Elections

Elections look a little different here. We see banners of flags strung across streets in the colours of the various candidates parties (I believe there are 15 different candidates running for president this time). In some traffic circles they intersect making colourful spiderwebs in the sky. Posters are plastered on street signs. vehicles. support pillars, on larger billboards or basically anywhere someone thinks they might be seen (and usually in large quantities). Candidates rent billboards and there are shacks or tents put up around town decorated in the appropriate colours to meet with other likeminded individuals in the evenings. Not to mention the parades of vehicles that will drive through town honking horns and showing off their parties colours. All this to say, tomorrow is election day here in Niger.
Please pray for a peaceful election and that God would be at working putting into power individuals that will put the good of the nation ahead of their own self interests. That we might continue to live and work in a peaceful place.

Sometimes life is like my garden hose...

Sometimes life is like my garden hose and that is especially true of this past weekend. To understand this fully you need to have a picture of my garden hose and I am not sure that my phone camera can do it justice (my regular camera was stolen last fall), so I’ll describe it to you. When I bought the hose new (not that long ago) it was 25ft of pliable plastic. It had the odd kink but was easy enough to straighten out and it didn’t leak. Not long after I started to use it, it started to disintegrate and the sun, the sand and the heat have since done a number on it. Now it is hard to find 3ft of the original that isn’t patched or spliced together with plastic bags and inner tube rubber. I think you have the picture.
This past weekend was like that we had lots of plans and ideas that we were going to accomplish. We planned a surprise party for Ben’s 15^th birthday and the school had field day this Friday not to mention Valentine’s Day. Our plans although they seemed good at the time all seemed to fall apart. Ben got sick so his party happened without him even knowing about it (how is that for a surprise) and then one after another we all got sick too and so our plans went out the window.
But there is a funny thing about my hose, I have tried on a couple of occasions to get the guy who sometimes helps with our yard work to buy me a new one but instead he just keeps patching and repairing. I think that he likes the fact that he can water in more than one place at a time, even if he can’t control the water. Maybe we didn’t get to go to Ben’s favourite restaurant for his birthday and he only got to watch the video of his surprise party. Maybe our Valentine’s celebration consisted of what we could manage of the leftovers in the fridge, but we did have a weekend of memory making over chicken noodle soup and really corny B movies. (You know when you are pumped full of cold meds and feel awful it doesn’t matter that you only get a few laughs in an hour or two). I guess what I am trying to say is that I am grateful to a God who takes what looks like flaws and mistakes and turns them into something really good if not what originally intended.
Please pray that we can finish the rest of our term well!