Please Pray through the Transitions

As the school year is quickly coming to a close I have a number of subjects that I would appreciate prayer for:
·        Visitors: we are praising God that we have the opportunity to host some visitors from Canada who are considering whether Niger is the place where God is calling them to minister next. Please pray for them that God would lead them at this time. Please pray for us in that we might give them a realistic experience of what life and ministry is like here.
·        Praise also for God’s provision in the moving process: God has provided us with many good friends and contacts here that have helped us find a temporary place to stay for our last few weeks and a truck to help us move our things into storage.
·        The church: that God would continue to move amongst the people here strengthening their faith and their relationships and that they would see God at work bringing others to know Him.

Window grills for the building

·        The building/moving: please pray that a couple of rooms in the new building would be able to be closed off this week so that we might begin the process of putting our things (and the things that we have accumulated for the building) in storage until it can be completed. Pray that the power would cooperate so the welder can finish the work.
·        Health concerns for our family: Please pray for Ben’s surgery that he will be having in France in June. We are told that this will determine whether hearing will be restored to his ear or not.  Continue to remember our family that we will be able to stay healthy and strong until the end so that we might finish this term well despite the difficulties we face.
·        Healing for others: We would really appreciate prayer for our friends that are teachers at the boys’ school. The father was treated for skin cancer last fall and we praise God that he is cancer free, but the mother has been diagnosed with a bone marrow disease. Please pray for her healing, for all the decisions that they will need to make about treatments and comfort for the whole family (they have 4 school aged children).
·        Decisions: Please pray for us as there are so many decisions that need to be made as we transition home for our furlough year. Praise that Ben chose to be baptized this past weekend, pray that he and those baptized with him will be strengthened in his journey faith.

Baptismal candidates

·        Graduation: please pray for Cole (and his class) as they graduate from high school that God would be leading and directing them in their future path.

Ben was baptized this past week!

 
 

Regaining perspective

About two weeks ago I started to write this blog about the crazy roller coaster my life has turned into but then it didn’t slow down enough for me to finish. So here are the abbreviated highlights:
Wednesday, Ben invited some kids from his English class to sleep over so they could work on their major project for the unit (considering I am the teacher how can I refuse that kind of motivation!)
The morning of the sleep over the doctor looked at his in-grown toe nail and told us it had to come off, the sooner the better. It couldn’t wait until Monday for her clinic hours. So he got to be the model for 3 other doctors who had never seen a nail removed (I’ll save the picture for the end for those who may not want to see) I suspect having the friends to distract him, helped to keep his mind off of the pain (and surprise, surprise –they actually go the school work done & got some sleep despite the fact that our power went out three times)
The next morning the boys got to sleep in but I headed into school for a Professional Development Day that ended up with setting up for the yard sale Ben’s class was holding the next morning
So much for sleeping in on Saturday, we were needed to help Ben and his class with the yard sale or as a friend describes it “the annual missionary treasure swap” (I even got to re-sell toys that our boys had purchased and played with at the end of our first year here 11 years ago!)
Sunday was the usual crazy-busy with the added bonus of Dave preaching and the month end extra prayer service. (He’s preached the last three Sundays).
My mind is fuzzy about what came next as there were many power cuts and sleepless nights, but somewhere in there I got my marks into the school reporting program and started gearing up to take over Cole’s English class (as the teacher was only here as a temporary substitute and the regular teacher isn’t going to make it back until graduation). Oh and I had a birthday in there somewhere (just no cake because I wasn’t ready to bake my own in the heat).


Getting ready to pour the ceiling

We have been gearing up for the transition home, unloading the stuff that we’ve grown out of or no longer need, selling off and giving away some things and packing up others. The construction at the building site slowed down for a couple of weeks while the missionary who is overseeing it went to France to get out of the heat. (His wife was concerned for his health). Almost $200 worth of electrical wire went missing while he was gone but the night guard responsible for the site has agreed to repay what went missing. We are praising God that the finances for completion of the building have been approved by the denomination!
This past weekend, I got the word that my niece (who is Ben’s age) was admitted to the hospital and early this week she had back surgery. Being away from your family is never easy but it is times like this that can be some of the most challenging. From what I have heard the surgery went as was expected and they are hoping that it will help to reduce her pain so that it will be more manageable in the future. Please keep her and the rest of my sister’s family in your prayers.
All of this comes on the background of the major wild fires in Ft McMurray where thousands of Canadians have found themselves fleeing their homes and losing everything. I can imagine the devastation and loss that they are feeling and my heart goes out to all of them and those in the province that have opened up their homes and lives to help those who are experiencing this crisis. I am truly grateful for a news report I heard this afternoon on the BBC that there were no deaths as a result of this situation. It is truly a reality check for my whining about power cuts and sleepless nights, that I have a LOT to be thankful for. My prayer is that out of this crisis would come countless stories of God’s intervention and grace despite the devastation

