Author: Susie

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! After lots of travel and a fair bit of uncertainty, I was glad to make it home from Senegal to My Country (no, not home to the US) for Christmas to celebrate with “family” and friends here.  What a joy!  I trust that you were also able to take […]

Happy December!  Are you enjoying this advent season, getting ready to celebrate the birth of the Savior?   Here in Senegal, as I work with colleagues in discourse analysis, we have been getting ready to celebrate.  It’s been fun to be around for the putting up for Christmas trees, decorations, drinking of hot chocolate (and […]

Where in the world is Susie?  Itʼs a question I often get asked.  And at the moment Iʼm in Senegal!  The picture above is from where we had some leadership meetings the week before Thanksgiving.  Then the first half of this last week I spent a few miles down the beach with some friends, sleeping […]

Sometimes expressions are funny across languages.  Yesterday I learned a new one here in My Language: “Ka ba ŋũɛ̃ ʼpee nĩĩgire.”  Literally, it means, “Donʼt say it a second time.”  And itʼs used to confirm that you are totally in agreement with what the other person just said, or that he said what you were […]

à ʼbɛɛ sa ʼpii Yesu tũrũ, yuwe yi ʼoo lɔɔlɔ yo,ã ʼbɛɛ sa ʼpii yi tũrũ, yuwe yi ʼoo lɔɔlɔ. Let’s follow Jesus, He’s the One who is the Savior, oh!Let’s follow Jesus, He’s the One who is the Savior. Imagine a group of My People, gathered under a big tree in one of their […]

How many of you enjoy sitting down and reading a dictionary?  Dictionaries aren’t usually considered especially exciting reading material.  But while I was traveling recently, the guys I often work with had worked a bit without me, and one of the things they had done was go through a list of potential new words for […]

A few weeks ago I was reading a biography of Mary Slessor, a pioneer missionary in what is now Nigeria, and came upon the following quotation:  So, she realized, it was not a case where one could say, “Let there be light,” and light would shine.  The work of the Mission was like building a […]

My next-door neighbor is a nice guy and a very nice neighbor.  We don’t have problems and he’s always very courteous.  Shortly after he moved in he introduced me to his girlfriend, and after a while I noticed that she seemed to be growing bigger in the mid-section.  (Here, sadly, that’s not uncommon before marriage.)  […]

The other day I went to a restaurant and ordered sausage pizza.  And guess what?  That’s what I got – some sausages on pizza, as you can see in the picture above.  Life here is different sometimes.  (And in case you’re curious, the sausages were a bit strong tasting to have on the pizza, so […]

On Sunday my friend asked me to help her with an illustration as she was teaching the Sunday school lesson to the kids about the flood and the ark that God had Noah build.  (Here in the city there are churches and a good number of believers, even though we are not far from where […]