After the Storm

It has been awhile since I have posted.   That should be an indicator of what the rest of our November was like – incredibly busy.  The craziness started with a week of intensive training in language evaluations.  Then after that week I headed straight to help in the preparation of a 2 week training on the language advising.  It was the same training I went to in Thailand and Tanzania, but now we were having it here in Senegal.  We had 75 people here from 17 nationalities working in 30 different countries.  It was a joy to see this training take place here where a lot of the people I work with could participate, but it was also an extreme amount of work.  There were times that I wondered if if would come together, but in the end it all worked out.  I did some teaching up front, lead a table group and also was in charge of the cooking staff.  Joel and Joel’s mom both participated in the training, which left Joel’s dad home alone with the boys during those two weeks.  Half way through the training Joel’s Grandma when to be with the Lord.  So these past three weeks were filled with many emotions and left Joel and I returning home quite drained and ready for a break.

So now our goal for this month is to rest and heal.  What a better time to do it than the time of year when we celebrate our saviors coming.   We canceled wolof sessions for the month and are taking of the last week of December off completely to head out to the beach.  Joel’s folks left this week to the US to celebrate the life of Joel’s grandma.  We will miss having them here for Christmas, but are glad that they will be able to be with our larger family over this time.

We are thankful to have made it through our crazy fall, but are even more thankful to the time of rest we are about to have.  God has been faithful to us through the storm.  Now we are resting in the peace that we have because of the gift given to us so many years ago.