Adding Freezing

Nailess! I saved you the infection pics

 
 

Looking for Jesus in the Difficulties of Life

I read a great devotional the other day that reminded me that Jesus Christ is always present in a believer’s life but Satan uses three tactics to keep us for looking for Him in the difficulties we face. Those three “D’s” were distraction, deception and discouragement. I have found this so true over the years. You know that that is true when you are facing what seems like a major crisis/disaster of life, but more often than not it is the little things that tend to get to you the most. They kind of slip under your radar as something that you “need” to take to the cross—
You know the kind of things that I am talking about:
The waist band you are about to slip into goes “crackle, crunch, snap” (in protest of living too long in the desert heat) just as you are about to pull it on
The dog jumps on you with muddy paws just as you are rushing to an important meeting
You catch you favourite shirt (and it rips) on the corner of the chair that you keep meaning to fix and never seem to get around to
Or worse you keep hearing those voices inside your head that tell you “you aren’t good enough”, “you can’t do it”, ”you really messed up and will never be able to fix it”, “your fat, ugly and your mother/wife dresses you funny”... that sort of thing
I started writing this a week ago and at the time I really thought that I was getting a handle on the concept of keeping my focus on Jesus and letting him handle the little things and then I got really busy. I had one of those weeks when everything seems to be booked into the same week and you are running from event to event because there is just enough time to make it and they all seem like opportunities that you can’t miss. This was also coincided with Dave started preaching on 2^nd Timothy –renewing your calling, “pass on what you have learned to faithful men” (that you might have a legacy), oh and let me not forget “share in the sufferings of Christ”. I also went to the English worship service that night and heard a great sermon on how Satan tries to deceive us by misdirecting us. (Anyone else notice a theme here...)

Needless to say, I wasn’t too surprised when our power cut out at 3 am and didn’t come back on. What was surprising was that Dave and I had the same response at 5:30 am when we were trying to get ready for school in the dark –“check the breaker”. But it was the source of the issue that really got our attention. As I flipped the breaker on the house and the power came on Ben called me to see what he found in the pantry. The electrical outlet on the freezer had exploded out of the wall. I don’t know if you can see from the picture but the heat of the fire melted the outlet and fused it to the cord of the regulator. The regulator was fried but thankfully the freezer was fine. Nothing else (other than maybe the wiring in the wall and a second outlet) was damaged. We are so grateful for God’s hand of protection on our lives and for people like you who pray for us regularly.
I guess what I am trying to get at, but maybe not communicating all that well because of my hot season fatigue, is that trials and difficulties come to all of us in this world. But you don’t have to face them alone and that can make all the difference

Sahel Academy

Which one is mine?

Library murale

There is a part of all of us that wants to know that our life has meaning an a purpose and that maybe we have made a difference in the lives of those around us (or maybe it’s just me). One of the things that I appreciate the most about teaching is being able to see progress and development in my students. It really helps me to feel like maybe I am making a difference with my life. What is hardest about teaching is that you rarely get to see the long term affect. For the most part you lose touch with those that you have taught and rarely do you get to know that your class had any lasting value to those you have worked with. So, if you are reading this and you have had a teacher or pastor that has really made a difference in your life, my challenge for you is to take the time to let them know that you appreciated them.

Aside from my philosophical ponderings about lasting impact, school has been on my mind for other reasons this week. It seems like every semester posses a new challenge to Sahel Academy (the boys school) and even though we are only into the third day of this last quarter we have already been faced with a number of issues:

Man power is always an issue because Niger is not the easiest country to live in so recruiting has its challenges and as we start the quarter we have additional challenges. We are losing one teacher  that has to go home due to illness, we are waiting on another teacher/principal who is delayed in returning because of health issues and in addition to that our IT person (a former student) was hit by a car while crossing a street on Monday and is recovering from severe blood loss and soft tissue damage (his sister, another teacher at the school, was with him at the time and while she wasn’t hit she has had to deal with the shock of the accident). Please pray for these various people and their families and those that are trying to fill in for them.

