West African Adventures and Single Parenting

You can pray for us today.

Dave just left for a West African adventure. It started last night when we went to a dinner at the boys’ school. I casually asked one of the SIM air pilots if he had every taken a bus to Lome (the capital of Togo). He said it was a number of years ago when the roads were better and it had taken 19 hours. I was asking because we were planning on putting Dave on a bus to meet with the pastor that is overseeing the Free Methodist work there, but after I asked the pilot added, “but I am flying with an empty plane to Cottonou tomorrow. Do you want to go?” That lead to a series of phone calls and Dave’s departure with no known return date. (He hopes to take a bus back on Wednesday, but he doesn’t know anything about the bus schedule yet). Right now he is planning on taking a plane to Cottonou (Benin) and we have friends that will meet him at the airport and put him on a bush taxi to Lome (Togo) where the pastor responsible for the FM work there will meet him. (The flight should cut 16-20 hours off of this trip and make it possible to be able to do it in less than a week). Please pray that this will be a profitable time for all those involved as he meets with the leaders of the Free Methodist movement in Togo. My prayer is that they will be an encouragement for each other and may be the start of some “connectionalism” for FMers in francophone West Africa.

Pray for the boys and me as well, as we try to manage without Dad for awhile.

اركي غَ بَ نِن

What do you see? How does it make you feel? Nervous? Annoyed? Left out? The truth is all it really says is God loves you in Zarma. A week ago I had a crash course in the Arabic script which many languages use for writing. When the language actually being written is not Arabic, this writing is called Ajami which translates into something like “ignorant” or “barbarian”. I took the course with an SIL missionary who worked in Cameroun. He discovered that people who may otherwise have been considered illiterate were able to read the scriptures the moment they were written with this alphabet. Many children here are daily memorizing this alphabet in order to chant the Qur’an, in a language they don’t even understand. The standard educational method of many Qur’anic schools is to first teach the alphabet, then memorize the entire Qur’an, and then teach you how to understand Arabic. The process apparently takes about 12 years… Most kids never get that far but they do know how to sound out the letters. Likewise my neighbour, who doesn’t speak French but does have a little prayer mosque in front of his house where he prays and reads the Qur’an every day, would probably have no problem figure out what those squiggles at the top of the page mean. Pray that I would continue to understand how to read this and find ways to use it effectively.

In mean time we have finished paying the owner for the property we are buying but have some final paper work to fill out with the notary in order to have a title deed in our hands. And she needs to get paid too.

The Gift of Today

Life has been very harried the last few weeks, but I was blessed with a gift last summer that has really helped to keep me focused. You may remember that last summer we hosted a team from Canada, while they were here one of the members gave me a copy of Jesus Calling. It is a daily devotional that I have really appreciated. Today before I tried to tackle my “to do list” (that seems to grow longer instead of shorter as the day goes on), I took some time to read it and was reminded once again about where my priorities should be. The author Sarah Young writes, “…Each day is a precious gift from My Father. How ridiculous to grasp for future gifts when today’s is before you! Receive today’s gift gratefully unwrapping it tenderly and delving into its depths. As you savor the gift you find me [Jesus}”. My hope is that you can take to time to enjoy today for whatever it holds.

As for us we are finishing up negotiations to buy a piece of land, we just need to work out the details of how to get the money here to pay for it. Please pray for that. Dave has also been involved in some workshops here in town learning how to use the Arabic script to write the local languages. This holds some exciting possibilities because even the kids that haven’t gone to a public school (because of a lack of birth certificate or for other reasons) may have been taught to sound out the Arabic letters in order to participate in the local Mosques and Quaranic schools.

Niger had their first round of Presidential elections this past Monday. That reduced the number of Presidential candidates from ten to two. The final two will face off in an election at the end of March. Please keep this in your prayers as Niger so needs good leaders that will keep the best interest of the country in mind and rule with honesty and integrity.

Special thanks to Grace Methodist for sending the boys scooters! They are slowly learning how to use them and will be sending you a more personal thank you very soon.

Visitors from Canada

Last week we had the privilege of hosting Dan Sheffield, Jared Siebert, and Mary-Elsie Wolfe. Jared and Mary-Elsie now have Nigerien names: Garba and Mariama-Salamatou. We enjoy sharing our lives with others from home and giving them an opportunity taste what life is like here. However it was not all fun and games as we had meetings with different church leaders and other business to accomplish as well.
I think we packed a lot into the six days they were here but enjoyed every minute of it. The church here was also appreciative of their ministry.
Some of you have asked for an update on my (Dave’s) health and it’s probably about time I said something. We enjoyed our week in Ghana. We spent time with the psychologist at the Mobile Member Care Team. Most of my systems were stress related and we spent time discussing some strategies both for managing and reducing some of
the stressors in our life. The primary stressors I had been experiencing were directly tied to the symptoms themselves, i.e. as I had chest pain (a stress symptom) and the doctors suggested this could be heart related my stress would go up, producing other stress symptoms like heart pounding, increased blood pressure, etc… Now that heart problems have been eliminated from being a primary concern, my basic stress levels have dropped but the residual effects are still there. Stress is cumulative. In other words, things from two months ago may no longer be on your mind but our bodies continue to carry that stress and it takes time for the effects of it to fade away. That’s why when a doctor/psychologist evaluates your stress levels they ask about events of the last six month to a year of your life—your body/psyche is still carrying the effects of those things and they affect your experience of stress today. Fortunately there are some things we can do to help our bodies and minds to better deal with the stress. So for the time being I have to avoid caffeine (which can produce heart palpitations), get more physical exercise, as well as some other relaxation techniques to help scale down some of the cumulative stress that I’ve managed to build up with my experiences of Nigerien health care… I am still experiencing those symptoms but I am no longer getting stressed about them

The next big stressor in our life is buying a piece of property. We’ve just entered into negotiations for a property in our neighbourhood. Please pray that the details will work out for a price and getting money transferred in a timely manner.

King's Kid

Ever have one of those moments when you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were blessed. I had quite the conversation yesterday at breakfast.

Ben was very impressed with a buffet breakfast in the hotel that we are staying in and turned to me and said “I feel like a king!” (It is amazing what unlimited bacon and 2 kinds of sausage can do for a nine year old boy.)

I told him that I was very happy and asked him to take a moment and take a picture to put in the back of his heart and mind so that he could remember clearly the feeling of being blessed by God. So, that the next time that things got rough in Niger or Canada or where ever he happened to be, he could recall this moment and remember that regardless of his circumstances God truly loved him. Both Cole and Ben took a minute and closed their eyes and savored the moment of knowing a loving God that cares for them (a true act of worship).

We all need moments like this to carry us through the rougher spots in life. It is my hope that if you are going through one of those rougher times that you can recall clearly God’s blessing and sense His presence. On the other hand if you are having a moment like Ben and everything seems to be going your way, take a minute and remember the source of that blessing.