Ministry – It is crazy but we love it!

This past week we headed to Dakar for 4 days and sat in meetings to get caught up on all that happened while we were gone and what we were looking at in the future.  We then started to make a schedule and a plan for how we will accomplish our ministry goals.

One of our main roles here with the mission is the oversight of our E2 program (which encompasses the first few years when our missionaries are learning language and culture and integrating into the local church).  We help locate housing and identify a host church and a host family.  We also walk beside them through this time of great change, as we understand some of the challenges and difficulties they will face.  We currently have 3 families and 5 singles walking through this process.  We have 8 different host churches we work with and each of them has their own host family that we try to keep up connection with.  Looking ahead we have 1 single arriving in a week and 2 families arriving in the next 6 months.  WOW!!!

This is enough to keep us hopping, and it is only one piece of our ministry.   It is only one piece, but it is one of our favorite pieces.  We love the opportunity it allows us to encourage and work one on one with some really great people.  We love watching God work in the lives of so many in different ways.  We love being there in the good time and the bad and watching the transformation that takes place.  We love the connections we get to make in the churches and with the host families.  We love how much we learn through the lives all that we work with.

However with being gone six months, there is a lot to catch up on.  Joel has been on the phone all morning with pastors as personal calls are very important here. He spent the evening Wednesday looking at apartments and I am busy trying to schedule and meeting with each missionary to get some time with them one on one.   It feels good to be back, but it will take us a bit to get back in the grove.

On The Home Front

We celebrated Ethan’s birthday this week.  It is hard to believe that he is 8.  We are so lucky to be his parents.  He is already our prayer advocate as he is the first to draw our family to prayer when a problem arises.  He celebrated his birthday at his school with cake and then we celebrated at home with pizza and maple bars.

The work continues on the water pipes.  Which means we are going stretches without water.  At the same time our water pump went out which meant that we couldn’t get to the water in our bottom tank.   On top of that we have had problems with the electrical panel at our house that sometimes just shuts off leaving our house with no electricity.  Joel’s dad has done a lot of work this week trying to get these problems resolved.  Tyler was happy yesterday when the water was turned on and he could flush the toilet once again.  Oh the adventures of daily life!