(NOTE: I wrote this last Thursday, February 16th, but forgot to post it on here. Sorry!)
I have good news and bad news to share with you. Let me start with the bad news, which will lead to the good news.
Bad News
The bad news is that it’s a lot more exhausting and draining and stressful to take these trips in and out of My Village than I was expecting. Every week I need to leave the comforts and ease of life in the city and go back into the unknown and uncomfortable life in the village, where I don’t understand most of what’s going on around me, I don’t have personal space or privacy, etc. It’s exhausting and an emotional roller coaster! And this week the thermostat outside got bumped up a notch, which, unlike those of you in the US who think that would be lovely, this means that it’s taking more energy just to live because of the heat. And the other bad news? This heat is only going to get worse until sometime in May or so when the rains start.
Good News
But I have good news for you, too! This time of going back and forth may be coming to an end! Not immediately, but at least sometime in the foreseeable future. Why? No, it’s not because I’m giving up and heading back to the US permanently. 🙂 It’s because this week work starts on the building of my own house in My Village, so I’ll be able to be out there more permanently!
If you see the picture above, which is taken from right in front of my host mom’s house, you’ll see it marked where my house will be! (At least, that’s about where it will be. I tried to put together what I remembered from walking over there the other day with what I saw in the picture, and it’s at least somewhere around there.) So yes, Jen and I have talked to the village chief and gotten land to build our houses on! (Jen’s will be a few hundred yards away from mine.) We also have contacts in another village in our people group, Sam and Charlie,* (who you may remember from a different update, since they were the ones who were our guides around most of the different villages in the people group), who have found masons for us, talked to them about building our houses, and are taking care of buying materials and being our middle-men in contact with these masons! Jen and I don’t know much of anything about building a house, especially in the village in My Country, so we’re hoping and praying that Sam and Charlie can take care of most of the headache for us. Can you pray with us that this house-building process will be much quicker and easier than it’s been for other missionaries in the area? I know a missionary family who just finished building their house, and they were heavily involved in the building process almost every day for about 10 months to get it done. Sam and Charlie have said that it will likely take less than 2 months and that they’ll deal with the headaches for us! I doubt that it will actually be that quick, but I’m hopeful that it could be done in maybe 3 months, and maybe we’ll be saved at least a bunch of the headaches. Thanks for your prayers!
Well, there’s the bad news and the good news! Life full of adventure can be exhausting, but it’s exciting to see God use this to push us on to the next steps. And FYI, I am planning on having an extra bedroom, so I’ll be ready for YOU to come and visit!