“You’re not cut out for Africa” David said.

“You think wives in Africa like their husbands putting cockroaches in the bed?” I questioned. Obviously, we have a difference of opinion on whether or not wildlife should co-exist in close quarters with (wo)man.

That was, by the way, the largest cockroach I had seen to date. Gross!

A few weeks later, I had a very bizarre dream. (Not out of the norm, as I have full-action, full-color, highly intense dreams every time I sleep.) My dream this particular night was that I fed colleagues pasta with millipedes.

They live on the tree in our driveway, and I am afraid they are going to fall on my head every time I beat out a rug on its trunk. In the dream, they started crawling out of the bowl and got into my hair. I woke up, and my whole head itched. I immediately prayed that if there was anything in my hair that God would get it out, and kill it. Really.

The next morning as I was making the bed, I saw a pile of dead cockroaches beside my pillow. I stopped counting at 13 as I swept them into the dustpan. (God answers prayer!)

On your next visit to Labe, shake out your slippers in the morning or you may find this little fellow greeting you…

…or this large one:

While here, we will provide you with the nicest accommodations possible and the finest cuisine (see aforementioned pasta). The cula were recently evicted from your suite:

As was this brown widow spider:

(Source)

And don’t worry about the bats in the guesthouse ceiling. We’re working on getting rid of those for you too.

If you spend time admiring the flowers around our house, you may see this huge, hissing beetle that attacked and bit Amelie three times yesterday…

…or a cute little inchworm. See it on the stick?

Maybe we’ll take you to an extremely remote mountain to pray. If you’re quiet, once we park under a lone tree and sit down in its shade to pray for the surrounding villages, An Eastern Green Mamba could slide down the trunk, out on a limb next to us, drop to the ground, and slither away. It will probably be the brightest green snake you have ever seen. (Totally hypothetically speaking, of course… eh-hem…)

(Source)

If you want, you can swap snake stories with our colleagues who were visited by this three foot spitting cobra:

In the early morning as we drive you back down the mountains on your way to Conakry; just as the sun is rising over a million thatched roof huts, you might spy a troop of monkeys:

But, then again, maybe you won’t see anything but vultures sitting on the neighbor’s unfinished house.

Either way, we’ll be excited to see you!

It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the girls are bouncing around, hollering in their beds napping. Rain is pouring down from a dark grey sky. I couldn’t have a conversation if I tried for all the water beating the tin roof. There is something wonderful about a West African rain storm. I love them. Love. Them. It rains about 17 feet in 6 months in Conakry; half that in Labe.

There are many great things about rainy season in Guinea. The sun isn’t so scorching, for starters. Everything turns green, and we have more electricity because of the hydro-electric dam.

And then, there are the not-so-great things about rainy season. Primarily the mold. It’s everywhere. Mold grows on everything from walls to clothing that doesn’t dry properly. It’s currently on our kitchen ceiling:

Our roof is leaking, and David can’t find where the water’s coming in. Bummer, since I just repainted it last Tuesday. David climbed up on the roof yesterday to plug the hole, but can’t find it. (He also came back with a tale about fighting off a giant spider… I’m not sure I believe him.) I have one ear listening for the ceiling to come crashing down from the weight of the pooling water. There’s also an animal living up there. It scurries around at night after the light’s been turned off. I sure hope he doesn’t come crashing into the kitchen too. Pray we find and can patch the leak before the rain ruins our ceiling!

Ramadan is half over. I hope you have found time each day to pray for the 4 million Fulbe Muslims of Guinea, West Africa. If your memory is like mine, though, a reminder is always great! Here is a quick reference calendar with just one prayer point for each of the remaining days of Ramadan so you can join us in praying for the Fulbe people.

Ramadan Prayer Guide 2011

Two weeks ago, Billie and the girls went to a village to stay with colleagues while David took Lisa back to Conakry to fly home. Lisa’s three weeks with us flew by. “I had a great time hanging out and seeing how international workers live,” she said. We are so very thankful that God provided a way for her to help us with the transition. We think a highlight of her stay was visiting an orphanage housing HIV/AIDS babies and infants.

While out in the village, Billie was able to brush up on burn care. She was also able to witness to two young men. While they did not make a decision for Christ, they did hear the Good News.

The girls are still sick, but we altered their diets, are taking greater care with food preparation, are keeping them inside a little more, and they seem to be doing better.  Please continue to pray for good health as they make the transition to life in West Africa. ” and Amelie is already spouting off her first words in Pular, “Okay,” “Goodbye,” and “Mom.”

In addition to sharing the gospel, we have hit the ground running with other projects.  We are trying to get our home in order before the Vice President of our mission agency visits in two short weeks. We also tried to fix the road in our neighborhood that had become a small lake. We say “tried” because the way to fill a pond is not, apparently, by filling it with four truckloads of dirt. That creates mud. Hindsight is 20/20, though, and next time we will order four truckloads of rock. Please pray the situation will give us opportunities to share about our hearts to help the Fulbe people.

David took our guard, Mr. Bah to visit Sight Savers.  He has cataracts and will have surgery in September, after Ramadan is over, to restore his vision. (More on Ramadan in a future post). Please pray that his surgery goes well and that his sight will be perfectly restored.

In related news, Mr. Bah’s family moved back to our hometown. We are excited for the girls to have playmates who can teach them Pular. (Billie hopes they can teach her Pular too!)

We spent the week in a village teaching English at an  English camp. Seeds were sown as David shared the gospel with each student in English and French.