As well as the manpower problems we have also had to face some technical issues. Our school server crashed and the IT person was not aware that the back up drive hadn’t been working for the last few months, so a significant amount of data was lost. One of the most painful pieces being that most of the layouts and pictures for the yearbook was lost. This hits particularly close to home as this is Cole’s senior year and he was very involved in producing the yearbook. Please pray that when the IT guy recovers from the accident that he will also be able to recover what has been lost or that the students will find another way to have a lasting memory of their final year at Sahel.

On a personal level we have been having issues with our phone line and have not had internet at our house for awhile, so have patience with us as we try to respond to messages that have come our way (It can be a challenge to find internet in town during hot season when the power is sketchy).

We are quickly moving into the home stretch of our term here in Niger and have already begun the task of sorting and packing in order to move out and head home. This home stretch is always the hardest because it comes at the hottest and most tiring part of the year. Please pray that we can keep it up and make it home in once piece.

PS If you want to find out more about teaching at Sahel check out their website: www.sahelacademy.com
& some pictures from the building:

Supports & bricks for the ceiling



Pouring cross beams

 

A wedding, an election, a baby and Holy Week or is that Spring Break??

Guess who is behind the paper!



Waiting for a wedding

This has been an incredibly busy week in our house. My plans to get a head start on the sorting, sifting, and packing that goes into moving have not really worked out as I had hoped but I guess that is life and sometimes other things have to take priority. This past weekend started with the wedding I mentioned a little while ago (after four trips to the tailor we all had matching outfits that actually fit!). Although the ceremony started an hour and a half late things wen
t well, the electric company even cooperated and kept the power on for the whole time. Four hours after our arrival the couple were married and starting to enjoy the wedding feast. 


3hrs old, ears pierced & eyes open

The next day was the final voting for our presidential election and our present president was re-instated for another five year term. As far as we could tell this election went smoothly and without incident (not that we have much knowledge of these things) –other than the fact that the other candidate had to be evacuated for medical reasons just before the election.
In addition to the wedding we had a naming ceremony to participate in. Our house help had a baby girl last week so that means that eight days later there is a big celebration to announce the baby’s name. We were happy to be a part of the celebration that brings in not only family and friends but everyone in the community. By the way they chose Leila for her name.
In addition to all of these celebrations and events we have been remembering the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour this week as a family. Taking time to read the stories and follow the events leading up to the cross and more importantly the empty tomb, has been a good reminder of all that Christ has done for us. It is our prayer that you will know a fresh sense of God’s goodness and Christ’s sacrifice this week!

I have a few prayer requests this week. We have discovered that because the architect was financially unable to restore the building to where it was when it collapsed the money that we had left is not quite sufficient to complete it. Please pray that there would be finances in place to at least get the building closed off before we have to leave this summer. Also, Ben received a letter this week indicating that he was chosen to represent his school at the National Student Leaders Conference at one of a number of leading universities in the US this summer. Pray that if he is to go that the finances and details will come together for it. Also, please pray that despite the business of the break that we would be refreshed and ready for the final quarter of the school year as we go back this week.

Investing in People: Glimpses of God’s Goodness

“Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children” Ps 90:16

Investing in people is difficult and costly. It usually consumes way more time, energy and resources than you expect on the front end and I think maybe the most frustrating part is that you rarely get to see the results. But God is truly gracious and every once in a while we get to catch a glimpse of what He is doing. This week was one of those times. We went to visit a friend that we haven’t really seen in a long while—partly our fault, partly his... Anyway, while we were sitting around drinking tea he told us that he had heard recently from a really good friend of ours that had left the country about 7 years ago and that she had been asking about us. I got excited and asked for her phone number because the old one she had given me hadn’t worked for awhile, but before I even got the number in my phone she sent him a text message. He took our pictures and sent them to her through one of his apps and she sent us some voice messages telling us how much she appreciated the bible teaching and discipleship that Dave and I had provided when she had been in Niamey and went on to mention how she was using it to invest in those around her.

It made me think of a poster that I had seen on fb (see above) that read:

“People will let you down—welcome to life. People will also lift you up, save you, love you, embrace you, teach you, guide you –welcome to life!”

My first response to that poster was, “Lord let me be one of those people that does a whole lot more of the latter!” May that be your prayer as well.

Here is the latest updates on the building:

The look of the week: arches forming and stair case going up!

Adjustments needed on the main floor before the roof goes on the second floor

Hand made windows

Have to finish the staircase to help support the roof.

