Author: Michael and Stacy Creech

Of Goats and Goodbyes

Of Goats and Goodbyes

I was standing in our bedroom, folding clothes as we prepared to leave our third “home” in three months. I crossed to the window to see if I could find out who was wailing outside. It sounded like an animal, but also made me think of a desperate child.  It was a goat, pegged into […]
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Resentment

Resentment

For the first time that I can remember since moving to Senegal, I began to feel resentment.
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The Overlap

The Overlap

“How is the transition?” “Are you happy to be back?” “How have you been?” All simple questions that I have been asked multiple times lately. Simple questions I have had a difficulty answering. Yes, I can answer all these questions honestly and simply: “The transition started off with a lot of busyness, jet lag, difficult […]
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Growth

Growth

Before we left the US, I wrote a blog about moving… digging up your roots and replanting somewhere else. I remembered that just the other day, as I realized that the growth of a plant is really an incredible picture of what it’s like to “grow” into another culture. For one, there’s the roots. So […]
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Thankful: Blessings big and small.

Thankful: Blessings big and small.

We are thousands of miles away from the United States, thousands of miles away from the friends and family we would normally been around on Thanksgiving. We decided that even though all the above was true, and Thanksgiving doesn’t exist in Senegal… we were going to celebrate and be thankful anyway! We invited some of […]
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Paul’s Secret

Paul’s Secret

Last Friday our host family was invited to go to another church’s Friday night meeting, so they asked if I wanted to tag along with them. Thinking it would be a good chance to see another church and spend some time with our host family, I said yes.   Now, I had already had class earlier that day, […]
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“We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

“We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

A few weeks before leaving for Guinea Bissau back in June, I made travel plans. First I secured our boat tickets, got a place to stay a few nights, and then working through several contacts I was able to secure a car and driver from the South of Senegal to the South of Guinea Bissau. […]
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Mind-blowingly normal.

Mind-blowingly normal.

Last Sunday when I woke up and looked out the window. Where I might normally see an empty sandy lot with a makeshift soccer goal, there was a large pavilion being set up. Now this isn’t all to unfamiliar, for all kinds of events people will rent large tents and pop them up in an […]
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Knowing

Knowing

You watch your child as they try to play a game with everyone else.  They are the only one that doesn’t know how to play, and it’s easy to see they are frustrated. They’re annoyed that everyone else understands the rules and no matter how hard they try to mimic what they see, they keep […]
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Who I am is not what I can say.

Who I am is not what I can say.

He finished his first train of thought, and then looked over at me and asked “Do you have anything to add?” Absolutely I had something to add, but could I? A few Sundays ago, instead of the gospel being declared to us from the pulpit at church, we were told to form small groups and […]
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