While out in the village, the Guinean president survived an assassination attempt. Everything is calm in country, and we don’t expect any unrest. You can read more about this here and here.

Thank you for your prayers for us as we continue to make the transition to life in Africa with two toddlers, and for the Fulbe people who have yet to hear the Good News.

Our journeys have taken us far and wide.  During the past couple weeks, we have been in Tennessee and Georgia.  We shared about our ministry at two churches in Tennessee.  The people there were so friendly.

First, we visited Tazewell.  It is a charming small town near the Cumberland Gap.  The leader of the women’s missionary group put us up in her guest cabin nearby.  Every day we were greeted by gorgeous mountain views.  We shared about our ministry at the church on Sunday morning, and I preached.  On Sunday evening, the church had its vacation Bible school commencement which we attended.  On Monday, a couple from the church took us out on Lake Norris in their pontoon boat.  It was a lot of fun.  On Monday evening, we shared with the women’s missionary group.

Next, we moved on to the Knoxville area.  It is a beautiful part of the country.  One day, a friend who was hosting us took us into the Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg.  I found out that Smoky Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in the U.S.  On Sunday morning, we spoke to the junior high, high school, and college students about our ministry.  In the evening, we shared about our ministry with the whole church, and I preached.

All too soon, it was time to move on to the next stop on our journey.  We drove three hours south to Woodstock, Georgia.  We stayed with some dear friends there and had a meeting with a pastor.  We have also had the chance to visit with several friends in the area.  On Sunday, we will be sharing in a Sunday school class at a church here.  Then, we will be heading to north Georgia to visit some friends for a day, and next, it is on to Columbus, Ohio, to share at one final church before heading back to our home in northwest Ohio.

While traveling and sharing can take a lot of energy, it so neat to see the things that God does along the way.  We get to meet so many wonderful people.  We see so many beautiful sights.  We renew old friendships and strike up new ones.  God has truly blessed us every time we have ventured out to champion the needs of the Fulbe people, in particular their need for the Gospel.  We praise the Lord for all he has done.

One thing I love about working in the village is traipsing to the outhouse by the light of the moon in the middle of the night. (No, not really.) The first night we were in Loomal for the medical clinic, I went to the outhouse and accidentally walked through a swarm of cula (chew-la), also known as African driver ants. These ants travel in great swarms, up to 20 million strong. They like to swarm over something or someone and all begin biting simultaneously. They have been known to reduce a bird to bones in a few hours. Unfortunately, the cula did not start biting me until I was back in our room. They had gotten all the way up to my head, and were spread all over the floor. David helped pick them off me and I spent the next several hours feeling the lasting sting of their bites.

The second night in Loomal, I was determined to not have to go out in the middle of the night and thus reduce my chances of cula problems. You can imagine my surprise when I was jolted awake by David saying that cula were on him. That meant they were in the bed. David grabbed his flashlight and found that thousands of cula had entered the room at a ground level hole on the wall. They were swarming over our clothing on a chair in the corner. We were able to spray some bug spray around the legs of the bed to keep them from climbing up, and by morning, they were almost all gone. Our colleagues, who had their bedrolls on the ground did get bit a few times, but were able to shake the ants off and get away. The wife spent the remainder of the night in a folding chair and the husband slept on a long, wooden bench.

One morning last week David woke me up waving a donut recipe in my face yelling “donuts, donuts, donuts…”  It was inevitable.  I knew his five- day- donut- hankerin’ would get the best of him.

Of course, I have never made homemade donuts a day in my life (who does?); but I can read a recipe.  Since it was really cold in the house (high 60s), the donuts had to rise in the oven for three hours.  And then again for another hour after we rolled and cut them.  Since necessity is the mother of invention, we used a round, plastic container, and a soda bottle top to cut out each donut.  David made the glaze and topped each masterpiece as it came out of the pot.

Since it was 5 o’clock in the evening before they were all finished, we ate them for dinner.  We ate, and we ate, and we ate.  We ate so many donuts we thought we would barf.  They were incredible!  David said they tasted exactly like store bought donuts.  Definitely Hot, Steamy Goodness!

Earlier this week our colleagues found a three foot long, spitting cobra in his yard.  In the cool of the morning the husband went out to turn on their generator.  When he opened the door to the generator house, he was greeted by the snake who was in the hooded position.  Our colleague quickly backed out of the shed and closed the door; knowing that if the snake spit into his eyes he could be blinded, and if it struck him, the venom would be deadly.

Thankfully, our friend was able to kill the snake before anyone was injured; although not before we arrived to take some action shots.

Two days ago, while waiting outside a store, I struck up a conversation with the young man sitting on the bench next to me.  After some small talk, I asked him if he prayed.  That is a common question here to find out if someone takes their Islamic religion seriously.  It is also a good way to start a spiritual conversation.

The young man, “Sal,” responded in the affirmative.  He said that he does pray, and that he had studied the Qur’an.  I asked him if he could understand what he was saying when he prayed, since Muslims are required to pray in Arabic, and he said no.  He had simply memorized the words to the prayers and repeated them from memory.

He asked me if I pray.  Knowing he was wondering if I was a Muslim, I answered “yes, I do pray” but was quick to emphasize that I am a follower of Jesus, the Messiah.  To this he replied, “Does he live in your neighborhood?”

I answered, “No, I mean Jesus the Messiah who is written about in the Gospel.”  Our discussion continued on, and two days later I was able to bring him a copy of the Gospel to see for himself.

Pray for Sal, and the others that I met there that day, that they will come to know Jesus, the Messiah for themselves.