinet maker is working on them. We should be able to pick up the first one next week. I’m also hoping David will tint the paint he bought at the market last week so I can paint the walls before the cabinets go up.

As for ministry, I am loving gathering educational resources for my girls. And I continue to visit with folks when I have the opportunity. Language study is still the primary goal outside of caring for Thing One and Thing Two; however, I have not put as much time as needed toward this crucial task. Will you please pray with me that I will be a better steward of my time?

I am also keen on doing the Scripture Calendars for next year. We have very talented artists in our home church who do a fabulous job of illustrating them. Giving the calendars to friends is exciting and it’s encouraging to see God’s Word being read and valued.

No, not “to buy a fat pig.” For religious reasons, the Fulbe do not eat pork. Yesterday we set off to the market to visit friends and pass out these newly printed 2012 Scripture calendars:

David carried Annika while Amelie enjoyed the view from my back. The girls really like being tied to my back when we go out, because they can pull their arms inside the carrier and put their heads down so people can’t easily touch them. I tucked a stack of calendars under my arm so people would take interest in them and off we went. (I discovered that people take great interest in partially hidden items. If they can see into my shopping bag, just a little, then they ask me what I bought. If they think I am trying to hide something, it becomes intriguing).

First, we greeted our milk man, then our good friend in the “hardware” aisle, and on we went to find a new friend, Al, who had tried to help David find screws.  Last week, sitting in a small, dark market stall, huddled over a basket of used screws looking for the size David needed, Al noted that David was speaking Pular. “Can you read Pular too?” Al asked.

“Yes,” David replied.

The young man reached over and unlocked the small drawer of his wooden desk. “Can you read this?” He pulled out an old, dirt-smudged copy of Genesis.

“Where did you get that?” David questioned, surprised by the book the man held in his hand.

“Oh, I worked very hard to find this book. I had to search a really long time,” Al replied, “It’s the only one I have.”

As he opened the slightly tattered pages, David noted Al’s name written on the outside cover, the inside cover and the back cover. Clearly, that this was a prized possession that wasn’t meant to leave his shop.

“When you finish this one,” David said, “I will give you the second part of this book.”

When we arrived at Al’s stall yesterday, we gave him a calendar and David handed him a copy of Exodus. Al’s surprise was evident. He wondered why we would not only give him a calendar for free but the second portion of the Old Testament for free, too. Before we left, the guys set a date and time to visit, read, and talk about these books some more.

With Annika leading the way, off we rambled through the open air market with life to give, free for the taking…

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100: 1-5

Math teachers, eat-your-heart-out! David used math (in real life!) to teach well workers how to calculate the amount of broken tile they needed to purchase to cover our well. Guineans waste very few resources, so even broken tile is sold and used to finish everything from showers to driveways. It was quite an exercise for the two men who probably never finished more than 8 years of elementary school (source).

For weeks, a few men worked by hand in the blazing sun to dig our well wider and deeper. Hand over hand they hauled up water, dirt, and rock in a bucket dumping it in front of our house to fill huge ruts the rainy season had carved into our road.

Finally, the well was ready to be capped, fitted with a hand pump, and tiled.

Everyone needs water to live, and toward the end of the dry season water can be especially hard to find. Fortunately, our well has never run dry and neighbors know they can come and draw from our well anytime. Just as we needed a well for water, the workers who dug the well needed living water.  During the weeks the men were in our courtyard, David shared the Good News with them under the shade of a banana plant although no decisions for Christ were made. I wonder how they will respond when God points not to the times they provided water through their hard work, but to the time they were freely offered living water.

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

In fact, it’s been raining for two days and two nights. Amazing, I know! With the exception of a few drips and drops in April for the mango trees, it doesn’t usually start raining until May. We couldn’t believe our ears when we heard the familiar “pat-a-tap-tap” on the tin roof. (David better get to fixin’ the leaks in our roof!)

What’s more amazing, we had cheeseburgers for dinner. That required making buns, and having meat and cheese in the house. It sounds like something small, but the meat and cheese is brought up from Conakry and the idea didn’t hit me until long about 4:30… very late in the day for bread-making.

David found these in town the other day:

I am on my second third okay, I ate all six packages in about three days. They resemble Oreo cookies, but are way better. I am certain the ingredients are not good for me in any of the seven languages listed. Never mind that.