Family

Over the years there have been a number of dinner table conversations in our house that have gone along the lines of: “You know that the people who are seated at this table are some of the best friends that you will have in this life because they are the most constant. They understand you better than most anyone else can because they know your past and lived it with you. Family is about loving and always being there for you because that is what family does.” Sometimes those conversations were followed with the “so you better get over whatever the issue is and start living like it...” (any of you with siblings or kids I’m sure can relate). But more often than not these conversations were the result of dealing with our transient life style and grieving the loss of a really good friend or extended family and just remembering that when everything else in life seems to be changing there are still some constants that you can depend on.



Yes, I bought both!

This week I had a reminder that we are blessed with multiple families in this world. The reminder came in the form of African cloth for a wedding. I need to explain that African printed cloth is sometimes used in a similar way to printed t-shirts in North America; they can be used as a “uniform” that gives you a sense of belonging and identification with a group. When important occasions occur like a wedding you will see a number of people wearing the same cloth, the outfits may be entirely different but the cloth will be the same. Usually at weddings the family of the bride will choose one print and the family of the groom will choose another. I had the unique experience this week of being asked by a member of the groom’s family if I wanted to buy the uniform cloth after I had already been asked (and had purchased) the bride’s family cloth. I was deeply touched, because I have been to a number of weddings where I was seen as the outsider and not invited to wear the “uniform” and here I was not only asked to wear one but both! (This was a young couple in our church that was getting married and the groom’s family had been neighbours of ours long before he started to attend the church.) That was when it struck me that the church is a big family. It doesn’t matter where we go in the world the church is there. And in the church we should be able to find people who will understand us, forgive & love us (with all of our warts, wrinkles & other peculiarities) and help us as we grow and develop into the people God wants us to be. Because that’s what family does.

An example of a "uniform" from a friend's wedding a while back

Praying that you have a special sense of family this week in your church and thanks for praying for the election. The first round of voting seemed to go well the next will be on March 20^th.

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!

It's Hot Season again

We have been a little off the radar lately. The counselors with the West African Mobile Member Care Team recommended we take some time out. In the meantime Jennifer has been diagnosed with cataracts. She has been in Canada since early April in order to see the surgeon and prep for the surgery. While she’s been away we have experience the height of hot season and it will continue until the first rainfall.

Giant dust storm. Still no rain.

Hot season is a dusty dry time and this year it has brought meningitis with it. Many of you have probably seen this on the local news. While we were vaccinated before ever coming to Niger, most Nigeriens never have been. The government has tried to provide vaccines for children but the reports I have heard suggest that some have still not been able to be vaccinated. A nurse told me that meningitis usually impacts the young and the weak but this year it appears to strike without prejudice. I was told that a student at the Pastor’s business school excused himself from class saying he had a headache and wanted to lay down. He never got up. I’ve heard similar stories from others. The Pastor has brought a nurse into his school and the church to vaccinate those had not yet received the shot.

Jennifer had her surgery this past Monday and everything seemed to go without difficulty despite the horror stories she had heard before going in. Before leaving the clinic the doctor asked to do an eye exam. Despite the cloudiness in her eyes from the procedure, she appeared to have 20/20 vision! What the final result will be when her eyes finally be when her eyes clear is yet to be seen but regardless she is very happy with her new vision. If only she could finish with those drops…

The night before her surgery the power in the house here started going haywire. Around the midnight I heard the ceiling fan speed up and the air conditioner started making an awful noise. Power irregularities and blackouts are normal for hot season. I started going through the house shutting off everything I could. In one room a light bulb POOFED the moment I switched on the light. When I finally reached the kitchen both the fridge and the freezer were making an awful noise. I powered both down and waited five to ten minutes thinking the situation would stabilize itself but every time I tried the larger appliances they made awful noise. I resigned myself to going back to bed without air conditioning. [Our daytime highs are in the mid-forties and it doesn’t fall below thirty degrees at night.] I woke at five I tried plugging but once more they made an awful noise and I was afraid they had both been fried. I waited until seven and called the technician who fixes fridges and air conditioners.

When he arrived around half past nine I tried to show him the problem I was having and low and behold they both worked fine. I got him to look at the air conditioner that had made all the noise and he figured it might be low on freon gas. He added some gas and told me to run it for half an hour see if it how it worked. I was happy to comply! Around noon I was work in the room (of course I had “forgotten” to shut the air conditioner off) when suddenly the fan started speed up the phone charger plugged in beside went POOF and started to smoke, and the air conditioner started making a racket. I once more ran through the house shutting everything off, mumbling unkind words about the power company. I called my neighbour Jeremy and asked if he was asking problems at his house. He said no but said it sounded like the time one of the breakers at the clinic was going bad and sending surges throughout the building. I called the electrician and when he finally arrived he said the main breaker in the house was shorting and sending 380 volts from time to time through certain phases of the house while shorting others down to about 100. (Outlets here give normally give 220 V like Europe). When he finally installed the new breaker it was almost nine o’clock at night.

