When we first arrived to this country the only people who were patient enough to spend time with us were people we paid to spend time with us or people from the church who wanted to see us grow in culture and language. This might sound really sad (and it is) but it is just the reality of life. Just recently, however God sent us a new neighbor who speaks really good French, has lots of stories to tell and is often just sitting outside his house. On top of that when Joel saw that he was moving in he went over and welcomed him to the neighborhood. Still to this day our neighbor won’t stop talking about how unusual it is that the foreigner was the first to greet him. This was not anything we intentionally did, so we are just thankful to God that Joel made that move. This has especially been a great blessing for Joel who is at a point in language where he is really trying to explore into the Senegalese culture and it is not easy to find people with a good enough level of French to do that with. Yet here is someone, just next door, who loves to share his live and culture with Joel. Thank you God!
Mosquito Update
We got rain this past week, which was really nice, but also a slight challenge with our roof situation. Today we came to an agreement with our landlord that we are going to take over paying for the construction and then we will stop paying rent until we have recovered the money. It means that we will be putting more money upfront, but it is worth it to close up our roof and we will eventually gain that money back from not paying rent. The nice part is that we are directing what part of the construction is getting done first, which of course is our roof and the mosquito screen. They tell us it will be done in 2 weeks, and although I am not holding my breathe for that, it is nice to at least see things starting in the right direction. Poor Ethan has been the one who has really suffered through this. The mosquitoes love him and he is just covered with bites. We leave for Dakar in two weeks and we are hoping by then that at least the screens will be done, because we think that is causing most of the problem. Until then we are spraying constantly and practicing our mosquito smashing techniques.
beautiful, beautiful children!
Hooray for friends!!! And roofs! And play do and cardboard stoves!!!!
God works in wonderful ways. What a great gift God has given you with your new neighbor.
Poor Ethan and all those bites. I’m praying for no infections from all those mosquitoe bites. How is Tyler’s arm doing? I see he still has it all wrapped up.
Along the same line of thought with Andrea’s blog,(“If we were us, we would be friends with us”) – it reminds me when my 6 year old niece was trying to make friends with some kids at the motel pool. She was informing them, “I’m nice, – – you know!” A sense of humor can go a long way! Praise God for laughter and good neighbors!
Praise God for letting you fix your roof! He is so good. I am praying it will be LESS than 2 weeks! Praise God for little kids that don’t realize they are suffering for the Lord!
Just noticed a typo: The saying went: If we WEREN’T us, we’d be friends with us. You get the drift
You know how much I adore you right? This whole thing just made me SMILE.
First friend who isn’t paid to be your friend. I totally get it – and your way with words cracks me up. We used to have a saying, “If we were us – we’d be friends with us” as a way of convincing ourselves that someday we’d have friends in this culture.
The Senegalese girls are gorgeous. My grandmother would say, “They’re so cute you could eat them with a spoon!” Beautiful children
The missionary “deal” to pay for the roof and take it out of rent – this kind of “rental deal” must be a missionary rite of passage. It comes in various forms, but seems we all make deals to get living space livable. Paying for the roof over your head is a good variation of the missionary rental deal – but I think we’ve played at that game before.
Will make sure Ken sees your blog post tonight. We’re just loving you from afar
Andrea