Category: Uncategorized

Allo? That’s how you answer the phone if you’re in My Country, or if you’re in the US and someone from My Country calls you! And on Monday, by 8:30am I had received two phone calls from there, one in Jula and one in French. I was getting ready to go to a meeting, but […]

Yes, I made it! I had my first Jula language evaluation on Thursday and found out that I officially have a high level of Jula (capable high, for those of you familiar with NTM terminology), high enough to be doing Bible teaching, etc., in Jula. So exciting! I also made it back to the US […]

On Sunday afternoons I have been having an English class/conversation time with whoever wants to come. Lately it’s been separated into the beginner and the advanced class. Yesterday, the advanced class was reading a children’s book about missionaries. On one of the pages, it says, “Every month a pilot flew in the food and supplies […]

Today was a big day for those who finished the equivalent of what would be 9th grade here. You see, there is a diploma you get after 5th grade, one after 9th grade, and then one after 12th grade (if you continue on that far). But in order to get the diploma and advance to […]

I think I’ve posted pictures on here of my hair being done in African braids before. For the wedding festivities a few weeks ago I decided to have my hair done again, but this time to do it the simple way, without tight braids. The stylist pulled it back into a tight ponytail, braided it […]

As I said in my last post, I’ve been to a lot of wedding festivities lately. At one of them, it was one of my good friends who was in charge of cooking for everyone. The festivities were on three different days, and on Sunday they cooked rice for everyone, which is a common food […]

A week ago Sunday I went to some wedding festivities. I’ve actually been to multiple weddings since then (it’s been a crazy few weeks), but this one was unique in that the bride was a North American. She met her husband (who is from My Country) at college in NYC, and came out to My […]

After the last post about our PGA trip to Senegal and Gambia, I wanted to post again to share a bit more and some more pictures. It’s taken a while, but here you go . . . After we talked to the appropriate government officials, the first order of business in each village was to […]

Isn’t this tree amazing? Last week I got back from a PGA trip among a Jola people group in southern Senegal and Gambia. On this PGA trip was the first time I saw what is called a silk cotton tree in English (though Google just told me it’s also the great kapok tree I remember […]

Lately I’ve had fun learning culture. Here are a few glimpses into my life last week: At the National Week of Culture, there were lots of dancers from different ethnic groups doing their traditional dances. Here are musicians accompanying dancers. These instruments are called balaphones. This is from the “fair” that was part of the […]