The next morning, our worker found the water bill at the front gate. He came to me saying, “Are you sure there isn’t a water leak some place in the house? Your water bill is outrageously high!” In fact, the readings covered a period when we had mostly been away. I asked him to check the meter to see if was turning right now even though all the taps were off. Nothing. “You know there’s water all over the outside wall by the kitchen,” he said. Nope, didn’t know that. I called the landlords plumber who said he couldn’t come until four in the afternoon. When he finally arrived and saw what was happening he said, “Oh we got open this up right away and block this up,” and started hammering away at the wall. He opened it up and found the broken pipe capped and said, “Well, I can’t fix this today. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the materials to fix it tomorrow.” We still have no water in the kitchen.

This morning the light won’t come on in the fridge and the water bottles don’t feel very cold despite sitting in there all night.

I guess its just another hot season in Niger.

Despite the challenges God is good and there are many here who would be happy just have some electricity and a fan that blows everyone once in a while. Pray for Niger and for Jennifer’s recovery from surgery.

Sam and Karim

I’ve had several visitors this week. Monday, “Sam”  showed up with his mother. They are relatives of our night guard who were in town for medical care. The story I’d been told was that they had spent the last month or two in the national hospital but that they didn’t do anything but keep taking his money. They said his cheek had swollen but then the swelling had gone done when a hole opened into his mouth. I figured that this might be a tooth abscess that penetrated the skin on his cheek. I wondered if maybe they were experience some prejudice as foreigners—they are Malian nomads from the north—not always the most popular group since the war in Mali though many of them suffered violence from rebels themselves.

We went to see the doctors at our friends clinic a cooperative run by a local church with Western doctors. I asked them to bring all the paper work from the hospital with them. I hadn’t actually seen Sam’s face until we arrived in the doctor’s office since his head was wrapped with the traditional turban that also covered his face. We quickly realized that this was much more serious than a tooth abscess. The paper work he brought indicated he had been on chemotherapy , and the large gaping wound in his cheek was actually mouth cancer in advanced stages. Sam is only twenty but the doctors were not optimistic about his future. Today he is travelling back to Mali with his mother to see his dad who has been selling his camels to pay for his son’s medical care. I told his mom that I would pray that God would bring him health.

Wednesday night I had another visitor. I first met Kareem in December when he banged on my door one Saturday afternoon demanding a job. He was a hefty looking guy angrily yelling “I need a job. You have to give me a job!” I quietly told him I didn’t have any work for him right now but if he was hungry I could give him some rice. When Jennifer brought a bag of rice he said he didn’t need any food he just needed a job—he needed to know that at the end of the month there would be a salary for him. Despite his intimidating demeanour something inside said this man needs to know that God cares. He told me how he felt despised by people as he went around town, that people treated him like dirt. When I told that wasn’t true, that he was a person of worth created in the image of God, he stopped talking and looked at  me not knowing what to say. Finally, he said, “But you have to come see where I live with my mother and little sister to see how hard things are for us.” I told him that I would stop by the following week, thinking it might be better to take another man along with me. I stopped by the following week and later delivered some cookies on Christmas Eve.

This week Kareem called saying he wanted to talk to me. He arrived in a security guard uniform. Apparently he’d found work earlier this month. He talked for an hour or so, talking about his family and his own uncertainties. His real reason for showing up was to thank me for caring for him when he had made it difficult. That my actions had demonstrated God’s love in ways that he hadn’t seen in others around him. He was very confused about religion and wasn’t able to choose between Jesus and Mohammed (that had split his family) but that it meant a lot to be treat with real compassion by a stranger. Please pray for him and his family.

Please pray for Jenn as she has discovered that she has cataracts. Pray that she has wisdom in knowing how to deal with this situation and that God’s hand would be at work through all of these circumstances.