Did you receive our Christmas card yet? I had the hardest time getting our mail out of the country the end of 2011. To my knowledge, they were taken to the US but have not yet arrived in your mailbox. I suppose I will have to mail Christmas cards in October this year.

After a week of team meetings, we are solidifying our plans for travel and ministry for 2012. Please let us know if you would like to come for a visit!

Amelie and Annika turned two on January 29. Because of our travel schedule, we had two owl themed parties for them. My very talented girlfriend, Amanda puts together a birthday box for them each year. Their first party was a little early with our team in a more southern town in Guinea, and the second was at home a few days after their birthday.

They ate cupcakes, buckeye bars, and rice krispies. They opened gifts and gave out fun party favors. We had games, cupcake shaped play dough, and these owl eye spy bags for each guest to take home:

Both girls are REALLY into the color blue right now. It’s the only color they always correctly identify. Their favorite gifts received this year were new pairs of blue socks.

Amelie loves all the new things. She walks around the house singing “Happy Birthday,” and holding things up and saying, “It’s new!” Annika also likes their doctor bags and this book (which I almost have memorized we’ve read it so many times):

Please pray that Amelie and Annika will continue to grow in wisdom and in their relationships with the Lord in this, their third year.

Our December 2011 newsletter is now available to read online. Click the image below to access it. The newsletter is password protected. If you do not know the password and would like to read the newsletter, please click on the Contact page and request a password using the contact form.

As the nights get longer and the days get shorter in the States, I miss crisp Fall air, warm apple pies, and rosy noses from late afternoon walks in crunchy leaves. Fall is my favorite time of year and I wish I could be there to enjoy it.

But Guinea has so much that the U.S. doesn’t. Many evenings I carry Annika on my back while pushing Amelie in a red umbrella stroller. Together we go on long walks down dusty roads past young men playing soccer and cows grazing to the edge of town where the road turns into a foot path. We see endless fields of tall, brown grass, rolling hills dotted with thatch roofed huts, and children playing with handmade tin can cars. As we pass each mud-brick home, everyone looks up from their work, stops to greet, and watches us walk by.

I can’t really imagine a life in the U.S. without knowledge of Guinea. And I can’t imagine life in Guinea without memories of the U.S.. Please pray for me as I create new memories for our family that include things I love about both of my homes and embrace life in the only place the girls call home.

In college I interned in two churches under the children’s directors. At BBC I had the opportunity to learn from one of the most creative children’s directors I have ever met. She wrote her own VBS programs, each Sunday morning children’s program, camps, and special presentations from scratch. I’m pretty sure she was super-woman in the creative department. I had a lot to learn.

It was about that time I began thinking about writing children’s curriculum. I always knew it wouldn’t be my first career, or even a career that would take shape early in life; rather a third or fourth career that might become a focus later. Still, the itch to write is there. Occasionally I’m able to teach a class for a friend or complete a teaching project on cross- cultural studies, but it’s not the same as writing full curriculum sets.

Now that our girls are beginning to talk and get easily bored with simple toys, I find myself accumulating educational resources en masse to prepare for writing their Pre-School and kindergarten curriculum. The learning curve has been steep, and I want to do my best with homeschooling in a location that offers very few consumable or durable goods. That’s why I am starting to research and gather materials now instead of waiting until the summer before they start school. Plus, my girls are already learning colors, shapes, and the alphabet in addition to three languages (they take after their dad). Lastly, we have to plan well in advance to be adequately equipped for even the smallest goings-on here. I digress.

In my search for Pre-School activities, I came across an ABC Scripture book. It’s a very cute way to learn the alphabet, colors, and scripture in one book, but I do not have $58.50 to spend on something I can make myself. I adapted the colors and verses and created my own book during the girls’ nap time. I’d like to share it with you. It should print well on 8 ½ by 11 paper. You can laminate and spiral bind it, or print each sheet for framing. I am going to upload the book to Shutterfly and redeem a free 7×9 photo book coupon they sent me via Pampers Gifts to Grow. Let me know if you would rather have the 7×9 size, or if you see any mistakes. Lastly, this version includes colors such as pink and purple. If several of you would rather have a version for boys that include grey and yellow instead of pink and purple, I can accommodate.