Picking up the Pieces Pictures

The church office and library

The pastor's house

Picking up the pieces

How do I find the words to express the feelings and the loss of the past week?
The destruction seems surreal and all too real at the same time. Our church and the pastors house was looted, and burned and they lost everything but the clothes on their back and the vehicles that they had with them. It is tragic, especially because this wasn't one isolated incident but happened to numerous pastors and numerous churches across this country.
And yet...
We have much to be thankful for.
It has been beautiful to watch the church come around them and support them in various ways helping with food and clothes and just being there for them. God is at work.
Please pray for the church in Niger that they will rise up stronger as a result of this persecution. Pray for us as we process what has gone on here and help others do the same. Pray for the pastor and his family as they start over again and the many others in the same situation. Pray for the government as they try to respond to what has happened here. Pray for peace.

It was a two house coat morning

I guess it is all about perspective... for me it was a two house coat morning (keep in mind that both of my house coats are lightweight cotton and all of my pjs are summer weight), however for my sons it was shorts and t-shirt weather (one was only because he didn’t remember that he owned a pair of track pants!). The actual temperature was 14C in the house at 6 this morning when everyone was rushing to get ready for school. Aahh cold season! If it wasn’t for the dust in the air (and basically in everything) it would be almost heavenly. My neighbours tend to disagree with me on that and bundle up in their winter coats and hats. We were even told this week that there wouldn’t be Sunday school because “no one will make it for 9am, it too cold!”

I am sure that if you are reading this from somewhere other than Niger you must be laughing and thinking that we don’t know cold and it is so true. But sometimes cold is relative to how hot it gets, so I’ll bundle up in my two house coats and try to remember this feeling when hot season rolls around next March/April.

Two exciting new developments happen this week: company is coming and we finally have paperwork with the electric company for the new building. It isn’t that they have actually started to connect the building to the electricity (that will probably be weeks if not months away by the time the power line is put through) but we have paid our dues and so they will hopefully start the work soon. We are also looking forward to a visit from our boss and another Canadian pastor as they come to help oversee the first ordination service that we have in Niger.

Christmas in Niger

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

This has been tiring Christmas. I (Dave) preached last Sunday, Christmas day and I’m preaching again this Sunday. That in itself is not a hardship but Jennifer has developed a nasty ear infection that has progressively gotten worse over the week to the point that ear drops were useless because her ear swelled shut. The pain has made sleeping difficult, as well as bouts of fever. The church had a late night Christmas Eve program scheduled but Jennifer’s fever started to spike that evening and I was concerned to leave her alone for too long. (The church program was intended to start around 7:30 with the Jesus film, and continue on until 1 AM. I was later informed that it continued until almost two in the morning!) I made a quick stop at the church with the boys to drop off our Christmas Santa gifts and then visited a few non-Christian families in our neighbourhood to deliver cookies. One family lives next to our house in a grass hut. As I walked into the yard one lady said, “Oh David, do you remember my little sister who got married awhile back? Well she’s here now and she just gave birth! Come and see the baby.” In the darkness I was led into their hut and in the faint glow of someone’s cell phone, a sleeping baby was brought and put into my arms. I couldn’t help but thinking that in the simple family’s hut with sheep out in the yard, I was here holding baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. Surprised by it all my Zarma language skills went out the window, and the family giggled because all I could keep saying was “A ga bori—it’s good.”

I hope that somewhere in your holiday season you’ve encountered the Christ who was born at Christmas. Jennifer is still fighting fever as the pain and swelling moves out from her ear and into her jaw and neck. We did get to a clinic today and hopefully the meds she received might allow both of us to get some sleep tonight.

Building Advances & Signs of Christmas

This first picture is what the construction site looked like last week when we where there with the architect and his wife.

The beginnings of a ceiling/floor!

This week we were able to see some advances with some of the walls and ceilings going up.

Building some walls for support!

 We are so grateful for so many of you who keep us in prayer. We were reminded once again of how vital that is when a friend in our congregation talked about the accident that he was in this week during bible study. Thankfully his injuries were minor, but driving in Niger is never without its risks.

 Holidays have their own challenges here. Please pray for many of the staff at the boys school who are experiencing the challenges of living in a place so different from home and so far from family. Pray that we will be able to come up with some creative ideas for engaging our community for Christ as we celebrate this year. The last picture is one of the signs that the holidays are approaching here in Niamey. I was at a Christmas bazaar today at the American Rec Center where I ran into this.

Our prayer is that you will experience the Christ of Christmas this year in a fresh new way.

Road trip & Conference in Pictures

Our first breakdown

Where we stopped again for help

The road conditions probably had some thing to do with the breakdowns!

Finally there!

Praying for the new West African Executive-- Congratulations Pastor Soter  for being elected treasurer!